My biggest issue with Pitino...

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UpAndUnder43

UpAndUnder43

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is that he told us all that Davonte Fitzgerald was good. He is a terrible shooter, defender, rebounder and shot selector. He does nothing well.
 

So it sounds like you would feel better about Pitino if he had thrown this kid under the bus and said Fitz is a "terrible shooter, defender, rebounder and shot selector and that he does nothing well."

Oh.

Go Gophers!!
 

BleedGopher said:
So it sounds like you would feel better about Pitino if he had thrown this kid under the bus and said Fitz is a "terrible shooter, defender, rebounder and shot selector and that he does nothing well."

Oh.

Go Gophers!!
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Certainly agree with you there. I think the OP's angst comes from hearing Coach say that many times he was the best player in practice. Maybe that was before his injury? I don't recall. But yeah, poor guy can't get it done...but I will never rip a kid as long as he gives effort, and he gives effort. Hope something starts to click because this team needs someone, anyone unexpected to come and make plays.
 

Pitino tends to try to make guys think they are going to be better than they are. He hyped Konate and to a lesser degree Diedhou as well.

My biggest issue with Pitino- and I am a big Pitino guy, is that so far he is not value shooting enough in his recruiting evaluations. I would say that 80% of the teams we play shoot the ball better than us. Now it might not come out that way in the stats because we overpowered undermanned teams in the paint to boost our shooting percentages. He just has to start bringing in better shooters. Kalsheuer is one. Harris is another. And Coffey is becoming one. Washington, McBrayer, Murphy and Mason were all brought here more as scorers than shooters. Yesterday, every Purdue guy could nail open shots...
 

bga1 said:
Pitino tends to try to make guys think they are going to be better than they are. He hyped Konate and to a lesser degree Diedhou as well.

My biggest issue with Pitino- and I am a big Pitino guy, is that so far he is not value shooting enough in his recruiting evaluations. I would say that 80% of the teams we play shoot the ball better than us. Now it might not come out that way in the stats because we overpowered undermanned teams in the paint to boost our shooting percentages. He just has to start bringing in better shooters. Kalsheuer is one. Harris is another. And Coffey is becoming one. Washington, McBrayer, Murphy and Mason were all brought here more as scorers than shooters. Yesterday, every Purdue guy could nail open shots...
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I said in another thread, Mason, McBrayer, Coffey are all 37% from 3 or better this year, and there's certainly been handwringing about whether Harris was a worthy addition.
 


NotAFanOfBecky said:
Certainly agree with you there. I think the OP's angst comes from hearing Coach say that many times he was the best player in practice. Maybe that was before his injury? I don't recall. But yeah, poor guy can't get it done...but I will never rip a kid as long as he gives effort, and he gives effort. Hope something starts to click because this team needs someone, anyone unexpected to come and make plays.
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He said it before his injury - it takes 18months to be back without caution from an acl injury. Fitzgerald should have bulked up during his recovery time, but I don’t see it - We have a lot of shooting woes and I don’t know why our guys are shooting so poorly. Not taking enough shoots in practice? A coach that can diagnose form issues? Not getting enough game simulated shots in practice? Sufficient confidence? Don’t they move into the new facility where they can shoot 24/7?
 

I think there's a number of issues to be upset/concerned with Pitino right now, but I am not sure Fitzgerald is one of them. The guy had at least his second major knee injury (for some reason I feel he also had a knee in high school, but not going to look it up at the moment) and Pitino never really talked him up to the same degree this Fall. Keep in mind that Fitzgerald hurt his knee during the Fall last year, so he missed all of the Summer and is still only 13-14 months removed from his surgery. Now add in the fact that he's playing real games for the first time in two years and I think it's not surprising he's struggling.

To me, if you are going to be upset in regards to Fitzgerald it should be that Pitino was obviously counting on him to be Coffey's backup this year. He's now playing the 4 because of his physical limitations and Hurt is now playing big minutes at the 3 (which says quite a bit about how Fitzgerald is moving laterally). The 3 was yet another place where a scholarship could have went this Spring. I think Fitzgerald could turn things around as he gets healthier/more confident, but he should have always been viewed as a wild card/bonus this year and not as someone expected to play a role given his injury history.
 

