Next Gopher Head Coach

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restovich said:
Kind've weird to talk about replacing him when his record this year so far is 0-0
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I don't quite get this line of thinking. He has been here long enough to know what he is and what he isn't. I'm not advocating for him to be fired now, because he obviously won't be. I mean, let's be honest- the biggest winner of Covid is Pitino. It appears it may buy him 2 more years of overcharging the U for his services than if it never happened. The longer we keep him, the longer we swim in the seas somewhere between mediocre and terrible. Signs are pointing to this year being mediocre. Hooray, at least it's not one of the terrible years.

I would call it somewhat damning that it appears his greatest skill as a head coach is assembling a team of transfers while his back is against a wall with real fear of being canned.
 

howeda7 said:
I'd hire Jack over Saul Smith right now.
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Couldn't remember where Saul is right now. Memphis Tigers Assistant. If you read his resume he pretty much developed all the guard talent when he was at Minnesota.
 




alchemy2u said:
This is just a sad commentary on the fanbase.

We have a very good crop of players, many with NBA potential. Excitement for the upcoming season, and you have a thread like this... just pathetic.
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Richard shouldn't still be here. Everyone with any basketball IQ knows that. We all hope they can have a surprising year and make the dance, but chances are pretty low when you're picked to finish 12 in the conference.
 

LesBolstad said:
Richard shouldn't still be here. Everyone with any basketball IQ knows that. We all hope they can have a surprising year and make the dance, but chances are pretty low when you're picked to finish 12 in the conference.
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Those national preseason rankings don't mean anything. They just look mainly look at last years conference standings for half of the teams. I actually think this is the best team P has put together in his time here.
 

builtbadgers said:
I can see your view. I just do not think everyone would see it that way. For me a 6th and then a 4th is not a strong enough trend for me to think we have something special. Winning the conference on the other hand buys a ton of equity and for me proves a great deal. I also have high hopes for this year.
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Care to share on how high those hopes might be???
 




builtbadgers said:
A great deal of length and versatility. A complete acceptance of what level of defense that must be played.
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Thanks.

I was fishing for a record and hoped for prediction on where we finish in the conference.
 

restovich said:
Kind've weird to talk about replacing him when his record this year so far is 0-0
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Kind've weird to say his record is "0-0 so far this year."

His record is "48-82 so far in the B1G."
 

Frank Grimey Grimes said:
I think it would take a complete dumpster fire of a year for Pitino to get fired after this season even if Coyle wants to move on internally. I personally expect a good year and doubt we see a new coach until 2022 at the earliest.
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Agreed. Assuming we get to play the season, I don't see a dumpster fire on the horizon. One of my biggest complaints about Pitino over his tenure is that he's never had two good years in a row but, with the players on the roster now and the expected percentage of the roster returning next year, he has a good chance to accomplish that over the next two seasons.
 

Frank Grimey Grimes said:
I get what you're saying but to me what's more important than the entire resume of Pitino is where the program is now and the outlook of the next 2 to 3 years.

In this hypothetical scenario, if we had a top 6 and then a top 4 finish in the conference, I wouldn't really care what happened 5 years prior. Those finishes would tell me the program is very healthy and trending up and I'd commend Pitino for a good job.

The same would be true if we had the opposite situation with a very successful coach like Izzo or Painter. I wouldn't care if they have had a put together multiple years of success 5 years ago, if they put together two or three years in a row of bottom of the conference basketball I'd feel the program is trending down and in need of a coaching change.

Personally, I don't think Pitino should have gotten the leash he has up until this point, but that's neither here nor there. The program appears to be trending up with the talent on the roster and recruiting. Let's see how it pans out. I have high hopes this year.
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Exactly. It’s all about looking forward. I don’t care what Pitino’s prior record is, I only care about how the future of the program looks and I think it looks good with this current roster and the hypothetical 21-22 roster.

Claeys and Tubby would have never gotten fired if we were only basing this off of past resume and not future trajectory.
 
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Recruiting is sub par. Roster management is next to terrible. Doesnt win Big10 games. In general hsi offenses struggle most of the time.
 

die hard gopher said:
Claeys and Tubby would have never gotten fired if we were only basing this off of last resume and not future trajectory.
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That might be the single worst take this side of the off topic board.
 


die hard gopher said:
Exactly. It’s all about looking forward. I don’t care what Pitino’s prior record is, I only care about how the future of the program looks and I think it looks good with this current roster and the hypothetical 21-22 roster.

