***OFFICIAL MINNESOTA AT MARYLAND IN-GAME THREAD!!!!***

If they make the tournament, he will not be fired and all your ranting, baseless assertions and negativity will only serve to torpedo the program. There’s good and there’s some bad. But he’s not some horrible coach who can’t recruit a lick or is a program embarrassment. He’s learning every day and every year. I’m convinced he will ultimately be very successful.

The only way Coyle should fire him is if he has a committed upgrade ready, willing and able. Period.

Great post! That sums it for me.
 

What I saw tonight has nothing to do with enjoying a win over the #11 team in the country. I'm not a fan of Pitino either. But I can still enjoy a big win. If not, what's the point of being a fan?

It was an awesome win. I was there at the game. I should say I showed up the next day. I loved that win and think the coach needs to go. It's like that is a rubik's cube type of situation where it's hard to figure out.
 

If they make the tournament, he will not be fired and all your ranting, baseless assertions and negativity will only serve to torpedo the program. There’s good and there’s some bad. But he’s not some horrible coach who can’t recruit a lick or is a program embarrassment. He’s learning every day and every year. I’m convinced he will ultimately be very successful.

The only way Coyle should fire him is if he has a committed upgrade ready, willing and able. Period.

I'm not sensing it would too hard to have an upgrade willing and able. The new guy would have to have a .364 win percent in the big 10 after six years to be an upgrade.

I guess I just don't get it. We have basically won 1 out of every 3 games over his tenure. Again, I don't get the want to keep him.
 
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If they make the tournament, he will not be fired and all your ranting, baseless assertions and negativity will only serve to torpedo the program. There’s good and there’s some bad. But he’s not some horrible coach who can’t recruit a lick or is a program embarrassment. He’s learning every day and every year. I’m convinced he will ultimately be very successful.

The only way Coyle should fire him is if he has a committed upgrade ready, willing and able. Period.

Why do you consider it ranting ? And what do you consider baseless ? Baseless to me are things like if, could have etc.. Or to project that last years team was going to make a run in the tournament. Your right, it is not all horrible, their have been plenty of great recruiting successes but very mediocre on court performances. No one gets hired to coach 6 years to be 40-70 in the conference, never challenge for the conference crown and not have a NCAA win. That is simply working, not doing the job.
 

Why do you consider it ranting ? And what do you consider baseless ? Baseless to me are things like if, could have etc.. Or to project that last years team was going to make a run in the tournament. Your right, it is not all horrible, their have been plenty of great recruiting successes but very mediocre on court performances. No one gets hired to coach 6 years to be 40-70 in the conference, never challenge for the conference crown and not have a NCAA win. That is simply working, not doing the job.

Last years team looked like schit when they were all healthy and all playing. They would have been just like this year. Huge stretches where they couldn't score. Trouble scoring on the road, etc.
 


It's frustrating when fans have no patience or grace, even when we're experiencing moderate success.

I'm OK with the moderate success, but the moderate success has been equally balanced by failure of various degrees (8 win season, 15 win season, and an 18-15 year with no postseason and a Wednesday Big 10 tournament appearance from a team that returned most of the veteran core of an NIT championship team).

You say that's he's always learning but why has he not learned that his bench recruiting and player development techniques have failed and he should consider changing his ways? A number of people have commented on this board (correctly, I think) that his modus operandi is hard riding his most talented players and hoping that the individual efforts from a select few is enough. I sometimes wonder how effective players like Ryan Cline, Grady Eifert, Nicholas Baer, Ryan Kriener, Jon Tieske, D'Mitrik Trice, and Khalil Iverson would have been if they had played for Pitino.
 


The number of complete no shows from this team makes them so hard to root for:

@Boston College
@Ohio State
@Illinois
vs Wisconsin
@Michigan State
vs Michigan
@Maryland

That's 7 of their 12 losses where it honestly felt like they never showed up to compete. I would actually put the Nebraska game in this category too as they jumped out to a 15-4 lead and then let a team decimated by injuries and on a 7 game losing streak come back and hold a comfortable lead on them. It was arguably as bad a performance as many on this list.