BleedGopher said:
So it sounds like you would feel better about Pitino if he had thrown this kid under the bus and said Fitz is a "terrible shooter, defender, rebounder and shot selector and that he does nothing well."

Oh.

Go Gophers!!
Click to expand...

He said he was the best player on the team.

He also has a terribly coached offense

and he missed out on all the local talent (McKinley Wright is Colorado's big star) (Davidson is starting for Wisconsin)
 

Halsey Hall said:
He said he was the best player on the team.

He also has a terribly coached offense

and he missed out on all the local talent (McKinley Wright is Colorado's big star) (Davidson is starting for Wisconsin)
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It's only in hindsight that you would want Wright or Davison over Washington.
 



bga1 said:
Pitino tends to try to make guys think they are going to be better than they are. He hyped Konate and to a lesser degree Diedhou as well.

My biggest issue with Pitino- and I am a big Pitino guy, is that so far he is not value shooting enough in his recruiting evaluations. I would say that 80% of the teams we play shoot the ball better than us. Now it might not come out that way in the stats because we overpowered undermanned teams in the paint to boost our shooting percentages. He just has to start bringing in better shooters. Kalsheuer is one. Harris is another. And Coffey is becoming one. Washington, McBrayer, Murphy and Mason were all brought here more as scorers than shooters. Yesterday, every Purdue guy could nail open shots...
Click to expand...

I agree.
It would be great if we had an assistant who could evaluate and teach kids to shoot. You see the benefits when you watch a John Beilein (sp) coached Michigan team turn out shooter after shooter and then compete every year. I understand that we can't recruit blood blood talent, but we should be able to recruit shooters. Perhaps Pitino needs a shooting guru on his staff.
Where we are now horribly exposed is on defense. Our bigs cannot box out a straw let alone D1 bigs. Our rotations are slow and we don't have a shot blocker to bail them out. When you lose talented starters you have to compensate with great defense. This team does not play great defense and we are getting blown out because of it.
 

His program is an embarrassment, on and off the court.
 

MennoSota said:
I agree.
It would be great if we had an assistant who could evaluate and teach kids to shoot. You see the benefits when you watch a John Beilein (sp) coached Michigan team turn out shooter after shooter and then compete every year. I understand that we can't recruit blood blood talent, but we should be able to recruit shooters. Perhaps Pitino needs a shooting guru on his staff.
Where we are now horribly exposed is on defense. Our bigs cannot box out a straw let alone D1 bigs. Our rotations are slow and we don't have a shot blocker to bail them out. When you lose talented starters you have to compensate with great defense. This team does not play great defense and we are getting blown out because of it.
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Your right about the defense. the rankings for the last 5 years are 78,90,147,22 (no surprise his best team ) and now 81. That is atrocious. The shooting piece has been tracked and noted for 50 years by Tom Konchalski. You can improve your shot but a poor shooter never becomes a great shooter. You have to recruit them.
 




Pitino is a very good coach but I am sure he too is rattled from the recent events. I hope everyone weathers the storm setting the stage for a rebound year next year. Cannot have any off the court stuff and God willing, no more injuries.
 

Very good? I am not attacking you personally but I just don’t get this mindset. I see a guy that is 27-51 with 0 ncaa wins lifetime. He has not done anything to derserve this adulation. The fact is he is 27-51 and will have not even be good enough to get an nit bid in 3 of 5 years. None of that speaks to that. I have watched a team quit the last two games. 27-51 0 ncaa wins is not my definition of very good. We gambled on a young name and we are losing. I think he gets next year but if it is not a minimum of an ncaa tournament pull the plug on this experiment. Get a seasoned guy who has both earned his stripes.

