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Resident Patrick Bateman
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Found online this morning from Dan Owen and 247Sports.
Since Richard Pitino was hired at the beginning of April, there’s undeniably been a buzz amongst Gopher fans towards basketball recruiting that hasn’t been present in quite a while. Certainly the spike in interest has been justified, as Gopher fans haven’t seen the level of interest from top recruits in some time. The end of Tubby Smith’s reign was marked by fan frustration with a lack of high profile recruits being landed and little in the way of a backup plan when top targets went elsewhere.
A fair question to ask, though, is whether Coach Pitino is really that different from Tubby Smith. The 2008 and 2009 recruiting classes, Smith’s first two at Minnesota, were better than anything Minnesota had seen in nearly a decade. Gopher fans were ecstatic when the team signed Devoe Joseph and Ralph Sampson III and picked up a commitment from the JUCO player of the year (Devron Bostick). That was followed up by an even better class in 2009, as Tubby was able to land the top players in Minnesota (Royce White and Rodney Williams), and also reeled in Trevor Mbakwe, who could become the first Minnesota player to be drafted to the NBA in almost a decade.
Those first two years were unquestionably great, and brought much excitement to Gopher Nation. I found myself wondering if Gopher fans are off base when singing the praises of Richard Pitino and believing that this is, potentially, the dawning of a new age for Gopher basketball?
I decided to take a trip down memory lane and look back to the first month or so of Tubby Smith’s reign, and compare that to what we’ve seen thus far from Richard Pitino. It’s important to make a distinction before we begin, though. The historical look back to Tubby’s recruiting is based on what information I was able to dig up in old articles from sources like Rivals, Scout, and anywhere else that seemed halfway credible. It was a different time back then, Twitter hadn’t risen to prominence with recruits announcing every offer or contact with a coach to the entire world. So we are dealing with a limited picture of what was going on, and with both staffs are only privy to what recruits have shared. Undoubtedly, Coach Pitino is doing more than we know, and Coach Smith was doing more than we had an idea of.
A Quick History Lesson
To begin, let’s start with a look back at the recruits that we know Tubby Smith pursued shortly after joining the fold at Minnesota.
The first thing fans always look for in a new coach is what he can do with local recruits. The top two players in the state of Minnesota, Jared Berggren and Jordan Taylor, had already committed to play for Bo Ryan and the Wisconsin Badgers, and both seemed uninterested in reopening their recruiting to take a new look at Minnesota. Tubby was quick to start building a relationship with the top 2009 in-staters, Royce White and Rodney Williams, both of whom would end up at Minnesota.
Devoe Joseph was something of an unknown coming into the 2007 AAU season. He had picked up a few small-time offers, including one from Minnesota’s former recruiting staff. However, a monster performance at an AAU event in Pittsburgh and continued excellence throughout the summer found Joseph being courted by several high major schools. While the former staff had engaged Joseph, it does not appear that Tubby had begun to recruit Devoe until sometime after his first 30 days on the job.
Ranked right alongside Joseph, Ralph Sampson III gave Tubby’s first recruiting class name recognition. Sampson’s recruitment by Minnesota didn’t begin in earnest until the very end of his first month at the helm, after watching Sampson the Kingwood Classic AAU event, but following that the Gophers had him pegged as one of their top priorities.
One future commit that the Gophers showed interest in right from the get go was point guard. If seeing that name made you pause for a second since you can’t remember a guy named Nate Garth ever suiting up for the maroon and gold, don’t worry, you’re not crazy. While Garth was the first player to commit to Tubby Smith at Minnesota, he opened up his recruitment again in mid-May and it seemed that Minnesota may have chosen to go in a different direction. Nate ended up committing to New Mexico State, before transferring over to UC Santa Barbara after two seasons.
The Gophers also went after a few players that ended up making names for themselves at other Big Ten institutions. Draymond Green was one of Tubby’s first targets, a carry over from his time at Kentucky. Tubby had a strong connection to Green, as his high school coach (Lou Dawkins) was a former player under Tubby at Tulsa, and word was that Green’s interest in Kentucky was largely driven by an interest in playing for Tubby. Unfortunately, the Gophers weren’t able to wrest Green away from the hometown Michigan State Spartans. One can only imagine how different the landscape might have been if Green
Lewis Jackson, the pesky point guard who Gopher fans know well from his time at Purdue, was another future Big Ten player contacted by the staff almost immediately, but had inconsistent communication from Minnesota through the summer and the Gophers never seemed to make it to the top of the diminutive point guard’s list.
