Gopher basketball starting over


If there is a new coach (probable) he has a chance to not have a set back because he has a good young core of sophs to work with in Carr, Kalscheur and Oturu.

But he will need to produce good spring recruiting help- a PF/C and a shooter at least. Pitino got it done with a steal of a find in lil Dre who was amazing that first year and he also got some good run out of Smith as a 6th man sniper. The roster Tubby handed him was not real good and it was an old roster. So this could be a good to really good situation for a new coach if he can find the right adds.

A new coach will need to get some Spring recruits. But so will Pitino. Frankly, a new coach that's not Hoiberg might bring recruits with him that are better than what Pitino can get.
 

Excellent question for built badgers I think! I wonder the same thing. Can they confidentially circulate the word of a "possible opening" without causing issues if the current coach rallies??

Obviously they can. Tony Bennett has been discretely offered every power 5 job that was open in the last 5 years. :cool:
 

Tubby's first class he just kept Nolen and Hoff who had committed to Monson. The first year is hard of course. But we only have one commit, so we're not losing much.

His next class was Ralph Sampson, Colton Iverson, Paul Carter and another guy I forget. Pretty good.

Year 3 was the best he had. Royce, Rodney, Mbakwe, Devoe Joseph.

Year 4: Elliot and Austin Hollins

Year 5: Andre Hollins and Joe Coleman.

Then it fell off. So no, the early recruiting years were not the issue.

Year 2 was Devoe Joseph I believe. Good recruit, had some big moments and then hit the road. Year 3 did that include Cobb as well?

The problem Tubby had, was his best classes didn't become 4 year guys:

Royce never played, Iverson never jelled with Tubby and left, Carter was one year, Joseph was 2 or three years, Mbakwe got a year and a half before the injury, Cobb left after one year, Elliot left

Stayers- the two Hollins and Rodney. Rodney ended up good but not great. Never developed a jumper that was reliable (sound familiar?). Oddly enough, Monson's recruits stayed the 4 years.
 

Good ones have their guy lined up like Coyle had Fleck primed.
Bad ones do not, and hope.

Did he though? Was he going to fire Claeys after the bowl game if the boycott never happened? I didn't have that sense.
 


Stull should not have played a single minute. In fact, he should never have been recruited. He's bad and bad and bad and slow. Serriously, just call up all the D2 universities in state and have them send you their best shooter or player and pick the best one. Any of those would have been better than him.

IW should be playing. In fact he should be starting and running the 1. McBrayer hasn't been good at all this year. He needs to sit and let IW see what he can do. I was against this all year, but right now, their guard play is so poor, they need to change something.

I won't say he shouldn't have been recruited as he put up decent #'s at UW-M. But something happened to him. Whatever it is, he can't play at this level. And Pitino seemed to have accepted that until suddenly deciding to play him the last two games for no reason. Went a long way towards losing us the game last night.
 

A new coach will need to get some Spring recruits. But so will Pitino. Frankly, a new coach that's not Hoiberg might bring recruits with him that are better than what Pitino can get.

The advantage Pitino has there is he is already recruiting a bunch of guys to come here.

The advantage another guy has- as you say- he might dig up better guys? Hoiberg would have to go with transfers because he isn't currently recruiting HS kids like other coaches are.
 

Did he though? Was he going to fire Claeys after the bowl game if the boycott never happened? I didn't have that sense.

Yes. Claeys was done regardless. The boycott was, to quote Bob Ross, a happy little accident.
 

I agree. I would guess that Coyle made a gentleman’s agreement with Fleck well in advance. Arrangements and logistics ideally are put into motion as early as possible. He wanted his guy, not Maturi’s guy’s guy.
 




I was referring to Pitino

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I think you were asking about his third class?

Pitino's 3rd class was very good- on paper. Top 20. Murphy, McBrayer, Dorsey, Gilbert, Jarvis and Fitzgerald...... In reality, that class ended up not so productive other than Murphy and a fairly solid McBrayer.
 

I think you were asking about his third class?

Pitino's 3rd class was very good- on paper. Top 20. Murphy, McBrayer, Dorsey, Gilbert, Jarvis and Fitzgerald...... In reality, that class ended up not so productive other than Murphy and a fairly solid McBrayer.
I was referring to Pitinos/ Gophers 3rd year performance

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Why not just fire him after the Wisconsin game then?

Why go through the mess of an interim coach and engender the additional unwanted publicity resulting from firing a coach (putting the story back in the media for the entire month between wisconsin and the bowl game when there's nothing else to talk about) when you know your guy isn't available until after his own bowl game anyway?
 




Why go through the mess of an interim coach and engender the additional unwanted publicity resulting from firing a coach (putting the story back in the media for the entire month between wisconsin and the bowl game when there's nothing else to talk about) when you know your guy isn't available until after his own bowl game anyway?

