Suggs recent interview

[Spaulding!No!]

Five star basketball recruit would have committed to mid-tier power conference program if only he'd known they wanted him. The hottest girl in school totally would have dated the anime nerd if only he'd bought her flowers.

This feels like former Minnesota high school basketball players dumping on Pitino, who can't defend himself, to save face locally, and act like committing to other teams wasn't their own decision. But hey, if they're being truthful, and Pitino was just such a cancer, then I look forward to all the top local talent spurning Duke, North Carolina, Gonzaga, Baylor, Stanford, etc., and flocking to Ben Johnson's program in the coming years now that Pitino is no longer here to push them away.

Nailed it.

 

[Spaulding!No!]

all this pitino bashing is all’doth protest too much’. Either Pitino was a solid pos or someone sht smeared pitino for so long we couldn’t get recruits. Pitino may have gotten the provincial mn treatment.

 

[MplsGopher_fan]

all this pitino bashing is all’doth protest too much’. Either Pitino was a solid pos or someone sht smeared pitino for so long we couldn’t get recruits. Pitino may have gotten the provincial mn treatment.

You came back to this thread, 2 hours later and with no new replies, to just toss this in here?

 

[everybody knows my name]

This news is like a Rorschach Test for Gopher fans.

A local kid, a proud Minnesotan, says he wanted to play for the local school but the local school just didn't seem that serious about him. But everybody hears something different, or filters what they hear through their own preconceptions and biases.

I think Suggs is being truthful. His story is plausible, and it fits what we already know about Pitino.

 

[Cayman]

This news is like a Rorschach Test for Gopher fans.

A local kid, a proud Minnesotan, says he wanted to play for the local school but the local school just didn't seem that serious about him. But everybody hears something different, or filters what they hear through their own preconceptions and biases.

I think Suggs is being truthful. His story is plausible, and it fits what we already know about Pitino.

As I said in my previous post, I don't really believe that a 5 star recruit didn't think he was wanted by a struggling local mid-tier basketball program that never gets 5 star recruits. Did Suggs or these other guys ever tell Pitino or his assistants "I am seriously interested in playing for Minnesota?" Didn't Tubby recruit Tyus Jones for like 3 years? Why didn't he come here?

Historically, or at least over the last 20 years, Minnesota is in the bottom half of the Big Ten, yet the best players in the state are apparently big fans and would love to come here if the coach just weren't such a dunce. We've gotten, what, 3 top 50 recruits in the last 15 years? Gopher basketball has been so mediocre for so long that I have a hard time believing that the solution is as simple as finding a coach who can walk and chew gum at the same time, who isn't totally braindead when it comes to recruiting, and then NBA-level talent will turn down blue bloods and national championship contenders for the glorious privilege of donning the maroon and gold and seeing if they can like, make the NCAA tournament in back to back years or finish above .500 in conference.

If it's just that easy for us, why hasn't it happened at other state flagship programs like Penn State or Rutgers or Cal? Wisconsin has missed on a handful 4 and 5 star in-state players even with a pair of Final Fours and Big Ten championships in their recent past. Purdue has been beating up on Indiana for most of the last decade, yet they've only gotten one 5 star player in that time, and yet Indiana still seems to have bigger recruiting clout. I don't believe Virginia has gotten a 5 star in the past several years.

Why didn't Fleck get that one guy who went to Notre Dame a year or two ago? Is he gonna be able to lure Jaxon Howard away from Alabama, Michigan, Georgia, Florida, Ohio State, Oklahoma etc.? He's supposed to be a real go-getter on the recruiting trail. If Fleck doesn't get him, does it mean he screwed up, or just didn't try hard enough or something? Or does Minnesota football just not have the prestige to win those sorts of battles with any regularity?

"Try harder at recruiting and you'll quickly go from struggling to make the tournament to competing for conference championships" just seems like an oversimplification. I'm sure Duke and Kentucky's rosters are regularly filled with guys who turned down offers from their hometown schools to play at a more prestigious program, but if our coach works hard enough, Minnesota's players just aren't gonna do that? Hopefully that's how it works out, because in-state recruiting is supposed to see an uptick with local golden boy Ben Johnson, and if the NBA level guys are really gonna start coming here too, then we might really be off to the races. But I didn't rip Pitino for not landing local 5 star recruits, and I won't rip Johnson if the same thing happens to him.

 

[USAF]

Pitino was the head coach at least 2 years longer than he should have been.

It's not complicated.

 

[everybody knows my name]

As I said in my previous post, I don't really believe that a 5 star recruit didn't think he was wanted by a struggling local mid-tier basketball program that never gets 5 star recruits. Did Suggs or these other guys ever tell Pitino or his assistants "I am seriously interested in playing for Minnesota?" Didn't Tubby recruit Tyus Jones for like 3 years? Why didn't he come here?

Historically, or at least over the last 20 years, Minnesota is in the bottom half of the Big Ten, yet the best players in the state are apparently big fans and would love to come here if the coach just weren't such a dunce. We've gotten, what, 3 top 50 recruits in the last 15 years? Gopher basketball has been so mediocre for so long that I have a hard time believing that the solution is as simple as finding a coach who can walk and chew gum at the same time, who isn't totally braindead when it comes to recruiting, and then NBA-level talent will turn down blue bloods and national championship contenders for the glorious privilege of donning the maroon and gold and seeing if they can like, make the NCAA tournament in back to back years or finish above .500 in conference.

