Destiny PItts: Transfers to Texas A&M (All Things Suspension and Transfer Related)

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baller4life said:
No we don't. We have Whalen and the University lying about the relationship between the Bellos' absence and Destiny's. We have a coach who is largely embarrassed in the Big Ten and absolutely chokes in any crunch time situations. Who doesn't know how to use timeouts. Whose team offense is regularly stalled out against inferior teams playing zone. Whose only adjustment in a year in a half is a full court trap. Man to man defense everywhere! All of the time! You want to know why you show a simple zone defense once or twice in the first half? So a team wastes X% of its halftime talk going over that. At the minimum, you do it out of another team's timeouts, so they have to spend every timeout against you going over at least two plays (vs. man, vs. zone).

Every good basketball coach on planet Earth knows all of the above. And yet, here we are a year and a half into this experiment, and you are still defending her performance as a coach?

But hey... let's not forget her two assistants with head coaching experience, both of whom have abysmal records as leaders... they are FOR SURE the reason why Whalen has good advice! It's why she handled this Pitts situation so well! They are going to turn things around guaranteed!

For what it's worth:
A. Whalen should have disciplined Pitts.
B. Whalen should not have handled all of this the way she did, and it speaks to her inexperience and the poor input she gets from inferior coaches who have their positions out of loyalty rather than merit.

A and B can both be true.

Lindsay Whalen is here to fill as many seats as possible because of her name. That's it. Want proof? I can't be at Williams arena without seeing her name, face, or hearing about how the next game is "Lindsay Whalen free ___ Night." I've never heard of any coach, of any sport, having a "Coach's Name here" Night once, let alone all the time.

A. Lindsay Whalen had a decorated career as a student athlete at Minnesota and as a professional women's basketball player in the WNBA.
B. She's in way over her head right now.

A and B can both be true.
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This sounds like something a player that just entered the transfer portal would post tbh. Hope your well Pitts.
 

baller4life said:
No we don't. We have Whalen and the University lying about the relationship between the Bellos' absence and Destiny's. We have a coach who is largely embarrassed in the Big Ten and absolutely chokes in any crunch time situations. Who doesn't know how to use timeouts. Whose team offense is regularly stalled out against inferior teams playing zone. Whose only adjustment in a year in a half is a full court trap. Man to man defense everywhere! All of the time! You want to know why you show a simple zone defense once or twice in the first half? So a team wastes X% of its halftime talk going over that. At the minimum, you do it out of another team's timeouts, so they have to spend every timeout against you going over at least two plays (vs. man, vs. zone).
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Tons of really successful coaches instill and build a culture only playing one specific type of defense. If a team plays zone one or twice a half, any other intelligent coach will not waste time talking about it because it's only 1-2 possessions over a 100 possession game. I appreciate that she's only playing man. As far as the lying goes, how do we know that wasn't out of protection of the Bellos? If she'd come out and said it was related, then does she get in trouble for violation of privacy? I don't really know of any coaches who'd answer that question with a yes. It'd be a no or a no comment. 95% of coaches are deceptive with the media in some form or fashion, I won't hold that against her yet.

baller4life said:
Every good basketball coach on planet Earth knows all of the above. And yet, here we are a year and a half into this experiment, and you are still defending her performance as a coach?

But hey... let's not forget her two assistants with head coaching experience, both of whom have abysmal records as leaders... they are FOR SURE the reason why Whalen has good advice! It's why she handled this Pitts situation so well! They are going to turn things around guaranteed!

For what it's worth:
A. Whalen should have disciplined Pitts.
B. Whalen should not have handled all of this the way she did, and it speaks to her inexperience and the poor input she gets from inferior coaches who have their positions out of loyalty rather than merit.

A and B can both be true.
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So a coach can only be a good coach if they can win games as a head coach? Rob Jeter on the mens side is a wonderful teacher and coach and didn't have a ton of success as an HC and even got fired. So is he now a bad coach? Guys like Pete Carroll and and Bill Bilichick lost bad in their first jobs. Did that make them bad coaches? What I was talking about was this situation with Pitts. I'm saying that her staff is experienced enough and Lindsey has been around basketball enough to not handle it the way it's been portrayed. Obviously it could've been done better because the player felt slighted. That doesn't mean that Whalen or her staff didn't make an effort. My struggle is we just are automatically giving one players word as full truth over an experienced (whether they won games or not) assistant staff and an HC that has been around the game for a long time


baller4life said:
Lindsay Whalen is here to fill as many seats as possible because of her name. That's it. Want proof? I can't be at Williams arena without seeing her name, face, or hearing about how the next game is "Lindsay Whalen free ___ Night." I've never heard of any coach, of any sport, having a "Coach's Name here" Night once, let alone all the time.

