Next Gopher Head Coach

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MplsGopher said:
Of course not, but I doubt Coyle’s actual list is radically different. It’s not rocket science.
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No one on this board is hiring the coach or will be in on the interviews. Oh sure, there might be some people on here who might be good friends with Coyle's neighbor they told them that Coyle really likes coach A, B or C, but unless that person is Coyle, his best friend or his top assistant, it doesn't mean anything to me.

The coach most people on this board either want to hire or think we will hire got beat by over 30 points last night. For me....Gates hasn't shown me enough....I'm concerned about Smith's recruiting....Dutcher is too old....I don't think they can get Musselmen to leave Arkansas. The coach I'm looking for will have a vision for what this program can and will be. I don't want someone who is considered a good coach....I want someone with a vision. Someone with a passion for that vision. What Trent Tucker said on the Lake interview is right...this should be a top program. We need our next coach to be someone who believes that.
 

ethomasp31 said:
I think my top choice is Niko Medved. He's got a young team loaded with sophomores with a few juniors and freshmen sprinkled in. If we pass on him and he stays at CSU, they will probably have two big years. People are going to asking why we passed on him since he was such a perfect fit...especially if the new coach struggles early on.
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This is very true....he wouldn’t be my first choice....but his team will be very good next year...SDSU is very senior heavy and they will take a step back next year. smith won’t be at Utah state anymore. They may be considered favorites in the league. And then we may be sitting back thinking man maybe we should have grabbed him when we had the chance. His track record certainly is not bad. But like I said all points are turning that he will have another very solid year under his belt after next year of he

He wouldn’t give much of any wow factor for the fan base. But the guy is very respected. Add in that you get at least Thor’s on and Roddy with him. Plus I bet he gets one or two other of his better players.

I’m higher on niko then a lot of guys on here. But I do think he probably is a ways down the list for coyle. I still wouldn’t mind him getting an interview. I want coyle to get this right.
 

laazrakit said:
Does Bobby Jackson have a college degree? I remember when Trent Tucker was pushing for a shot at the coaching job years ago that he was going to have to go back and finish up his degree...
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Yes, he got his college degree
 


ethomasp31 said:
No one on this board is hiring the coach or will be in on the interviews. Oh sure, there might be some people on here who might be good friends with Coyle's neighbor they told them that Coyle really likes coach A, B or C, but unless that person is Coyle, his best friend or his top assistant, it doesn't mean anything to me.
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I'm talking about "the list". Really doubt there is some wildly different guys that Coyle wants to interview, than what national/local media have named or that GH people have named. That's all I'm saying.

ethomasp31 said:
The coach most people on this board either want to hire or think we will hire got beat by over 30 points last night. For me....Gates hasn't shown me enough....I'm concerned about Smith's recruiting....Dutcher is too old....I don't think they can get Musselmen to leave Arkansas. The coach I'm looking for will have a vision for what this program can and will be. I don't want someone who is considered a good coach....I want someone with a vision. Someone with a passion for that vision. What Trent Tucker said on the Lake interview is right...this should be a top program. We need our next coach to be someone who believes that.
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Hey, you sold me. Niko was who I wanted, until he lost in the MWC tourney to Smith. Smith is who I wanted last year, and then I switched back to Smith.

I think Smith would do well. The only thing that concerns me, just recently, is my realization about how significantly his success at USU is directly tied to Queta.

I mean, isn't it almost too good to be true that Smith won big in his first year at USU? That has to have been because of Queta. Freshman of the year and defensive player of the year, that first year.


Anyone can look great with players who are just better than the teams you're playing.

Clearly, he was able to do that at South Dakota in the Summit League. And at Utah St in the Mountain West.

But that won't work at Minnesota in the Big Ten. We have to overachieve with what we can get. At least in the beginning.
 


WindyCityGopher said:
Moser isn’t coming here. He’s a devout Catholic who attended Catholic high school and college, and has sent (or will send) his four kids to Loyola Academy (LA), a private Jesuit high school. If he leaves Loyola it will be for another Catholic school. DePaul’s campus is only 6 miles from Loyola’s and would allow him to keep his sons at LA. I think another Jesuit school, Marquette, a better program in DePaul’s conference with far greater resources, is the wild card here and they will push very hard for him and that he’ll listen.
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I'm Catholic and a devout Gopher fan. It can happen.
 



MplsGopher said:
I'm talking about "the list". Really doubt there is some wildly different guys that Coyle wants to interview, than what national/local media have named or that GH people have named. That's all I'm saying.


Hey, you sold me. Niko was who I wanted, until he lost in the MWC tourney to Smith. Smith is who I wanted last year, and then I switched back to Smith.

