Next Gopher Head Coach

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Gophs24 said:
so Much depends how what coach comes here....
Carr and curry are 100% gone either way.

Johnson is probably close to 100% as well. Although I would love to see him come back.

Robbins and Maschburn. Again depends on who they bring in. But I think for both these guys, unless they just don’t feel like they will click with the new hire, it will be hard for either of them to walk away from starting spots for a big ten teams. So as long as we make the right hire I think they both stay.

Gach I just don’t think will have a lot of options for himself unless he transfers down. but I would put him as gone roght now.

Ihnen, tre, and gabe are all back.

Freeman and Mitchell.I think both of these guys are back as well. Although I could see freeman transferring closer to home and looking for more minutes.

Recruits.
Phouto is gone
Thompson....assuming the next coach honors the offer. Will stay committed
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I hope mash and Liam come back but with the transfer rules now basically free agency, it's easy to move. Both those guys could start or get solid minutes on pretty much every P5 school if they wanted.
 

UpAndUnder43 said:
Yes. Changes my opinion of the entire athletic department. Of the “major” sports Pitino is the only coach I don’t have faith in.

Fleck, Motzko, Whalen, Hugh, Frost are all I coaches I believe in. Baseballand softball seem to be in good hands. Wrestling needs a new coach.

men’s basketball is a cornerstone of athletic departments and ours is crumbling.
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Lindsay needs more time to show what she can do. But I am not impressed so far.
 


tmvander said:
Tim Miles is interesting. Really great guy and ties to the midwest (especially MN), however do you want to take a flier on a guy who already failed in the Big Ten?
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Miles recruited well early on but bad luck sunk his ship. I think he would be super motivated to prove he could succeed.
 

leib0039 said:
I hope mash and Liam come back but with the transfer rules now basically free agency, it's easy to move. Both those guys could start or get solid minutes on pretty much every P5 school if they wanted.
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Robbins would have to sit out. You only get one transfer without sitting out if new rule goes through. Mashburn? Depends on who the coach would be, so who knows. Between the two would much rather have Mashburn.
 


EG#9 said:
The difficulty with hiring a black coach right now is that if you prioritize success as a head coach at the college level, the pickings are very slim. All of the best coaches in the Missouri Valley and Mountain West are white guys right now. Then you have Wes Miller, Mike Rhoades, John Becker..also all white guys. I read a stat that the number of black head coaches in D1 was down to like 24%. If the bottom and the middle of the food chain is not hiring black coaches, it makes it difficult for the power 5 schools at the top to make those hires. If you look at the B1G right now, the only black head coach is Juwan Howard and he was hired as an NBA assistant with no college head coaching experience.

Now Howard has Michigan poised to be a B1G power for a long time, so obviously you can go this way. I am just saying if the AD has success as a head coach in college basketball at/near the top of his qualifications list, the number of black head coaches available is small due to hiring practices elsewhere. I'd be intrigued by John Thompson III if he wanted to get back in the college game, by Sam Cassell who's paid his dues similar to Juwan Howard as an NBA assistant, obviously I'd take a shot at Ed Cooley to see if he's interested and Anthony Grant as well.
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I don't follow the coaching pipeline, so I'm sure that you are right. I did a quick and rough calculation covering the time period since Tubby left in 2013. Eleven coaches at the U have led the major men's and women's programs and all have been white. If we expand the list to include the professional teams the number grows to twenty three and only one coach was black (Sam Mitchell) and he was an interim. Right or wrong, the optics are going to force Coyle in one direction. Hiring a white coach will also be used against the U in recruiting. As you said, if the pool is small, how do you find the right fit? I assume Coyle is already working on it.
 

Buyout is going to be an issue in the covid era.

Maybe find a coach willing to take a super low first year salary to offset a buyout.

Or boosters will have to step up
 

Do we even have deep pocket boosters that offer up money for buyouts and money to sign coveted coaches? Sid's "Big Cigar" group have all pretty much passed away. Who are the big boosters that have that kind of money and actually give to these causes? Can somebody throw out some names here?

(also, is Lou Nanne still in charge of fund raising for the Athlete's Village?)
 
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GopherJack said:
Do we even have deep pocket boosters that offer up money for buyouts and money to sign coveted coaches? Sid's "Big Cigar" group have all pretty much passed away. Who are the big boosters that have that kind of money and actually give to these causes? Can somebody throw out some names here?

