Tubby's winning percentage his last three years here was 37% in conference. Pitino is 35%. Wow, big difference. Pitino was hired because this program could not attract a proven coach, we missed on about ten coaches. No coach has survived this program unscathed in 50 years. The idea with Pitino was to grow the program with him.
He does have a pretty solid core returning next year, if he returns with them. I for one, hope he does. It appears that there are a lot of folks here that cannot wait for him to lose and get fired. I'm sure John Wooden is our next coach, so everything should be fine.
If the players stick around the next John Wooden would get a top 6 of:
Oturu
Curry
Coffey
Kalsheuer
Carr
Washington
Tubby left this core behind for Pitino:
Hollins
Hollins
Walker
Ahanmisi
Ellenson
Osieniks
Buggs
We didn't "miss" on 10 coaches. Teague/Ellis tried to get Stephens, Shaka, and Hoiberg (actually had someone connected tell me this really almost happened) and when they missed on those guys, they wanted their "next Shaka". Shaka turned down UCLA that off season too and both Hoiberg and Stephens ended up taking NBA jobs. I think most of us agree Tubby needed to go, that zero winning conference seasons through 6 seasons was more than enough of a leash. That said, he made the tournament in 3 of 6 years and did so during a period where Minnesota wasn't producing much basketball talent. Unless this teams shocks me and goes like 9-5 in it's last 14, there can't be an argument made that Pitino has even matched Tubby's tenure. I would definitely prefer what Pitino will leave the next coach than what Tubby left Pitino, but both are pretty dismal rosters which is a large reason why I advocated for a change last off season. Pitino gets full credit for turning around Walker so you're really only talking about having Hollins and Hollins and an ok C in Eliason (who had a bad Senior year under Pitino) compared to Coffey, Oturu, Kalscheur, and Carr as guys you can at least expect to be solid rotation players next season.
Nobody is asking for John Wooden, but a 34-62 conference record is completely unacceptable. Tim Miles is 49-65 at F'ing Nebraska. Fran McCaffery is 69-78 at F'ing Iowa. Chris Collins is 37-58 at F'ing Northwestern. Minnesota should expect to be better than those places at an absolute bare minimum. All of those coaches took over a much worse situation than Pitino did. Every one of them has a better conference record than Pitino. If Pitino was say 48-48 with just one NCAA tournament victory, the vast majority of the board would be fine with giving him more time.