ESPN: Looking ahead: Minnesota is a mess

[BleedGopher]

per Eamonn Brennan:

"When you win eight games and you have some off-the-court issues, that responsibility lies on me. It doesn't lie on anybody else. So we've got to get it right," he said. "I certainly understand where he's coming from."

Getting it right means waging a multifront campaign. One or two off-court issues could be dismissed as uncontrollable folly; Minnesota is perceptually past that point. Worse, for as promising as Pitino's first two season were, and as clued-in to the game as he seems in the abstract, this is not a program, or a coach, with a long track record of success. Gophers fans were dissatisfied with Tubby Smith. How must they feel about this?

On the floor, the path back will be arduous. One hope is that the Gophers' top incoming prospect, Amir Coffey, ESPN's No. 7 small forward in the 2016 class, can bring some Big Ten-ready talent straight away. This was one of the worst-shooting teams in the country at any distance; a versatile scorer and playmaker operating off the wing should offer a boost.

Most of last year's team was young, and Joey King (he of the emotional post-Maryland interview) will genuinely be missed because he was, among other things, a sneakily efficient scorer. But there is a raft of young personnel and opportunity here.

The problem is cleaning all of these things up -- the off-court issues and the sheer ugly basketball -- at the same time.

http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/115223/looking-ahead-minnesota-is-a-mess

Go Gophers!!

 

[hungan1]

The genius Wood-tick fired Tubby Smith on the consideration of his "whole body of work" in exchange for the unproven son of Rick Pitino, going by his dad's famous rep.

What a trade off this is looking like. All the scandals surrounding the BB program is the result of hiring someone who doesn't know how manage the totally of coaching responsibilities. He didn't even go out of his way to reach to alumni, fans, or boosters. He needs to look & sound "presidential" in the campaign for his job.

 

[salzie]

No issue with firing tubby. Richard hire is mistake so far. I think Norwood believed he could convince better candidate to come here

Sent from my LGLS665 using Tapatalk

 

[The Lorax]

No issue with firing tubby. Richard hire is mistake so far. I think Norwood believed he could convince better candidate to come here

Sent from my LGLS665 using Tapatalk

Pitino was not the first choice fwiw.

 

[Holy Man]

Pitino was not the first choice fwiw.

Unless you are one of five to seven blue bloods, no one gets their first choice in the coaching game. I'm just shocked this wasn't written by Myron. While painful to read, it wasn't nasty in the way Myron likes to do it.

 

[WanderingGopher]

The genius Wood-tick fired Tubby Smith on the consideration of his "whole body of work" in exchange for the unproven son of Rick Pitino, going by his dad's famous rep.

What a trade off this is looking like. All the scandals surrounding the BB program is the result of hiring someone who doesn't know how manage the totally of coaching responsibilities. He didn't even go out of his way to reach to alumni, fans, or boosters. He needs to look & sound "presidential" in the campaign for his job.

I'm not ready to say the off court problems are unique to Pitino or mainly the result of Pitino's culture/discipline or lack thereof. Under Tubby, we had Devoe Joseph smoke his way out of school, Royce had the mall cop incident, the laptop incident, and probably others I'm forgetting, Mbakwe was accused of a serious assault ["accused," just like Lynch has only been accused at this point], Al Nolen failed his way off the team one year, the Cobbs transfer (for whatever reason) hurt us, etc.

Pitino, however, is just about out of time to prove he's not a train wreck. He has to win this year and stop the "bleeding" off the court. Otherwise, it's back to the drawing board.

 

[bemidjigopher]

I'm not ready to say the off court problems are unique to Pitino or mainly the result of Pitino's culture/discipline or lack thereof. Under Tubby, we had Devoe Joseph smoke his way out of school, Royce had the mall cop incident, the laptop incident, and probably others I'm forgetting, Mbakwe was accused of a serious assault ["accused," just like Lynch has only been accused at this point], Al Nolen failed his way off the team one year, the Cobbs transfer (for whatever reason) hurt us, etc.

Pitino, however, is just about out of time to prove he's not a train wreck. He has to win this year and stop the "bleeding" off the court. Otherwise, it's back to the drawing board.

To e fair Mbakwe transgressions followed here from JUCO, but he did get a DWI or maybe it was DUI in the off season before his final year, it was kept under wraps until media day, surprised the program was able to accomplish that

 

[scher215]

To e fair Mbakwe transgressions followed here from JUCO, but he did get a DWI or maybe it was DUI in the off season before his final year, it was kept under wraps until media day, surprised the program was able to accomplish that

Also had the issue where he kicked someone's car door or something? Believe that was him?

 

[JCK]

Brennen must be hard pressed to fill a quota for a writing assignment for ESPN. Old News. Why doesn't he indict Kaler for his lousy AD hire of Teague. Look around the country, do you think the problem we are having with entitled youth is unique? If he thinks Pitino's basketball is ugly, he never saw the last couple coaches we have had since Clem. Keep this negativity going and we will never get any interest from recruits or coaches. Enough already. Get behind this team for one year.

 

[bizzle22]

Brennen must be hard pressed to fill a quota for a writing assignment for ESPN. Old News. Why doesn't he indict Kaler for his lousy AD hire of Teague. Look around the country, do you think the problem we are having with entitled youth is unique? If he thinks Pitino's basketball is ugly, he never saw the last couple coaches we have had since Clem. Keep this negativity going and we will never get any interest from recruits or coaches. Enough already. Get behind this team for one year.

I didn't think Eamon said anything unfair. Basically said the program is in rough shape, but does have a few nice young players and should be better than last year. Fairly accurate high-level assessment. He's a national writer so he likely doesn't know details of Kaler/Teague/etc. And I think this was part of a series where he wrote a little something about each team in the B1G, so he didn't just decide to write something to make fun of Gopher basketball. Eamon can be a little weird, but I think he's one of the better CBB writers out there.

 

[alchemy2u]

Guys, do we really have to start up another thread for this stuff again? [emoji849]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk