STrib: No preseason love for Gophers hoops: No picks better than 10th in Big Ten

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Bob_Loblaw said:
I don't think any of us really knew what to expect out of Demir. If anyone expected a great player, they must've forgotten all about Brock Stull.

Your logic is pretty flawed here. You seem to be arguing that you thought Demir was going to be a good basketball player AND you still thought we'd be this bad?

Ok, I guess you don't think finishing 12th in the Big 10 and going 14-16 overall was a massive underperformance? I don't think in your world Pitino should ever be fired. It's hard to dip much lower than we are now, and if you can't even call this season a massive underperformance, it'll be almost impossible to find a scenario where that happens.
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For me, I could take finishing 12th in the Big Ten if there was reason to be optimistic for the future. I realize we are not going to win the Big Ten and the National Championship every year but there has to be some type of positive direction or hope for the future. Seven years in, I do not have any such hope for this team. Next year we will have the 12th best team again and the results should be fairly similar to this year. Talent-wise, we are not there and we will again have one of the weakest benches in the league. And when you pick up the college basketball magazine for next year, you will again see us in the same spot at or near the bottom. We are going nowhere!!
 


I picked 8-12 before the season. With better late game composure/coaching this team should have been 11-9, easy peasy.
 

Gold Rush said:
For me, I could take finishing 12th in the Big Ten if there was reason to be optimistic for the future. I realize we are not going to win the Big Ten and the National Championship every year but there has to be some type of positive direction or hope for the future. Seven years in, I do not have any such hope for this team. Next year we will have the 12th best team again and the results should be fairly similar to this year. Talent-wise, we are not there and we will again have one of the weakest benches in the league. And when you pick up the college basketball magazine for next year, you will again see us in the same spot at or near the bottom. We are going nowhere!!
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12th place at 8-12? Who cares. They could have easily been 11-9 in which case they would have been tied for fifth. The Gophers were solid this year minus the late game issues.

That said, Northwestern will be a tough game and people will no doubt call for Pitino's head if they lose. If they beat Northwestern I see them going on a run.
 

John Galt said:
How stunned are you?
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Quite. I was encouraged by the direction of the team last year, and pretty shocked at how bad they were this year. This was an ugly regular season, and now we are left to hope for a BTT miracle to salvage anything from this year's bedwetting.
 


Bob_Loblaw said:
Ok, I guess you don't think finishing 12th in the Big 10 and going 14-16 overall was a massive underperformance?
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Compared to what I would want, yes. Compared to Pitino's history, this season is just sort of an average underperformance. After all, the man did have an 8 win season and this is the 4th time in his 7 years we are playing in the Wednesday round of the Big Ten tournament.
 

Block M said:
That said, Northwestern will be a tough game and people will no doubt call for Pitino's head if they lose.
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Let me see if I understand. Are you saying that, after playing in the opening round of the Big Ten tournament for 4 of the last 7 years, Pitino shouldn't be fired if he loses to a team that won 8 games the entire season?
 

cjbfbp said:
Let me see if I understand. Are you saying that, after playing in the opening round of the Big Ten tournament for 4 of the last 7 years, Pitino shouldn't be fired if he loses to a team that won 8 games the entire season?
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Where did he say that?
 





It’s called Weakling Wednesday or the Rutgers Invitational, though the host decided to be a good team this season and not play until Thursday.
 

SelectionSunday said:
It’s called Weakling Wednesday or the Rutgers Invitational, though the host decided to be a good team this season and not play until Thursday.
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Yes, I had been calling it that (WW) most of the time but I felt I was overusing the phrase.
 




cjbfbp said:
Yes, I had been calling it that (WW) most of the time but I felt I was overusing the phrase.
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If they cancel the tournament it will be Wuhan Wednesday.
 


Someone asked me at the beginning of the year what it would take for me to support Pitino. My answer was clear- make the tournament and he would deserve an extension.

At this point, it’s basically fruitless to argue against the diehard Pitino supporters. For some reason, they absolutely love the guy and will remain convinced he’s always on the verge of taking us somewhere. I am fully convinced we could win 4-5 games next year, which is likely if we don’t have Oturu, and they still wouldn’t give up hope.
 

