Marcus: Sources said it's possible Pitino will interview for the New Mexico coaching opening this weekend.

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BigTenGuy said:
Bennett coached five years at Wisconsin, finishing 8th, T-4th, T-9th, T-3rd and 6th, and then coached 3 years at Washington State, finishing T-7th, T-6th, and 10th. The year he left Wisconsin, the Badgers finished 5th. His 8-year major college record does not support the idea that he was headed toward the top of the Big Ten, let alone on a consistent basis. Moreover, the idea that he might have lead the Badgers to multiple Big Ten championships is belied by history. Since the days of Fred Taylor, every coach (with one exception) to win multiple Big Ten championships (regular season) won their first one by year 5, something Bennett failed to do. The combo of Bennett-Ryan was the perfect recipe for the Badgers long-term success.
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best team for the next guy. Building at the toughest spots takes a special person to build foundation. No problem disagreeing. His peers consider him a master builder. Again, past his prime when he did it. But the foundation was solid, the culture instilled and a full pipeline plus his son on the staff to follow on with Ryan ! Some think his son is the best there is. His father may have been his equal. Well aware of every record, every roster, every game and exactly what was put in place. Not to mention that hiring him was a requirement for Nicholas and Kohl that that brought in tens of millions of dollars and a ton of fans followed. To each their own. Pat Richter will tell you exactly how important it was to build it with Bennett.
 

SanDiegoGopherFan said:
www.santafenewmexican.com

Minnesota's Pitino a contender to be UNM basketball coach

It comes as no surprise, then, that the leading candidate for the Lobos vacancy appears to be Richard Pitino.
www.santafenewmexican.com www.santafenewmexican.com

Best part of the article


As anyone can attest, the pay is good at Minnesota but the reality is far less so. It’s considered a lower-end job in the Big Ten, often lost in the shadows of high-profile powerhouses like Michigan State, Wisconsin, Ohio State, Michigan, Purdue, Iowa, Indiana and Illinois. The Gophers’ fan base is also notoriously fickle and quick to turn on a coach.
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We’ve been constantly told that a big problem with MN sports fans is we accept mediocrity too much. Now it’s been changed to we don’t accept mediocrity enough.

Our fan base is so tame compared to many others, including in the Big Ten. What a ridiculous take.
 

GophersInIowa said:
We’ve been constantly told that a big problem with MN sports fans is we accept mediocrity too much. Now it’s been changed to we don’t accept mediocrity enough.

Our fan base is so tame compared to many others, including in the Big Ten. What a ridiculous take.
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No, they are saying that the fans whine too much!!!
 

We need a coach that can actually convince hometown kids to stay home and come to the U. The talent that MN has put out into the college basketball world the last 3-4 years has been nothing short of impressive. Back to Back years with talent we haven't seen in decades and the U was never even in the mix.
 

alchemy2u said:
Yes, Pitino will get another HC job.

Just look at the candidates for the New Mexico job according to the local press. Tim Miles is the leading candidate because of his prior success and because he was a HC in the B1G. They dismiss his firing by saying it is very tough to be successful in the B1G.... Pitino had much more shinny spots in the B1G than Miles (won NIT, MN team record wins, B1G coach of the year, etc....). Pitino does have some very deep bottoms (that can be glossy over with excuses), but he has some highlights that can be very attractive to a smaller school.
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Miles was 52-76 in the Big Ten. Pitino is 54-96.

Neither has been good, but Pitino has been worse.

Pitino has got to be near the top of the all time list for conference games below .500 for a BIG coach. Bad coaches usually get fired long before they can get to be more than 40 conference games below .500.
 


MNVCGUY said:
If this does happen it would be one of the first times I can remember where a coach that everyone knew was going to get fired just went ahead and got a new head coaching job before it happened.

I know it happens with assistant coaches a lot in football where they might take another job somewhere as opposed to being fired by their current school but seems like it would be far less common with head coaches.
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The season ended 3 days ago. If he was going to get fired after this year, I think it would have already happened.