Claeys and Tubby would have never gotten fired if we were only basing this off of past resume and not future trajectory.
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Agree. The never ending debate but pitino is a very good coach. He has done a good job of maximizing his teams' talent. Recruiting, however, has been an issue at times imo. Looking forward to this season.
 

golf said:
Agree. The never ending debate but pitino is a very good coach. He has done a good job of maximizing his teams' talent. Recruiting, however, has been an issue at times imo. Looking forward to this season.
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He will not be recognized as a very good coach with a historically bad 48-82 record.
 

builtbadgers said:
He will not be recognized as a very good coach with a historically bad 48-82 record.
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Very true. But he has been given the opportunity to change that. He put together his best roster since he has been here.
However, if they continue to lose practice time to Covid, no coach could demonstrate improvement.
Times are very messed up. Pretty hard to know the future in any year but especially in 2020-21.
 


builtbadgers said:
He will not be recognized as a very good coach with a historically bad 48-82 record.
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Please. A troll starts some stupid thread totally out of the blue, but you have to make sure you get your dig in. We have gone over this a million times, please give it a rest for once.
 

builtbadgers said:
He will not be recognized as a very good coach with a historically bad 48-82 record.
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Got it. You have made your view of pitino clear for awhile now. If this season does not go well your dream scenario may very well come true so hang in there. Time will tell.
 
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I took an extended break from the basketball forum. Threads like this are why. Same people posting the same things. Nothing new.

Pitino has performed below what we’d want and likely below acceptable level. I think he should have been fired like 3 different times. But as long as he is the coach I’m hoping for a great year. Sad I won’t be there to witness Pitino’s Transfers but it is what it is. Weird year, hard to judge anything.

Side note: I think 80% of the starting lineup will be guys that didn’t originally commit to the University of Minnesota.
 

LesBolstad said:
Richard shouldn't still be here. Everyone with any basketball IQ knows that. We all hope they can have a surprising year and make the dance, but chances are pretty low when you're picked to finish 12 in the conference.
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Hate to say it, but I think you are right. I really like Richard's personality away from the game. Have heard from players parents not so many nice things about how he can be with the players but that could just be pressure of the job. I don't think his recruiting is very good at all. He seems very random with who he takes...reminds me of Brewster that way. Needs to recruit to positions/fit/skills rather than stars. That's just my opinion. If he didn't get all those transfers he really would be in trouble this year. That being said, I don't think any of them are world beaters kind of like Demir last year. Many were hyped on him and he just was ok when he was here. I see that again. Carr will be great but he can only do so much with Daniel not here because now he's the guy they are going to focus on. I also don't care for the way his offense runs, so many times it's like a non-offense offense. Very little movement, clock runs out and Carr drives to the hoop. Maybe they will surprise me like the football team. I actually thought they would be pretty good this year and they are god awful. I'll go in thinking they will be very underwhelming and maybe they will win? :p
 

I go back and forth on whether the pandemic will prevent a Pitino firing or require one. His buyout is tiny, but it was pretty small last Spring too. There will be no fans this year, but does that actually make getting close to a full Barn next year more important? That will almost certainly not happen with Pitino.

Personally, I would need to see Pitino finish 14-6/13-7 (assuming 20 games) in conference play to have even the slightest interest in seeing a 9th year. It's way past time where just sneaking in to the NCAA tournament can be considered acceptable, he needs to show he can finish somewhere close to the top of the conference standings.

I think people in this thread are vastly overestimating what a potential '21-22 roster looks like at Minnesota. Marcus Carr is almost assuredly gone to play pro ball somewhere and if he isn't it's highly unlikely the '20 Gophers were good enough to save Pitino's job. I am less certain about Both Gach, but the fact that he entertained the idea after last season suggests that you should write his name in pencil at best for '21-22. If Brandon Johnson is good, will he want to spend another year in school, given that's he's already graduated? Most schools have a better recruiting class coming in for '21-22 than Minnesota does (for now) and it wouldn't be surprising if we lost 3 starters off the '20-'21 team.

My hope is that this year is very clear one way or another. The nightmare scenario is something like 10-10/11-9 and a first round NCAA tournament exit. Coyle thinks (or is forced to) that he can justify keeping Pitino another year given the pandemic. Then Carr/other(s) leave. Then we have another 2019 season (or worse) which finally leads to a new coach in '22-23....By that time there might be 7 posters left on this board.
 

