PiPress: UMN President Eric Kaler says Richard Pitino has ‘great potential’

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BleedGopher

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per Marcus:

University of Minnesota President Eric Kaler said Wednesday that Richard Pitino has “great potential” even as his Gophers basketball team comes off an embarrassing 8-23 season.

Kaler took the time to address Pitino and the men’s basketball program during his update on the athletic director search process, which was kickstarted by hiring New Jersey-based Turnkey Search firm and naming a 16-member search committee.

“Our men’s basketball team has had a pretty terrible year,” Kaler said. “But I think they will be able to recover. I think Richard Pitino has great potential, and he shows a high degree of self-awareness about who he is and where he is and what needs to happen next. He’s got a great recruiting class coming.”

http://www.twincities.com/2016/03/2...aler-says-richard-pitino-has-great-potential/

Go Gophers!!
 


I don't think Pitino is innocent in this whole thing, but people really easily forget that the guy is 33 years old. He was hired probably a job too early so there are naturally going to be growing pains.

He's made some mistakes, hopefully he grows and improves just like a lot of the players. He does have a lot of potential, we'll see if he can reach it.
 

I agree with Kaler. I just don't know if RP will realize that potential when he's 35 or 50. Not just RP, same with JP at Memphis
 

Biggsohnasty said:
I don't think Pitino is innocent in this whole thing, but people really easily forget that the guy is 33 years old. He was hired probably a job too early so there are naturally going to be growing pains.

He's made some mistakes, hopefully he grows and improves just like a lot of the players. He does have a lot of potential, we'll see if he can reach it.
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That gets brought up a lot. He doesn't get a free pass (or lowered expectations) because of his age.
 





Winasota Gopher said:
Then how do you explain him still being employed?
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The athletic administration made the wrong choice in firing the previous coach when they did, so it stands to reason that they could easily screw this one up too (under new management).
 




dpodoll68 said:
The athletic administration made the wrong choice in firing the previous coach when they did, so it stands to reason that they could easily screw this one up too (under new management).
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I thought you only dealt in facts not opinions
 


Here's where I think the U screwed the pooch on the Pitino hire. If they had come out front and said, "look, he's young and inexperienced, but we think he has the potential to be a very good coach down the road. Just don't expect instant results; it's going to take at least 3 or 4 years for him to gain experience and improve the level of recruiting."

if they had said that, I think people would have had more realistic expectations. It might have made things difficult for the sales office, but I would rather have that as opposed to the current state of events, where a lot of fans are upset because Pitino did not make more of an immediate impact. (I really don't count that 1st season - those were Tubby's players).
 



short ornery norwegian said:
Here's where I think the U screwed the pooch on the Pitino hire. If they had come out front and said, "look, he's young and inexperienced, but we think he has the potential to be a very good coach down the road. Just don't expect instant results; it's going to take at least 3 or 4 years for him to gain experience and improve the level of recruiting."

if they had said that, I think people would have had more realistic expectations. It might have made things difficult for the sales office, but I would rather have that as opposed to the current state of events, where a lot of fans are upset because Pitino did not make more of an immediate impact. (I really don't count that 1st season - those were Tubby's players).
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Personally I don't think they had to say that...it seemed slightly obvious to me. Pitino may have not even been 30 at the time he was hired, only had 1 year of head coaching experience, and got hired so there had to be some thoughts on "potential." If they would have said "This is the guy we feel has the best experience" I would have been very worried who they were interviewing.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
Here's where I think the U screwed the pooch on the Pitino hire. If they had come out front and said, "look, he's young and inexperienced, but we think he has the potential to be a very good coach down the road. Just don't expect instant results; it's going to take at least 3 or 4 years for him to gain experience and improve the level of recruiting." if they had said that, I think people would have had more realistic expectations. It might have made things difficult for the sales office, but I would rather have that as opposed to the current state of events, where a lot of fans are upset because Pitino did not make more of an immediate impact. (I really don't count that 1st season - those were Tubby's players).
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It also would have helped if Pitino didn't go and win the NIT year 1 :)

They could have preached low expectations, but as soon as that NIT was won expectations increased from there.
 

Age doesn't lower expectations...it gives him a longer leash though. You don't hire a 30-year old coach expecting him to build you into a power within three years. There are going to be growing pains, expecting none would be a foolish endeavor.

Again, Pitino isn't innocent here, he's not perfect. The big mistakes he made were in his first two recruiting cycles where he chased talent he had no shot at getting. That's something a guy with no experience in this situation does. He's improving on that front. That's where it starts. We'll see if getting better players allows him to shine more as a tactician because so far, I haven't seen much from him on that front. Is that because he doesn't have it in him, or because the players he's had aren't good enough to execute what he wants.

The notion that he's a finished coaching product though is absurd...so yeah, he's got potential. We'll see if he fulfills it.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
Here's where I think the U screwed the pooch on the Pitino hire. If they had come out front and said, "look, he's young and inexperienced, but we think he has the potential to be a very good coach down the road. Just don't expect instant results; it's going to take at least 3 or 4 years for him to gain experience and improve the level of recruiting."

if they had said that, I think people would have had more realistic expectations. It might have made things difficult for the sales office, but I would rather have that as opposed to the current state of events, where a lot of fans are upset because Pitino did not make more of an immediate impact. (I really don't count that 1st season - those were Tubby's players).
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NO

You don't say those things.
 


Great argument. ..again and again and again and again. .......

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
 




One thing I saw is that, when he had a full team, there was improvement from the beginning of the season to the last full team game (the first Rutgers game).
 

scher215 said:
It also would have helped if Pitino didn't go and win the NIT year 1 :)

They could have preached low expectations, but as soon as that NIT was won expectations increased from there.
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I buy that with respect to how we felt about year two, but there are no results in the first two years that would have changed how upset I am about going 2-16 in year three.
 

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