If it's just that easy for us, why hasn't it happened at other state flagship programs like Penn State or Rutgers or Cal? Wisconsin has missed on a handful 4 and 5 star in-state players even with a pair of Final Fours and Big Ten championships in their recent past. Purdue has been beating up on Indiana for most of the last decade, yet they've only gotten one 5 star player in that time, and yet Indiana still seems to have bigger recruiting clout. I don't believe Virginia has gotten a 5 star in the past several years.

Why didn't Fleck get that one guy who went to Notre Dame a year or two ago? Is he gonna be able to lure Jaxon Howard away from Alabama, Michigan, Georgia, Florida, Ohio State, Oklahoma etc.? He's supposed to be a real go-getter on the recruiting trail. If Fleck doesn't get him, does it mean he screwed up, or just didn't try hard enough or something? Or does Minnesota football just not have the prestige to win those sorts of battles with any regularity?

"Try harder at recruiting and you'll quickly go from struggling to make the tournament to competing for conference championships" just seems like an oversimplification. I'm sure Duke and Kentucky's rosters are regularly filled with guys who turned down offers from their hometown schools to play at a more prestigious program, but if our coach works hard enough, Minnesota's players just aren't gonna do that? Hopefully that's how it works out, because in-state recruiting is supposed to see an uptick with local golden boy Ben Johnson, and if the NBA level guys are really gonna start coming here too, then we might really be off to the races. But I didn't rip Pitino for not landing local 5 star recruits, and I won't rip Johnson if the same thing happens to him.

Wow, what a load of crap.

Suggs isn't Tyus Jones. Don't take what one guy says about himself and apply it to anyone else. That seems like kindergarden level knowledge, but maybe it needs to be said. Jalen Suggs was only talking about himself.

A lackluster recruiting effort leaves a kid confused and maybe insulted. Suggs says he wanted to play for the U, but he ended up not wanting to be coached by Pitino. Not a confusing story.

 

[builtbadgers]

As I said in my previous post, I don't really believe that a 5 star recruit didn't think he was wanted by a struggling local mid-tier basketball program that never gets 5 star recruits. Did Suggs or these other guys ever tell Pitino or his assistants "I am seriously interested in playing for Minnesota?" Didn't Tubby recruit Tyus Jones for like 3 years? Why didn't he come here?

Historically, or at least over the last 20 years, Minnesota is in the bottom half of the Big Ten, yet the best players in the state are apparently big fans and would love to come here if the coach just weren't such a dunce. We've gotten, what, 3 top 50 recruits in the last 15 years? Gopher basketball has been so mediocre for so long that I have a hard time believing that the solution is as simple as finding a coach who can walk and chew gum at the same time, who isn't totally braindead when it comes to recruiting, and then NBA-level talent will turn down blue bloods and national championship contenders for the glorious privilege of donning the maroon and gold and seeing if they can like, make the NCAA tournament in back to back years or finish above .500 in conference.

If it's just that easy for us, why hasn't it happened at other state flagship programs like Penn State or Rutgers or Cal? Wisconsin has missed on a handful 4 and 5 star in-state players even with a pair of Final Fours and Big Ten championships in their recent past. Purdue has been beating up on Indiana for most of the last decade, yet they've only gotten one 5 star player in that time, and yet Indiana still seems to have bigger recruiting clout. I don't believe Virginia has gotten a 5 star in the past several years.

Why didn't Fleck get that one guy who went to Notre Dame a year or two ago? Is he gonna be able to lure Jaxon Howard away from Alabama, Michigan, Georgia, Florida, Ohio State, Oklahoma etc.? He's supposed to be a real go-getter on the recruiting trail. If Fleck doesn't get him, does it mean he screwed up, or just didn't try hard enough or something? Or does Minnesota football just not have the prestige to win those sorts of battles with any regularity?

"Try harder at recruiting and you'll quickly go from struggling to make the tournament to competing for conference championships" just seems like an oversimplification. I'm sure Duke and Kentucky's rosters are regularly filled with guys who turned down offers from their hometown schools to play at a more prestigious program, but if our coach works hard enough, Minnesota's players just aren't gonna do that? Hopefully that's how it works out, because in-state recruiting is supposed to see an uptick with local golden boy Ben Johnson, and if the NBA level guys are really gonna start coming here too, then we might really be off to the races. But I didn't rip Pitino for not landing local 5 star recruits, and I won't rip Johnson if the same thing happens to him.

UVA has not had a 5 star by the services in forever but they have had many that turned into 5 stars by being better at evaluation and development. That is coaching. Very few guys go into mediocre programs and get elite success that is sustainable. Looking at 30 years of data in the power 6 conferences it hardly ever happens. Even harder to start getting 5 star players by the services to pick a non blue school. There are so few 5 stars. Same in football. Really rare to get a 5 star. Find the 3 stars that are actually 4 stars and develop. Suggs is not telling the truth. He was recruited relentlessly. He and his camp thought Pitino was a lousy coach.