bemidjigopher
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Pitino on biggest challenges at Minnesota
- Thread starter howeda7
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station19
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Do you have any idea how much talent there is around Louisville...southern Ill, so Indy, so Ohio and kentucky? All within 150 miles.
If Pitino were then to walk into your gym in ND or SD, wouldn't you be all "woah, he must really, really want me"?
Well, we're also a pretty short plane ride from Chicago. Kansas City and St. Louis are about the same. Even Memphis is only about a 2 hour flight.
Pitino's claim of a difficult distance seems like a red herring anyway. He has no recruits from the areas just mentioned (or Milwaukee). I know Tubby had at least two from Memphis. Carlos and Nate are both from the deep south. Dorsey and McNeil both hailed from Maryland. The two centers are from overseas with one having a brief stay at a Kansas prep. Murphy is from the distant end of Texas. Josh Martin was from the Seattle area. McBrayer is from NYC and was recruited before he went to Sunshine in KS. Gilbert is from Philadelphia. Obviously, distance doesn't seem to matter much to Pitino or to those recruits.
I am familiar with southern Illinois and I would say not too much. The area isn't very populated. If one includes Springfield, I can think of some well known players from there (Andre Iguodala, Ed Horton, Kevin Gamble). Small town southern Illinois also produced Doug Collins and Jerry Sloan but that's going back a long time. Cairo produced Tyrone Nesby who had a brief NBA career last decade. Troy Hudson, who spent some time with the Timberwolves last decade, was from Carbondale. Lucas O'Rear is also from southern illinois. He was UNI's notable blue collar enforcer about five years ago; he's now a minor league baseball player. I'm sure I've missed some from recent history but probably not more than a few.
You're right about Louisville's recruiting territory, though.
Fair enough, but any coach who coaches here (or a similar area) will have those challenges. My opinion is that any Big Ten school has advantages that outweigh the limiting challenges.
You have to be a serious homer to disagree with Pitino here. The truth is in a 6 hour drive in any direction there are at most 10 D1, B1G caliber players most years and a number of them are in the Milwaukee area. Minneapolis isn't a place on the way to any other place either meaning its fairly isolated. Any coach would rather be in an area with a ton of talent than one with a little bit. Now the positive is that MN can usually get the outstate MN kids it wants, but when there's only 1-2 high level recruits each year in your area and you have to fight KY, Duke, UNC, etc for each of them, it makes things tough
Bad Gopher
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Not entirely hometown players, but if you look at the successful Gopher teams of the last quarter century, they wouldn't have achieved what they did without at least one of those types of players. On the Final 8 team it was Kevin Lynch. The Gophs might have been the only high-major team to offer him. John Thomas got a number of offers, but none "better" than Minnesota; Winter was more highly rated. Monson's best team was as good as it was because of Jeff Hagen.
The stupid Silver Lining thing isn't sponsored by Washburn Macreavy.
Bad Gopher
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I knew someone would bring this up. I have two answers: 1) If anyone should be able to find underrated local players, it's the local team. It's embarrassing when other programs swoop in here and out-scout us; and 2) In many cases, these are known commodities but underrated by the Gophers nevertheless. I KNEW Jake Sullivan would be an excellent college player; why didn't Clem and his staff?
Iowa City is within a 3.5-hr drive of Chicago, a 4-hr drive to St. Louis, Omaha, and Milwaukee, and a 5+hr drive to Kansas City.
Norman is within a 3-hr drive of Dallas and a 6-hr drive of Kansas City.
Lincoln is within 3-hr drive to Kansas City and a 60-min drive from Omaha.
Closest to MSP is Milwaukee at 5+, Chicago and Omaha at 6+. Of course, MSP itself is much, much bigger than Iowa City, Lincoln, or Norman.
I am not offended by Pitino saying this. I don't think he was belly-aching about it. I do think he shouldn't concede Wisconsin to the Badgers or Marquette. Probably not getting a bona fide kid out of Iowa, though.
We're not Louisville. But there's more talent within 150 miles of Minneapolis than there is within 150 miles of Iowa City, Lincoln or Norman, etc.
Outside of a couple hours I think its splitting hairs. I assume the issue is not the recruiting itself, the big time coaches fly everywhere anyway. Its an issue if a kid wants to be 'close' to home, but I don't think a Chicago kid is going to choose Iowa over MN because of distance.
