Andy Katz: Flip DECLINES Gophers job offer

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The immediate future of Gopher basketball is going to based on how many of the Big 3 we can convince to stay home. If they stay, we will be successful and staying home will become the "cool thing to do." If they leave, it will become cool to go to other locations. This coaching search is leaving me with the feeling that Gopher basketball will not be relevant for a while. What a sad state our program is in.
 

lugnard said:
You gotta be kidding? This is going to be the single biggest hire Teague makes and he should just let it go?

The assistants do 90% of the actual on court coaching. They do almost ALL the recruiting. The single most important and in many ways ONLY important thing a head coach does is hire ass kick assistants. Teague knows this - I bet even Flip knows it. Yet he insists on blowing up the deal because he can't have his kid on board.

Teague shouldn't walk away from this he should RUN.
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D'oh kay. That's why the head coach is looking at nearly $3 mill year all in and the last assistant less than $90k. Saul ~ 90k. Taylor ~150k. Jirsa ~160k.

You're going to go in a different direction on the head coach because of his third assistant? That's crazy talk.

I'll all for no nepotism, and think it should be law at the U, but if coach K wanted to hire his wife as his third assistant I'd let him. I'd also let someone I offered the head coach gig to hire his NBA employed son.
 

GopherHomer said:
The immediate future of Gopher basketball is going to based on how many of the Big 3 we can convince to stay home. If they stay, we will be successful and staying home will become the "cool thing to do." If they leave, it will become cool to go to other locations. This coaching search is leaving me with the feeling that Gopher basketball will not be relevant for a while. What a sad state our program is in.
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Which is why this search has brought out so much passion, as it is that important.
 

GopherHomer said:
The immediate future of Gopher basketball is going to based on how many of the Big 3 we can convince to stay home. If they stay, we will be successful and staying home will become the "cool thing to do." If they leave, it will become cool to go to other locations. This coaching search is leaving me with the feeling that Gopher basketball will not be relevant for a while. What a sad state our program is in.
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We won't get any of the 3 anymore...I will take bets!
 

No publicity is bad publicity. All publicity is good publicity. Teague has sure dominated the hoops headlines this week. Maybe it has the BI3 interested.
 


Dr.Don said:
If Flip really turned down a potential $2M job to make sure Junior gets a $90 - $100 thousand job doesn't sound like good financial planning to me.
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Pretty sure Flip feels like he can make $2 million / year in the NBA and/or has made so much coin off the Wolves, Pistons, and Wizards that he really doesn't care about good financial planning in the same way you and I might.
 

Replacement Gopher said:
Pretty sure Flip feels like he can make $2 million / year in the NBA and/or has made so much coin off the Wolves, Pistons, and Wizards that he really doesn't care about good financial planning in the same way you and I might.
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Not to mention it's actually in the U's best interest to employ former players who've been assistants elsewhere.
 

Ron Johnson Super Fan said:
So hiring an inept Ryan was going to sink the operation? Flips knows that but doesn't care? He's willing to hurt the Gopher basketball program so that his son can have an entry level position for a couple of years?

Sorry, but I'm not buying. Like I said earlier lets see who the Villa 7 candidate brings in as assistants. If they're all more qualified than Ryan I'll man up an admit that I was wrong.
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Seriously - after Saul - do it again - you have to be kidding?

I can understand oldtimers defending the has been legend but also defending his kid?

If Flip really wanted the job and wanted to do best for the U - not his kids, not his friends, not the Timberwolves - he would have agreed to hire the best available college assistants he could find and would have been happy to have 'input' from others. He didn't do that. Thank God Teague didn't cave.
 

Replacement Gopher said:
Pretty sure Flip feels like he can make $2 million / year in the NBA and/or has made so much coin off the Wolves, Pistons, and Wizards that he really doesn't care about good financial planning in the same way you and I might.
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Then tell his kid he won't be an asst coach but you can drive me to and from work - be on Flip's personal payroll. Not much the U could do about that. Efect is the same thing. Unless the goal was to try to plant his kid as next head coach.

This whole thing stinks - top to bottom.
 



discochris said:
I don't care about your so-called values. I care about this team hiring someone who can win games here. Apparently you would rather hire a saint that loses than a jerk that wins. I guess my question then is, why are you even here?
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Yeah, because you have to be an ashhole or a jerk to be a winner?!


Ever hear of Tony Dungy? And he's just one of many coaches who weren't jerks who did just fine and won plenty.


And btw, I don't care if you care about my values or not. YOU and all your thug loving "win at all costs" jerk loving, as long they win I love em, friends, are NOT going to get me to change my values, so why are you trying?

Just accept that fact that I don't think like you do, and move on.


Maybe I shouldn't have said anything, I'm not trying to convert anyone or get anyone to change their values, although with the history we have with coaches and scandals, didn't do us much good that those coaches won games. We don't even get to count those wins now. The VAST MAJORITY of our wins don't even count because they came at the hands of scandal ridden coaches, and its stained our reputation in a very bad way, I still see people bringing it up and throwing it in Gopher fans faces.