(also, is Lou Nanne still in charge of fund raising for the Athlete's Village?)
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Several have passed away but more have gone away with all the losing and with how people have been hired pre Coyle. Teague really hurt the athletic department and had people begging him to not make this hire.Then his personal garbage enraged them and so did the poor character choices Pitino made. Most of these guys have built success and found out you never cut corners on character. In a conference where you will not recruit with the top you must be a top 2 or 3 conference defensive team to finish near the top.
 

builtbadgers said:
Why do so many people care about people having connections to Minnesota ? I could care less where people come from, what color they are.
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Desire to be here, and loyalty to this area.

On paper, sure, it's fine to say that it doesn't matter. Because it doesn't .... IF you can find someone from outside this state who actually does want to come here and stay here. But that's usually not the case.


Perfect example: Gard.
 

skiumah1 said:
But if it's somebody from elsewhere and they come in, do a great job, and want to stay here, that's great.
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Right, agreed.

But that's just not usually the case.

Minnesota is one of those places, really no different than a place like North Dakota, where if you didn't grow up here or have some kind of family or significant other connection, it's just not on the top of a lot of people's list of places where they'd like to live.


Almost no one who grows up in California, or Washington, or Georgia, or New York (state), says something like "I'd really like to live in and settle down in Minneapolis, when I grow up". That's just not a thing.
 

Gophs24 said:
so Much depends how what coach comes here....
Carr and curry are 100% gone either way.

Johnson is probably close to 100% as well. Although I would love to see him come back.

Robbins and Maschburn. Again depends on who they bring in. But I think for both these guys, unless they just don’t feel like they will click with the new hire, it will be hard for either of them to walk away from starting spots for a big ten teams. So as long as we make the right hire I think they both stay.

Gach I just don’t think will have a lot of options for himself unless he transfers down. but I would put him as gone roght now.

Ihnen, tre, and gabe are all back.

Freeman and Mitchell.I think both of these guys are back as well. Although I could see freeman transferring closer to home and looking for more minutes.

Recruits.
Phouto is gone
Thompson....assuming the next coach honors the offer. Will stay committed
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For Johnson, Robbins, and Gach, keep in mind that these guys already just used a transfer from a four-year school.

The talk has always been about giving players one "free" transfer from a four-year school to another. Not unlimited ....
 



MplsGopher said:
Right, agreed.

But that's just not usually the case.

Minnesota is one of those places, really no different than a place like North Dakota, where if you didn't grow up here or have some kind of family or significant other connection, it's just not on the top of a lot of people's list of places where they'd like to live.


Almost no one who grows up in California, or Washington, or Georgia, or New York (state), says something like "I'd really like to live in and settle down in Minneapolis, when I grow up". That's just not a thing.
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I'd also argue that unlike football there actually is a significant pool of Minnesota connected headcoaching options in basketball.

We are the sleeping giant just waiting for the right coach.
 


I mean, say that Pitino had came here and smashed a grand slam out of the park. Do you really think he would've turned down offers from elite programs to stay here?

I totally understand arguments like "that's always going to be true, because we're not an elite athletic dept in football or mens basketball, so that shouldn't deter us and we should enjoy the ride for a few years when we get it". And I don't necessarily disagree, either.
 

MplsGopher said:
I mean, say that Pitino had came here and smashed a grand slam out of the park. Do you really think he would've turned down offers from elite programs to stay here?

I totally understand arguments like "that's always going to be true, because we're not an elite athletic dept in football or mens basketball, so that shouldn't deter us and we should enjoy the ride for a few years when we get it". And I don't necessarily disagree, either.
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Perhaps, for the same reason we're told that Musselman is unavailable: they seem to like it in Fayetteville. For a young family, stability is a big deal. And I think many or most people around here underrate the desirability of this community.
 

Bad Gopher said:
And I think many or most people around here underrate the desirability of this community.
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My opinion only: once people get here they realize how good a quality of life they can have for what is still a relatively cheap cost of living (compared even to say Denver, let alone the coasts).

But most people do not have Mpls as anywhere near high up on their list of places to settle down, unless they're from here. That's just the deal of it. Same as North Dakota or Manitoba, in that sense.
 

goldengophers said:
I'd also argue that unlike football there actually is a significant pool of Minnesota connected headcoaching options in basketball.