I guess Pitino might figure he'll probably get fired after next year, though.
 

Ski U Mah Gopher said:
See Steve Alford
See Tubby Smith
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Yeah, I forgot that Tubby "left" Kentucky before he got fired there. I guess this type of thing is less unprecedented than I thought.

I find it amazing how downward Tubby Smith's career has curved. People were thrilled beyond belief when Minnesota hired him. Now, he's coaching at High Point, which I think few people would have even heard of if Smith wasn't coach there. And he has a 21-30 record in Big South play there...
 

matt said:
There are major financial and PR benefits to Pitino being hired by New Mexico. It also makes the Minnesota job more attractive if a previous coach who couldn’t get the job done lands as an MWC head coach immediately. Coyle’s handling of the transition has put Minnesota in a position for that. He could have fired Pitino mid-season or right after the BTT loss. He could have given Pitino a 10 minute heads up of it happening. His communication with Pitino and handling of the “firing” have enabled Minnesota and Pitino to come out of this transition in about the best possible position.
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I get what you are saying however I do not understand how if RP lands at New Mexico it makes our job more attractive. How so?
 

giveme said:
Yeah, I forgot that Tubby "left" Kentucky before he got fired there. I guess this type of thing is less unprecedented than I thought.

I find it amazing how downward Tubby Smith's career has curved. People were thrilled beyond belief when Minnesota hired him. Now, he's coaching at High Point, which I think few people would have even heard of if Smith wasn't coach there. And he has a 21-30 record in Big South play there...
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Yikes I had no idea how bad his record had been at High Point. Tubby is truly a retire by 65 kind of guy.
 




bigyetti18 said:
I get what you are saying however I do not understand how if RP lands at New Mexico it makes our job more attractive. How so?
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I would guess the logic would be that if the next coach isn’t working out here, Coyle (if he’s still here when that time comes) will work with that coach to try to find him another job instead of firing him and throwing him to the wolves, much less humiliating the coach with a midseason firing like some of our fans wanted.
 

giveme said:
Yeah, I forgot that Tubby "left" Kentucky before he got fired there. I guess this type of thing is less unprecedented than I thought.

I find it amazing how downward Tubby Smith's career has curved. People were thrilled beyond belief when Minnesota hired him. Now, he's coaching at High Point, which I think few people would have even heard of if Smith wasn't coach there. And he has a 21-30 record in Big South play there...
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He should neve have left Texas Tech...
 

EG#9 said:
For what it's worth on Alford, he wasn't getting fired at Iowa (at least that offseason). He was just 9-7 in conference that season and the year prior he had one of the better seasons the programs had getting a #3 seed in the NCAA tournament.
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Alford likely wasn't going to get fired at the end of that year, but it wasn't a slam dunk he was going to be back, either. He was absolutely on the hot seat and had know he was well headed to being gone the following the year. Things had soured immensely.

EG#9 said:
one of the better seasons the programs had getting a #3 seed in the NCAA tournament.
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As the 3-seed, they lost to a #14 seed in the tourney in the year you referenced. That's a problem.


EG#9 said:
There were problems on both end of the relationship.
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And that was why he was headed out at some point, potentially at the end of the year. He had flirted with both Indiana and Missouri the year of the 3-seed. Even with that season, things were bad. He was not well liked and it was clear he hated it at Iowa and wanted out. There were TONS of problems between Alford and the fans, Alford and the new AD, Alford and local community leaders, Alford and other coaches within the department. He was basically a jerk to most everyone and most everyone didn't like him. That's a problem.