A. Lindsay Whalen had a decorated career as a student athlete at Minnesota and as a professional women's basketball player in the WNBA.
B. She's in way over her head right now.

A and B can both be true.
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I don't disagree with why Whalen was hired (My first choice would've been Aaron Johnston). I also don't disagree that she has learning to do. None of that is anything I've said. I just think we can give some benefits of the doubt on some of the story with Pitts until I see more issues arise. I also see a strong recruiting class coming in too.
 

baller4life said:
No we don't. We have Whalen and the University lying about the relationship between the Bellos' absence and Destiny's. We have a coach who is largely embarrassed in the Big Ten and absolutely chokes in any crunch time situations. Who doesn't know how to use timeouts. Whose team offense is regularly stalled out against inferior teams playing zone. Whose only adjustment in a year in a half is a full court trap. Man to man defense everywhere! All of the time! You want to know why you show a simple zone defense once or twice in the first half? So a team wastes X% of its halftime talk going over that. At the minimum, you do it out of another team's timeouts, so they have to spend every timeout against you going over at least two plays (vs. man, vs. zone).

Every good basketball coach on planet Earth knows all of the above. And yet, here we are a year and a half into this experiment, and you are still defending her performance as a coach?

But hey... let's not forget her two assistants with head coaching experience, both of whom have abysmal records as leaders... they are FOR SURE the reason why Whalen has good advice! It's why she handled this Pitts situation so well! They are going to turn things around guaranteed!

For what it's worth:
A. Whalen should have disciplined Pitts.
B. Whalen should not have handled all of this the way she did, and it speaks to her inexperience and the poor input she gets from inferior coaches who have their positions out of loyalty rather than merit.

A and B can both be true.

Lindsay Whalen is here to fill as many seats as possible because of her name. That's it. Want proof? I can't be at Williams arena without seeing her name, face, or hearing about how the next game is "Lindsay Whalen free ___ Night." I've never heard of any coach, of any sport, having a "Coach's Name here" Night once, let alone all the time.

A. Lindsay Whalen had a decorated career as a student athlete at Minnesota and as a professional women's basketball player in the WNBA.
B. She's in way over her head right now.

A and B can both be true.
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rather than continue to talk around the situation, why not disclose your relation ship to those wronged by the WBB program? You are obviously connected as you joined right after the initial event and your continued one-sided view on this message board only fans the flames. if your goal is to get Whalen fired, then why not go public to the media with some facts?

The program has moved forward and will be fine moving forward. It is appropriate for the UMN to not disclose the "dirty laundry" that you seem to want to talk about. It's called taking the high road.

If DP is the saint that you claim, she will find a new home to play ball next year, apply for and get her waiver to play immediately. Best of luck to her.
 


WHB Brewer said:
rather than continue to talk around the situation, why not disclose your relation ship to those wronged by the WBB program? You are obviously connected as you joined right after the initial event and your continued one-sided view on this message board only fans the flames. if your goal is to get Whalen fired, then why not go public to the media with some facts?

The program has moved forward and will be fine moving forward. It is appropriate for the UMN to not disclose the "dirty laundry" that you seem to want to talk about. It's called taking the high road.

If DP is the saint that you claim, she will find a new home to play ball next year, apply for and get her waiver to play immediately. Best of luck to her.
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OK, nice attempt at a joke @whalenfan. And presumably, @WHB Brewer laughed at it.

I hate to spoil the joke, but @baller4life was on this board before I joined and before Destiny Pitts came on board as a Freshman as well.

@baller4life makes points legitimately worth discussing, although to the extent that they may be good points, I do think Whalen is capable of fixing them.

But let’s discuss the points instead of trying to discredit the poster.
 


CutDownTheNet said:
OK, nice attempt at a joke @whalenfan. And presumably, @WHB Brewer laughed at it.

I hate to spoil the joke, but @baller4life was on this board before I joined and before Destiny Pitts came on board as a Freshman as well.

@baller4life makes points legitimately worth discussing, although to the extent that they may be good points, I do think Whalen is capable of fixing them.

But let’s discuss the points instead of trying to discredit the poster.
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I mean she joined jan 3rd 2019, u joined oct 4th 2018...., All this info is right there for everyone to see
 

Shades said:
Whalen a year ago.
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what's your point?
Pitts also has on her twitter where she wishes Whalen a happy birthday and thanks for all she does. and when Whalen was hired she posted how happy she was she was her coach with a picture of the two of them.
 

whalenfan said:
I mean she joined jan 3rd 2019, u joined oct 4th 2018...., All this info is right there for everyone to see
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Well I dunno, maybe they messed that info up in transition to the new system. All I know is that I was a GopherHole reader-only for several years before I decided I might have something to say and decided to create an account - and during that time I recall seeing posts by @baller4life on the WBB sub-board and other sub-boards as well. Maybe the account was deleted but recreated/rejoined later on.