I didn't expect a win tonight partly due to how the Gophers match up with Maryland and partly due to how frequently the Gophers have looked flat out terrible. I just don't get the vibe from Pitino or the team that these types of efforts are unacceptable which is also disappointing. In contrast the only games where the Gophers have done something like this to an opponent was Rutgers and Indiana at home.

Normally I really enjoy your posts, but to put the Wisconsin and Nebraska games in the "no show/no compete" category is flat out ridiculous.

We may not have played well in either game, but we certainly played hard, and both games were extremely close losses.
 

I'm OK with the moderate success, but the moderate success has been equally balanced by failure of various degrees (8 win season, 15 win season, and an 18-15 year with no postseason and a Wednesday Big 10 tournament appearance from a team that returned most of the veteran core of an NIT championship team).

You say that's he's always learning but why has he not learned that his bench recruiting and player development techniques have failed and he should consider changing his ways? A number of people have commented on this board (correctly, I think) that his modus operandi is hard riding his most talented players and hoping that the individual efforts from a select few is enough. I sometimes wonder how effective players like Ryan Cline, Grady Eifert, Nicholas Baer, Ryan Kriener, Jon Tieske, D'Mitrik Trice, and Khalil Iverson would have been if they had played for Pitino.
This is exactly my concern. He doesnt know how to coach an effective bench. He isnt going to have a whole team he 'trusts' enough to play which is undermining the effectiveness of the team. When he doesn't play his bench, he undermines his recruiting.
It can always be argued that bench players have flaws and/or aren't good enough and that's why they are not playing. That is really getting to bother me.
 



Last years team looked like schit when they were all healthy and all playing. They would have been just like this year. Huge stretches where they couldn't score. Trouble scoring on the road, etc.
They were a top 25 ranked team what are you talking about
 

So where is the site that us real Gopher fans can go that isn’t full of all this crap?


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The problem is the public and, seemingly, a lot of the local Hs coaches, have given up on him so it’s getting harder and harder to recruit. You’re right that he’s had a ton of bad luck and likely “deserves” a much better record to this point, but enough bad luck can set the narrative for the coach permanently enough that we’re forced to move on, and I think that’s going to be the case here.

we just brought in 3 local players. Coffey signing wasn't that long ago.. If you're saying Pitino only has a rapport with the coaches of Hopkins, De La Salle and Cretin-Derham Hall then great. but that's obviously not the case. Pitino's reputation is fine
 

This is exactly my concern. He doesnt know how to coach an effective bench. He isnt going to have a whole team he 'trusts' enough to play which is undermining the effectiveness of the team. When he doesn't play his bench, he undermines his recruiting.
It can always be argued that bench players have flaws and/or aren't good enough and that's why they are not playing. That is really getting to bother me.

I spent a fair amount of time watching Dr. Tom Davis' Iowa teams in the late eighties and nineties. While Davis wasn't quite the Hall of Fame caliber of Bo Ryan, he was a quality coach with multiple teams who had the distinction of never losing his first game in the NCAA tournament over 11 appearances with two different programs. He even won over 20 games 3 times with the likes of Lafayette. Davis' teams typically went 10 deep and featured a lot of full court pressing. At times he had a platoon system where he sent a wave of players in the game. Most of Davis' teams didn't feature tremendous depth of talent but he used the depth of his roster. If you were a bench player for Davis, you knew you were going to play and that kept up the camaraderie and furthered player development.
 



If they make the tournament, he will not be fired and all your ranting, baseless assertions and negativity will only serve to torpedo the program. There’s good and there’s some bad. But he’s not some horrible coach who can’t recruit a lick or is a program embarrassment. He’s learning every day and every year. I’m convinced he will ultimately be very successful.

The only way Coyle should fire him is if he has a committed upgrade ready, willing and able. Period.

Thanks, it is nice to see some rational input.

It is like most of these people have never followed a college basketball team before. College basketball is full of excitement and disappointment. For every great play your team makes the opposing fans think their team blew it. Every team has frustrating play and bonehead moves in every game. Name one middle, to top middle, P5 team that doesn't make mistakes? It is college basketball, most conferences has 7-8 teams that are in our situation or worse. Pitino is a good coach and we will get better.
 