QUOTE=Block M;1505108]Pitino is a very good coach but I am sure he too is rattled from the recent events. I hope everyone weathers the storm setting the stage for a rebound year next year. Cannot have any off the court stuff and God willing, no more injuries.[/QUOTE]
 

bga1 said:
Pitino tends to try to make guys think they are going to be better than they are. He hyped Konate and to a lesser degree Diedhou as well.

My biggest issue with Pitino- and I am a big Pitino guy, is that so far he is not value shooting enough in his recruiting evaluations. I would say that 80% of the teams we play shoot the ball better than us. Now it might not come out that way in the stats because we overpowered undermanned teams in the paint to boost our shooting percentages. He just has to start bringing in better shooters. Kalsheuer is one. Harris is another. And Coffey is becoming one. Washington, McBrayer, Murphy and Mason were all brought here more as scorers than shooters. Yesterday, every Purdue guy could nail open shots...
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100% correct!!! We just are not a good jump-shooting team. This must be valued much more going forward in our recruiting.


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Musical coaches does not work at Minnesota (or anywhere). If not here Pitino will do very well elsewhere.

Hopefully not.
 

builtbadgers said:
Your right about the defense. the rankings for the last 5 years are 78,90,147,22 (no surprise his best team ) and now 81. That is atrocious. The shooting piece has been tracked and noted for 50 years by Tom Konchalski. You can improve your shot but a poor shooter never becomes a great shooter. You have to recruit them.
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I have long thought this to be true but didn’t know that there was research to support this. We have seen a few guys who worked super hard who have really improved their shooting in college (Damian Johnson comes to mind), but that is the exception. It drives me nuts to see so many D1 basketball players that are poor shooters? What is with that? Is the attraction to highlight-reel dunking taking away from learning the good-old jump shot at a young age? Or is it simply that hard to become a great shooter?
Funny thing about basketball is the most important thing is putting the ball through the round metal thingy, yet many guys who are trying to make their living one day playing the sport are not good at doing that. To me, that’s pretty screwed up.


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Based on what? I am basing mine on his record. If this season plays out like how it is going and he did get let go he is not getting any power 5 jobs he is going to have to go down to the mid majors or work as an assistant for a while. No way a big school is hiring a guy who is 30+ games under .500 in his conference, I cannot think of one hire. He got to skip some steps purely based on name time he goes earns it for himself.
Block M said:
Musical coaches does not work at Minnesota (or anywhere). If not here Pitino will do very well elsewhere.

Hopefully not.
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A .3465 winning percentage in Big Ten play wouldn't bode well for him in a job market. However, he holds a longer-term, big buck contract with Mr. Coyle & Prexy K & the U of M and they are NOT in a position to buy him out any time soon. He will be here for at least 3 more seasons, unless he gets an offer he can't refuse from somewhere else. He holds more cards than the administration at the U does right now.

Beat the stinking badger, GOPHER!
 

Block M said:
Pitino is a very good coach but I am sure he too is rattled from the recent events. I hope everyone weathers the storm setting the stage for a rebound year next year. Cannot have any off the court stuff and God willing, no more injuries.
Click to expand...

We were a fringe NCAA team with Lynch and Coffey. Take that team subtract Mason and Lynch, add Currey and the freshman. I see another fringe NCAA team. Is that an acceptable "rebound" in year 6?
 

We should rip on pitino for the misfortune we've had. We were getting ready to make tourney for second straight year. Doesn't happen very often. Why are we always saying it's year five now so we should have this record now. As long as I've ever been gopher fan were always fringe ncaa team so why rip pitino when he's one of only coaches to actually give us hope of being a consistentg ncaa team. I went to Minnesota back in 80's and other than final four year never known us not to be on bubble so why rip pitino when he actually has got this program to have some momentum.
 

Love that attitude, who cares we have never been good so why strive for anything. Momentum means building to something, whatever the circumstances that is lost and
Even by your lofty standards of being a fringe ncaa tournament team he has not met those in 4 of 5 years. And like the previous poster said I don’t see losing mason and lynch and replacing it with the 40th ranked recruiting class getting us back to the ncaa.


