Gophers tackle losing: On the court and in recruiting Minnesota's best prep basketball players

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per Marcus:

Losing a recruiting battle for Minnesota’s top high school senior big man Wednesday came at a tough time for the Gophers men’s basketball program and Richard Pitino.

Pitino already was dealing with criticism for missing on several top local prospects before five-star Prior Lake forward Dawson Garcia picked Marquette on Wednesday.

This came with the Gophers riding a three-game losing streak and a 1-3 record heading into Thursday’s game against Central Michigan.

“That was a hard week,” Pitino said about losing true road games at Butler and Utah last week. “Easily the hardest that I’ve been a part of.”

This week so far hasn’t been any easier on Pitino, especially when he received a call from Garcia on Wednesday morning to say he was not staying home to play for the Gophers.

“It was very close,” Garcia said after he picked Marquette at a ceremony at Prior Lake High School. “It was a very tough decision. I thought very long and hard about it.”

www.startribune.com

Gophers tackle losing: On the court and in recruiting Minnesota's best prep basketball players

Gophers drop three in a row, miss out on state's best big man.
www.startribune.com www.startribune.com

Go Gophers!!
 




The pie in the sky gopher fans make me laugh. His 40-70 big ten record speaks for it's self. Go away little Richard, we all have been patient enough.
 


Pitinos a good guy, funny, smart and is doing OK with this program. He does not have a outsized personality (like his father) and other national known coaches - maybe with continued success he will grow into nameprogram recognition on his own - he’s got to decide on a style that he wants to play and recruit and convince recruits that style is perfect for them. He was very young and had little head coaching/building a program experience. He has improved recruiting and the team is deeper for it.
minnesota players are going all over the country and are having success. Pitinos bringing in players from other places and has taken players from Minnesota with success. With social media kids now a days don’t have the same allegiance to local teams. Guanenteed most of garcias peers at prior lake could have cared less where he went.
 
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Thymanst said:
Pitinos a good guy, funny, smart and is doing OK with this program. He does not have a outsized personality (like his father) and other national known coaches - maybe with continued success he will grow into nameprogram recognition on his own - he’s got to decide on a style that he wants to play and recruit and convince recruits that style is perfect for them. He was very young and had little head coaching/building a program experience. He has improved recruiting And the team is deeper for it.
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But other than Oturu, and Gabe as a role player, this team is not looking too good. Pitino has the world's worst incoming transfer record. And none of the freshman appear to be impactful (which is ok if your program is setup to not rely on freshman)
 

I like Richard and want him to succeed here. During his seven years he's had an unprecedented number of high quality local recruits and, for the most part, he hasn't been able to attract them to the U. At this point he's not only competing with other schools, he's competing with PJ for public respect and affection. Minnesota is a much more fertile basketball state than football state, but PJ is getting players here and is winning, despite the inherent disadvantages.

I think he's a good coach and a pretty honest guy operating in a pretty dishonest profession. He doesn't seem to be getting traction here, so he will probably be coaching elsewhere next year.
 

JimmyJamesMD said:
But other than Oturu, and Gabe as a role player, this team is not looking too good. Pitino has the world's worst incoming transfer record. And none of the freshman appear to be impactful (which is ok if your program is setup to not rely on freshman)
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Lol, do some research on the transfer market. Most don't hit. We've hit on Lynch when he played, Springs was good, Willis, and Carr are good for transfers as well. We've had some not pan out Lynch (Sr Year) and Stull are examples here. There are reasons why they are transferring and many times it's because they are not good. We have had those too (Gilbert and Washington as examples. Thanks Kimani...)
 



manderson1984 said:
Lol, do some research on the transfer market. Most don't hit. We've hit on Lynch when he played, Springs was good, Willis, and Carr are good for transfers as well. We've had some not pan out Lynch (Sr Year) and Stull are examples here. There are reasons why they are transferring and many times it's because they are not good. We have had those too (Gilbert and Washington as examples. Thanks Kimani...)
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Ive seen enough of Demir, Carr, and Willis to determine they werent worth it. You bring transfers in you better be sure they will make an impact.
 


JimmyJamesMD said:
But other than Oturu, and Gabe as a role player, this team is not looking too good. Pitino has the world's worst incoming transfer record. And none of the freshman appear to be impactful (which is ok if your program is setup to not rely on freshman)
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There are many programs and the big ten that had freshmen playing. Most of those freshman were able to be introduced slowly to big ten play - we did not have the luxury of letting the freshmen ease thier way into action. Carr not playing last year, curry hurt again and Coffey leaving means we have sophomores leading the team.
 

Top 150 recruits historically have signed with an in-state school about 20-25% of the time. Prior to this 2020 class, Pitino had been right around that percentage.
 




Gopher basketball seems to be stuck in mud. There are some good years and some bad years. Recruiting isn't bad. Everything just seems average.
 

If the Gophers win, very few people will care whether the players came from MN or Botswana.

But, when the team is losing on the court - and not landing any of the premier in-state recruits, that's a bad daily double.