And in light of that, you would be fine with some Bobby Knight like angry chair throwing coach coming in tarnishing our reputation even more, as long as he wins?!


I've got news for you, fans throughout the country would get even uglier in their remarks and comments and how they viewed the Gophers if that happened. It's partly when they bashed us so badly for firing Tubby.

The backlash would be incredible.



I for one, do not think I'd like that. Not when there are coaches out there who can bring us victories AND help fix our reputation at the same time.

One of those coaches is Flip Saunders, as far as I can tell.


So I hope we can just agree to disagree about this. But I hope, if you win anyway we can guys really believe that, that you at least are not the same people who support not hiring Flip over his wanting to have his son on his staff issue. For that would be pretty hypocritical, or not so much that, but it just wouldn't make sense to me.
 

GopherHomer said:
The immediate future of Gopher basketball is going to based on how many of the Big 3 we can convince to stay home. If they stay, we will be successful and staying home will become the "cool thing to do." If they leave, it will become cool to go to other locations. This coaching search is leaving me with the feeling that Gopher basketball will not be relevant for a while. What a sad state our program is in.
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Not only that, but how quickly we get that Practice Facility up and operational, is also a big factor as well.
 

#1nHkyCfbBsbDncSolarDebat said:
And in light of that, you would be fine with some Bobby Knight like angry chair throwing coach coming in tarnishing our reputation even more, as long as he wins?!
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Knight didn't run a dirty program. In fact, for all his bad behavior, he was known to be a guy who had relatively clean programs with high graduation rates.
 

GopherHomer said:
The immediate future of Gopher basketball is going to based on how many of the Big 3 we can convince to stay home. If they stay, we will be successful and staying home will become the "cool thing to do." If they leave, it will become cool to go to other locations. This coaching search is leaving me with the feeling that Gopher basketball will not be relevant for a while. What a sad state our program is in.
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The immediate future isn't as important as the longer haul.

I fully expect these kids to go elsewhere. Expected that if Tubby stayed. Flip was hired or somebody else. They have options - good ones.

So the real mission is build a base long term - over years based on fundamental good practices necessary to build one helluva a good program. Facilities are part. Great coaches with solid assistants is part. Increasingly better recruiting classes is part. Those recruits will come form all over - not just Minnesota.

Go for [another] quick fix and we will be back to square one in 3-4 years. Flip could be that guy but it won't be with his kids or old cronies - if he wants to be that guy he too has to be willing to accept some changes.
 



discochris said:
Knight didn't run a dirty program. In fact, for all his bad behavior, he was known to be a guy who had relatively clean programs with high graduation rates.
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He was kind of a psycho but was never once associated with cheating or cutting corners.

People sometimes confuse the two - they aren't the same.
 

I missed it, what's wrong with Ryan Saunders? Why do people assume coaches kids won't work hard or pan out? It's counter intuitive to me.
 

lugnard said:
The immediate future isn't as important as the longer haul.
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I tend to disagree. Success breeds success. I don't think there's a better way of building a successful team in the immediate future than to pick up one or more of the Big Three. And then after that, the 2015 class is fairly loaded as well. The next two years of recruiting could be a HUGE boost for the program. Obviously it would take some building either way, but I firmly believe that it's a long-term process, but there's a huge possibility for a head start in the next two years.
 

MinneStoa said:
I tend to disagree. Success breeds success. I don't think there's a better way of building a successful team in the immediate future than to pick up one or more of the Big Three. And then after that, the 2015 class is fairly loaded as well. The next two years of recruiting could be a HUGE boost for the program. Obviously it would take some building either way, but I firmly believe that it's a long-term process, but there's a huge possibility for a head start in the next two years.
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Those kids aren't coming. If we had our act together now we probably wouldn't land them. Not when Duke or Kansas or Kentucky calls. That happens with the truly elite everywhere.

So the rational thing to do is plan for the alternative and build the base - its slower but surer. There are no short cuts.

But if we build the base - take the time to do it right - ten years from now we will be one of those challenging for the elites in every state.

There is nothing - hiring or not hiring Flip - going to change that.
 

Gold Vision said:
I missed it, what's wrong with Ryan Saunders? Why do people assume coaches kids won't work hard or pan out? It's counter intuitive to me.
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Apparently Saul has poisoned the waters so much that Flip shouldn't be hired because he wants Ryan along for the ride.
 


goldengophers said:
Not to mention it's actually in the U's best interest to employ former players who've been assistants elsewhere.
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I agree with this. It shows possible recruits exactly what their future could be.