Beyond this list, there isn’t much evidence of players that were receiving early interest from the Gophers. As I mentioned above, though, this is certainly not a complete picture, but merely a good measuring stick to compare Coach Pitino’s overt recruiting efforts to this point.
Pitino Kicks Things Off in High Gear
One of the top priorities for Coach Pitino as he took over the team is to focus on landing “The Big Three”, made up of local stars Tyus Jones, Rashad Vaughn, and Reid Travis. All three players are ranked amongst the top 60 players in the nation, and landing even just two out of the three would be considered something of a coup. Pitino will certainly have a battle on his hands as some of the premier schools in the nation are honing in on the Twin Cities trio.
One of the other top targets that the Gophers staff has identified is Isaiah Whitehead, a four-star shooting guard out of New York City. Again, the Gophers will have quite a battle on their hands if they hope to land the talented shooting guard, but they won’t miss out on him for a lack of effort. Whitehead recently discussed Richard Pitino in an article from InsideTheVille, saying that he had a “great impression” of Pitino and that “he came in with a very good vibe.” Minnesota will have a lot of ground to make up on Whitehead’s leaders, Syracuse and Louisville, but they’ve already shown to be hard after him.
Additionally, Coach Pitino has sent offers out to highly ranked recruits like Kaleb Joseph, Paul White, Sandy Cohen, and more. He’s picked out targets for the future, extending an offer to 2015 recruit Jarvis Johnson and reaffirming the offers of big men Alex Illikainen and Henry Ellenson.
One of the biggest differences between Smith’s takeover of the Gophers and Pitino’s introduction to Gopher Nation is the recruiting class that they inherited. Upon Tubby Smith’s arrival at Minnesota, he firmed up the commitments of Al Nolen and Blake Hoffarber and called it a day. Pitino inherited a recruiting class that had already lost Alvin Ellis, and would shortly lose Alex Foster, leaving the class empty. Pitino quickly flipped Daquein McNeil from FIU, and then landed JUCO point guard Dre Mathieu to help bolster the Minnesota backcourt. The turmoil wasn’t over, though, as sophomore wing Joe Coleman decided to transfer. Pitino was quick to answer, though, as it was announced yesterday that Malik Smith would be transferring from FIU to continue playing under Pitino.
The Verdict
While I again want to emphasize that we’re dealing with, at best, an incomplete picture of the recruiting activity that took place early, there are a few things that became fairly apparent from digging through old recruiting stories.
Based on the information available to us, it certainly seems like Pitino has been much more active than Tubby was when he first took this job. Pitino has had to contend with a much tougher incoming situation as he essentially had to start over on the 2013 recruiting class, but has still had the time to quickly get offers in hand to several top targets. While it may take a bit more time to allow things to play out, it also seems as though Pitino’s staff has been more decisive in offering players and getting after their targets. It seemed at times that Tubby Smith’s staff waffled on players a little bit, with Nate Garth and Lewis Jackson being good examples where it was hard to tell where exactly the player stood at different points of their recruitment.
Also, there is a fundamental difference in what players talk about when they discuss Minnesota from the Tubby Smith era to today. With Tubby Smith, players spoke of being attracted to playing for him because of his stature as one of the most respected coaches in the game, and cited his history as a championship-winning head coach. There were fewer mentions of being excited for the style of play at Minnesota, and the strongest relationships sometimes seemed to be formed between Smith and the player’s parents. Reaction from recruits towards Coach Pitino has been different. They call out his up-tempo style of play as being particularly interesting (and that certainly isn’t hurt by the fact that he can point to National Champion Louisville as the model for what he’ll be looking to do at Minnesota). Recruits also seem to mention more of the personal touch that the new Gophers staff brings, mentioning that the coaches joke around with them quite a lot, and present a very straightforward message.
In the end, only time will tell whether Richard Pitino will be successful at Minnesota. He has quite a challenge ahead of him in trying to land the Big Three, and Gopher fans will certainly have plenty to talk about this summer and fall. What is certain is that there’s reason for excitement in the Twin Cities. All Gopher fans need to hope for now is that the hard work will pay off and this time next year we’ll be talking about the best recruiting class Minnesota has seen in more than a decade.
