Good season, excited for the future of the program

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Holy Man said:
Is that a real risk for them? He can play but I never had it in my head that he would enter the draft.
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He's listed on some mock drafts as a low first rounder now and he's at the age where staying another year might hurt his draft prospects.
 

If Petteway is projected to go anywhere in the first round he better go.
 

Sorry, those close losses in games we could have or should have won keeps me from considering this a good season. Sort of like a moral victory. I think people are counting too much on the recruits to give us a boost next year. If we get a significant contribution from one like we did from Mathieu this year, I'll be happy. I think the real jump will come from the returning players. They all have room to grow. Not sure Mathieu can give much more physically but his decision making should improve. Andre Hollins healthy will be a much better player. Mo and Elliot continue to develop as big men. Joey adds some muscle. Buggs and McNeil have a lot to work on as well as Joey. Pitino is hungry and IMO he'll instill that attitude in these guys and they'll work their ass*s off improving their game. Still need quickness but we'll be stronger with hopefully better ball skills. I know the previous coach gave us the greatest Gopher season in the last 24 years, but I didn't exactly get the same vibe of a work ethic from him and his staff.
 

Mulligan said:
Sorry, those close losses in games we could have or should have won keeps me from considering this a good season. Sort of like a moral victory. I think people are counting too much on the recruits to give us a boost next year. If we get a significant contribution from one like we did from Mathieu this year, I'll be happy. I think the real jump will come from the returning players. They all have room to grow. Not sure Mathieu can give much more physically but his decision making should improve. Andre Hollins healthy will be a much better player. Mo and Elliot continue to develop as big men. Joey adds some muscle. Buggs and McNeil have a lot to work on as well as Joey. Pitino is hungry and IMO he'll instill that attitude in these guys and they'll work their ass*s off improving their game. Still need quickness but we'll be stronger with hopefully better ball skills. I know the previous coach gave us the greatest Gopher season in the last 24 years, but I didn't exactly get the same vibe of a work ethic from him and his staff.
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I can't help getting the vibe that Orlando and his staff were better recruiters. Coach P. and staff have been here for a year and have signed 7 players, I think it's time to make a splash. One of the funnier things I have read was when someone was interviewing Ryan James at Gopher Illustrated trying to get him to say Coach P. and staff were outworking Orlando and staff at recruiting. Ryan said, no they were at the same events. The interviewer then went into a long story about Coach P. flying early in the morning to someplace, then flying somewhere else, before ending up at a 3rd place. Ryan said, no Orlando and staff went to the same events.
 

Maybe this will change as Coach P's team is made up of his recruits, but I wondered late in the season if the full court defense was a good thing for this current team. While they did rank #2 in the conference in steals, they were #9 in 3PT defense, and #10 in FG % Defense as a team. They may be expending energy to play full court defense at the expense of intense half court defense? Or maybe it was that they were getting burned too much in the half court defense because they weren't quick enough.
 


howieramone said:
I can't help getting the vibe that Orlando and his staff were better recruiters. Coach P. and staff have been here for a year and have signed 7 players, I think it's time to make a splash. One of the funnier things I have read was when someone was interviewing Ryan James at Gopher Illustrated trying to get him to say Coach P. and staff were outworking Orlando and staff at recruiting. Ryan said, no they were at the same events. The interviewer then went into a long story about Coach P. flying early in the morning to someplace, then flying somewhere else, before ending up at a 3rd place. Ryan said, no Orlando and staff went to the same events.
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Hard to say one way or another. Tubby had a national brand when he arrived at Minnesota and recruited very well the first couple years. He would have had a number of connections and established relationships that he could leverage. Pitino certainly has a name that people recognize, but no history to fall back on as a head coach at a major university. Now, for better or worse, we can see the direction of the program (as can potential recruits).

But I agree we are going to need to see that better talent arrive on campus or we will likely be stuck in the same rut that we have been for the last x years.
 