If you're 100% sure you've got him, I guess it doesn't matter. But how can you be 100% on it if you're Minnesota? What if a helmet school came open and went after him? The last time we waited until after the bowl game we ended up with Brew in large part because all of the other openings had already been filled.
 

Not that it happens all the time, but I have heard of coaches switching schools again before even coaching a game at the first new school. I think that has happened. Point being, a helmet school could have in theory still gone after Fleck at any time. And W Mich made a hard push to keep him, at least for what they could muster among Grand Rapids folks.

I think Coyle had it figured well before the bowl game, and let Claeys coach the bowl game for the factors dpo described above.

I recall Claeys saying something like, after winning the game he looked down the sideline and saw Coyle and Kaler were not really cheering, and he knew it was done. The Red Wedding, if you will.
 

I think you were asking about his third class?

In reality, that class ended up not so productive other than Murphy and a fairly solid McBrayer.

According to a Sports Reference search, there are 37 players in the Big Ten who are juniors and seniors who have played in 20 games or more this season and have averaged over 20 minutes per game. In terms of players efficiency rating, McBrayer is ranked #35 with a PER of 11.2. The average is 17.4. I'd say that's pretty below average rather than pretty solid.

Murphy's rating is 25.6 (ranked #5).
 

The advantage Pitino has there is he is already recruiting a bunch of guys to come here.

The advantage another guy has- as you say- he might dig up better guys? Hoiberg would have to go with transfers because he isn't currently recruiting HS kids like other coaches are.

As far as the high school and prep kids, if they really wanted to sign with Pitino they would have committed already. If they haven't committed, they're waiting for a better offer.

Transfers are fine. There are lots of them. If the new coach could get 2 grad transfers and one good junior college player, that would be fine.
 
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As far as the high school and prep kids, if they really wanted to sign with Pitino they would have committed already. If they haven't committed, they're waiting for a better offer.

What???

Transfers are fine. There are lots of them. If the new coach could get 2 grad transfers and one good junior college player, that would be fine.

As far as Hoiberg's recruiting advantages over Pitino, well, where do we begin? He was a successful college coach of a major program and sent a number of players to the pros in a fairly short period of time. He was good enough to get an NBA coaching gig. He was fired but most coaches in the NBA are fired eventually. He was an outstanding college player and was good enough to hang around the NBA for 10 years as a player. He was also an NBA front office executive.

Pitino's qualifications: His father was famous, an idiot AD give him a major conference basketball coaching gig well before he was ready, and his results over 6 years pretty much verified that.


I guess you don't think Minnesota is much of a program. No one would sign with us unless they don't get good offers.... But we are going to get a big gun coach in here next!
 

In 2 years out of the last 40 we had seasons where we were better than 2 games over 0.500 in the Big Ten season. (1982 and 1997)

3 seasons where we were 2 games over 0.500. (89-90, 04-05, 16-17)

Only 10 Big Ten winning seasons in those last 40-41 years.

WOW! That is all I can really say. I had no idea we were really this pedestrian.
 

I think you were asking about his third class?

Pitino's 3rd class was very good- on paper. Top 20. Murphy, McBrayer, Dorsey, Gilbert, Jarvis and Fitzgerald...... In reality, that class ended up not so productive other than Murphy and a fairly solid McBrayer.

You still need to recruit the "right" top players for your program. During the last two coaching tenures, with the exception of Murphy, we haven't had any recruits exceed expectations. That is either a player selection issue, a player development issue or both.
 

You still need to recruit the "right" top players for your program. During the last two coaching tenures, with the exception of Murphy, we haven't had any recruits exceed expectations. That is either a player selection issue, a player development issue or both.

You have nailed the issue. That is correct. The next problem is how easy that is. At Duke- it's easy- you just walk in an take what you want. Wisconsin is a situation where they have indeed designed style that broaden their base of available players - they can go for fundamentals guys over athleticism and then slow the game down. It's a good strategy. Pitino was raised on a more up tempo style that can be successful- but you have to have athletes. Finding athletes can be done. Finding ones that can shoot and have good basketball IQ- well those guys want to go to the blue bloods and we ain't there yet. Pitino got athletes but not enough shooters and not enough high IQ basketball guys. He seems to have often been a player or two short. A kid like Washington in the right mindset (though not a shooter) could have made this a 11-12 win season. A really good point is the difference.

He has been close. But to this point- no cigar. It won't be any easier for the next coach to get the guys he wants and maybe we will have to go the Wisconsin route but I hope not.
 

Eric Musselman, if they can get him.

