To respond to many posts at once:
1) Yes, I can blame Crandall and similar kids for bailing on their home and people who have supported them their whole life to go play for strangers based on a selfish pipe-dream. Want to play the "Gophers didn't recruit him out of high school" card? Well, neither did Gonzaga. Yes, he handled it poorly. It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to see that he made Pitino think he was coming here. You can bet Pitino is pissed off right now.
2). Gonzaga is a very nice program, sure. But their competition in the past has a lot to do with their NCAA tourny steak. Comparing their chops to major programs is ridiculous. There is no comparison in the level of difficulty year-in and year-out. They were built on sneaking into the back door of the tourny based on the conference tourny technicality. All the credit in the world on capitalizing on those, but pretending their program would be in the same position if they were in a major conference 20 years ago is ridiculous, IMO.
3). Gonzaga is not winning the NCAA national championship. That is laughable. Neither are the Gophers, clearly.
4). Pitino should be in boiling hot water unless he lands some MN kids in this next recruiting class. The chance Minnesota has to had to build a powerhouse is undeniable. The in-state talent has been elite. The facilities are there. They play in a major conference. They have the "Pitino" brand (back when it still meant something). It is an utter failure that these kids can't get across the border fast enough, and he's bringing in guys who's idea of organized basketball includes an MC on the court screaming into a mic about "handles" (IW). Crandall is not scared of Hot Sauce. If you can't sell this program/facilities to a guy who self-proclaimed it his "dream school," board up the Barn because we will never have a shot at anything, ever.
5). In no way can this be spun into a positive. This program was a joke before Pitino got here. It's a still a joke after a half-decade of Pitino. This is not "good for the future." I don't know how in the name of anything you can deduce a net positive out this, but it's crazy.
Will we be fine without Geno? Well, that depends on your definition of fine. We'll certainly be a worse basketball team, but probably not by a whole lot. The thing people trying to spin this are missing: It's another confirmation of a the larger underlying problem that persists. Kids growing up here don't want to play for the U. It's unacceptable.