Poll: Should the ophers move on from Pitino after season

Should Pitino be fired at the end of the season?

  • Yes

    Votes: 28 17.7%

  • No

    Votes: 130 82.3%
  • Total voters
    158
  • Poll closed .
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bga1 said:
It's not Tubby's fault. Tubby was a good coach. He lost his energy to recruit here, Texas has so many players that you can fall out of bed and recruit a team. You give Tubby decent talent and he will do well.

It is a pertinent part of the picture that is why we are at this stage in year 3. What the prior coach leaves, matters. It's on Pitino that we had a tough year. But because of the circumstances it is way too early to say it's a failure. Next year is all 100% Pitino. It will be all his guys (I think Buggs will probably be gone) and my hope is that the three who let us down come back and realize their potential. There could be some great years ahead..

But if someone says - hey we fired hall of fame coach Tubby Smith who did a great job here -I beg to differ because I aspire for a team that ONCE gets over .500 and once has a upper division finish. He is a HOF coach but he wasn't here. Will Pitino do better. I still have hope that he will and my plan is to support him until there is real evidence that he won't. What happened this year is not that evidence. Next year will tell a lot.
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Three years ago I was on the fence as to whether or not we should keep Tubby. Like I said, I think there was a decent chance that the Gophers would have gotten some of: Travis, Vaughn, Macura, Henry and Illikainin if he would have stayed as our coach. Tubby had a lot of bad luck too....with White, Mbakwe getting hurt, and Nolen getting hurt. The two injuries probably kept us from winning 10 or more games each of those years. The argument that Tubby was never going to get good recruits to Minnesota again doesn't fly with me. That said, I was okay with getting rid of Tubby if we were going to be getting a young up and coming coach with his biggest asset being more than his last name. No offense to Richard, but he would have never been hired here if his dad wasn't Rick Pitino....and if you believe differently you are dead wrong.

Now when we didn't get Shaka Smart or another coach in that category....I wasn't thrilled, but was like let's see what happens. He had an excellent year his first year with Tubby's players and Mathieu. His second year was a pretty big disappointment, as I think most people felt we should make the NCAA tournament and we couldn't even make the NIT. This year has been a total disaster. You blame Tubby for his recruiting classes, and I agree this years seniors Tubby recruited were not very good....but Ellis got a scholarship to MSU so he was probably a pretty good prospect...and my guess is that he would have been much better with Tubby if he was playing with the Gophers. He has gotten worse each year at MSU and it wasn't a good decision for him. I also think a big reason Tubby recruited Wally is because he was trying to get his little brother Henry (they both play at Marquette), and he is one of the best freshmen in the country.

Back to Pitino. I have no idea if he ever will be a good coach. When he first got here I think he seemed a little pompous. My stance has softened a little on that as I think he has probably changed the last couple of years....and I know the players really like him and think he is a good guy. I hope the Gophers have a great year next year and Coffey turns out to be better than we even expected. For me, I don't even want to say we need to go to the Tournament or he should be fired, but I need to see significant improvement or promise. I'm also not sure of his commitment to the University of Minnesota....and personally I think he will bolt as soon as he gets a better offer. Do we really want to wait until he becomes a good coach (which I don't know if he ever will) and then use Minnesota as a stepping stone? I have no doubt that if he would have been offered the Alabama job last year he wouldn't be coaching here anymore...why do you think Norwood gave him that buyout and extension.

Anyway, I hope I'm wrong about Pitino....and he coaches here the next 30 years. That would mean a lot of success. I'm never going to be a person that hopes our teams loses or doesn't make the Sweet 16 so we can fire our coach.
 

Love how Regent Dean Johnson basically said that the buyout was a major factor in Pitino's retention. That won't be used against us in recruiting.


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I have to admit this though....if the three guys come back...or at least two of them come back and Mason is one of them. We could turn this around quickly. If our class next year is as good as we think it will be, and we could land both Reuvers and John in the next class....or players similar to them. We could have a pretty young (and good) core. I hope Pitino sees that this can be a very good job. We are the only Division 1 school in the state, and the basketball isn't that bad. We have a fan base that's will follow a winner and is starved for a winning program at the U. For the right coach, I think you should be able to build something pretty nice here. Wisconsin has to compete with Marquette in the state....and Iowa has Iowa State, UNI and Drake in the state. One thing about Pitino, he is young and hungry. Tubby is old....or at least older and he wasn't a long term solution for the university. I get that argument and understand he might and probably should get an extra year or so to show what he can do. If Pitino doesn't make it or leaves on his own, I would like to have a young or younger coach at the university.
 

