Malik Smith: Pitino is a great coach, Gophers just don't have the talent

[GophersInIowa]

I'm starting to think Konate is a practical joke that dad played on his son and the son hasn't caught on.

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

Konate had several offers besides Minnesota according to 247 sports. It shows MN, Louisville, Ole Miss, and Oregon. So it's not like he was just some random unknown guy.

Diedhiou is a different story however.

 

[GopherPop]

I'm starting to think Konate is a practical joke that dad played on his son and the son hasn't caught on.

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

Could be! Richard was quite upset at the NU game. Talking with his mouth covered and then got up and walked down the bench to calm down. That said, far too many GH'ers are up in arms over a bad year. It was to be expected, however the lack of perimeter shooters is confounding to say the least and the inability to set screens to open up King, Mason, Morris is disconcerting. Hopefully next year with Lynch, Murphy and Konate we'll have someone to dish to when the other team collapses when we penetrate to the basket or at least dish to the open man on the wing for an open shot.

 

[Winnipegopher]

If you stay within the modern era( last ten years) I'm not sure who that would be true of. I certainly can't name a gopher who was a standout as a senior that wasn't pretty good as a freshman. There were players that played more minutes as they aged through, but their production per minute was about the same.

Mo Walker is probably the best case as a gopher, but you could argue he was a marginal center as a freshman and better but not great as a senior. The physical transformation was greater than the performance transformation.

Damian Johnson was a waste of space as a freshman. Aron Robinson as well although that is going back pretty far.

 

[Moonlight]

Damian Johnson was a waste of space as a freshman. Aron Robinson as well although that is going back pretty far.

Bret Lawson. We thought it was a joke when he was made a captain, and then he was great. I be pretty happy if Konate was performing as well as Jeff Hagen, who had far less athleticism.

 

[GopherOhana]

austin hollins had a nice progression from year to year

 

[Lincoln gopher]

That '79 Tucker/Mitchell/Holmes/Hall (didn't finish career) recruiting class was definitely one of the better ones in Minnesota history, but even their trajectory was slow & steady.

Freshmen: 11-16, 6-12 Big Ten
Sophomores: 21-11, 10-8 Big Ten
Juniors: 19-11, 9-9 Big Ten
Seniors: 23-6, 14-4 Big Ten, Big Ten champs, Sweet 16

I suppose if the the selection committee back then used today's metrics (SOS, RPI, etc.) and the field was 68 NCAA teams, probably a safe bet to say the Tucker/Mitchell/Holmes group would have played in 2 for sure and maybe 3 NCAA tourneys. Much easier to get in the tournament now than it was pre-64-team bracket.

This season reminds me of of the 86-87, 87-88 seasons. Willie Burton's first 2 years. The Gophers went 9-19 and 10-18, 2-16 and 4-14 in conference. The next two seasons were maybe the finest in Gopher history. We can only hope.

 

[jamiche]

This is not even close to being true. There are many examples of players and teams who were really bad that turned out to be good after a few years. I'm not saying it will happen with the Gophers but it does happen all the time.

He's saying the gophers young talent isn't all that talented. Outside of Murphy, I think he's correct.

 

[Ralph_Wiggum]

I think Reusse is spot on. I mean do you see any signs that these younger players are going to turn it around? I disagree with Reusse using the term horses**t, but Pitino doesn't seem to be developing the players as the season drags on. The team is getting worse. I feel bad for the players, but if you start over with a new coach there will be more hope and Richard Pitino won't end up homeless if he's fired. He'll get a job somewhere else as an assistant at a major D1 program and his dad makes a lot of money and has connections so Richard will end up on his feet. It's not like Richard Pitino is a janitor at the U.

 

[GopherOhana]

I mean do you see any signs that these younger players are going to turn it around? .

i remember thinking this during Kill's first two years. I don't know if RP is a good coach, but player improvement can be hard to see game to game

 

[bleedsmaroonandgold]

Could be! Richard was quite upset at the NU game. Talking with his mouth covered and then got up and walked down the bench to calm down. That said, far too many GH'ers are up in arms over a bad year. It was to be expected, however the lack of perimeter shooters is confounding to say the least and the inability to set screens to open up King, Mason, Morris is disconcerting. Hopefully next year with Lynch, Murphy and Konate we'll have someone to dish to when the other team collapses when we penetrate to the basket or at least dish to the open man on the wing for an open shot.

This reasoning bothers me. Just because we thought this would be a rough year does not mean that we have to have no expectations whatsoever. I certainly did not expect back to back South Dakota losses, nor did I expect back to back 25 point losses to the Big Tens two NUs.