I really wanted Richard Pitino to succeed. He's one of the few coaches/managers in any sport that I would ever want to have for dinner. He's one of the few guys who is honest, or reasonably honest, with the media and the fans. I also think that he's a talented coach. I no longer think he will take a team to the final four because he struggles to recruit a great staff and he struggles to recruit great players. He really, really worked hard here and I think that he would have stayed beyond his first great season (maybe not his second). It's a damn shame that it hasn't worked.

The U has great facilities and there are great players in this state. Somebody can make this thing work.
 
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I guess you don't think Minnesota is much of a program. No one would sign with us unless they don't get good offers.... But we are going to get a big gun coach in here next!

I didn't say anything about the university's program overall but the coach is one of the biggest factors of the program. The state is never going to be a prime destination (most people simply don't want to live in this climate) but the university plays in a conference that gets lots of media attention and has its own network and appears regularly on other networks. The school has fine facilities. The university will attract talent but it won't attract as much until it is more successful.
 

Pitino was raised on a more up tempo style that can be successful- but you have to have athletes.

Look, this is a tough half-court defensive league. Lots of players can play an uptempo style (As one coach once said: "Everybody wants to play faster, even the slow ones."). Nobody is going to let you run up and down the court all game in this league and, if you do, you'll often lose that game when you run up against better athletes. It's the tough defensive half court game that separates the men from the boys. The same is true in the pros. Once the playoffs start, the defense really kicks in, the game tightens and the shooting averages tend to decline.
 

Look, this is a tough half-court defensive league. Lots of players can play an uptempo style (As one coach once said: "Everybody wants to play faster, even the slow ones."). Nobody is going to let you run up and down the court all game in this league and, if you do, you'll often lose that game when you run up against better athletes. It's the tough defensive half court game that separates the men from the boys. The same is true in the pros. Once the playoffs start, the defense really kicks in, the game tightens and the shooting averages tend to decline.

so it's hard to run.......ok

That means you need to score by running a half court offense. Pitino's have been abysmal. Absolutely abysmal.

Or do I have this wrong?
 

You still need to recruit the "right" top players for your program. During the last two coaching tenures, with the exception of Murphy, we haven't had any recruits exceed expectations. That is either a player selection issue, a player development issue or both.

If you want to gauge how well a program develops players, look at the lesser players on the team. The best players are already good and have the drive and habits to improve even more. It's the same thing with education. You could put an orangutan in front of the best students and they would still learn something. It's the lesser talents who need well developed and relentless efforts.

I know Pitino is a lousy player development coach because of how little his bench players have developed during his time here.
 

so it's hard to run.......ok

That means you need to score by running a half court offense. Pitino's have been abysmal. Absolutely abysmal.

Or do I have this wrong?

No, I absolutely agree with you.
 

Groce got five years at Illinois and had a similar conference record (37-53)and 1 ncaa appearance. I know Underwood hasn’t lit it up in year one, but this administration has given Pitino an extra year. Let’s hope they can turn it around over the next month.
 

No one ever talks about defense. Our last 6 years of defensive rankings and record.

2019- 67 6-8
2018- 152 4-14
2017- 22 11-7
2016- 163 2-16
2015- 90 6-12
2014- 78 8-12

There is a direct connect to success from defense and there is zero chance to be a program that is consistently a top 30 program without being a top 25 defense. Nor is their any reason to not be a top 25 defense. As for recruiting, the programs i track every metric and every recruit what stands out is the awesome care that the winners take in over emphasizing of the intangibles in recruiting. Character, great hands (critical to always catch and pass and handle without error. Can the player play with his head up at all times, what kind of awareness does he have, reaction time, preprioception, How unselfish, conditioning, Grades ! Charity work. Anyone can see how big they are, how fast, how high they jump, how easily they dunk. I want to know how quick they are, not how fast they are. Basketball is played in a small space, plays made in even smaller spaces. The best coaches (not counting blue bloods because they select the best talent ) implement all of this starting at a pre scout. They find guys that outplay 90 % of the 5 stars, especially when molded into a team. They have a better eye, better message, a better plan and better execution. They are simply better and super hard to find. Winning is really tough but i have studied how it gets done in a power conference at a non blue blood. It is all based on hard facts. You find guys before they blow up, before they have the 4th star and you get them early. Then after you touch success you get better players, still not varying from your non negotiables. Find pieces, find your shooters, find your screeners, your hedgers, your reps on the floor, off the floor. Run away from pushy parents who think they have a say. Run away from truants. I can list so many guys who were low stars when first offered then moved up after committing .Then kept getting better, then won conference titles and more. Finding those special coaches is so rare and you know when you see it right away. When they are not you can tell damn soon. The special ones have command of a presence , a charisma that comes from a authentic connection to all that they are. Every single one believes in stopping other people from scoring, working for good shots and not turning the ball over.
 




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