I think Pitino did a good job this year with the hand he was dealt. I think the future could be bright. What will make me happy/ecstatic about the future of the program is if we can get our new practice facility...or at least a shovel in the ground. Does anybody have any update on this? The U has one of the largest alumni base in the country. Hard to believe we dont have this thing moving more quickly. Any news on this would be great.
 

howieramone said:
I can't help getting the vibe that Orlando and his staff were better recruiters. Coach P. and staff have been here for a year and have signed 7 players, I think it's time to make a splash. One of the funnier things I have read was when someone was interviewing Ryan James at Gopher Illustrated trying to get him to say Coach P. and staff were outworking Orlando and staff at recruiting. Ryan said, no they were at the same events. The interviewer then went into a long story about Coach P. flying early in the morning to someplace, then flying somewhere else, before ending up at a 3rd place. Ryan said, no Orlando and staff went to the same events.
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I will put it this way. Tubby's recruiting was better than many give him credit for. If all his recruits got here (White) and stayed here, the story would have been different. On the other hand - and there is another hand - his recruiting was not what it needed to be. He was fired in part because of this, and Pitino will be expected to improve upon it. I sound like a broken record beating a dead horse, but I feel the need to carpetbomb people with the truth: not one of Smith's recruits here has played a minute in the NBA, compared to Clem Haskins who averaged recruiting one NBA participant per year during his tenure.
 

Bad Gopher said:
I will put it this way. Tubby's recruiting was better than many give him credit for. If all his recruits got here (White) and stayed here, the story would have been different. On the other hand - and there is another hand - his recruiting was not what it needed to be. He was fired in part because of this, and Pitino will be expected to improve upon it. I sound like a broken record beating a dead horse, but I feel the need to carpetbomb people with the truth: not one of Smith's recruits here has played a minute in the NBA, compared to Clem Haskins who averaged recruiting one NBA participant per year during his tenure.
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Please count the number of players that Izzo sends to NBA outside of Green who was a sure thing.
 



JReck33 said:
I think Pitino did a good job this year with the hand he was dealt. I think the future could be bright. What will make me happy/ecstatic about the future of the program is if we can get our new practice facility...or at least a shovel in the ground. Does anybody have any update on this? The U has one of the largest alumni base in the country. Hard to believe we dont have this thing moving more quickly. Any news on this would be great.
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No real news. We do have a large alumni base and are very successful fundraising for things like medical research and children's health. For some reason our athletics program has always lagged behind a lot of other high level D1 programs though.

Personally I think it will eventually get done. The plan was announced, what, 6 months ago? It's going to take some time. $190 million doesn't just fall from the sky.
 

golfing18now said:
Hard to say one way or another. Tubby had a national brand when he arrived at Minnesota and recruited very well the first couple years. He would have had a number of connections and established relationships that he could leverage. Pitino certainly has a name that people recognize, but no history to fall back on as a head coach at a major university. Now, for better or worse, we can see the direction of the program (as can potential recruits).

But I agree we are going to need to see that better talent arrive on campus or we will likely be stuck in the same rut that we have been for the last x years.
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This is why some of us have said that coaching change was not the solution. Things have to change here in infrastructure level. Some who have been silent for a few weeks now understand that their love-fest for Richard was short-lived. The guy has a promissing future for sure but when this school has a difficult time to bring in talent with a HOF coach, how can they do it with a rookie coach? I also know that I sound like a broken reccord but for mer coach had a better chance of landing the big 3.
 

howieramone said:
someone was interviewing Ryan James at Gopher Illustrated trying to get him to say Coach P. and staff were outworking Orlando and staff at recruiting. Ryan said, no they were at the same events. The interviewer then went into a long story about Coach P. flying early in the morning to someplace, then flying somewhere else, before ending up at a 3rd place. Ryan said, no Orlando and staff went to the same events.
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You don't say.
 