They were a top 25 ranked team what are you talking about

You must be new here. There were all kinds of threads about what was wrong with them. Many saying they'd be lucky to be .500 in the big 10 by the end of December.

The general consensus was they were missing akeem springs like we did against Middle Tennessee. LMAO

They were looking like schit. Granted they looked good against the patsies like they always do pre-big 10.

Our first real game was against Miami in a dam good game on November 29 that we lost. We then opened the big 10 season with a route of Rutgers. We then got beat bad at Nebraska, then the next game got completely run out by Arkansas 95-79. People were wondering what was wrong. We had played 4 legit teams and gone 1-3(Rutgers was brutal but we'll count them) In two of the 4 we were run out.

We then came home and beat Drake 68-67. Yes, we beat Drake by 1. We then beat the mighty Oral roberts 77-63. We then blew out Florida Atlantic, and then beat Drake 65-55 at home. We were fouled at the end of FA and Oral Roberts to make the scores look better. Drake, Oral, and Atlantic were right with us most all game.

This board was not happy at all and we were indeed playing like schit. The loss of players then happened shortly afterwards with a couple of cupcake blowouts before starting up the big 10 again, but we were indeed playing like schit.

Had we looked like we did in that stretch of 10, going .500 was a pipe dream
 
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I'm not sensing it would too hard to have an upgrade willing and able. The new guy would have to have a .364 win percent in the big 10 after six years to be an upgrade.

I guess I just don't get it. We have basically won 1 out of every 3 games over his tenure. Again, I don't get the want to keep him.

Now you are showing how silly of an argument you are making.

Did you know that Clem Haskins had a B1G record of 39-69 (0.352) over his first 6 years at the U? Even Jim Dutcher had losing B1G seasons for 6 of his 11 years.

You all want instant gratification, without the work it takes to have success. Pitino was very young and inexperienced when he was hired, it will take time.
 

Now you are showing how silly of an argument you are making.

Did you know that Clem Haskins had a B1G record of 39-69 (0.352) over his first 6 years at the U? Even Jim Dutcher had losing B1G seasons for 6 of his 11 years.

You all want instant gratification, without the work it takes to have success. Pitino was very young and inexperienced when he was hired, it will take time.

Well sir, next year I see we lose Murphy and have Thomas coming in. We have Coffey wanting to go pro. If you think this is going to go Jim Dutcher, who am I to wreck your cherished delusions.

Why did you leave Monson off the list?
 
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This is exactly my concern. He doesnt know how to coach an effective bench. He isnt going to have a whole team he 'trusts' enough to play which is undermining the effectiveness of the team. When he doesn't play his bench, he undermines his recruiting.
It can always be argued that bench players have flaws and/or aren't good enough and that's why they are not playing. That is really getting to bother me.

It also impacts the starters in the last eight minutes, it was obvious they were starting to get gassed against Purdue, shots were starting to come up short, trust in your bench would help with that problem, you need a bench that goes nine deep, the fact he only has seven is strictly on Pitino and I doubt it ever changes.
 

Now you are showing how silly of an argument you are making.

Did you know that Clem Haskins had a B1G record of 39-69 (0.352) over his first 6 years at the U? Even Jim Dutcher had losing B1G seasons for 6 of his 11 years.

You all want instant gratification, without the work it takes to have success. Pitino was very young and inexperienced when he was hired, it will take time.

I would give Pitino another year if we make the tournament, but this post make me think you either weren't alive in the late 80's or you weren't following Gopher basketball at the time. Clem came into a situation that was a little different and only won 6 games his first two years with the Gophers. Do you know why? The year before Haskins became coach, three Gophers were accused of rape in Madison, Dutcher resigned afterwards in the middle of the season, we had to forfeit a game because of the scandal and we talked about eliminating the program. It was the lowest a program could get. You also failed to mention that we made the Sweet 16 in Haskins third year with the Gophers and Kevin Lynch missed a shot in his 4th year as coach that would have put us in the Final 4. To compare where the program is now to where it was when Haskins was the coach is nuts. The Barn was rocking...and we didn't have 3000-4000 empty seats every game except when we played Wisconsin or Iowa back then either.
 