ethomasp31 said:
Look at the Reuvers thread....I heard something similar to what a different poster had also heard...not about Illikainen other than to know he was attending a lot of Gopher games early in his high school career. I think Pitino has handled this last situation well....and the team was played better....up until the suspensions. I've also heard that the players like Pitino...but I heard that a couple of years ago.
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My point is MN was in the running for those two guys. It was reported that for Illikainen it came down to MN and WI. I also wonder if we would have landed Murphy if Illikainen had already committed.
 

bobmartinfan said:
I get very frustrated by the bloggers who say lets keep Pittino around, because we cant get a better coach.
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I'm not sure if anyone has said that. Some think it would be bad to fire him now because of the AD situation.

it doesn't appear that the kids he brings into the U are worthy of the scholarships that we give to them. Thank god Murphy fell into his lap.
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You're contradicting yourself here. And you're overstating the "fell into his lap" part. He still had to be in a good position to land Murphy as he had a lot of other good options.
 


GophersInIowa said:
My point is MN was in the running for those two guys. It was reported that for Illikainen it came down to MN and WI. I also wonder if we would have landed Murphy if Illikainen had already committed.
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Pitino has signed Jarvis Johnson, Coffey and Hurt. I'd like to see that trend continue to where we get most of the players from Minnesota who can play B1G basketball.
 

ethomasp31 said:
Tubby had a lot of bad luck too....with White, Mbakwe getting hurt, and Nolen getting hurt. The two injuries probably kept us from winning 10 or more games each of those years.
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If White is considered bad luck, then you have to say McNeil and the current suspensions are bad luck for Pitino as well.
 

ethomasp31 said:
Three years ago I was on the fence as to whether or not we should keep Tubby. Like I said, I think there was a decent chance that the Gophers would have gotten some of: Travis, Vaughn, Macura, Henry and Illikainin if he would have stayed as our coach. Tubby had a lot of bad luck too....with White, Mbakwe getting hurt, and Nolen getting hurt. The two injuries probably kept us from winning 10 or more games each of those years. The argument that Tubby was never going to get good recruits to Minnesota again doesn't fly with me. That said, I was okay with getting rid of Tubby if we were going to be getting a young up and coming coach with his biggest asset being more than his last name. No offense to Richard, but he would have never been hired here if his dad wasn't Rick Pitino....and if you believe differently you are dead wrong.

Now when we didn't get Shaka Smart or another coach in that category....I wasn't thrilled, but was like let's see what happens. He had an excellent year his first year with Tubby's players and Mathieu. His second year was a pretty big disappointment, as I think most people felt we should make the NCAA tournament and we couldn't even make the NIT. This year has been a total disaster. You blame Tubby for his recruiting classes, and I agree this years seniors Tubby recruited were not very good....but Ellis got a scholarship to MSU so he was probably a pretty good prospect...and my guess is that he would have been much better with Tubby if he was playing with the Gophers. He has gotten worse each year at MSU and it wasn't a good decision for him. I also think a big reason Tubby recruited Wally is because he was trying to get his little brother Henry (they both play at Marquette), and he is one of the best freshmen in the country.

Back to Pitino. I have no idea if he ever will be a good coach. When he first got here I think he seemed a little pompous. My stance has softened a little on that as I think he has probably changed the last couple of years....and I know the players really like him and think he is a good guy. I hope the Gophers have a great year next year and Coffey turns out to be better than we even expected. For me, I don't even want to say we need to go to the Tournament or he should be fired, but I need to see significant improvement or promise. I'm also not sure of his commitment to the University of Minnesota....and personally I think he will bolt as soon as he gets a better offer. Do we really want to wait until he becomes a good coach (which I don't know if he ever will) and then use Minnesota as a stepping stone? I have no doubt that if he would have been offered the Alabama job last year he wouldn't be coaching here anymore...why do you think Norwood gave him that buyout and extension.

Anyway, I hope I'm wrong about Pitino....and he coaches here the next 30 years. That would mean a lot of success. I'm never going to be a person that hopes our teams loses or doesn't make the Sweet 16 so we can fire our coach.
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If he gets successful here (like he competes for a Big Ten championship) and then leaves- so be it, he will have turned the program around and we will be in better shape. By the way, I certainly was not one of those hoping we would lose out before making the sweet 16 so that we could fire Tubby. I was excited when Tubby came and thought he did a great job early. Then I got tired of him appearing to be half involved and appearing to be lazy in recruiting-living off of his reputation. But a sweet 16 appearance is always a program boost and could have helped him in recruiting and revitalized him.

I'm not sure what happened with Tubby- he's a great coach, but he lost interest here. Maybe he got tired of our administration, maybe he felt burned on the Royce White deal. Not sure, but most of us saw it.