Since Richard Pitino was hired at the beginning of April, there’s undeniably been a buzz amongst Gopher fans towards basketball recruiting that hasn’t been present in quite a while. Certainly the spike in interest has been justified, as Gopher fans haven’t seen the level of interest from top recruits in some time. The end of Tubby Smith’s reign was marked by fan frustration with a lack of high profile recruits being landed and little in the way of a backup plan when top targets went elsewhere.
A fair question to ask, though, is whether Coach Pitino is really that different from Tubby Smith. The 2008 and 2009 recruiting classes, Smith’s first two at Minnesota, were better than anything Minnesota had seen in nearly a decade. Gopher fans were ecstatic when the team signed Devoe Joseph and Ralph Sampson III and picked up a commitment from the JUCO player of the year (Devron Bostick). That was followed up by an even better class in 2009, as Tubby was able to land the top players in Minnesota (Royce White and Rodney Williams), and also reeled in Trevor Mbakwe, who could become the first Minnesota player to be drafted to the NBA in almost a decade.
Those first two years were unquestionably great, and brought much excitement to Gopher Nation. I found myself wondering if Gopher fans are off base when singing the praises of Richard Pitino and believing that this is, potentially, the dawning of a new age for Gopher basketball?
I decided to take a trip down memory lane and look back to the first month or so of Tubby Smith’s reign, and compare that to what we’ve seen thus far from Richard Pitino. It’s important to make a distinction before we begin, though. The historical look back to Tubby’s recruiting is based on what information I was able to dig up in old articles from sources like Rivals, Scout, and anywhere else that seemed halfway credible. It was a different time back then, Twitter hadn’t risen to prominence with recruits announcing every offer or contact with a coach to the entire world. So we are dealing with a limited picture of what was going on, and with both staffs are only privy to what recruits have shared. Undoubtedly, Coach Pitino is doing more than we know, and Coach Smith was doing more than we had an idea of.
A Quick History Lesson
To begin, let’s start with a look back at the recruits that we know Tubby Smith pursued shortly after joining the fold at Minnesota.
The first thing fans always look for in a new coach is what he can do with local recruits. The top two players in the state of Minnesota, Jared Berggren and Jordan Taylor, had already committed to play for Bo Ryan and the Wisconsin Badgers, and both seemed uninterested in reopening their recruiting to take a new look at Minnesota. Tubby was quick to start building a relationship with the top 2009 in-staters, Royce White and Rodney Williams, both of whom would end up at Minnesota.
Devoe Joseph was something of an unknown coming into the 2007 AAU season. He had picked up a few small-time offers, including one from Minnesota’s former recruiting staff. However, a monster performance at an AAU event in Pittsburgh and continued excellence throughout the summer found Joseph being courted by several high major schools. While the former staff had engaged Joseph, it does not appear that Tubby had begun to recruit Devoe until sometime after his first 30 days on the job.
Ranked right alongside Joseph, Ralph Sampson III gave Tubby’s first recruiting class name recognition. Sampson’s recruitment by Minnesota didn’t begin in earnest until the very end of his first month at the helm, after watching Sampson the Kingwood Classic AAU event, but following that the Gophers had him pegged as one of their top priorities.
One future commit that the Gophers showed interest in right from the get go was point guard. If seeing that name made you pause for a second since you can’t remember a guy named Nate Garth ever suiting up for the maroon and gold, don’t worry, you’re not crazy. While Garth was the first player to commit to Tubby Smith at Minnesota, he opened up his recruitment again in mid-May and it seemed that Minnesota may have chosen to go in a different direction. Nate ended up committing to New Mexico State, before transferring over to UC Santa Barbara after two seasons.
The Gophers also went after a few players that ended up making names for themselves at other Big Ten institutions. Draymond Green was one of Tubby’s first targets, a carry over from his time at Kentucky. Tubby had a strong connection to Green, as his high school coach (Lou Dawkins) was a former player under Tubby at Tulsa, and word was that Green’s interest in Kentucky was largely driven by an interest in playing for Tubby. Unfortunately, the Gophers weren’t able to wrest Green away from the hometown Michigan State Spartans. One can only imagine how different the landscape might have been if Green
Lewis Jackson, the pesky point guard who Gopher fans know well from his time at Purdue, was another future Big Ten player contacted by the staff almost immediately, but had inconsistent communication from Minnesota through the summer and the Gophers never seemed to make it to the top of the diminutive point guard’s list.