"Hi, my name is Ryan Saunders, and I am here to talk to you today about the possibility of your playing bb for the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers. And I know a little bit about playing for the Gophers, and not just from the perspective of an Assistant Coach. See, my father used to play for the Gophers, and I played for the Gophers as well. When talking about the possibilities for your future, well, lets look at a couple examples.
You could either end up in the Pros like 42 Former Gophers have in the past, or as an NBA Coach like former Gophers John Kundla and Flip Saunders did, Flip who also happens to be our head coach, or as a college Assistant Coach like numerous former Gophers have, myself included, and these are just 3 examples of sports related jobs former players have ended up with."


I think a recruit might be impressed by such a recruiting spiel.
 

lugnard said:
Those kids aren't coming. If we had our act together now we probably wouldn't land them. Not when Duke or Kansas or Kentucky calls. That happens with the truly elite everywhere.

So the rational thing to do is plan for the alternative and build the base - its slower but surer. There are no short cuts.

But if we build the base - take the time to do it right - ten years from now we will be one of those challenging for the elites in every state.

There is nothing - hiring or not hiring Flip - going to change that.
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It can go either way, we've stolen away Humpheries from Duke. For you to claim they wouldn't come here is pure subjective opinion.
 

Gold Vision said:
I missed it, what's wrong with Ryan Saunders? Why do people assume coaches kids won't work hard or pan out? It's counter intuitive to me.
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He has no resume short of gigs dad helped him land. None of them coaching. Work hard or not work hard we need qualified people and now. especially coming off the staff Tubby had INCLUDING HIS OWN SON. You want to repeat that? Really? Flip shouldn't have even asked.
 

discochris said:
Knight didn't run a dirty program. In fact, for all his bad behavior, he was known to be a guy who had relatively clean programs with high graduation rates.
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That is true, but you think people would give us, the Cheating Gophers, the benefit of the doubt on that? I know that most of them wouldn't.
 

Gold Vision said:
I missed it, what's wrong with Ryan Saunders? Why do people assume coaches kids won't work hard or pan out? It's counter intuitive to me.
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Some feel he isn't qualified. Personally, I don't think ryan should be the reason this can't be worked out. Ryan has experience scouting and using advanced stats to judge opponents. There's room on a college staff for someone with that knowledge. And he knows what it's like playing for the U and can relate to the players. Could there be more qualified applicants for a spot on the staff? Sure. Should it keep Flip from getting the job? No, IMO.
 

goldengophers said:
It can go either way, we've stolen away Humpheries from Duke. For you to claim they wouldn't come here is pure subjective opinion.
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Duke was totally okay with Humphries going away - they saw in him a one and done and they had too many of those already. K tries to keep them at least three years [when he can]. He isn't Kentucky.
 

lugnard said:
Those kids aren't coming. If we had our act together now we probably wouldn't land them. Not when Duke or Kansas or Kentucky calls. That happens with the truly elite everywhere.
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Listen, I understand that the Blue Bloods are hard to compete with. But you're being awfully definitive. They're not coming here?

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/basketball/recruiting/playerrankings

Tell that to Arkansas. Tell that to UTEP. Tell that to LSU. Tell that to Wake Forest who has the #21 recruit in the 2014 class committed. Of course it's going to be a battle, but entirely writing off three high-level recruits who grew up in the U's backyard is not a good way to go about building a program.
 

MinneStoa said:
I tend to disagree. Success breeds success. I don't think there's a better way of building a successful team in the immediate future than to pick up one or more of the Big Three. And then after that, the 2015 class is fairly loaded as well. The next two years of recruiting could be a HUGE boost for the program. Obviously it would take some building either way, but I firmly believe that it's a long-term process, but there's a huge possibility for a head start in the next two years.
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Exactly, well said.
 


jaymil said:
Some feel he isn't qualified. Personally, I don't think ryan should be the reason this can't be worked out. Ryan has experience scouting and using advanced stats to judge opponents. There's room on a college staff for someone with that knowledge. And he knows what it's like playing for the U and can relate to the players. Could there be more qualified applicants for a spot on the staff? Sure. Should it keep Flip from getting the job? No, IMO.
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After Saul - I do. There are literally HUNDREDS of kids who can crunch stats at the U. As an engineering grad I can absolutely testify to that. They don't have to be the coaches son and eat a salary that can go to a real coach.

It shouldn't have derailed the hire - that I agree with - Flip should have seen the wisdom of how bad the optics were [more crony U] and not even ask. If he wants to pay the kid out of his $$$ do it.
 

jaymil said:
Some feel he isn't qualified. Personally, I don't think ryan should be the reason this can't be worked out. Ryan has experience scouting and using advanced stats to judge opponents. There's room on a college staff for someone with that knowledge. And he knows what it's like playing for the U and can relate to the players. Could there be more qualified applicants for a spot on the staff? Sure. Should it keep Flip from getting the job? No, IMO.
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If Teague has a policy against nepotism(as many companies do) he has to stick with it. Can't decide these issues on a case by case basis. If Flip doesn't want the job without his son, he doesn't want the job.
 

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