As to Pitino-his dad having been who he is definitely helped in his getting the job. But he came in pretty highly regarded by Billy Donovan and he did do a great job, amazing really, in his one year at FIU. He was hired for his recruiting energy- the reaction to what Tubby wasn't doing.
I see him developing players and getting buy in on his system. I saw him never lose the team in the midst of a completely awful year. I saw the players get better. I like the last recruiting class and I like the next one coming in. I can't wait for next year to get rolling.
 

bga1 said:
If he gets successful here (like he competes for a Big Ten championship) and then leaves- so be it, he will have turned the program around and we will be in better shape. By the way, I certainly was not one of those hoping we would lose out before making the sweet 16 so that we could fire Tubby. I was excited when Tubby came and thought he did a great job early. Then I got tired of him appearing to be half involved and appearing to be lazy in recruiting-living off of his reputation. But a sweet 16 appearance is always a program boost and could have helped him in recruiting and revitalized him.

I'm not sure what happened with Tubby- he's a great coach, but he lost interest here. Maybe he got tired of our administration, maybe he felt burned on the Royce White deal. Not sure, but most of us saw it.

As to Pitino-his dad having been who he is definitely helped in his getting the job. But he came in pretty highly regarded by Billy Donovan and he did do a great job, amazing really, in his one year at FIU. He was hired for his recruiting energy- the reaction to what Tubby wasn't doing.
I see him developing players and getting buy in on his system. I saw him never lose the team in the midst of a completely awful year. I saw the players get better. I like the last recruiting class and I like the next one coming in. I can't wait for next year to get rolling.
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bga1 - completely agree with everything you posted.
 



Wow, it sure going to be fun watching the Pitino haters go off the deep end when he gets his $450,000 bonus in April....
 

alchemy2u said:
Wow, it sure going to be fun watching the Pitino haters go off the deep end when he gets his $450,000 bonus in April....
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as long as that bonus wasn't low-achievement based, whatever, it was the contract he negotiated (good for him)

and i'll add, thx megatongue
 

ethomasp31 said:
I have to admit this though....if the three guys come back...or at least two of them come back and Mason is one of them. We could turn this around quickly. If our class next year is as good as we think it will be, and we could land both Reuvers and John in the next class....or players similar to them. We could have a pretty young (and good) core. I hope Pitino sees that this can be a very good job. We are the only Division 1 school in the state, and the basketball isn't that bad. We have a fan base that's will follow a winner and is starved for a winning program at the U. For the right coach, I think you should be able to build something pretty nice here. Wisconsin has to compete with Marquette in the state....and Iowa has Iowa State, UNI and Drake in the state. One thing about Pitino, he is young and hungry. Tubby is old....or at least older and he wasn't a long term solution for the university. I get that argument and understand he might and probably should get an extra year or so to show what he can do. If Pitino doesn't make it or leaves on his own, I would like to have a young or younger coach at the university.
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They need Mason back. Look around the league at the top teams. Most have a stable, steady and sometimes spectacular upper classman running the point (MSU is an exception, but Valentine is basically a PG in a wing's body).
 

alchemy2u said:
Wow, it sure going to be fun watching the Pitino haters go off the deep end when he gets his $450,000 bonus in April....
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Doesn't someone have to have success to have haters?

I hope he has haters someday, right now, he just has people who doubt his ability to lead a Big 10 team.
 



Bob_Loblaw said:
I am shocked that anyone would argue that we OBVIOUSLY should not fire Pitino.
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Well, that depends upon their reason for saying such a thing. If the logic is "we obviously should not fire Pitino because he has demonstrated that he was a very good hire and deserves to continue in this job," then that reasoning is rather blind to reality. If the logic is "we obviously should not fire Pitino because the university can't afford to fire him and pay a new coach, too," then that makes perfectly pragmatic sense.

Amelia reported that Pitino would be owed about 7 million through 2021 if he were fired after this year. That is one stiff disincentive to firing him. Thanks again, Norwood, for the poison pill!

My feeling is that he probably will be here for two more years even if his record isn't so hot next year. $7 million/5 years = $1.4 million per year. A $4.2 million buyout might be doable; $5.6 million not so much.

I cannot see next year's team going to the NCAA tournament and even the probability of the NIT probably is less than 50%. A program isn't likely to go from complete, total disaster in one year to a good or even fairly decent team the next year. But, Pitino has set the bar so low that there will be posters on here next season crowing about the team improvement even if the season is mediocre. This guy has led a really charmed life. He may be a successful coach someday, but a Big Ten coach usually doesn't get this much time to learn on the job.
 

cjbfbp said:
Well, that depends upon their reason for saying such a thing. If the logic is "we obviously should not fire Pitino because he has demonstrated that he was a very good hire and deserves to continue in this job," then that reasoning is rather blind to reality. If the logic is "we obviously should not fire Pitino because the university can't afford to fire him and pay a new coach, too," then that makes perfectly pragmatic sense.