Beyond this list, there isn’t much evidence of players that were receiving early interest from the Gophers. As I mentioned above, though, this is certainly not a complete picture, but merely a good measuring stick to compare Coach Pitino’s overt recruiting efforts to this point.
Pitino Kicks Things Off in High Gear
One of the top priorities for Coach Pitino as he took over the team is to focus on landing “The Big Three”, made up of local stars Tyus Jones, Rashad Vaughn, and Reid Travis. All three players are ranked amongst the top 60 players in the nation, and landing even just two out of the three would be considered something of a coup. Pitino will certainly have a battle on his hands as some of the premier schools in the nation are honing in on the Twin Cities trio.
One of the other top targets that the Gophers staff has identified is Isaiah Whitehead, a four-star shooting guard out of New York City. Again, the Gophers will have quite a battle on their hands if they hope to land the talented shooting guard, but they won’t miss out on him for a lack of effort. Whitehead recently discussed Richard Pitino in an article from InsideTheVille, saying that he had a “great impression” of Pitino and that “he came in with a very good vibe.” Minnesota will have a lot of ground to make up on Whitehead’s leaders, Syracuse and Louisville, but they’ve already shown to be hard after him.
Additionally, Coach Pitino has sent offers out to highly ranked recruits like Kaleb Joseph, Paul White, Sandy Cohen, and more. He’s picked out targets for the future, extending an offer to 2015 recruit Jarvis Johnson and reaffirming the offers of big men Alex Illikainen and Henry Ellenson.
One of the biggest differences between Smith’s takeover of the Gophers and Pitino’s introduction to Gopher Nation is the recruiting class that they inherited. Upon Tubby Smith’s arrival at Minnesota, he firmed up the commitments of Al Nolen and Blake Hoffarber and called it a day. Pitino inherited a recruiting class that had already lost Alvin Ellis, and would shortly lose Alex Foster, leaving the class empty. Pitino quickly flipped Daquein McNeil from FIU, and then landed JUCO point guard Dre Mathieu to help bolster the Minnesota backcourt. The turmoil wasn’t over, though, as sophomore wing Joe Coleman decided to transfer. Pitino was quick to answer, though, as it was announced yesterday that Malik Smith would be transferring from FIU to continue playing under Pitino.
The Verdict
While I again want to emphasize that we’re dealing with, at best, an incomplete picture of the recruiting activity that took place early, there are a few things that became fairly apparent from digging through old recruiting stories.
Based on the information available to us, it certainly seems like Pitino has been much more active than Tubby was when he first took this job. Pitino has had to contend with a much tougher incoming situation as he essentially had to start over on the 2013 recruiting class, but has still had the time to quickly get offers in hand to several top targets. While it may take a bit more time to allow things to play out, it also seems as though Pitino’s staff has been more decisive in offering players and getting after their targets. It seemed at times that Tubby Smith’s staff waffled on players a little bit, with Nate Garth and Lewis Jackson being good examples where it was hard to tell where exactly the player stood at different points of their recruitment.
Also, there is a fundamental difference in what players talk about when they discuss Minnesota from the Tubby Smith era to today. With Tubby Smith, players spoke of being attracted to playing for him because of his stature as one of the most respected coaches in the game, and cited his history as a championship-winning head coach. There were fewer mentions of being excited for the style of play at Minnesota, and the strongest relationships sometimes seemed to be formed between Smith and the player’s parents. Reaction from recruits towards Coach Pitino has been different. They call out his up-tempo style of play as being particularly interesting (and that certainly isn’t hurt by the fact that he can point to National Champion Louisville as the model for what he’ll be looking to do at Minnesota). Recruits also seem to mention more of the personal touch that the new Gophers staff brings, mentioning that the coaches joke around with them quite a lot, and present a very straightforward message.
In the end, only time will tell whether Richard Pitino will be successful at Minnesota. He has quite a challenge ahead of him in trying to land the Big Three, and Gopher fans will certainly have plenty to talk about this summer and fall. What is certain is that there’s reason for excitement in the Twin Cities. All Gopher fans need to hope for now is that the hard work will pay off and this time next year we’ll be talking about the best recruiting class Minnesota has seen in more than a decade.