EG#9 said:
I go back and forth on whether the pandemic will prevent a Pitino firing or require one. His buyout is tiny, but it was pretty small last Spring too. There will be no fans this year, but does that actually make getting close to a full Barn next year more important? That will almost certainly not happen with Pitino.

Personally, I would need to see Pitino finish 14-6/13-7 (assuming 20 games) in conference play to have even the slightest interest in seeing a 9th year. It's way past time where just sneaking in to the NCAA tournament can be considered acceptable, he needs to show he can finish somewhere close to the top of the conference standings.

I think people in this thread are vastly overestimating what a potential '21-22 roster looks like at Minnesota. Marcus Carr is almost assuredly gone to play pro ball somewhere and if he isn't it's highly unlikely the '20 Gophers were good enough to save Pitino's job. I am less certain about Both Gach, but the fact that he entertained the idea after last season suggests that you should write his name in pencil at best for '21-22. If Brandon Johnson is good, will he want to spend another year in school, given that's he's already graduated? Most schools have a better recruiting class coming in for '21-22 than Minnesota does (for now) and it wouldn't be surprising if we lost 3 starters off the '20-'21 team.

My hope is that this year is very clear one way or another. The nightmare scenario is something like 10-10/11-9 and a first round NCAA tournament exit. Coyle thinks (or is forced to) that he can justify keeping Pitino another year given the pandemic. Then Carr/other(s) leave. Then we have another 2019 season (or worse) which finally leads to a new coach in '22-23....By that time there might be 7 posters left on this board.
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EG, you see it clearly. Easily the top gopher b-ball poster. FACT. I enjoy reading your posts
 

NotAFanOfBecky said:
Hate to say it, but I think you are right. I really like Richard's personality away from the game. Have heard from players parents not so many nice things about how he can be with the players but that could just be pressure of the job. I don't think his recruiting is very good at all. He seems very random with who he takes...reminds me of Brewster that way. Needs to recruit to positions/fit/skills rather than stars. That's just my opinion. If he didn't get all those transfers he really would be in trouble this year. That being said, I don't think any of them are world beaters kind of like Demir last year. Many were hyped on him and he just was ok when he was here. I see that again. Carr will be great but he can only do so much with Daniel not here because now he's the guy they are going to focus on. I also don't care for the way his offense runs, so many times it's like a non-offense offense. Very little movement, clock runs out and Carr drives to the hoop. Maybe they will surprise me like the football team. I actually thought they would be pretty good this year and they are god awful. I'll go in thinking they will be very underwhelming and maybe they will win? :p
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Agree on the recruiting. Disagree on drawing an equivalence between this year's transfers and demir. Disagree about the offense, dont see much difference between our offensive strategies and those of other teams, although will admit i like purdue's offensive plan the most.
 

golf said:
Got it. You have made your view of pitino clear for awhile now. If this season does not go well your dream scenario may very well come true so hang in there. Time will tell.
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What dream scenario ? Not much of a dream to expect our coach to contend just once for a conference title. Never even close and stuck at a 36% conference record.
 

builtbadgers said:
What dream scenario ? Not much of a dream to expect our coach to contend just once for a conference title. Never even close and stuck at a 36% conference record.
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You misunderstand my post.
Just saying that that your dream scenario of the 36% coach getting fired will likely occur if this season doesnt go well.
 

golf said:
Agree on the recruiting. Disagree on drawing an equivalence between this year's transfers and demir. Disagree about the offense, dont see much difference between our offensive strategies and those of other teams, although will admit i like purdue's offensive plan the most.
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Agreed. I was expecting Demir to be a below average starting Big Ten PF and thats exactly what he was. I was very excited when we got Demir, not because I thought he'd be a great player, but because he I expected him to be a much better option than the two alternatives, Omersa and Curry, which he was. We also still had Amir when we got Alihan but without Amir, Demir as our starting PF was a much more glaring deficiency.

I expect Johnson to be an average-ish starting Big Ten PF and an upgrade over Demir and I expect Robbins and Gach, and Gabe for that matter, to be above average Big Ten starters, but not quite All Big Ten players and I expect Carr to be a first team All Big Ten player and the top PG.

While Brandon Johnson and Alihan's numbers were somewhat similar at their previous stops (Johnson's a still a little better), I think it's clear that Johnson's game, due to his athleticism, will translate much better to the Big Ten than Alihan's game did. That was always my question with Alihan, put up solid numbers but if you watch his games, you could clearly see he wasn't very athletic at all and could struggle in certain aspects of the game in the Big Ten. I don't have those concerns with Johnson, or Liam or Both for that matter.
 

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