Good post, but for proper context it's important to remember that Haskins walked into a program with exactly one non-vacated NCAA Tournament appearance in its entire history (1982) and Pitino walked into a program that had 3 NCAA Tournament appearances in the previous 5 years alone.
Moreover, there appears to be an upward trajectory this season, but each of his first three seasons was worse than the one before it - not a good trend. The worst ever season was on him, and the expectations coming out of that are part of the resume he has put together. We shouldn't have lowered expectations for season 4 just because he put together a monumentally awful third season.
Some good and valid points, and I was going to say this in the post but it was getting long, so I opted not to, but now I'll mention it, the decline the first 3 seasons reminds me of Musselman's tenure as the Timberwolves coach. He opted to bring in experience and to try to make an immediate impact and win games, and the Timberwolves were the most successful 1st and 2nd year expansion team, while I think it was Orlando was the worst because they opted to go with youth and inexperienced players. A few years later, after Orlando got at least one #1 draft pick, and the T-Pups had to work with #5 picks than never panned out the way we hoped, Orlando was kicking butt in the playoffs and the T-Pups regressed.
In my very non expert opinion, Pitino did sort of the same thing, brought in some transfers instead of doing what Haskins did, he brought in all new guys who were then together for the whole 4 year ride going into the 90 season. And with the guys Pitino brought in, he did prevent an immediate dropoff, but the combination of who he brought in, who he inherited and his own youth and inexperience and going up against the experienced coaches in the B1G, he just didn't have the tools to do much more. And also his needing to figure out how to recruit the better recruits, as the older guys he brought in and the older guys he inherited left the program, came the drop off that the Timberwolves suffered 3-4 years in before going with youth like Orlando did right away, and later developing into a playoff regular that eventually won the Western Conf regular season title.
Now one way to look at it is that maybe he could have brought in tons of young guys his first season and gotten the really bad seasons out of the way early on, and then climbing up as the players grew in age and experience. But in Pitino's first season, do you really think he could have brought in a group of players that could have eventually done that? And how would struggling his first 2 seasons have helped him with landing better recruits?
See I think the other way to look at it is that Pitino was young and inexperienced and unestablished, by coming out with a decent season right away, he may have been in a better place to develop some relationships with some up and coming young players like Amir Coffey, for example, enough so that even with having such a bad 3rd season, he had already gotten a good group of young players into the program, good players that Amir wanted to play with, and now that quickly recovered from last season and now he's in a position to continue improving on his recruiting classes each year, and probably for many years to come. This group is going to be the group that makes or breaks him here at Minnesota, much like Haskins first group made him. Pitino just needed more time to figure out how to get such a group to come here.
Not everyone can show up at a new school, instantly sign 5 star super stars and start winning right away, especially in a conference like the B1G, especially when they are as young as Pitino was.
We should be happy that he's figuring out how to get better and better recruits to come here, and that he's young enough that he's got more room to improve, and also that he's young enough that he could end up being here at Minnesota for decades. He may still be learning on the job as far as coaching games goes, but just like young players learn hard lessons during losing seasons that do not destroy their spirits, hopefully Pitino continues to learn more and more each season, including learning hard lessons from losing all his games last year, and so many heart breakers this year. And maybe he's not the greatest coach out there right now, but as long as his recruiting classes continue to improve, and the talent continues to improve, it will become easier and easier to coach them to victories.
And this season specifically, we are through the tough part of the season, things will get easier now just from playing less talented opponents.
It's been a long time since the 1990 season. Since then we won big, but had to cheat to keep the players eligible and while other programs always get away with the same kinds of sh1t, here in Minnesota that's simply never going to happen over long periods of time. And since the 99 season when the scandal broke, we've been struggling to get over the hump, so I've developed some patience, because I want to experience what I did in 89 and 90 and 97, again, and its not going to happen if we are impatient. I'm willing to wait for Pitino to learn on the job, and I'm willing to wait for the talent to gain experience and for the future recruiting classes to improve, because I truly believe that maybe this year, and for sure next year, and then for lots of years in the future, I see Pitino winning us some games and maybe even a Big Ten Title, and getting us to the Sweet 16 and the Elite 8 and maybe even to the Final Four in the future.
Having patience is not the same as having low standards or settling. It's knowing you might have a coach with the potential to make this program great and taking a chance on him. Realistically there are few here who would need more than 14 months from now, to know whether or not they want to continue to stick with our young Mr Pitino. That's basically only 1 more full season, if he continues to bring in better and better recruiting classes, I may be one of those few who would be willing to give him more than 14 months, but that would only be if he continued to bring in better and better recruiting classes.