per Amelia:
1. Does this mean Pitino is definitely not leaving? No, it doesn’t. I do believe he’s genuinely happy in Minnesota, as he says, and the jump-and-rebuild, jump-and-rebuild process is not a fun one for coaches.
While next year’s team will be young and raw and could struggle a lot, it will finally be his foundation: players recruited to his system; a culture firmly in place. At the same time, this is not a business of loyalty. If and when the right offer comes, Pitino may well leave and it could be before people think. In his release, he stopped short of saying he is staying or making any meaningful statement beyond the fact that he likes it here. To be clear, I don’t think Pitino plans on leaving. But at this stage, I’m also not sure he plans on not leaving.
2. Despite frustration from the local fanbase, Pitino’s value from a national perspective hasn’t gone down. Pitino was hired at Minnesota two years ago on the basis that he a) had a stellar resume as an assistant b) seemed to have a lot of upside and room to grow and c) the name doesn’t hurt. One thing he wasn’t hired for? His immaculate record as a head coach. He’d only coached one year in that role, after all, and although it was a solid one at Florida International, it hardly provided the sample size to determine anything. The reason places like Minnesota (or Alabama, for that matter) make hires like this is that they hope to get in on the ground floor. Once a young, trendy coach gets to be TOO hot a name, he becomes unhireable for the Minnesotas and the Alabamas of the world. He becomes a Shaka Smart or a Brad Stevens. But most coaches go through some early growing pains. Programs who look at Pitino’s body of work, in its context (shortened recruiting periods, in one of the toughest leagues in the country) and determine they see potential there, would be smart to try to lure him away before he wins his way to the next tier. Hires like this have big risk as well, of course, and Minnesota did take on some risk when hiring Pitino. It’s also probably the only way a place like Minnesota or Alabama gets a GREAT coach at this stage of the program (that or rain money). Pitino’s value hasn’t diminished at all because he’s still 32 and a third-year head coach. The upside and the potential is still there – he hasn’t fallen on his face, after all – even if the immediate results aren’t.
http://www.startribune.com/sports/blogs/298602871.html
Go Gophers!!