Bad Gopher said:
I will put it this way. Tubby's recruiting was better than many give him credit for. If all his recruits got here (White) and stayed here, the story would have been different. On the other hand - and there is another hand - his recruiting was not what it needed to be. He was fired in part because of this, and Pitino will be expected to improve upon it. I sound like a broken record beating a dead horse, but I feel the need to carpetbomb people with the truth: not one of Smith's recruits here has played a minute in the NBA, compared to Clem Haskins who averaged recruiting one NBA participant per year during his tenure.
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Tubby had some early success recruiting here because of his past accomplishments at KY. The recruiting fell off when people saw some of the results and lack of effort; and the future looked bleak. Firing Tubby was a no-brainer. Tubby did not have the desire to do the work. Coach Pitino does have the desire and energy. He will do just fine.
 



The-Real-Truth said:
Too funny. I was just trying to prove a point :)
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Is your point that you don't need NBA level talent to finish in the top 3 of the big ten and be relevant in the NCAA tournament every year? Because that certainly doesn't help any pro Tubby stance, or any facilities upgrade is needed to get to the next level stance....

I'm failing to connect the dots....
 


howieramone said:
His first official recruiting class is Martin, Mason, Morris, plus 3 additional scholarships. Very important we show improvement next season.
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I'll agree with that, I think the guys we get this year are very important to the season, but I'll say the 2015 and 2016 classes will be the one's that Pitino really gets judged on as he will have multiple years to build relationships with the players, their families, coaches, AAU pimps/leaches etc.
 

John Galt said:
MadtownGopher said:
Iowa returns almost everyone and should only get better.
Iowa loses Marble, which will be tough for them to overcome.
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They also lose Besabe and McCabe, two solid role players. White will be their best player, alot will depend on if guys like Gessel, Woodbury, Olgesby and Uthoff can step up. I think they'll finish right around where they did this year
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bemidjigopher said:
They also lose Besabe and McCabe, two solid role players. White will be their best player, alot will depend on if guys like Gessel, Woodbury, Olgesby and Uthoff can step up. I think they'll finish right around where they did this year
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Uthoff is going to be really good. If he could put on some weight/muscle he'd be scary. Wisconsin definitely missed out on a good one.
 

So many different topics hit in this thread expectations for 2013 versus results, past recruiting vs current recruiting, facilities, Pitino vs Tubby, etc, etc.

In my mind, it's pretty clear that Tubby had a fair shake at the job. He had six seasons and failed to produce even a single winning conference record. His overall conference record wasn't that much different than Dan Monson's.

What is more interesting to me is how many bad breaks the last two coaches (Monson/Tubby) had when they had legit chances to either keep the program at a certain level (Monson) or get it back to a higher level (Tubby). During Monson's tenure we had the Burleson game, the injury to Bickerstaff, and the injury to Bauer. With Tubby, we had the Royce White issues, Al Nolen's injury, etc, etc. Now with Pitino on the edge of an important tournament berth, we just missed that as well. The one thing Minnesota hasn't had at all is even a little bit of luck or good fortune in the past 15 years or so. This year could have looked different with Buckles at the four.

On Pitino and this season, he did a good job. It would have been a great job without the home slip ups to Illinois and Northwestern. I was a little bit concerned that the team seemed headed downhill after their first trip through the conference, but they were able to right the ship a bit where in years past we seemed to completely melt down. If you haven't listened to Mike Ellis' most recent interview on 1500, I suggest you do so. He certainly drew some contrasts between Pitino and previous regimes and also had some interesting comments on Andre Hollins.

The big issue to me is where does the program go from here? We didn't have the talent (specifically athletic ability as opposed to skill) to run the type of defense Pitino was running this year. We couldn't make anyone uncomfortable enough to force turnovers due to our lack of length and speed in our press or length and quickness in our zone. Coach Pitino has seemed to get close on a few big recruits, but hasn't been able to close the deal on the type of kid that projects as a difference maker. We've got to hope that the 2015 results will be a little bit better than the 2014 results given the longer time to build relationships, but man it would be nice to have a tournament experience to sell in the next six months or so. This roster is going to experience almost a complete turnover by the time we tip off in 2015(at least 7 scholarships open between the 3 for next season and the 4 that graduate after next season), and the success or failure of Pitino will depend largely on how those scholarships are used.