QUOTE=gophereric30;1505169]We should rip on pitino for the misfortune we've had. We were getting ready to make tourney for second straight year. Doesn't happen very often. Why are we always saying it's year five now so we should have this record now. As long as I've ever been gopher fan were always fringe ncaa team so why rip pitino when he's one of only coaches to actually give us hope of being a consistentg ncaa team. I went to Minnesota back in 80's and other than final four year never known us not to be on bubble so why rip pitino when he actually has got this program to have some momentum.[/QUOTE]
 

gophereric30 said:
We should rip on pitino for the misfortune we've had. We were getting ready to make tourney for second straight year. Doesn't happen very often. Why are we always saying it's year five now so we should have this record now. As long as I've ever been gopher fan were always fringe ncaa team so why rip pitino when he's one of only coaches to actually give us hope of being a consistentg ncaa team. I went to Minnesota back in 80's and other than final four year never known us not to be on bubble so why rip pitino when he actually has got this program to have some momentum.
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Momentum! Momentum? Going in reverse is not momentum.

Pitino has yet to recruit a second decent big man.

The behavior issues on this team have not stopped. Lynch turned into a zombie just before his issues were made public and now our guards couldn't be playing worse. What's coming up next?

This program is far from being a bubble team for the NIT, let alone the NCAA tournament.

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howeda7 said:
We were a fringe NCAA team with Lynch and Coffey. Take that team subtract Mason and Lynch, add Currey and the freshman. I see another fringe NCAA team. Is that an acceptable "rebound" in year 6?
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It's not ideal, but honestly, in my mind, yes. This was supposed to be a good year, and was derailed by depth (on Pitino), injuries, and off-court issues. If our floor next year is the NIT, I can deal with that. I still believe Pitino could be good for our program. Note, that is a strong shift from the beginning of the season where I was convinced he was. I'd rather stick with a coach that shows promise through hard times - Gopher fans know all to well that a new coach comes with a lot of risk. I still consider Pitino our guy, but he has a lot of learning to do from this year.
 

I agree with that point. I see the same type of misplaced/inflated expectations with Eric Curry (same type of player).

They are 6'8"-9ish", can't shoot, don't have handles and they are not the beastmode inside type of player in the mold of Jordan Murphy. What exactly do they bring to the table?

This is kind of the same issue I have with Michael Hurt. If you can't do multiple things pretty good or better, you'd better be an effective specialist in one area. Hurt was sold to us as a 3 point shooter but he never attempts them (or we don't scheme for him to). What exactly does Fitzgerald bring?
 

He’s led us to one game in the NCAA tournament in five years - I guess we should rename the arena after him.
 

howeda7 said:
We were a fringe NCAA team with Lynch and Coffey. Take that team subtract Mason and Lynch, add Currey and the freshman. I see another fringe NCAA team. Is that an acceptable "rebound" in year 6?
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Recruiting is on an upturn with Pitino, he's suffered some injuries and the Lynch thing is unfortunate but it is totally different than Tubby, Tubby's recruiting at the end was DOA.
 

And our conference record has taken a sharp downturn under Pitino, 24 games under and counting.
jovs said:
Recruiting is on an upturn with Pitino, he's suffered some injuries and the Lynch thing is unfortunate but it is totally different than Tubby, Tubby's recruiting at the end was DOA.
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rivergopher said:
And our conference record has taken a sharp downturn under Pitino, 24 games under and counting.
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You exhibit a glaring lack of perspective. Clem Haskins record after 6 years was 39 -69. He ended with a nearly .500 conference record in his 13 years at Minnesota if you count that 16-2 year (which I do). Since that time, only Monson had one finish as high as fourth. Pitino has done it once and would have undoubtedly done it again this year without the disaster.

The point? Pitino did not take over an easy program to win at. The indicators are that he has the ability to make us competitive year after year going forward if we are patient when times get tough. Get past the short term pain and look at the future. It is bright.
 

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