But just for grins let’s entertain the conjecture that @baller4life is really the handle for Destiny Pitts. Then apparently she had the premonition about a year ago that she might get into a minor dustup with her Coach about now, and get railroaded out of town. Just in case, the @baller4life handle was presumably created in January a year ago in order to have a credible GopherHole id from which to voice her opinion after (or in case) she does get the boot in January 2020. Yeah, right.
 

Shades said:
Whalen a year ago.
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Everything coach Whalen says is true and I would go as far to say Coach Whalen would say those things about her still, but at the same time every player even if your a leader need to understand boundaries otherwise the coach will lose the respect of the team. Some times tough decisions are made as a result, but you have to treat the 10th player the same as the #1 player
 



tripledouble said:
MenneSota, when you say the Whalen runs her program her way and no one tells her how to run it, I don't think she's been coaching long enough yet to know how she runs her program. You've compared coaches to bosses before and that's fine, but with any boss, losing a key employee can have a negative impact on the entire company and if a boss keeps losing key employees, the company is eventually going to "lose" the boss because the boss will be dismissed. I'd prefer to liken a basketball team to a family, with the coach as a parent. In my household, I never would have dismissed one of my kids from the family due to a lack of good judgment. Yes, discipline would have been involved, but we would have hopefully worked out an agreement with a face to face meeting, whether it took 30 minutes or 3 hours. And I never would have asked a kid of mine to sign a document that said they'd be booted out of the family if there was another infraction. Admittedly, this was a University thing, not a Whalen thing, but I don't like the idea of a "signed document". If Pitts said she was willing to sit out the determined time and if she was willing to make the necessary adjustments, I would have trusted her. No documents for me. Her word would have been good enough, But if she ever went back on the word, she would be gone. I view the written document as a CYA (cover your tail) document from the university and as I have said and many others have said, it never should have got that far.

And one other quick thing about night. I personally view him as a bully and a jerk. But then you listen to guys like Wittman and Buckner and no one can deny that his style made him a molder of men. Then you see what he did to a guy like D. Bailey and you realize that he was great for some; terrible for others.
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I guess you need to go be a coach and run your program your way. Since the UMN job is not yours, you can apply elsewhere.
No employee who attempts to upstage the boss will be tolerated. I have seen quality workers fired for such an attempt.
We have no information from the University regarding the procedure followed. I don't take a walk-on comment at the GH to be the official way this situation was handled. I take it as a likely family member sharing their version of what happened.
Finally, as a general rule, we have a new generation of entitled children who haven't faced much adversity. When bad stuff happens they crumble and quit. I guarantee that what Destiny dealt with in this little tiff, is nothing compared to what life will throw at her. She made her choice. She will live with that choice. I hope she grows and matures from this experience and becomes a better person. Time to move on.
 

for what it's worth, I am not a player on the women's basketball team. I just think there's way too many people on here who are blindly loyal to a professional while, at the same time, are also extremely critical of a student athlete they've never met. And "kids these days" is such a BS statement. Who do you think is mostly to blame for this "new generation of children"?
 

baller4life said:
for what it's worth, I am not a player on the women's basketball team. I just think there's way too many people on here who are blindly loyal to a professional while, at the same time, are also extremely critical of a student athlete they've never met. And "kids these days" is such a BS statement. Who do you think is mostly to blame for this "new generation of children"?
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agree on the generalization of comments about the "kids these days" or "new generation of children." All are individuals and those lobbing comments don't have the first person perspective.

regarding your comment on folks being "blindly loyal to a professional" ...... the Head Coach is the leader of the basketball team, and one of those responsibilities is to establish a culture of how the organization is to be run and probably includes teaching behaviors and expectations how to act professionally. Doesn't matter if that person has been on the job for 1 day or 30 years. there has to be a hierarchy of authority. if not, there is chaos. At the present time, the person in charge is coach Whalen, and it is her program to run.

The student-athletes has to understand that they are a public figure (thanks to the increasing popularity of women's sports) and need to respect the authority of the program, and act a certain way when in public (i.e. during a televised game). If they don't uphold those expectations, the coach is within their right to hold them accountable via decreased playing time and/or suspensions. If the player doesn't like the way the coach treats them, they are free to leave the program, which Ms.Pitts has chosen to do. She can continue to play basketball, and perhaps earn her way to a professional contract down the road.