We are the sleeping giant just waiting for the right coach.
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This is not a cliche. This program has underperformed its potential for many years, and its potential has never been higher with the talent pool in the region. UW would not have been as good as they've been in the last generation without upper midwest talent.
 

There's only one "Elite" level coach that has been mentioned on this thread, that would almost assuredly turn the Gophers into every year contenders... Eric Musselman. BUT there's less that a 1% chance he could be had.

Smith, Medved & Dutcher are all very good coaches that would fit the bill for your average, middle-of-the-pack Big-10 type coach. I think they'd get the Gophers a winning conference record every 2-4 years.

If I'm swinging for the fences I need to accept a higher chance of striking out, and I go with Dennis Gates (Cleveland St). Gotta like that he spend 8 years being mentored by Leonard Hamilton.
 

builtbadgers said:
Why do so many people care about people having connections to Minnesota ? I could care less where people come from, what color they are.
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Especially the Minnesota connections when you see how little Minnesota basketball success has been had.
They need to be a cultural fit, but you don’t have to be from here or have a connection to be a good cultural fit
 

JimmyJamesMD said:
Buyout is going to be an issue in the covid era.

Maybe find a coach willing to take a super low first year salary to offset a buyout.

Or boosters will have to step up
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That’s the case in a non Covid year too
 

Mikie S said:
There's only one "Elite" level coach that has been mentioned on this thread, that would almost assuredly turn the Gophers into every year contenders... Eric Musselman. BUT there's less that a 1% chance he could be had.

Smith, Medved & Dutcher are all very good coaches that would fit the bill for your average, middle-of-the-pack Big-10 type coach. I think they'd get the Gophers a winning conference record every 2-4 years.

If I'm swinging for the fences I need to accept a higher chance of striking out, and I go with Dennis Gates (Cleveland St). Gotta like that he spend 8 years being mentored by Leonard Hamilton.
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Whether we hire him or not, I'm going to be a Dennis Gates fan. He's talented and doing things the right way. You listen to him talk, and he's always talking about his academic best performers. He was a dean's list guy, too.
 

MplsGopher said:
How and by whom?

Other than Howard, which Big Ten school has a black head coach that will be able to use that against us?
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The criticism will be that the all of major men's and women's sports coaches and the AD are white, especially w/ the TC probably being the whitest major metro area in the country. My guess is that there aren't very many Power Five schools who fall in that category.
 

If there is a ever a time to be least concerned about players coming and going, it's never been more tha case than now.

Best players in the NCAA only stay one year anyway.
Transfers appear to be at an all time high.

Turnover on rosters should be super high at any good program.
 

MplsGopher said:
My opinion only: once people get here they realize how good a quality of life they can have for what is still a relatively cheap cost of living (compared even to say Denver, let alone the coasts).

But most people do not have Mpls as anywhere near high up on their list of places to settle down, unless they're from here. That's just the deal of it. Same as North Dakota or Manitoba, in that sense.
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I have read that head hunters say that it's really tough to recruit people into Mpls and really tough to pull people out of Mpls. Once people get here, they don't want to leave. I'm a transplant from a long time ago and I hate the winters, but I wouldn't live anywhere else.
 

Mikie S said:
There's only one "Elite" level coach that has been mentioned on this thread, that would almost assuredly turn the Gophers into every year contenders... Eric Musselman. BUT there's less that a 1% chance he could be had.

Smith, Medved & Dutcher are all very good coaches that would fit the bill for your average, middle-of-the-pack Big-10 type coach. I think they'd get the Gophers a winning conference record every 2-4 years.

If I'm swinging for the fences I need to accept a higher chance of striking out, and I go with Dennis Gates (Cleveland St). Gotta like that he spend 8 years being mentored by Leonard Hamilton.
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I like Musselman a lot, buts he’s not considered an elite guy yet. He’d come into the big ten still considered below Izzo, Gard, Painter, and Holtmann. After this year you can add Howard too.
Great point on Gates. Leonard Hamilton is a fantastic coach and it’ll be interesting to see if his tree will continue to grow
 

Bad Gopher said:
This is not a cliche. This program has underperformed its potential for many years, and its potential has never been higher with the talent pool in the region. UW would not have been as good as they've been in the last generation without upper midwest talent.
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UW went about hiring coaches the right way. Pat Richter was a superior AD by miles over anything we have had.
 



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