I wanted to wait until I had as much information as possible to make a prediction and I have come back around to that this will be the end of the Pitino era as I think the Gophers will finish with 7 or fewer B1G wins. I am pretty shocked that 6 in 10 posters also have the Gophers with yet another losing record in year 7 given what I have perceived as a pretty favorable opinion of Pitino and his tenure on this board in recent months.
I keep going back to the fact that he was only 9-11 in conference play last year with Amir Coffey and Jordan Murphy and added exactly zero top line talent to his team in the form of elite recruits or transfers. Marcus Carr profiles as solid, Payton Willis does not (but it appears he could be a nice surprise from early returns), and nobody else moves the needle. This was a team last year that lost at Rutgers, lost at a horribly undermanned Nebraska (in worse shape than the Gophers the year before), and needed a great effort from Jordan Murphy to squeak by Penn State at home. Yes there were some solid wins (at Wisconsin, Purdue, Purdue again in the Big Ten tournament) but not enough of them. This years team seems significantly less talented with major questions at the 4 postion as well as with depth at literally every position on the floor.
If you want to be optimistic, you point to big sophomore year jumps from Daniel Oturu and Gabe Kalscheur and the fact that the B1G looks really wide open behind Michigan State, Maryland, and Ohio State. Then you point to a potentially better offense with more of a true (allegedly?) point guard in Marcus Carr and better perimeter shooting at the 4 spot while losing the ineffecient long two's of Dupree McBrayer and the ineffective minutes of Isaiah Washington. Maybe Daniel or Gabe takes a leap to 2nd All B1G and Marcus Carr gives them top half of the B1G point guard play while the offense improves enough to negate what will be a big hole on the boards without Murphy?
Unfortunately, I go back to just a lack of faith in Pitino going in to year 7. Outside of a fantastic 8 game conference winning streak in his 4th year, his teams have been pretty consistently poor to mediocre. How about this for a stat: outside of his first season, Richard Pitino has had a conference losing streak of at least 4 games in every season. With a 40-70 conference record, I just can't bet on this being the season that things turn around especially with so many question marks on the roster. I don't want to get to deep in to recruiting until things are official, but if you can't land kids coming off your only NCAA tournament win, with brand new facilites, and a new contract in hand...when exactly can you do it?
I hope to be wrong, Pitino certainly seems like a nice guy, but he's fallen drastically short of even minimum expectations to date. I was much higher on his team going in to year 4 than the majority of posters and I feel like I am lower on his team going in to year 7 than the majority of posters.