Players and coaches come and go. But the general population are fans of the program, regardless of who is coach and which players are on the team. We cheered for the hiring of Stollings, and generally supported her program until she left. Then the entire state cheered the hiring of Whalen, a head coach who happens to one of the greatest UofMN athletes of all time (across all sports). She is going to given a long leash and provided every opportunity to succeed. there will be bumps and learning opportunities along the way. It may turn out that DP's incident/situation is an unfortunate bump in the road, but it doesn't have to be the end of the road for either the coach or player. Coach Whalen isn't the first coach to have a disagreement with a top player and have the player leave the team (and won't be the last).

BTW..... if it turns out Whalen continues to struggle and is not up for the job, it is her that will be held accountable, her legacy will be tarnished and she too will be shown the door.
 

baller4life said:
for what it's worth, I am not a player on the women's basketball team. I just think there's way too many people on here who are blindly loyal to a professional while, at the same time, are also extremely critical of a student athlete they've never met. And "kids these days" is such a BS statement. Who do you think is mostly to blame for this "new generation of children"?
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Their guardians are responsible for failing to let them fail and grow from their failure.
Mx Pitts tells us that she never faced discipline until this incident. That is the fault of those who came before Coach Whalen.
 



Did anyone see the Big Ten Women's Sport show earlier today? At the end of the show, Janelle Laventeur and ??? discussed their thoughts. As part of it, they showed Whalen putting her hand on Pitts shoulder to talk to her and Pitts essentially blowing her off at the half in the Nebraska game. Add that to the NU game where she again shunned Whalen at the end of the third quarter (this is on tape, BTN+). Both times very publicly. Whether this was handled correctly by Whalen and U, I can't say. But that type of "body language" can't be ignored either.
I suspect that Whalen has received several calls/texts/interactions with a large number of coaches which might include Reeve, Geno, McGraw, Frese, Thielen, Jim Petersen, and others. She is well connected and they want to see her do well. But, if so, none of it is public.
 


Here’s a nice article from the Michigan press. Again, it contains no more information than we already knew (it references the STrib, natch).

But it does contain a nice comment from her high school coach, along with a nice picture of her suited up for her high school team that won the Michigan state championship twice (and the same team that Jasmine Powell played on). See ...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.mlive.com/highschoolsports/2020/01/area-native-destiny-pitts-announces-transfer-after-body-language-suspension-from-minnesota.html?outputType=amp
 

Not sure why, but apparently this is also a big story in Tucson. This article is no more than the brief AP newswire feed. However, I gotta give them props for picking out a great picture of Whalen and Pitts back in better days, in our game against Ohio State on New Years Eve.

The caption says Whalen is cheering Pitts after a made three, and looks like she’s patting Pitts on the back as she’s taking her out to give her a rest. And I think that is the correct caption. However, the ironic part is that the picture’s capturing of Whalen “mid-cheer” is such that it looks more like a chewing-out than a cheer (a harbinger of things to come all too soon?), and Pitts looks rather dour as well, for somebody being cheered. See ...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/tucson...efb768a3-6253-5119-940d-1be7ea8a0261.amp.html
 

Another view from outside:
My niece called me from Oregon to comfort me, having seen of our loss to Wisconsin. She has become a Gopher fan (for me) and I, of course, have become a Ducks fan for her (easy to do…). She was VERY interested in the Pitts situation & asked a lot of questions – all I knew to tell her was what I had read on the GopherHole. But in conclusion she said “Maybe… “. She offered me a speculation I had not heard/read – so I’ll pass it on to the GopherHole community

Since Whalen is a new coach, maybe she does not know all of the rules, restrictions, & policies of the Athletic Department. Maybe she thought she could suspend a player (to get her attention) & then work it out with her to get her back on the team. But maybe the Athletic Department rules dictate that a suspension shall be mediated by the Athletic Department. The player & the coach are not allowed to continue their disagreement, the Athletic Department will take over (with cooler heads), as an independent mediator, and referee the dispute. But the policy also seems to say that to start the mediation, the player has to sign an overly restrictive contract as described by others. And that became the hurdle Pitts would not jump.

Anyway, that’s what an outsider thought.
 

If that speculation is true, what a terrible shame. Something that can be avoided had to come to a head like it did.
 

polli said:
But the policy also seems to say that to start the mediation, the player has to sign an overly restrictive contract as described by others. And that became the hurdle Pitts would not jump.