True. Its also probably splitting hairs to be rubbed the wrong way by what was said in a spur of the moment last 90 seconds of an hour long radio show. What he said was true. To what degree it is true and how much we want to be offended by it is up for debate and that's probably splitting hairs, too.
For a scholarship athlete the difference in distance probably isn't a major factor, but, historically, large numbers of students from the Chicago metro attend Iowa. I read something from one of the Chicago papers about five years ago reporting the instate/out-of-state compositions of Big Ten freshmen classes. 54% of Iowa's freshman class was from out-of-state. The corresponding number for U of M was 30%. Based on the out-of-state students I met while attending Iowa, my guess is that Illinois clearly would be the state of origin for a plurality of Iowa's out of state students. Three of my closer friends at the time were from the Chicago metro and they said that Iowa was easier to be admitted to than Illinois.
If you live in the western suburbs of Chicago, you can make to Iowa City in 3 hours. If you want to watch your son play Big Ten basketball in person and would like to avoid expensive flights or regular six+ hour drives, choosing Iowa (or Wis or NW or Ind or Pur or Ill) over Minnesota isn't a stretch. Probably not a deciding factor, but it could play a role.
Agreed
Winasota Gopher
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What a treat of a thread to get caught up on. Predictable and disheartening all in one fell swoop.
Yes, and if you're an athlete from the Chicago metro, you're reasonably likely to find others at Iowa who hailed from your local area and maybe even went to your high school. The Big Ten Network really helped the U of M with the issue of a recruit's family and friends being able to see the games, though.
Agreed. I just think a very minor one. The practice facility is a bigger issue, for example.
It's not a huge deal. I just found the comments interesting and a bit uncalled for. I'm sorry to have interrupted the many other lively threads here about whether we'll win 1 or 2 B1G games and how he should be fired yesterday.
howieramone
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No, for those recruits for which drivability is a critical factor, it's about choices among drivable options. The problem, as others have pointed out, is that drivability is seldom the critical factor for elite players. For far too long, we've had a facilities disadvantage, which is now being addressed. A more serious problem has been a relative lack of program success. Hopefully, that too is being addressed. But I don't think either climate or a lack of local talent are serious barriers to future success.
Out of curiosity I looked at rivals for 2016, schools like Louisville, Kentucky, and Ohio State recruit at a national level rather than recruiting just local talent, something that Minnesota hasn't been able to do with the top players. This makes it all that more critical to retain the local players until the perception changes.
The one caveat is that a lot of players go to prep school so it is hard to tell what state they are really from.
Kentucky - 1 four star going to Xavier
1 three star undecided
Ohio - 2 four stars going to Michigan, Funderburk is going to a prep school but is from Ohio and going to Ohio State.
- 2 three stars one going to Michigan and 1 undecided.
Illinois - 4 four stars, Norwestern, Nebraska, Gonzaga, Memphis
- 2 three stars, Northwestern and undecided
- all of the ranked players were from the Chicago area.
Indiana - 4 four stars, Butler, Texas, Virginia, Undecided
- 5 three stars, New Mexico, Florida State, UCF, Depaul, Undecided
- 1 two star, Indiana
Minnesota - 1 four star, Minnesota
- 3 three star, Minnesota, Missouri, Undecided
station19
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Gopherguy0723
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The biggest challenge at Minnesota right now is the competence of the coaching staff.
He should probably get next year. But I might make it contingent on making a change to the coaching staff and bringing in a veteran who knows how to teach defense.
Winasota Gopher
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Man... a lot of people in this thread flipping out because the coach tried to give an honest answer. This is the whole reason 'coach speak' exists and coaches and players within the sport so often speak in meaningless platitudes.
I know the team is struggling at the moment, I'm as frustrated as anyone. But this stuff isn't anything to get worked up about. Just be happy that he's willing to give honest answers. I've always appreciated in listening to his post-game interviews on the way home from the Barn that he's refreshingly honest and willing to give more than just fluff answers to his interview questions. I much prefer that to the meaningless drivel that comes out of the mouths of so many coaches in interviews.
I know the team is struggling at the moment, I'm as frustrated as anyone. But this stuff isn't anything to get worked up about. Just be happy that he's willing to give honest answers. I've always appreciated in listening to his post-game interviews on the way home from the Barn that he's refreshingly honest and willing to give more than just fluff answers to his interview questions. I much prefer that to the meaningless drivel that comes out of the mouths of so many coaches in interviews.