Malik Smith: Pitino is a great coach, Gophers just don't have the talent

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BleedGopher

BleedGopher

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Go Gophers!!
 

Wish this team had Malik could you a guard that can stretch the floor. He took his benching in the NIT like a man when he got cold and Mav was playing better. I'll always respect him for that, he could easily have an axe to grind about it
 

Pat chimes in:

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Go Gophers!!
 

bemidjigopher said:
Wish this team had Malik could you a guard that can stretch the floor. He took his benching in the NIT like a man when he got cold and Mav was playing better. I'll always respect him for that, he could easily have an axe to grind about it
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+1
 

BleedGopher said:
Pat chimes in:

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Go Gophers!!
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Has anyone ever heard that "adage" that Fatprick referenced before?

Remember the old maxim, GopherHole: Pat was young & talented and has turned old, bitter & writes like horse****.
 


Does Reusse's tweet apply to, for example, Frank Kaminsky? He was horse*** when young, PoY when old. If Pitino can't develop the talent over the next couple years, then I'll start to question his abilities.

Also, should we put more weight on the comments of Jim Peterson, Billy Donovan, and Malik Smith, or on the likes of Pat Reusse?
 

BleedGopher said:
Pat chimes in:

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Go Gophers!!
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And Ruesse as an ol' hag will always be an ol' hag. Not sure what the future brings for the Gophers but a reasonable basis of evaluation begins next year, I'm holding out hope for the team;and a coach that has shown he is a great recruiter and undefined as a coach.
 





If we dont have the talent, why?

If it is a recruiting issue, doesn't that fall at the feet of Pitino?

Did Pitino have bad recruiting advice from somewhere?

Did Pitino not fully vet his recruits?



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BleedGopher said:
Pat chimes in:

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Go Gophers!!
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This is not even close to being true. There are many examples of players and teams who were really bad that turned out to be good after a few years. I'm not saying it will happen with the Gophers but it does happen all the time.
 

GophersInIowa said:
This is not even close to being true. There are many examples of players and teams who were really bad that turned out to be good after a few years. I'm not saying it will happen with the Gophers but it does happen all the time.
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I agree. The last two plus games have been awful. There is no denying that. However, they didn't play all that poorly in the Ohio State and Michigan State games. Limitations -- yes. Awful play -- no. The tone on this board actually subsided somewhat after Michigan State.

The key for me is to keep the core (Mason/McBrayer/Dorsey/Gilbert/Murphy/Konate) and not lose any of the new guys (Lynch/Fitzgerald/Coffey/Curry/Hurt). I get nervous in a situation like this that things could continue to snowball. Losing two or three of those guys could set us back further.

We could also really just use a positive week.
 

The most confusing thing for me is right now, Clemson is the hottest team in CBB and may be on their way to a top 25 ranking. Even knocking off Rick's UL team.

How in the heck did the Gophers beat them? Ever? In any game? Of any sport? When we get demolished by 25 to Northwestern and Nebraska.
 



scher215 said:
The most confusing thing for me is right now, Clemson is the hottest team in CBB and may be on their way to a top 25 ranking. Even knocking off Rick's UL team.

How in the heck did the Gophers beat them? Ever? In any game? Of any sport? When we get demolished by 25 to Northwestern and Nebraska.
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Confidence is a hell of a drug. Both ways.
 

scher215 said:
The most confusing thing for me is right now, Clemson is the hottest team in CBB and may be on their way to a top 25 ranking. Even knocking off Rick's UL team.

How in the heck did the Gophers beat them? Ever? In any game? Of any sport? When we get demolished by 25 to Northwestern and Nebraska.
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This is both encouraging and discouraging. There's enough talent on this team to win some games, but they're playing just horribly right now, and this thing is headed in the wrong direction.
 

Reusse will be able to point to many instances where his statement is true. There are also examples where it's not. The Trent Tucker, Cookie Holmes, etc group that won the Big Ten in '82 had a pretty poor record their freshman season despite being the #1 recruiting class in the country. The difference then was they were playing teams with a whole bunch of upper classman as players weren't leaving so soon for the NBA, so great classes didn't have such an immediate impact.
 

scher215 said:
The most confusing thing for me is right now, Clemson is the hottest team in CBB and may be on their way to a top 25 ranking. Even knocking off Rick's UL team.

How in the heck did the Gophers beat them? Ever? In any game? Of any sport? When we get demolished by 25 to Northwestern and Nebraska.
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It's all about effort at this point. Guys aren't playing hard and when things start going badly, they're done. You'd expect some of that from the young guys but not the veterans. Not much leadership right now.
 