Anyway, that’s what an outsider thought.
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In other words in this situation where the players are working hard for you for no money, it’s much smarter and less risky to treat them as family, where disputes are handled in a more personal and private whay, instead of an as an employee that needs a corrective action notice.
 


SpaceJunkie said:
Sounds like Pitts is big recruit on visit at Arizona.
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www.azdesertswarm.com

Arizona hosted Minnesota transfer Destiny Pitts during ASU game

Adia Barnes credited the 10,000-plus fans in McKale Center for helping them sweep ASU for the first time since 2000, and maybe the packed house will help in other ways too. "We have a big recruit...
www.azdesertswarm.com www.azdesertswarm.com

.

“We have a big recruit here right now,” Barnes said after Friday’s win. “So hopefully she loves it.”

The Arizona Wildcats hosted former Minnesota guard Destiny Pitts, per sources. Pitts announced her transfer from Minnesota last week after the Golden Gophers suspended her indefinitely for “poor body language.”

Before that, the junior was fifth in the Big Ten in scoring, averaging 16.3 points, 4.8 rebounds, and 3.3 assists per game while shooting 40 percent from the field and 46 percent from 3. The 5-foot-11 Detroit native was a first-team All-Big Ten selection last season.

It is unclear when Pitts will be eligible to play at her new school. She would likely have to sit out the entire 2020-21 season or at least the fall semester of next season unless she receives a waiver. Crazier things have happened, so nothing can be ruled out.

Barnes has said in that past that she will only recruit players that fit her team’s culture, but she also has shown a willingness to take on transfers who left their previous schools on not-so-good terms
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Good luck to her.
It's a crying shame what happened between her and Coach Whalen.

There are lessons learned in this situation.
 

hungan1 said:
Good luck to her.
It's a crying shame what happened between her and Coach Whalen.

There are lessons learned in this situation.
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The only lesson I can come up is nobody good should ever play at Minnesota unless they want their talent to be wasted in losing every game, espeically in Big Ten play. Go to schools that are committed to winning and drawing fan excitement instead.
 


SpaceJunkie said:
The only lesson I can come up is nobody good should ever play at Minnesota unless they want their talent to be wasted in losing every game, espeically in Big Ten play. Go to schools that are committed to winning and drawing fan excitement instead.
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Oh your so smart. Where did you play basketball?
Take a look at Wahlen’s resume, pretty outstanding for a Minnesota born and raised athlete. Played 4 years at the U, and the rest of her career speaks for itself. Go Gophers!
 

BarnBall said:
Oh your so smart. Where did you play basketball?
Take a look at Wahlen’s resume, pretty outstanding for a Minnesota born and raised athlete. Played 4 years at the U, and the rest of her career speaks for itself. Go Gophers!
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it’s a great resume for starting out as an assistant.
 

SpaceJunkie said:
The only lesson I can come up is nobody good should ever play at Minnesota unless they want their talent to be wasted in losing every game, espeically in Big Ten play. Go to schools that are committed to winning and drawing fan excitement instead.
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These are the growing pains of a new head coach, PJ went through it as well, it just got masked by the other 50 kids on the team. We dont have bigs like the other B10 teams, so we will be inconsistent this year, but we have talented players on this years team to make a run if they can get over this Pitts situation, the team might still be divided over what has transpired.
If you go back and look at the early B10 games, if we beat Ohio State at home, I'm not sure this thread exists. Losing tests your patience, it tests your decision making and it tests how you look at your teammates... Pitts took the Ohio State loss hard and the pressure each game after mounted... Its unfortunate for all it got to this point..
On to Indiana.
 
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MNGirlsHoops said:
If you go back and look at the early B10 games, if we beat Ohio State at home, I'm not sure this thread exists. Losing tests your patience, it tests your decision making and it tests how you look at your teammates... Pitts took the Ohio State loss hard and the pressure each game after mounted... Its unfortunate for all it got to this point..
On to Indiana.
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Losing only one game to a good team (not like they lost to Illinois again at home at full-strength) seems like a silly reason for a team to decide to go into chaos. Gopher WBB started 1-2 in B1G two years ago coming off a bad Stollings non-conference, meaning they'd need a near-miracle to have a shot at NCAA Tournament, not like this year were a .500 finish may be good enough to be a bubble team, and ended up fine.
 

It is time to move on from Destiny Pitts and focus on the rest of the season and on recruiting.

I know Lindsay Whalen is enamored with guard play. Even in the pros, you need bigs. She has to aggressively recruit post or tall guard/forward combo players to compliment the excellent guards that are here or are coming.

May be a quick bandaid is to aggressively look for transfers/grad transfers like a Janel McCarville type post player who can rebound and open up ball movement and guard play.
 

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