EG#9 said:
Alford felt like had maxed out at Iowa. He truly saw New Mexico as a better situation given that and the other issues and he was proven correct as he eventually parlayed his performance at UNM in to the UCLA job. His situation was very different than Pitino's is now.
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Maxed out at Iowa? The Hawkeyes had been to 16 NCAAs, including a Final Four, five Sweet 16s and three Elite 8s in the 21 years prior to Alford's arrival. They were in the Sweet 16 the year before he got there. Alford then proceeded to go to three NCAA Tournaments in his eight years, with one NCAA tourney win in his second year. He didn't win an NCAA game in his final six seasons. That's a problem.

If he truly thought New Mexico was the better situation, then he had no one to blame but himself for pushing the Iowa job below New Mexico.

EG#9 said:
Without going in to details, the Pierre Pierce situation brought to light some other issues and all of that played a role.
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Without going into details? You mean the sticky details that he publicly defended Pierre Pierce and interfered with the investigation? That was the turning point. Particularly when the alleged sexual assault happened against another student athlete at Iowa and Alford attempted behind the scenes to talk her out of pursuing any legal action and resolve the issue with his friend who runs an on campus Christian organization. Coaches who do stuff like that today are fired the second that becomes public. It is one of the main reasons he didn't get the Indiana job when he wanted it.
 
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giveme said:
Miles was 52-76 in the Big Ten. Pitino is 54-96.

Neither has been good, but Pitino has been worse.

Pitino has got to be near the top of the all time list for conference games below .500 for a BIG coach. Bad coaches usually get fired long before they can get to be more than 40 conference games below .500.
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Somebody ought to look this up.
 

Bad Gopher said:
Somebody ought to look this up.
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When Tim Miles took the Husker job, he was positioned well for a lot of potential openings. Nebraska had a new arena, etc and was determined to improve. They made a great offer, etc. He put together a good staff and started strong but lost steam at the end....7 years. It’s really not a great comparison between the two but I get the stat comparison. Miles’ legacy IMO is decent when you dig deeper and realize some of his assistants have done well who sort of learned the ropes under him even though he’s still relatively young. Will be interesting to see if/when he gets another shot. Good coach I think.
 


giveme said:
Miles was 52-76 in the Big Ten. Pitino is 54-96.

Neither has been good, but Pitino has been worse.

Pitino has got to be near the top of the all time list for conference games below .500 for a BIG coach. Bad coaches usually get fired long before they can get to be more than 40 conference games below .500.
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How about 80 games below .500? Bill Carmody led Northwestern for 13 years, posting a 70-150 conference record (.318). And actually I thought he was a pretty decent coach.

I doubt if anyone in Big Ten history can touch -80.
 


giveme said:
Miles was 52-76 in the Big Ten. Pitino is 54-96.

Neither has been good, but Pitino has been worse.

Pitino has got to be near the top of the all time list for conference games below .500 for a BIG coach. Bad coaches usually get fired long before they can get to be more than 40 conference games below .500.
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This glosses over the clunker non-conference losses to mid and low-major teams that happened to Tim Miles' Nebraska teams on a number of occasions. With the exception of the 2015-16 season, Pitino generally never lost those sorts of games. I'm actually hard-pressed to think of even a single occasion that Pitino lost a buy game outside of 2015-16 (when, to be fair, he lost 3 of them). Most years with Tim Miles feature a loss to a Kent State, or a Samford, or an Incarnate Word, or a Gardner-Webb. Pitino at Minnesota had a higher overall winning percentage than Miles did at Nebraska.

Not to mention in 2017-18, when Nebraska went 13-5 in conference, the Big Ten put just 4 teams in the tournament. Nebraska played all 4 of them only once each, went 1-3 against them, and not only missed the tournament, but got a 5 seed in the NIT and lost in the first round.
 


Lots of love for Little Richard on the Lobo chat rooms. They want him over Miles. We should find out soon...
 


bigyetti18 said:
I get what you are saying however I do not understand how if RP lands at New Mexico it makes our job more attractive. How so?
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I think he's saying it shows the next coach that if he fails at Minnesota, he might land on his feet.

However, he's failing to take into account the fact that the next coach won't be Rick Pitino's son.
 



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