Jalen Suggs recent interview

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This whole thread is hilarious. "My friends sister's wife's girlfriend knows a guy, who said he acts like a baby, etc.". LOL. And to suggest he was grandstanding when he was hurt in his first game is stupid and ignorant. It's a future pro, in his first game, gets hurt, sees his future flash before him, he's still young and emotionally immature, etc. Cmon man.

Look, here's the reality; no one here has any idea what his motivation is. We do know this: 1) Pitino was lax on his recruiting of local stars; 2) Suggs is a transcendent talent in both football and basketball; 3) you can never beat hindsight, it always wins, and it always has rose-colored filters.

So, whatever his motivation is, the reality is that none of us have any idea what really happened. He may very well have had those thoughts back in high school, or he didn't and he's just making sh*t up. The only way it is relevant or matters in this context is if Pitino actually didn't recruit him hard; which seems asinine on its surface but there have been real examples where he has backed off. Kids nowadays need constant affirmation and attention; this is a fact. To suggest "he could have just committed here if he wanted to" is ridiculous. No kid does that today. Even Calipari, Coach K, etc., the real legacy coaches, don't do that; they recruit! They embellish! They obsess over these kids!
 

Fleckoff said:
I'm sure the first couple of posters in this thread are nice people and good fans, but you're an absolute moron if you believe this. Suggs was never going to play football, Pitino was recruiting him for years, I've had season tickets for well over a decade, and I started seeing Suggs in a guest seats when he was in Middle School. Unless he wanted a Rick Pitino Louisville hooker special, he had every opportunity to commit to the U. Suggs to Gonzaga was done the spring of his Junior year at the latest. I get that Suggs wants to keep a good rep in his hometown and the people who don't follow this stuff closely will probably believe it, but this is just pure crap and quite frankly a little Bush League on his part, but the truth of the matter is, when you have the rare gift to be a Pro athlete, you can't control when you're born/grow up, can't control who drafts you, but the one time he had control of where he would play, he chose to leave the state and that's fine, but own your choice and don't make up these half assed excuses to justify it when it's really not necessary.
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Yes, I remember him being at games all the time... Pretty special treatment for some one "they didn't recruit".
 

cjbfbp said:
I'm not sure that's it. Pitino was 0 for whatever when it came to recruiting the very highest rated Minnesota (and national) prep players and he may have just figured that enough was enough and that he should concentrate his efforts elsewhere. I'm certainly not a fan of Pitino but if he figured after a number of years of trying to get five star players that those targets were mostly a waste of time, I could understand that logic.
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I think that Pitino relied on the halo effect of his last name and that they played in the B1G for recruiting. Something that was much more successful for out of state players.
 

Juicer said:
This whole thread is hilarious. "My friends sister's wife's girlfriend knows a guy, who said he acts like a baby, etc.".
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...just a few weeks away from his wedding, got swollen testicles and blamed it on the vaccine, when it was probably chlamydia or gonorrhea?
 

Like it or not, it's a new world in recruiting. If Coach A is texting Recruit X 10 times a day, while Coach B is texting Recruit X 20 times a day, Recruit X is going to say "Coach B is showing more interest in me."

And you see recruits all the time talking about which school is "recruiting them the hardest."

It seems as if recruits measure interest by the volume and intensity of contact. which, in turn, puts pressure on coaches to turn up the volume. If you don't want to play that game, don't be a D1 coach - or be prepared to fill out your roster with leftovers.
 




MennoSota said:
I call BS.
Jalen, the world doesn't revolve around you. Either you want to play here or you don't. You made your decision. We all saw you cry when you lost. It's over. Go play in the NBA. We have all moved on.
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Bravo! well said
 

alchemy2u said:
I think that Pitino relied on the halo effect of his last name and that they played in the B1G for recruiting. Something that was much more successful for out of state players.
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🔺🔺🔺 THIS 🔺🔺🔺

To me (why am I replying to this thread about this guy... he's gone - SMH) it seemed he is a guy that had other things going on (kids perhaps - which is good - but he's not your normal parent) and didn't put the time in recruiting wise and really (subconsciously maybe?) leveraged his name. There were numerous posters on here referencing his lack of effort with some recruits - Dawson Garcia - is one that stands out. I just felt his ego, arrogance (I know many others don't think he was arrogant - that's just how he came across to me) and leveraging his last name really stood out to me as major issues standing between him and success.

EDIT: Well, among the other in game and overall coaching issues which have also been outlined :)
 
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Ragnor said:
Bravo! well said
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For me, if a player was offered by the gophers and they go somewhere else, my interest in them goes with them. Does not matter if they were from MinnE. Now someone like McKinley Wright, who wanted to come but was not allowed to commit, I will still root for them but not to the extent of someone who I followed as a gopher for a longer period of time.
 



Boy this really turned into something. I mean we dont buy that all 3 of these guys were going to come here right? Suggs went to Gonz, Terry went to Stanford and MW4 had 2 shots to come here and didnt. This just feels like they want to come home and have everyone still love them and not get grief for not playing for the Gophers.