Tucker/Mitchell/Holmes class

That '79 Tucker/Mitchell/Holmes/Hall (didn't finish career) recruiting class was definitely one of the better ones in Minnesota history, but even their trajectory was slow & steady.

Freshmen: 11-16, 6-12 Big Ten
Sophomores: 21-11, 10-8 Big Ten
Juniors: 19-11, 9-9 Big Ten
Seniors: 23-6, 14-4 Big Ten, Big Ten champs, Sweet 16

I suppose if the the selection committee back then used today's metrics (SOS, RPI, etc.) and the field was 68 NCAA teams, probably a safe bet to say the Tucker/Mitchell/Holmes group would have played in 2 for sure and maybe 3 NCAA tourneys. Much easier to get in the tournament now than it was pre-64-team bracket.
 

My big issue/concern: It doesn't take any talent to hustle. It doesn't take any talent to work hard. It doesn't take any talent to plant your butt in the lane and try to get a rebound.

The lack of consistent hustle/effort for this team is both disappointing and disturbing. Yes, they're young and inexperienced - but even if you're young and inexperienced, at least you can try to hustle and show some effort.

Certainly, a lot of that lies with the players - but it's also the coach's responsibility to motivate his players, and push the right buttons to get that effort from the players.

That's the thing that concerns/bothers me the most about this year's situation. And I don't know what the answer is.
 

SelectionSunday said:
That '79 Tucker/Mitchell/Holmes/Hall (didn't finish career) recruiting class was definitely one of the better ones in Minnesota history, but even their trajectory was slow & steady.

Freshmen: 11-16, 6-12 Big Ten
Sophomores: 21-11, 10-8 Big Ten
Juniors: 19-11, 9-9 Big Ten
Seniors: 23-6, 14-4 Big Ten, Big Ten champs, Sweet 16

I suppose if the the selection committee back then used today's metrics (SOS, RPI, etc.) and the field was 68 NCAA teams, probably a safe bet to say the Tucker/Mitchell/Holmes group would have played in 2 for sure and maybe 3 NCAA tourneys. Much easier to get in the tournament now than it was pre-64-team bracket.
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Good point. However, if this group was on their way to 6-12, I don't think we'd be having these conversations.
 

howeda7 said:
Good point. However, if this group was on their way to 6-12, I don't think we'd be having these conversations.
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My bad. Certainly wasn't trying to compare this crop of freshmen to the '79 group.
 



GophersInIowa said:
This is not even close to being true. There are many examples of players and teams who were really bad that turned out to be good after a few years. I'm not saying it will happen with the Gophers but it does happen all the time.
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If you stay within the modern era( last ten years) I'm not sure who that would be true of. I certainly can't name a gopher who was a standout as a senior that wasn't pretty good as a freshman. There were players that played more minutes as they aged through, but their production per minute was about the same.

Mo Walker is probably the best case as a gopher, but you could argue he was a marginal center as a freshman and better but not great as a senior. The physical transformation was greater than the performance transformation.
 

LakerFan said:
If you stay within the modern era( last ten years) I'm not sure who that would be true of. I certainly can't name a gopher who was a standout as a senior that wasn't pretty good as a freshman. There were players that played more minutes as they aged through, but their production per minute was about the same.

Mo Walker is probably the best case as a gopher, but you could argue he was a marginal center as a freshman and better but not great as a senior. The physical transformation was greater than the performance transformation.
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I was assuming that he meant in general it doesn't happen, not just for the Gophers. My apologies if that is what he meant.
 

Ewert86PC said:
If we dont have the talent, why?

If it is a recruiting issue, doesn't that fall at the feet of Pitino?

Did Pitino have bad recruiting advice from somewhere?

Did Pitino not fully vet his recruits?



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Because we took too many cast off transfers and spring recruits. Nuff said?
 


Ewert86PC said:
If we dont have the talent, why?

If it is a recruiting issue, doesn't that fall at the feet of Pitino?

Did Pitino have bad recruiting advice from somewhere?

Did Pitino not fully vet his recruits?



Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Could have been Rick since on Sept. 15, 2013 he visited Konate and then Konate took official visit to L'ville on Nov. 9th.
 

howeda7 said:
I'm all for giving them time to develop. It's just that 6-12 is probably the 'goal' for next year. Sigh.
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It's looking more & more like a pope dream....

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GopherPop said:
Could have been Rick since on Sept. 15, 2013 he visited Konate and then Konate took official visit to L'ville on Nov. 9th.
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I'm starting to think Konate is a practical joke that dad played on his son and the son hasn't caught on.

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