Pitino on biggest challenges at Minnesota

[Moonlight]

That's the key right there. Haskins sent an average of about one player a year to the NBA (for at least a cup of coffee), not because he recruited top shelf talent all the time, but he and his staff developed the heck out of them. When it came to player development, he was a man with a plan.

From Sir Moonlight: 'Clem had a reputation of rebuilding players, stripping them of their style and making them play his, meaning they generally got worse before they got better.'
And 'We love our past coaches and our future ones. We never love our current coach.'

 

[station19]

From Sir Moonlight: 'Clem had a reputation of rebuilding players, stripping them of their style and making them play his, meaning they generally got worse before they got better.'
And 'We love our past coaches and our future ones. We never love our current coach.'

+19

 

[Bad Gopher]

From Sir Moonlight: 'Clem had a reputation of rebuilding players, stripping them of their style and making them play his, meaning they generally got worse before they got better.'
And 'We love our past coaches and our future ones. We never love our current coach.'

Clem himself admitted to doing that - but only to point guards. I'm not sure it's accurate to say that all his players got worse before they got better. Voshon Lenard, for example, was great from the start and led the team in scoring all four years.

 

[Ralph_Wiggum]

The weather is a phony issue. Michigan State faces similar weather and they are doing okay as is Wisconsin which has a similar population to MN. Minneapolis-Saint Paul has 3 million people in the metro are and MPLS offers big city attractions. There is enough talent produced to win within 400 miles of MPLS. MN has produced some very good basketball players through the years. Jones is from Apple Valley and let's see his senior year there were three Minnesota kids who were legit prospects. And let's not forget that you can get role players from MN. If you look at the rosters of the Dakota schools you see a lot of Minnesota kids who can play and be the type of role played needed to win. Let's see how the recruiting goes for Jone's younger brother.

 

[station19]

Wisconsin and Michigan don't have International Falls.

 

[cjbfbp]

And let's not forget that you can get role players from MN. If you look at the rosters of the Dakota schools you see a lot of Minnesota kids who can play and be the type of role played needed to win. Let's see how the recruiting goes for Jone's younger brother.

I think that is an important point. You can recruit players like this for the last few spots of the roster and sometimes they can turn out to be better contributors than more highly recruited players.