Do I think Pitino did enough to get them, no I don't, but they are seeming to imply all of their dreams were to play for the Gophers and that I think clearly was not the case. And if by chance it was then they should be all in on telling every kid they know in the cities now we have BJ to play here. Clearly they have not done that so.
 



leib0039 said:
Boy this really turned into something. I mean we dont buy that all 3 of these guys were going to come here right? Suggs went to Gonz, Terry went to Stanford and MW4 had 2 shots to come here and didnt. This just feels like they want to come home and have everyone still love them and not get grief for not playing for the Gophers.

Do I think Pitino did enough to get them, no I don't, but they are seeming to imply all of their dreams were to play for the Gophers and that I think clearly was not the case. And if by chance it was then they should be all in on telling every kid they know in the cities now we have BJ to play here. Clearly they have not done that so.
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It looks like Terry and Wright are making fun of Suggs for those comments by sarcastically stating "sure you were going to, we all were going to", doesn't look like they believe he is being genuine to say the least haha
 

GopherBlood666 said:
It looks like Terry and Wright are making fun of Suggs for those comments by sarcastically stating "sure you were going to, we all were going to", doesn't look like they believe he is being genuine to say the least haha
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I think Wright has said within the last few months that he wanted to go to Minnesota, and "had a bunch of other guys ready to come with me" or something like that. We only had two scholarships for fall recruiting for the class of 2017, so that might have included Theo John, who seems to have turned out to be a solid, not but not amazing big man.

Maybe Terry is making fun of him, idk. In the fall of 2018, Minnesota would have had Isaiah Washington coming off of a promising end to his freshman season, and Marcus Carr already committed as a transfer, so the 30+ minutes a game that Terry got at point guard at Stanford en route to being a one and done seems like it would have been less likely to happen at Minnesota.
 






GopherPlaya said:
Matt Hurt 😂😂😂 he just wanted to be part of the group
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Devil’s advocate… he had direct insight into the program through his brother. He might’ve wanted to have been a Gopher AND at the same time know Pitino wasn’t the coach for him.
 

Marooned said:
Devil’s advocate… he had direct insight into the program through his brother. He might’ve wanted to have been a Gopher AND at the same time know Pitino wasn’t the coach for him.
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Say that not he didn’t recruit you hard enough. His bro wasn’t Big Ten caliber player but got a scholarship & was in the rotation early. He needs to stop it. If anything Pitino did too much for Hurt
 



So, this just seems like a stupid waste of time at this point--a prep player who had no intention of coming here bemoaning a former coach of the program he never played for and who no longer coaches or resides in Minnesota.

That being said, it's a really immature look for Suggs, IMO. What's to be gained by this? Playing up to the local Minnesota fanbase, while he plays ball thousands of miles away? Does anyone, even the most casual of observers, genuinely think that a top 5 NBA draft pick would have stayed at home to play for a mediocre program in basketball while risking his health to play Big 10 football? And coming back around to needle a fired coach's "lack of love" is the definition of petty. There's a long list that Pitino misfired on as Gophers head coach during his tenure-deciding not to expend energy on a player who seemingly indicated very early on that he wouldn't be coming to the "U", but wanted his ego stroked regardless isn't on my list of Pitino's misfires.

This reminds me of Jerry Kill going out of his way to criticize PJ Fleck a year or two ago on a radio interview. Long past the date of relevance and reflected really poorly on Kill. Suggs is young, but his handlers would be wise to coach him up a bit on these matters.
 

Fucking Pitino. I told all of you a long time ago Pitino should be fired. But no, the geniuses here wouldn't hear of it.

Thanks a lot Pitino. And thanks a lot those of you who allowed him to drag this program down years longer than necessary.
 


coolhandgopher said:
So, this just seems like a stupid waste of time at this point--a prep player who had no intention of coming here bemoaning a former coach of the program he never played for and who no longer coaches or resides in Minnesota.

That being said, it's a really immature look for Suggs, IMO. What's to be gained by this? Playing up to the local Minnesota fanbase, while he plays ball thousands of miles away? Does anyone, even the most casual of observers, genuinely think that a top 5 NBA draft pick would have stayed at home to play for a mediocre program in basketball while risking his health to play Big 10 football? And coming back around to needle a fired coach's "lack of love" is the definition of petty. There's a long list that Pitino misfired on as Gophers head coach during his tenure-deciding not to expend energy on a player who seemingly indicated very early on that he wouldn't be coming to the "U", but wanted his ego stroked regardless isn't on my list of Pitino's misfires.

This reminds me of Jerry Kill going out of his way to criticize PJ Fleck a year or two ago on a radio interview. Long past the date of relevance and reflected really poorly on Kill. Suggs is young, but his handlers would be wise to coach him up a bit on these matters.
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Perfectly stated, Coolhand.
 
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This is why Pitino was fired and why Ben Johnson was specifically hired, the mental gymnastics of those ripping Suggs is pretty crazy. Those ripping Suggs should vehemently disagree with the Ben Johnson hire.
 


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