Amelia reported that Pitino would be owed about 7 million through 2021 if he were fired after this year. That is one stiff disincentive to firing him. Thanks again, Norwood, for the poison pill!

My feeling is that he probably will be here for two more years even if his record isn't so hot next year. $7 million/5 years = $1.4 million per year. A $4.2 million buyout might be doable; $5.6 million not so much.

I cannot see next year's team going to the NCAA tournament and even the probability of the NIT probably is less than 50%. A program isn't likely to go from complete, total disaster in one year to a good or even fairly decent team the next year. But, Pitino has set the bar so low that there will be posters on here next season crowing about the team improvement even if the season is mediocre. This guy has led a really charmed life. He may be a successful coach someday, but a Big Ten coach usually doesn't get this much time to learn on the job.
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If we miss the NIT he has to be gone, and if he isn't in the NCAA, he better have us right on the bubble.
 

GophersInIowa said:
My point is MN was in the running for those two guys. It was reported that for Illikainen it came down to MN and WI. I also wonder if we would have landed Murphy if Illikainen had already committed.
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This is spot on. People talk about illikainen and don't realize see that this spot ended up going to Murphy after the kid from out east didn't qualify academically and wasn't allowed to enroll. I would certainly rather have Murphy than Illikainen.
 



bleedsmaroonandgold said:
We aren't allowed even modest standards by year 4?
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You're allowed to do whatever you want.

But to continue to hold him accountable to a 4-year expectation when you know where year 3 netted out is a waste of time in my opinion.

You either accept that the first 3 years didn't go according to plan and reset expectations based on where the program stands today

Or

You hold him to those expectations, do the same thing you did with Tubby, and cut him before it gets to the point when you "should cut him".

Unless they overachieve (or by your/many others standards achieve expectations) next year, they won't make the tournament or be a bubble team. They are still very young next year. So if that's the barometer, lets get rid of him, hire an AD, and sell to the newcomer all the positive things we have going for us that apparently don't apply to Pitino.
 

I think he comes back next year as far as expectations for the team it depends if the three amigos are back. With those three, plus the newcomers and transfers, add in Murphy that's a solid core, it's still young, but one that can compete. If those guys are gone, I still think we are in better shape than the start of this year, but I wouldn't expect anything more than 5 or 6 big ten wins. Without any attrition after the top three the bigten is going to be a giant cluster****
 

bemidjigopher said:
I think he comes back next year as far as expectations for the team it depends if the three amigos are back. With those three, plus the newcomers and transfers, add in Murphy that's a solid core, it's still young, but one that can compete. If those guys are gone, I still think we are in better shape than the start of this year, but I wouldn't expect anything more than 5 or 6 big ten wins. Without any attrition after the top three the bigten is going to be a giant cluster****
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If the 3 hadn't been suspended and King didn't get hurt do you think for one minute we wouldn't have beaten Ill and Rutgers at the end of the year? That would have given us 4 wins in the BIG. So with a full team we should only get 1 or 2 more wins next year?
 

Tim1406 said:
If the 3 hadn't been suspended and King didn't get hurt do you think for one minute we wouldn't have beaten Ill and Rutgers at the end of the year? That would have given us 4 wins in the BIG. So with a full team we should only get 1 or 2 more wins next year?
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He said- "if the three are gone"...

If the three are gone it's a total crap shoot and Pitino would have to scramble to grab a couple of guards- perhaps a Juco and a frosh which would put us in a bad situation
 

Tim1406 said:
If the 3 hadn't been suspended and King didn't get hurt do you think for one minute we wouldn't have beaten Ill and Rutgers at the end of the year? That would have given us 4 wins in the BIG. So with a full team we should only get 1 or 2 more wins next year?
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I do think we would've won a couple of those games I am saying that's my expectation next year if Mason, Dorsey and McBreyer are gone. With them I'll put them between 7-10, the bigten is crapshoot after the top three next year in my opinion. With everyone were good enough to compete, without those three, I am guessing with inferior guards recruited in the spring it will still be better next year but not much better. I don't think 5-6 wins will keep Pitino safe, 7-10 will, but he will need to hang on to his guys
 

bga1 said:
He said- "if the three are gone"...

If the three are gone it's a total crap shoot and Pitino would have to scramble to grab a couple of guards- perhaps a Juco and a frosh which would put us in a bad situation
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Hopefully there's a guard version of Murphy out there in case we do have to move on from someone.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
Doesn't someone have to have success to have haters?

I hope he has haters someday, right now, he just has people who doubt his ability to lead a Big 10 team.
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+10

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