What I feel we can be most excited by from the 2014 season was the improvement in getting good shots out of timeouts and in late game situations. Coach Pitino did a hell of a job of finding a way to get someone an open look in crucial situations, we just didn't make enough of those good looks. The second thing to be excited about is the growth of individual players, most notably Mo Walker, between the time Coach Pitino got the job and the regulars season ended. This gives me hope that we could see some growth from McNeil and Buggs that would make a world of difference for next years team. Andre Hollins would be well served to stay in Minneapolis all Summer and work on things that the strength coach and the coaching staff give him to work on.
 

Realistically this team had mediocre talent and were able to overachieve a bit, which is nice to see. I am definitely excited to see how Pitino can do with some of his own recruits and a couple of solid winning seasons under his belt. He is going to be a beast in the B10!
 

The-Real-Truth said:
This is why some of us have said that coaching change was not the solution. Things have to change here in infrastructure level. Some who have been silent for a few weeks now understand that their love-fest for Richard was short-lived. The guy has a promissing future for sure but when this school has a difficult time to bring in talent with a HOF coach, how can they do it with a rookie coach? I also know that I sound like a broken reccord but for mer coach had a better chance of landing the big 3.
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The guys who really want to win here- Teague and Ellis - knew where Tubby stood on recruiting, especially with the Big 3. If they thought for one minute that Tubby had the best chance to get any of them do you think they would have paid him to leave? Get real. Fact of the matter was that Tubby was about to have his worst year here with only Foster and Ellis coming in (imagine this team without Mathieu and with a 300# Mo). The future wasn't bright and the charm of having the HOF coach had worn off. You are right about this though- it's not just the coach, we need to get big time around here and I think Teague will get it done with Pitino-and having a solid football team will help a ton with revenue.
 

The team got off to a good start and was doing well on the first trip through the Big Ten.

Coach Pitino often talked about the offense being fine but needed some work on defense.

Then things went dowhill somewhat.
1. Andre turns his ankle, misses games and never really gets it going again.
2. Teams learn to do a better job of keeping Mathieu out of the lane.
3. Austin goes into a mid-season slump.
4. Malik's potent 3 pt shooting becomes non-existent.

That's a lot to over-come.
 

bga1 said:
The guys who really want to win here- Teague and Ellis - knew where Tubby stood on recruiting, especially with the Big 3. If they thought for one minute that Tubby had the best chance to get any of them do you think they would have paid him to leave? Get real. Fact of the matter was that Tubby was about to have his worst year here with only Foster and Ellis coming in (imagine this team without Mathieu and with a 300# Mo). The future wasn't bright and the charm of having the HOF coach had worn off. You are right about this though- it's not just the coach, we need to get big time around here and I think Teague will get it done with Pitino-and having a solid football team will help a ton with revenue.
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You took the words right out of my mouth.

One of the reasons Tubby got fired is that he had no chance to land any of the big 3. It was known within the program, and even being leaked outside the program last spring. There is little chance - probably no chance - Teague pulls the trigger on Tubby if he's about to land a top-25 national player that he had been recruiting for years. Privately, the camps for all 3 guys were making it known they weren't coming to Tubby.
 

Malik really has struggled toward the end. I was expecting more from him
 

XMan said:
Malik really has struggled toward the end. I was expecting more from him
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Yeah. It's almost crazy how badly his shooting fell right off the table, so much so that I almost wonder if he wasn't 100% physically or something. He had that huge game against Nebraska, going 8-12 from 3, and since then, jeezum, his shot could not possibly have become more broken. 8-52 from 3-point range since that game against the Huskers, and no explanation for such struggles.
 

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