John Galt said:
Someone asked me at the beginning of the year what it would take for me to support Pitino. My answer was clear- make the tournament and he would deserve an extension.

At this point, it’s basically fruitless to argue against the diehard Pitino supporters. For some reason, they absolutely love the guy and will remain convinced he’s always on the verge of taking us somewhere. I am fully convinced we could win 4-5 games next year, which is likely if we don’t have Oturu, and they still wouldn’t give up hope.
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Weak post. Poorly thought out and a weak attempt to pigeonhole your perceived opposition by falsely framing their position.
 

MplsGopher said:
What about when they beat NW and then lose to Iowa?
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Nothing short of a run that has us playing Sunday is going to change Coyle's mind if he is presently intent on replacing Pitino. Even that might not do it if they don't win the championship. Coyle is the person who counts here.
 


bga1 said:
I disagree with you on most everything there.

As to the last scenario on Oturu, you have to couple that with Gabe and Demir going on historic shooting slumps throughout the year.
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I would add that Gabe and Demir's shooting slumps are not totally mutually exclusive from Pitino's coaching. I see a little connection there: confidence level, shot selections, etc.
 

John Galt said:
Someone asked me at the beginning of the year what it would take for me to support Pitino. My answer was clear- make the tournament and he would deserve an extension.

At this point, it’s basically fruitless to argue against the diehard Pitino supporters. For some reason, they absolutely love the guy and will remain convinced he’s always on the verge of taking us somewhere. I am fully convinced we could win 4-5 games next year, which is likely if we don’t have Oturu, and they still wouldn’t give up hope.
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It's easy for me to see why they absolutely love the guy, I absolutely love the guy. He is a fun and engaging coach with respect to media and fans. But results, and not likeability, should be what determines his future. And his results are absolutely fire-worthy.

On the flip side, Fleck annoys the heck out of me, and I am 100% supportive of the decision to extend him after his great performance last season. It's fun for me to like the coach, but I'm much more interested in wins and losses (with the obvious caveat that those wins can't come through cheating or other unethical means).
 

bleedsmaroonandgold said:
It's easy for me to see why they absolutely love the guy, I absolutely love the guy. He is a fun and engaging coach with respect to media and fans. But results, and not likeability, should be what determines his future. And his results are absolutely fire-worthy.

On the flip side, Fleck annoys the heck out of me, and I am 100% supportive of the decision to extend him after his great performance last season. It's fun for me to like the coach, but I'm much more interested in wins and losses (with the obvious caveat that those wins can't come through cheating or other unethical means).
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This is actually true with me, too. As I have said before, it will be very hard for Coyle to fire Pitino for this very reason. He may elect to give him "one more chance." But I think his silence on this whole matter speaks loudly. He could have come out and said Pitino is his coach no matter what and ended speculation. This leads me to believe he is thinking about it at the very least and possibly for the first time in Pitino's tenure. When Coyle fired Claeys he kept it pretty quiet and had the Fleck hire all set to go. I believe he will do the same thing here.

But as time goes on, I think Coyle won't have the heart to fire Pitino right now and he will be back for next year. If Pitino comes back, I will continue to support him and wish him the very best that he can turn it around. But the wheels are in motion - Pitino will be going into next year on the serious hotseat for the very first time. I don't think 12th place again is going to cut it next year.
 

I predicted 5-6 conference wins, so they did better than I imagined. I still say it is time for change.
 

bleedsmaroonandgold said:
It's easy for me to see why they absolutely love the guy, I absolutely love the guy. He is a fun and engaging coach with respect to media and fans. But results, and not likeability, should be what determines his future. And his results are absolutely fire-worthy.

On the flip side, Fleck annoys the heck out of me, and I am 100% supportive of the decision to extend him after his great performance last season. It's fun for me to like the coach, but I'm much more interested in wins and losses (with the obvious caveat that those wins can't come through cheating or other unethical means).
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I also like to win but I’ll add another caveat of my own in addition to yours. I’ll like to see Minnesota kids play and I like to see players who stay around a while. I really enjoyed watching Murphy play for four years. Seeing Oturu develop from his freshman year has been great. Hope he sticks around for another year.
 



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