I think Smith would do well. The only thing that concerns me, just recently, is my realization about how significantly his success at USU is directly tied to Queta.

I mean, isn't it almost too good to be true that Smith won big in his first year at USU? That has to have been because of Queta. Freshman of the year and defensive player of the year, that first year.


Anyone can look great with players who are just better than the teams you're playing.

Clearly, he was able to do that at South Dakota in the Summit League. And at Utah St in the Mountain West.

But that won't work at Minnesota in the Big Ten. We have to overachieve with what we can get. At least in the beginning.
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I personally think criticizing a coach on the basis of "yeah, but would he have won without the good players he recruited?" is unfair and frankly strange.
 



Bad Gopher said:
criticizing a coach on the basis of "yeah, but would he have won without the good players he recruited?"
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Nope.

The criticism has only ever been forward looking, for the situation (ours) where it will be impossible to win simply by "out-talenting" the other teams in our league, no matter how good you were at it in lower leagues.


To be fair, such a worry can apply to any coach who hasn't already done it. And of course, any such coach, who has proven it, isn't going to come here. So it's a dice roll on anyone, in this respect.
 


everybody knows my name said:
I might be the only person here who takes Mitchell seriously as a candidate. But I do. I like him a lot.
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I like Mitchell. Loved him when he played. I think he can coach. I don’t think he can coach high level D1 basketball yet. He has to work on his approach.
 




MplsGopher said:
Nope.

The criticism has only ever been forward looking, for the situation (ours) where it will be impossible to win simply by "out-talenting" the other teams in our league, no matter how good you were at it in lower leagues.


To be fair, such a worry can apply to any coach who hasn't already done it. And of course, any such coach, who has proven it, isn't going to come here. So it's a dice roll on anyone, in this respect.
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This sounds like an incoherent word salad to me. You're over-thinking this. If he can recruit a player of the caliber of Queta to Utah State, it stands to reason he can recruit even better players to Minnesota.

He's clearly shown the ability to teach and develop. That's not the issue. That he was able to get Queta should be seen as a good sign. I hope we haven't gotten to the point in this over-analysis where we're penalizing prospects for their successes because we continue to insist that you can't have success at Minnesota.
 

Tvans022 said:
Just awful strategy and lack of adjustments by Dutcher. 2 of 20 3’s... hmm where have I seen that before??? 🤔

And yes, I understand it’s one game. Totally understand not hitting shots, but no changes to the offense after 10+ min of no baskets??
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What makes it worse is that it wasn’t a surprise. They had to know that they would face this defense from scouting the team, and they still had nothing to attack it with.
 


Bad Gopher said:
If he can recruit a player of the caliber of Queta to Utah State, it stands to reason he can recruit even better players to Minnesota.
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Why???
This jump maybe seems logical, but it completely ignore the idea that (some) recruits favor being on a winning team or at least a team capable of winning, very highly.

No. Until proven, I'm not going to give anyone any benefit of the doubt like this.

So like I said, it's something to be held against all the lower coaches who haven't proven it yet. And doing it as an assistant, at a completely different program/conference/region of the country, counts for nothing in my book.

Bad Gopher said:
He's clearly shown the ability to teach and develop. That's not the issue.
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Agreed

Bad Gopher said:
where we're penalizing prospects for their successes
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This is you over-analyzing, in my opinion.
 

skiumah1 said:
I think this is all a good case for why he wouldn't leave SDSU as well. Why wait that long to get the SDSU job and then when the opportunity is yours, leave after 4 years.

I understand where you're coming from. I'd just like to see a strong regular season and then take our chances when we get to the NCAAs and I think Dutcher brings that. I agree Boeheim at his best this time of year.

I'm gonna stick to my anomaly card for tonight for whatever it's worth. There's been some very good coaches that have struggled with this zone through all the years. I just don't think you can find a way to totally prepare for it when you've never actually played it.
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But the regular B1G season is like the tournament. It isn’t a cakewalk in a weaker conference. If they have no game plan and get manhandled by a bottom half ACC team in the first round, they will not be posting 20 win seasons in the B1G!
 


oldrodent said:
I was hopeful of Dutcher being a HC candidate until I watched them get owned yesterday. Not that he should be judged on one game but it really seemed like he had that "overwhelmed" look about him. I am old enough to remember watching his dad coach the gophers and Junior has a similar style. If I remember right Dad was all about coaching kids up prior to game time and allowed them a lot of latitude on the floor. Considering also at that time as well as pre-pandemic the fans would serve as a motivator for the players. With no fans low key coaches like Dutcher Junior are challenged.
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For those few of you who still think Dutcher has a chance to be our next HC:
1. I repeat my earlier post saying that Dutcher is not coming here regardless of what Mike Max or others have "implied."
2. Would agree with oldrodent on the assessment of yesterday's game.
3. The additional point I wanted to make is that not only is Dutcher 62 years-old, but he has never rebuilt a program. His predecessor, Steve Fischer, built SDSU into a powerhouse (before Fischer the team was a perennial bottom dweller). Dutcher is simply continuing the tradition. The last thing I want to have happen now is to have the new Gopher HC continue our "traditions" of the last 20 years. And for some people locally to think that the "Dutcher name" is somehow magic to some high school recruit from say, Chicago, is rather far-fetched imo.
 

