Good post. I think it's hard to say whether the Gophers won the NIT in 2014 because of, or in spite of, Pitino. Even without considering actual coaching, he does deserve some credit for recruiting Mathieu, getting Walker in playing shape, and getting some helpful supporting players (Joey King, Malik Smith) that year. He might have grown as a coach during his time here but the results didn't reflect that so much as the overall record for his last 4 years was worse than the record of his first 4 years.
As far as recruiting more locally, Johnson already has begun what he needs to do. It sounds so extremely obvious but if you want to start recruiting more players from a particular area, you simply have to start recruiting more players from that area even if they aren't so highly coveted. Case in point: Penn State. Before the former coach, Patrick Chambers, PSU was never a destination for Philadelphia area players. Chambers began by recruiting transfers who were Philly prep players, then he proceeded to recruiting Philly area freshmen who were decent but not very highly rated. Finally, in his 6th year, he landed three 4-star freshmen from the Philadelphia area. Ben should have an easier job getting MN preps to come to the U than Chambers had of establishing PSU as a destination for Philly players but it starts with regularly and continuously getting at least a couple of players from the state each year and sometimes getting more.
