There is a dynamic that few people seem to realize.
It's that the Big Ten just keeps getting better at basketball, and that the entire time, the last 25-50 years while this has been progressively happening, Minnesota has sucked the entire time. The only times it did not suck, was when we were CHEATING. And even when we weren't cheating and had decent coaches here who could have turned things around, we suffered bad luck(sex scandal and injury plague)
So, AT THE TIME Tubby was hired, the situation in the Big Ten for the previous 20 years, was Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio St and Mich St all making MULTIPLE Final Fours. All 5 of those teams have decent to great coaches right now, and better facilities than Minnesota. So good to great coach, better facilities, better history.
Then add to the mix, a Purdue team that has tons of Big Ten titles, and so, better history and facilities, and a Wisconsin team with a FF as well, better facilities and a GREAT coach.
That is what I'll call the Big 5/7.
On average, 2 of those teams are going to have a down year every year. Leaving the other 5 to have legit NCAA tourney bound seasons, EVERY YEAR.
What does that leave?!
NW and PSU whom Minnesota regularly beats, no matter who are coach, and how pathetic our facilities and for now, Nebraska is another cellar dweller. I doubt that they are going to remain so. They will put the money towards facilities and it seems lots of Gopher fans think highly of their coach. So they should move up into the next level soon. That level is, for now, the
Minny/Iowa Zone.
Each year, with all things being fair, average, predictable, sane, sensible, normal, etc., Minny and Iowa compete with the 2 Big 7/5 teams who are having their down year.
This year it's Purdue and Illinois having their down year, and part of Gopher fans thoughts that we'd have a good year was because we thought that Wisconsin was also going to be suffering through a down year. But that's not the case.
So, in light of all of this, and with the added factor that the Big 7/5 are having arguably their best year EVER, and the middle two are also arguably having their best year in awhile, as a unit that is, and the additional factor that we have NO BENCH, I'd say we are doing just about exactly as we should be doing.
This year is very similar to 1989, and we couldn't win a road game that year to save our life.
And the Big Ten is TOUGHER and DEEPER this year than that year.
And with an additional 2 teams to the conf this year compared to that year, a 6th place finish this year is equivalent to a 5th place finish back then.
Didn't we finish 6th in 1989 and 5th in 1990 when we went to the Elite 8
a 9-9 season got us to the Sweet 16. What was 90? 10-8 or 11-7?
People without a good sense of perspective think it should be easy to jump up into the upper echelon of the Big Ten?! But why should it be easy?! If it was so easy, why can't or doesn't PSU or NW or Iowa do it?!
Because the Upper Echelon has ALOT of advantages over the lower echelon teams, that just a decent coaching hire alone will not overcome.
The Tubby hire was a decent coaching hire, but without the upgrade in facilities, without the long history of success, and WITH the incredible amount of competition we face year in and year out in the Big Ten, we needed either, an INCREDIBLE coaching hire, I mean historically monumental kind of hire, like STEALING UNC, Duke or MSU's coach, and their entire recruiting class for that year.
OR, a decent coaching hire like Tubby, with LOTS OF LUCKY BREAKS to give us an equalizer.
But what happened was Tubby was not the greatest thing since sliced bread, we didn't follow up his hire with facility upgrades, we weren't able to convince an entire nation that we were a bb jaugernaut in the past, and we suffered BAD luck, not good luck, in being plagued with injuries.
Realistically, there is no reason outside of Tubby being the 2nd coming of cbb coaches, for us to have all of a sudden transformed into a perennial Top 5 Big Ten upper echelon team.
Our NOT suffering injuries in 2010 and having a deep run in the NCAAs would have helped our recruiting which would have resulted in our having a deep bench this year, which probably would have been the difference in several close losses, and we'd be a Top 5 team right now ready to dominate the Big Dance and nail down the Big 3 of 2014 and turn Tubby into a legend of a coach when he tired at age 70 on top of the world, having returned Minnesota to the Glory Years that we imagine we once had but really never did without cheating.
Instead, we DID suffer those injuries, it negatively affected our recruiting which has led to our NOT having a bench this season, which has led to several tough losses that would have otherwise been wins. AND, in the UBER conf that the Big Ten is, that leads this highly talented but shallow team to be ahead of NW, PSU, Neb, Purd and Iowa, right where it should be.
Thing is, like in 89 and 90, years we struggled vs crappy teams on the road in a loaded Big Ten, we made deep runs in the NCAA tourney.
So there is still a chance Karma could finally turn in our favor, we could make a late season run like VCU or UConn did, or like we did in 89/90 and we're kind of stuck with Tubby anyway, so why not hope for this Karmic turn, that could lead to our nabbing the Big 3, the fire in Tubby's old belly being rekindled and a rise up into the Upper Echelon of the Mighty Big Ten that otherwise would not be realistic without a MAJOR INVESTMENT of some kind, that Gopherland as a whole has not yet made and seems not willing to make.
So, for those who do not live in dreamland like maybe I do, PONY UP and PUT UP THE MONEY, make the investment needed to change things OR SHUT UP!!!
