8 years ago on this board...

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...you were all doom and gloom about Pitino having quick success here and bolting for the Louisville job to replace his father.

Your crystal balls are broken.

I get it, when you don't win anything for 40 years, coaching searches are the only place where you seek victories. But plenty of "great hires" have turned into nothing, so it was time for a different approach.

We'll see.
 

Did people really think Pitino was a great hire? I don’t remember.

I would think I would’ve thought it was a pretty big gamble given his inexperience
 

Chicago Gophers said:
...you were all doom and gloom about Pitino having quick success here and bolting for the Louisville job to replace his father.

Your crystal balls are broken.

I get it, when you don't win anything for 40 years, coaching searches are the only place where you seek victories. But plenty of "great hires" have turned into nothing, so it was time for a different approach.

We'll see.
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And that worked out well.
 

Some guy said:
Did people really think Pitino was a great hire? I don’t remember.

I would think I would’ve thought it was a pretty big gamble given his inexperience
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I'm sure there was a small segment that did but iir most were on the fence and had a wait and see attitude.
 

Some guy said:
Did people really think Pitino was a great hire? I don’t remember.

I would think I would’ve thought it was a pretty big gamble given his inexperience
Click to expand...
No. We talked ourselves into it after the fact. But no.

Pitino was more like the Brew hiring. He was following an older solid coach who we grew bored with (felt stagnant) with our eyes on recruiting and a fast-paced system.
 


Bob_Loblaw said:
No. We talked ourselves into it after the fact. But no.

Pitino was more like the Brew hiring. He was following an older solid coach who we grew bored with (felt stagnant) with our eyes on recruiting and a fast-paced system.
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Too funny. I literally just commented to you that Johnson feels like Brewster to me in a different thread
 

CentralGopher said:
I'm sure there was a small segment that did but iir most were on the fence and had a wait and see attitude.
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I remember the excitement over the Pitino "name" coming to the U. I also remember the angst of fans when ever a rumor was circulated that Pitino was being considered for other openings.
 

Chicago Gophers said:
...you were all doom and gloom about Pitino having quick success here and bolting for the Louisville job to replace his father.

Your crystal balls are broken.

I get it, when you don't win anything for 40 years, coaching searches are the only place where you seek victories. But plenty of "great hires" have turned into nothing, so it was time for a different approach.

We'll see.
Click to expand...
The problem is this isn't a different approach, and that is why people are upset. It is literally the same approach as was taken with Pitino. Pitino literally had next to no HC resume; many people raised this as an issue. Yet others used this blank slate to fill it with what they wanted to see. They filled it in with, he learned from Rick and Donovan, therefore he will be a smashing success. Now we have the exact same thing. We have a HC who has no history of which to make an objective assessment, so now people can fill in what ever they want with what he can do, then we have others who say this guy has no track record. We literally are reliving Pitino selection part 2.
 




I called pitino half-baked, so little HC experience and a steep learning curve. With Johnson the oven is still preheating.

I hope he’s the bball equivalent of fleck. Year one can be a disaster (fleck went 1-11 at wmu) but years two three and four should be better than the prior year.
 

I remember posting on my old account. I was more excited about Pitino than Johnson more because of his name and family legacy in basketball. It was not a homerun hire, and he wasn't as much as a rising coach as Enfield or Chris Collins. Pitino did better than Collins, I guess but the hire was not a success after Pitino was fired. We are again rebuilding and almost worse off than Tubby left us. That's why people I think are mostly shocked that Ben Johnson is now our coach. He has a lot to accomplish and no coaching experience.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
No. We talked ourselves into it after the fact. But no.

Pitino was more like the Brew hiring. He was following an older solid coach who we grew bored with (felt stagnant) with our eyes on recruiting and a fast-paced system.
Click to expand...
Whats weird about Pitino is how he coached FIU was way different than here. He pressed and ran there. Never even tried it here, even when I feel like he had the horses to do it. Guys like Amir were so dangerous in the open court and his length would have caused all sorts of issues of pressing.
 

UpAndUnder43 said:
Whats weird about Pitino is how he coached FIU was way different than here. He pressed and ran there. Never even tried it here, even when I feel like he had the horses to do it. Guys like Amir were so dangerous in the open court and his length would have caused all sorts of issues of pressing.
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It was weird.

It is one of the things that concerns me with what I've read about Johnson. It was an article with the Xavier assistant coaches and he was talking about how you need to recruit different depending upon the conference. He mentioned more traditional post players in the Big 10 and that really had me worried that he is going to go that route.
 



This time the hire wasn’t based on his last name.
 

Gopherfan1000 said:
I remember posting on my old account. I was more excited about Pitino than Johnson more because of his name and family legacy in basketball. It was not a homerun hire, and he wasn't as much as a rising coach as Enfield or Chris Collins. Pitino did better than Collins, I guess but the hire was not a success after Pitino was fired. We are again rebuilding and almost worse off than Tubby left us. That's why people I think are mostly shocked that Ben Johnson is now our coach. He has a lot to accomplish and no Head coaching experience.
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He's been coaching for 16 years.
 

Some guy said:
Did people really think Pitino was a great hire? I don’t remember.

I would think I would’ve thought it was a pretty big gamble given his inexperience
Click to expand...

I don't think I hung out here then but my guess is only the perennial optimists would have thought he was a great hire. I had absolutely no opinion about him at the time.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
It was weird.

It is one of the things that concerns me with what I've read about Johnson. It was an article with the Xavier assistant coaches and he was talking about how you need to recruit different depending upon the conference. He mentioned more traditional post players in the Big 10 and that really had me worried that he is going to go that route.
Click to expand...

Well, good post players are valuable in this conference. That's a position the Gophers recruited pretty well over Pitino's tenure (Lynch, Oturu, Robbins). If by "traditional," you mean ones who can't shoot from outside, the latter of those two weren't bad at all. I think post players these days realize they will be called on to shoot outside more often so more of them work outside shooting than they might have decades ago.

Now, Bakary was a dud but I blame that almost as much on poor player development as on poor recruiting.
 

GopherOhana said:
I called pitino half-baked, so little HC experience and a steep learning curve. With Johnson the oven is still preheating.

I hope he’s the bball equivalent of fleck. Year one can be a disaster (fleck went 1-11 at wmu) but years two three and four should be better than the prior year.
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Year Zero.
 

Some guy said:
Did people really think Pitino was a great hire? I don’t remember.

I would think I would’ve thought it was a pretty big gamble given his inexperience
Click to expand...
Truth....I thought it was a huge gamble, a hope and pray type hire....I could see signs after 4 years that he was a bust and was pleading with Coyle to fire him through email.
 


Gopherfan1000 said:
I remember posting on my old account. I was more excited about Pitino than Johnson more because of his name and family legacy in basketball. It was not a homerun hire, and he wasn't as much as a rising coach as Enfield or Chris Collins. Pitino did better than Collins, I guess but the hire was not a success after Pitino was fired. We are again rebuilding and almost worse off than Tubby left us. That's why people I think are mostly shocked that Ben Johnson is now our coach. He has a lot to accomplish and no coaching experience.
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"Pitino did better than Collins."

Yes, but almost any coach would do better here than at Northwestern over an 8 year period. The same thing is true of Penn State. Those programs are very tough places to win. Just go to College Basketball at Sports Reference and check out their histories. Both Pitino and Monson (and, of course, Tubby) had better overall records than any coaches of those programs in memory. You have to go back to PSU's pre-Big Ten days to find a coach with a better overall record than any of those Minnesota coaches.

"We are again rebuilding and almost worse off than Tubby left us. That's why people I think are mostly shocked that Ben Johnson is now our coach. He has a lot to accomplish and no coaching experience."

Tubby did not leave the cupboard completely bare. He left four players who were significant contributors (to one degree or another) in the year after he left and even Oto and Maverick had their moments that year.

Pitino had less overall coaching experience and recruiting experience than Johnson when he arrived here but he still was able to pick up three players (Mathieu, King, and Malik Smith) in the offseason who were a big help in that first year. If Pitino could do that, I don't know why Johnson can't. He also has a much bigger transfer market with a more immediate payoff that Pitino had.
 

GopherVotary said:
This time the hire wasn’t based on his last name.
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Not so sure given Minnesota is the state where you are most likely to meet a person named JOHNSON, as 1515.15 in every 100,000 Minnesotans have this name while Smith there is only 470.31 per 100,000. Therefore by hiring Johnson he wins the popularity contest.
 

How about Shaka, Tim Miles, and Saul Phillips...the other favs? They haven't had much success either.
 

I thought Pitino was a downgrade from Tubby. Ben is a downgrade from Pitino. You gotta hit rock bottom I guess.
 

The problem now is that we'll compare him to a Fleck type rather than a Brewster or Tubby type. A higher standard for sure.
 

PhiloVance said:
Not so sure given Minnesota is the state where you are most likely to meet a person named JOHNSON, as 1515.15 in every 100,000 Minnesotans have this name while Smith there is only 470.31 per 100,000. Therefore by hiring Johnson he wins the popularity contest.
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”Come to Minnesota and see our Johnsons!”
 

Gopherholer were also happy that we hired Pitino instead of Eric Musselman. Look how that turned out. I am going to trust the guy whose job depends on it being a good hire. I think hiring local worked out well for Wisconsin in BBall and for OSU in FBall. Sometimes the local known commodity is just the right call. It is high risk, high reward. Not something I would have done, but Coyle is the one who is putting his head on the line.
 


Flipper1a said:
How about Shaka, Tim Miles, and Saul Phillips...the other favs? They haven't had much success either.
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Tim miles and saul phillips would have probably not been received well either. Shaka would have generated some buzz.
 

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