Danny Hurley is hiring Minnesota's Kimani Young as an assistant at UConn

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Rouser said:
Agreed, at least 90% of Kimani's job (some assistants focus on x's and o's). Definitely need a top recruiter to fill this spot. We have Ben Johnson for the local connection, we don't need Thorson or DJ IMO.
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Agreed!!!!!

you can have all the Xs and Os you want, but if you don't have a capable player, all is for not.
 

Gopherbbdude said:
Agreed!!!!!

you can have all the Xs and Os you want, but if you don't have a capable player, all is for not.
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What great superstar player did Kimani Young recruit to UMN? Is he so good that no one else could possibly replace him? Is it impossible to find a great X and O coach who also can recruit?
 

One item on Young's departure and us finding his replacement - pure speculation, but no doubt Kimani knows that next year Pitino is likely on the hot seat. It sure is nice to leave on one's own terms, to a coach getting a fresh start with a fresh new contract, as opposed to Pitino getting possibly getting fired next year and Kimani having losing leverage in looking for a new job.

Likewise, assistants that we are going to try to add to the staff will also know the situation they are walking into, and that could hurt our ability to upgrade over Kimani. It wouldn't surprise me if we promoted Ryan Livingston who is our current Director of Basketball Operations, and who previous to coming to the U, was Jay Wright's special assistant to the HC.

I hope we don't settle for that promotion, but we aren't in a position of strength in poaching a top assistant who is currently at a top program.

Go Gophers!!
 

I think this is just the case of him getting a good assistant job on the east coast, and not about his standing/future standing with the gophers.
 

SM_25 said:
I think this is just the case of him getting a good assistant job on the east coast, and not about his standing/future standing with the gophers.
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Ditto. U Conn is not the sisters of the poor. Young is an effective recruiter in the North East and that is their recruiting base. Getting IW was a recruiting gem to schools out East. He was by far the star of NYC and has a lot of young players that look up to him. Pitino is not on the hot seat next year. He would have to be a total disaster to not win with that roster. Even I could “coach” them in the Tourney...lol.


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MennoSota said:
What great superstar player did Kimani Young recruit to UMN? Is he so good that no one else could possibly replace him? Is it impossible to find a great X and O coach who also can recruit?
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still need the right guy to replace KY. another guy from MN would be a mistake. Need to recruit out of state as well.
 

Dave Thorson follows the Gophers' next coach. ...

(Niko Medved) to Colorado State.

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BleedGopher said:
One item on Young's departure and us finding his replacement - pure speculation, but no doubt Kimani knows that next year Pitino is likely on the hot seat. It sure is nice to leave on one's own terms, to a coach getting a fresh start with a fresh new contract, as opposed to Pitino getting possibly getting fired next year and Kimani having losing leverage in looking for a new job.

Likewise, assistants that we are going to try to add to the staff will also know the situation they are walking into, and that could hurt our ability to upgrade over Kimani. It wouldn't surprise me if we promoted Ryan Livingston who is our current Director of Basketball Operations, and who previous to coming to the U, was Jay Wright's special assistant to the HC.

I hope we don't settle for that promotion, but we aren't in a position of strength in poaching a top assistant who is currently at a top program.

Go Gophers!!
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This is what they call in the business... "a hot take"
 

Gopherbbdude said:
still need the right guy to replace KY. another guy from MN would be a mistake. Need to recruit out of state as well.
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Why do we assume a MN guy can only recruit MN? Thorson was super connected working the Nike coaches circuit. Now with that said, hoping we get McHale back now since we lost out on Thorson. I also strongly believe that our offense is fine. If anything I love Nate Mason, but having him and Murphy on the floor together were two guys who were ball stoppers. I think this years group will move the ball better and have less isolation. My bigger issue with our group the last two years is how we defend screens and being in weakside help position.
 



manderson1984 said:
Why do we assume a MN guy can only recruit MN? Thorson was super connected working the Nike coaches circuit. Now with that said, hoping we get McHale back now since we lost out on Thorson. I also strongly believe that our offense is fine. If anything I love Nate Mason, but having him and Murphy on the floor together were two guys who were ball stoppers. I think this years group will move the ball better and have less isolation. My bigger issue with our group the last two years is how we defend screens and being in weakside help position.
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A guy who averaged 4.2 apg (6th in the Big Ten) is a "ball stopper"? Interesting take.
 

dpodoll68 said:
A guy who averaged 4.2 apg (6th in the Big Ten) is a "ball stopper"? Interesting take.
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I mean in the flow of the offense. Our main offense was to run our weave to get the switches and match up we wanted. We then would have a ball screen set at the top. Very effective, but yes it disrupts the flow compared to a more pace and space offense. Now what he did off the ball screens was shoot and also obviously pass, hence his 4.2 apg.
 

manderson1984 said:
I mean in the flow of the offense. Our main offense was to run our weave to get the switches and match up we wanted. We then would have a ball screen set at the top. Very effective, but yes it disrupts the flow compared to a more pace and space offense. Now what he did off the ball screens was shoot and also obviously pass, hence his 4.2 apg.
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I'm not sure what you're trying to say. You just described the Gopher offense, no matter who's playing in it. There's nothing about this that demonstrates addition by subtraction of Mason. Sure, Murphy needs to be better at passing out of the double and triple team, but that has/had nothing to do with Mason.
 

Bad Gopher said:
I'm not sure what you're trying to say. You just described the Gopher offense, no matter who's playing in it. There's nothing about this that demonstrates addition by subtraction of Mason. Sure, Murphy needs to be better at passing out of the double and triple team, but that has/had nothing to do with Mason.
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Yes that was the system so your point is fair, but there were plenty of times when reversals and timing could've been quicker. Also the amount of dribbles was excessive compared to other systems imo. I think and maybe rightfully so because of our injuries that he dominated the ball and slowed our pace. More than fair to blame Pitino on that. When saying I felt the offense was fine, I meant the system when ran more fluidly and I think not having one guy dominate as much will help. My main point and still is that our D was worse and a larger issue.
 



dpodoll68 said:
A guy who averaged 4.2 apg (6th in the Big Ten) is a "ball stopper"? Interesting take.
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You can rack up a lot of assists while playing a ton of minutes at pg and still be a ball stopper at times. Mason often shot the ball without any teammates touching it on the possession. It's hard to deny he took a lot of ill-advised shots, particularly early in the shot clock. It can be really disruptive to the offense when guys get frustrated with those. Washington is another example of a ball-stopper who also gets assists at a reasonably high rate. Which parts of this do you disagree with?
 

oleboy41 said:
As a De grad I love Thorson. As a U fan I love DJ. That said 90% of this gig is recruiting talent so having a high level recruiter is probably better than even getting a great X's and O's guy unless he's a high level talent developer too
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I would imagine Thorson would be a pretty good recruiter.

He has been around basketball a really long time, from the bit I know, he has a good relationship with the AAU circuit, his players seem to like him. He's an old school basketball guy that has been around long enough to make connections and has efficiently navigated AAU/college recruiting/etc.

I'm not arguing for him, I don't know much about the situation to have a strong opinion of who we should hire as an assistant coach. However, I don't think it makes a ton of sense to assume Thorson wouldn't be a good recruiter.
 

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