And, IMHO, if Pitino is not going to land any of the top in-state recruits, then he really needs to hit a home run with at least one of the out-state recruits. At this point, it looks as though he is bringing in good players. But, he needs to land a star player to quiet the grumbling. Mashburn Junior looks like a decent player - but is he a star?

if the Gophers have a bad year on the court, Coyle may have a big decision to make. The success of the Football program will help on the revenue side, but the U needs Williams Area full - or close to full - to get the revenue where they want. the way this season is going, we might see a lot of nights where the crowd is reduced to 'friends and family only.'
 

GophersInIowa said:
Top 150 recruits historically have signed with an in-state school about 20-25% of the time. Prior to this 2020 class, Pitino had been right around that percentage.
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probably higher than that when you include states that have power conference teams... that in fact have offered the player
 

Ski U Mah Gopher said:
How many players from Michigan did MSU or Michigan sign? Zero.

How many players from Maryland did Maryland sign? Zero.

We signed 2 4-star payers, and have a scholarship to use in the spring.
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This is the worst example when you include Michigan and Michigan State. At this point Michigan has 2 2020 players committed both top 40, Michigan State has 2 players committed, one top 75 another top 50. If we can land these type of players out of state then yes, it doesn't matter if we hit on instate talent. We have to hit on some of our higher instate recruits because we can't get top 75 out of state recruits to even visit here much less commit to us.
 

azzurri22 said:
This is the worst example when you include Michigan and Michigan State. At this point Michigan has 2 2020 players committed both top 40, Michigan State has 2 players committed, one top 75 another top 50. If we can land these type of players out of state then yes, it doesn't matter if we hit on instate talent. We have to hit on some of our higher instate recruits because we can't get top 75 out of state recruits to even visit here much less commit to us.
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Bingo.
 

5 of the top 6 players on Michigan state this year are from Michigan.
 

azzurri22 said:
This is the worst example when you include Michigan and Michigan State. At this point Michigan has 2 2020 players committed both top 40, Michigan State has 2 players committed, one top 75 another top 50. If we can land these type of players out of state then yes, it doesn't matter if we hit on instate talent. We have to hit on some of our higher instate recruits because we can't get top 75 out of state recruits to even visit here much less commit to us.
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So obvious, even Virginia has 4 in state players and 5 that are one state away, a couple are far flung but not many, that is the example always used for getting players from anywhere.
 

manderson1984 said:
Lol, do some research on the transfer market. Most don't hit. We've hit on Lynch when he played, Springs was good, Willis, and Carr are good for transfers as well. We've had some not pan out Lynch (Sr Year) and Stull are examples here. There are reasons why they are transferring and many times it's because they are not good. We have had those too (Gilbert and Washington as examples. Thanks Kimani...)
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What makes anyone think Carr and Willis are good transfers? They’ve been extremely disappointing so far.
 

For the 10 millionth time, no one would care about losing Minnesota players if we were getting similar or better players from out of state. Pitino won’t get anyone close to Dawson’s pedigree.
Fleck has also had some struggles keeping in-state kids. No one really cares though because he’s getting players just as good or better from out of state and winning big.
 

JimmyJamesMD said:
Ive seen enough of Demir, Carr, and Willis to determine they werent worth it. You bring transfers in you better be sure they will make an impact.
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Laughable to assert this after 4 freaking games. What an awful take. Carr and Willis are solid players and still learning how to share the back court together. Demir needs some time and just needs to hit a few shots to build some confidence. They're allowed to get better as the season transpires, that happens every so often...
 

NWMetroGopherFan said:
Laughable to assert this after 4 freaking games. What an awful take. Carr and Willis are solid players and still learning how to share the back court together. Demir needs some time and just needs to hit a few shots to build some confidence. They're allowed to get better as the season transpires, that happens every so often...
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They suck now, and will by the end of the season too. If the Gophers are successful, it wont be these 3 being major factors. And yes, you can tell when a player isnt good after 4 games
 

I like Richard as a guy. The bottom line is that his record to this point is unacceptable. He either needed this team to perform at its peak potential or hit a HR in fall recruiting. Ideally both. It appears neither will happen. If that holds true, it's time to move on.
 

jovs said:
So obvious, even Virginia has 4 in state players and 5 that are one state away, a couple are far flung but not many, that is the example always used for getting players from anywhere.
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Lets deal in facts. The UVA roster has zero Virginia scholarship players. Two walkons, two managers who the coach has actually put in games and they scored !
The rest of the roster:
Caffaro-Argentina
Clark-California
Diakite-Canary New Guinea
Hauser-Wisconsin
Huff-North Carolina
Key-North Carolina
McKoy-North Carolina
Morsell-Maryland
Shedrick-North Carolina
Stattman-Queensland
Woldentensae-Italy

The best state kids in Virginia go to Duke, UNC, Maryland, Kentucky, Kansas. We should be getting really good players from Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, the Dakotas and around the world and winning with them. Not a single player at UVA on scholarship is from Virginia or in the rotation.
 

Wow, look at that.

 

JimmyJamesMD said:
They suck now, and will by the end of the season too. If the Gophers are successful, it wont be these 3 being major factors. And yes, you can tell when a player isnt good after 4 games
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18 points, 3 assists, 66% from 3, lockdown defense and 19 pts, 7 assists, 57% shooting are apparently bad nowadays.
 

abrams said:
The pie in the sky gopher fans make me laugh. His 40-70 big ten record speaks for it's self. Go away little Richard, we all have been patient enough.
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Is that you Donald?
 

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