Block M said:
Coyle rolled the dice on his own employment by firing a competent coach. While, Pitino did a poor job coaching to the strengths of his roster this year, he was likely going to get an experienced squad into the tourney next year barring major injuries/transfers. Time will tell, but the names being floated for the Gophers HC position are not very impressive and this hire could go sideways or worse.
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Rick you forgot to say hi to the grandkids.
 



Bad Gopher said:
This sounds like an incoherent word salad to me. You're over-thinking this. If he can recruit a player of the caliber of Queta to Utah State, it stands to reason he can recruit even better players to Minnesota.

He's clearly shown the ability to teach and develop. That's not the issue. That he was able to get Queta should be seen as a good sign. I hope we haven't gotten to the point in this over-analysis where we're penalizing prospects for their successes because we continue to insist that you can't have success at Minnesota.
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He also recruited Mooney to USD too, who ended up starting on a team that played for the national championship.

Nate Oats wasn't exactly landing blue chippers at Buffalo. Jumping up to a power conference with better facilities and more resources significantly changes the game.
 

ethomasp31 said:
No one on this board is hiring the coach or will be in on the interviews. Oh sure, there might be some people on here who might be good friends with Coyle's neighbor they told them that Coyle really likes coach A, B or C, but unless that person is Coyle, his best friend or his top assistant, it doesn't mean anything to me.

The coach most people on this board either want to hire or think we will hire got beat by over 30 points last night. For me....Gates hasn't shown me enough....I'm concerned about Smith's recruiting....Dutcher is too old....I don't think they can get Musselmen to leave Arkansas. The coach I'm looking for will have a vision for what this program can and will be. I don't want someone who is considered a good coach....I want someone with a vision. Someone with a passion for that vision. What Trent Tucker said on the Lake interview is right...this should be a top program. We need our next coach to be someone who believes that.
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They can get Musselman. If they want to..... that is what is in doubt.
 

Many of the top candidates that we (GHers) are looking at all have teams with good defenses. But many of them look lost on offense. The major exception is Musselman. He has one of the top scoring teams in the country. It gets to be obvious, you need to bring in Musselman if you want to complete for B1G championships. Others may give you a “respectable” team, but we will still be complaining about how they just stand around on offense and can’t make any shots.
I am with Built, if you are taking a chance on a guy, make it a well respected assistant at a winning program that knows how it should work.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
He also recruited Mooney to USD too, who ended up starting on a team that played for the national championship.

Nate Oats wasn't exactly landing blue chippers at Buffalo. Jumping up to a power conference with better facilities and more resources significantly changes the game.
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This. I'd posted before that Bo Ryan finished 4th and 5th in the Horizon before going to Madison. Granted he inherited a nice team there, but you get better resources, assistant coaching candidates, and, most importantly, access to recruits at the higher levels. With those advantages he never finished lower than 4th in arguably the toughest conference in America.
 

alchemy2u said:
But the regular B1G season is like the tournament. It isn’t a cakewalk in a weaker conference. If they have no game plan and get manhandled by a bottom half ACC team in the first round, they will not be posting 20 win seasons in the B1G!
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Obviously their game plan was to shoot better from the outside than they did. That does happen in basketball from time to time. Furthermore, Syracuse is very underrated and has been on a roll. This was the equivalent of the Gophs drawing MTSU that one year.
 


GopherWeatherGuy said:
He also recruited Mooney to USD too, who ended up starting on a team that played for the national championship.

Nate Oats wasn't exactly landing blue chippers at Buffalo. Jumping up to a power conference with better facilities and more resources significantly changes the game.
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He recruited him ... from Air Force? Hmm..

Alabama will never be a comparable situation to Minnesota. Location, culture towards winning (*cough*bag men*cough), etc. They were recruiting 4* and 5* there before Oats showed up. He's just a much better coach of the talent they already had. So that example does nothing for me.


BUT, you do bring up a fair, valid point in my opinion. It does "change the game" more than zero, certainly.
 

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