touchdownvikings
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I know there's a thread or two out there devoted to Pitino but my 30-second scan didn't turn them up. So forgive me for starting another. Here are the major factors that have influenced Pitino's tenure in my humble opinion:
(1) In his first two years, he was not trying to build a foundation of a team from the ground up. He was not pursuing his philosophy or his vision of what a successful program looks like. He came in, saw that Hollins and Hollins were talented players who were also "face" of the university kind of guys. And he felt it was wrong to tank their last years to pursue building from the ground up. So he did the best he could to plug holes with transfers and rearrange the existing parts into a logical structure. It's not as though he believed that Dre or Joey King (for example) were exactly the sorts of guys that he wanted to build a team from the ground up with - it's that they were the best immediately available transfer options to plug holes.
(2) It wasn't until year 3 (when no Hollins remained) that he had the "talk" with his AD and said "listen, I'm not going to plug holes that exist in a program that is constituted largely of players that I obtained to plug holes. I did the right thing by Hollins and Hollins, but that's over and I'm building from the ground up." So year 3 was ugly but necessary.
(3) Year 4 we began to see the fruits of building a program from the ground up according to Pitino's vision. The main issue plaguing the team was depth. Pitino could not both rebuild a program from the ground up and give it depth in one year during Year 3.
(4) Part of the depth problem was Pitino's "reach" with Konate and Diedhiou. These two soaked up scholarships and left Pitino with no ability to add depth behind Lynch or Murph. This is a problem that took a single decision to create, but 4 years to rectify. Pitino could have run them off and that would have benefitted the team from a win-loss perspective. But that would have been at the cost of his character. I'll take a high character coach every day of the week and twice on Sundays. It's not as though Pitino didn't definitely see the problem and didn't understand what many other coaches would do. He has character and I respect him for that.
(5) Year 5. Lynch legal problems. Amir and Curry injuries. Pree injured and playing but not practicing. The only good thing to come out of this year was that Konate and Diedhiou finally graduated. The scholarships are finally open to create depth.
(6) So here we are in Year 6. I think Pitino being a man of high character has created some of the "problems." Basically his high character prevented him from destroying the final seasons of Hollins and Hollins in the name of rebuilding. It also prevented him from running off Konate and Diedhiou.
The main failures I see are: (i) recruiting two projects like Konate and Diedhiou in the same year; (ii) taking too many risks on high ceiling/low character players; (iii) occasionally aiming to "high" on the recruiting trail - especially in the context of out of state kids with high ratings and no real ties to MN.
Bottom line: (i) I do not see Pitino repeating his failures - he has learned from them; (ii) he had "easy" ways out in a few instances and showed character in not taking the easy paths - this pays off in time and is simply the right thing in any event; (iii) he is a natural and gifted communicator who is unusually candid and this undoubtedly helps his players develop and understand his vision; (iv) it was not reasonable to say "it's Year 5 and look where the program is" because he did not start building the program until Year 3.
I do not support firing Pitino in the name of tit-for-tat with Tubby. Pitino as a man and coach is moving in the right direction and so is the team. I do however hereby BEG him to let IW play 30+ minutes per night for reasons I have articulated in other threads!
(1) In his first two years, he was not trying to build a foundation of a team from the ground up. He was not pursuing his philosophy or his vision of what a successful program looks like. He came in, saw that Hollins and Hollins were talented players who were also "face" of the university kind of guys. And he felt it was wrong to tank their last years to pursue building from the ground up. So he did the best he could to plug holes with transfers and rearrange the existing parts into a logical structure. It's not as though he believed that Dre or Joey King (for example) were exactly the sorts of guys that he wanted to build a team from the ground up with - it's that they were the best immediately available transfer options to plug holes.
(2) It wasn't until year 3 (when no Hollins remained) that he had the "talk" with his AD and said "listen, I'm not going to plug holes that exist in a program that is constituted largely of players that I obtained to plug holes. I did the right thing by Hollins and Hollins, but that's over and I'm building from the ground up." So year 3 was ugly but necessary.
(3) Year 4 we began to see the fruits of building a program from the ground up according to Pitino's vision. The main issue plaguing the team was depth. Pitino could not both rebuild a program from the ground up and give it depth in one year during Year 3.
(4) Part of the depth problem was Pitino's "reach" with Konate and Diedhiou. These two soaked up scholarships and left Pitino with no ability to add depth behind Lynch or Murph. This is a problem that took a single decision to create, but 4 years to rectify. Pitino could have run them off and that would have benefitted the team from a win-loss perspective. But that would have been at the cost of his character. I'll take a high character coach every day of the week and twice on Sundays. It's not as though Pitino didn't definitely see the problem and didn't understand what many other coaches would do. He has character and I respect him for that.
(5) Year 5. Lynch legal problems. Amir and Curry injuries. Pree injured and playing but not practicing. The only good thing to come out of this year was that Konate and Diedhiou finally graduated. The scholarships are finally open to create depth.
(6) So here we are in Year 6. I think Pitino being a man of high character has created some of the "problems." Basically his high character prevented him from destroying the final seasons of Hollins and Hollins in the name of rebuilding. It also prevented him from running off Konate and Diedhiou.
The main failures I see are: (i) recruiting two projects like Konate and Diedhiou in the same year; (ii) taking too many risks on high ceiling/low character players; (iii) occasionally aiming to "high" on the recruiting trail - especially in the context of out of state kids with high ratings and no real ties to MN.
Bottom line: (i) I do not see Pitino repeating his failures - he has learned from them; (ii) he had "easy" ways out in a few instances and showed character in not taking the easy paths - this pays off in time and is simply the right thing in any event; (iii) he is a natural and gifted communicator who is unusually candid and this undoubtedly helps his players develop and understand his vision; (iv) it was not reasonable to say "it's Year 5 and look where the program is" because he did not start building the program until Year 3.
I do not support firing Pitino in the name of tit-for-tat with Tubby. Pitino as a man and coach is moving in the right direction and so is the team. I do however hereby BEG him to let IW play 30+ minutes per night for reasons I have articulated in other threads!