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And i am not looking for Dutcher or Clem like results. If that is what your hoping for, how long will you wait ? What if the next 3 years are all under .500 in the conference ?
 

Now you are showing how silly of an argument you are making.

Did you know that Clem Haskins had a B1G record of 39-69 (0.352) over his first 6 years at the U? Even Jim Dutcher had losing B1G seasons for 6 of his 11 years.

You all want instant gratification, without the work it takes to have success. Pitino was very young and inexperienced when he was hired, it will take time.

Take time for what exactly? We have no offensive identity. We don't play defense consistently. Our talent will probably be worse next year, no better. What's going to magically change in year 7?
 

And i am not looking for Dutcher or Clem like results. If that is what your hoping for, how long will you wait ? What if the next 3 years are all under .500 in the conference ?

Clearly you don’t understand like the “true” fans understand.

Can’t blame Pitino for being 30 games under .500 in conference games. He’s young and inexperienced. It takes time to build a program, Just you wait and see he’ll have it all figured out eventually at some point. Maybe?
 

Clearly you don’t understand like the “true” fans understand.

Can’t blame Pitino for being 30 games under .500 in conference games. He’s young and inexperienced. It takes time to build a program, Just you wait and see he’ll have it all figured out eventually at some point. Maybe?

I know, none of it is his fault, including being hired in the first place. Plus he has had every bad break there has ever been. On top of that you never need to establish a brand or a identity. I am convinced i have no clue and now i expect a great tourney run and that will solidify him as a all time great.
 

All I know is, he’s too young to sit on a stool during the game.
 

Well sir, next year I see we lose Murphy and have Thomas coming in. We have Coffey wanting to go pro. If you think this is going to go Jim Dutcher, who am I to wreck your cherished delusions.

Why did you leave Monson off the list?

We will be fine next year, we have three good players and the later year recruits. Monson was not considered one of our better coaches.


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I would give Pitino another year if we make the tournament, but this post make me think you either weren't alive in the late 80's or you weren't following Gopher basketball at the time. Clem came into a situation that was a little different and only won 6 games his first two years with the Gophers. Do you know why? The year before Haskins became coach, three Gophers were accused of rape in Madison, Dutcher resigned afterwards in the middle of the season, we had to forfeit a game because of the scandal and we talked about eliminating the program. It was the lowest a program could get. You also failed to mention that we made the Sweet 16 in Haskins third year with the Gophers and Kevin Lynch missed a shot in his 4th year as coach that would have put us in the Final 4. To compare where the program is now to where it was when Haskins was the coach is nuts. The Barn was rocking...and we didn't have 3000-4000 empty seats every game except when we played Wisconsin or Iowa back then either.

I watched McHale play at the barn, so I am well aware of Clem’s early seasons. People don’t discount the injuries or suspensions that occurred during the Pitino years when they blindly hang his record around his neck. As for attendance, we didn’t have a decade of weak teams and seat licenses that have decimated the fanbase. Pleas don’t be so naive in your arguments.


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And i am not looking for Dutcher or Clem like results. If that is what your hoping for, how long will you wait ? What if the next 3 years are all under .500 in the conference ?

I am looking for that level of results. And what if the next threes years are over .500? Will you stop attacking our coach?


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We will be fine next year, we have three good players and the later year recruits. Monson was not considered one of our better coaches.


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What does fine mean? A below .500 record in the big 10 is fine to many.

Could you tell me what fine means? 40 and 70 is fine for many. I have no idea what you mean by fine.
 

We will be fine next year, we have three good players and the later year recruits. Monson was not considered one of our better coaches.


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many, many big 10 teams will have 3 good players coming back next. Many will be much better than ours. You do know this, right?
 
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What does fine mean? A below .500 record in the big 10 is fine to many.

Could you tell me what fine means? 40 and 70 is fine for many. I have no idea what you mean by fine.

When someone says fine, it means they are settling for what they are being offered.
Fine means an acceptance of a sub .500 conference record.
Fine means accepting a 40 and 70 record.
Fine means accepting mediocrity.

Excellence is not "fine".

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