Rate the last 3 awful coaches

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While all 3 have been awful, I honestly think Pitino is at the bottom of the list.
 


Conference records:
Monson 44-68 (.393)
Smith 46-62 (.426)
Pitino 40-71 (.360)

Conference winning seasons:
Monson 2 in 7 seasons
Smith 0 in 6 seasons
Pitino 1 in 6 seasons

NCAA wins:
Monson 0 in 7+ seasons
Smith 1 in 6 seasons
Pitino 1 in 6 (going on 7) seasons

5-star recruits:
Monson 2
Smith 1
Pitino 0

Worth noting that Monson came in with moderate-to-severe restrictions on recruiting due to sanctions.
 
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Bad Gopher said:
Conference records:
Monson 44-68 (.393)
Smith 46-62 (.426)
Pitino 40-71 (.360)

Conference winning seasons:
Monson 2 in 7 seasons
Smith 0 in 6 seasons
Pitino 1 in 6 seasons

NCAA wins:
Monson 0 in 7+ seasons
Smith 1 in 6 seasons
Pitino 1 in 6 (going on 7) seasons

5-star recruits:
Monson 2
Smith 1
Pitino 0

Worth noting that Monson came in with moderate-to-severe restrictions on recruiting due to sanctions.
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Monson is lowest by far, he did have some good assistants though. His teams got worse as his tenure went on and they should have gotten better. Also it's not like the two 5* chose him or the U, they basically fell into his lap, not sure if Duke rejected Humphries or the other way around but it was kind of a last resort and Rickert's parents pushed him to the U long after he was all set to go to Arizona if I am not mistaken.

Pitino and Smith are kind of an even blah.
 


Boy are those bad numbers. Tough to argue Smith hasn't performed best overall based on those figures, but he certainly wasn't good.
 

jovs said:
Monson is lowest by far, he did have some good assistants though. His teams got worse as his tenure went on and they should have gotten better. Also it's not like the two 5* chose him or the U, they basically fell into his lap, not sure if Duke rejected Humphries or the other way around but it was kind of a last resort and Rickert's parents pushed him to the U long after he was all set to go to Arizona if I am not mistaken.

Pitino and Smith are kind of an even blah.
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Due to the sanctions, it's probably fair to rank Monson as the least bad if anything.
 

I'm not sure what the point of this is. Tubby was the best coach of the 3 and nearly had it rolling before Royce White and etc. blew up. Pitino has had more success overall than Monson, but he had a harder situation. I'd rate them a tie.
 

howeda7 said:
I'm not sure what the point of this is. Tubby was the best coach of the 3 and nearly had it rolling before Royce White and etc. blew up. Pitino has had more success overall than Monson, but he had a harder situation. I'd rate them a tie.
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Tubby probably was somewhat less bad than Pitino.

But I'm not really sure what the hell Tubby had almost rolling.
 




Bad Gopher said:
Conference records:
Monson 44-68 (.393)
Smith 46-62 (.426)
Pitino 40-71 (.360)

Conference winning seasons:
Monson 2 in 7 seasons
Smith 0 in 6 seasons
Pitino 1 in 6 seasons

NCAA wins:
Monson 0 in 7+ seasons
Smith 1 in 6 seasons
Pitino 1 in 6 (going on 7) seasons

5-star recruits:
Monson 2
Smith 1
Pitino 0

Worth noting that Monson came in with moderate-to-severe restrictions on recruiting due to sanctions.
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Pitino does have some recruiting advantages the others either didn't have or didn't have as much of : first class facilities and more TV exposure and revenue. While BTN was up and running during Tubby's years, the network has expanded its viewership and FS1 also now carries a lot of Big Ten games.
 


giveme said:
Tubby probably was somewhat less bad than Pitino.

But I'm not really sure what the hell Tubby had almost rolling.
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Going into year 3, he had 3 good recruiting classes, including Royce, Rodney and Trevor joining a team that made the NCAA's. IIRC, they were in or near the top 25 in preseason rankings. Then Royce got suspended and then Trevor and we never found out what might have been. I suppose it's a bit like Pitino's 17-18 team but I think it had an even higher ceiling. It also feels like Tubby went into coast mode after that season out of frustration.
 



Monson never had a chance considering the situation he was given. Good coach but not a good enough recruiter to overcome the odds.
Tubby was the best basketball coach of the three but he was tired and well past his prime and stopped recruiting hard. The local talent was not as good during his time.
Pitino got handed an old roster that was average at best with no recruits of merit landed in the two years prior. Year 3 was fated to be a disaster by the prior roster construction. By then his seat was already warm. It looked like he was on the upswing when the disaster of 17-18 happened flipping a promising year upside down.
3 good men-20 bad years for a lot of reasons. We have fully paid the price of the scandal- and then some. Locally, the program is branded as not a winner, making it tough to get the local talent which is now far better.
 

Monson came into as bad a situation as anyone ever has. Beeg nails the comments around paying the price. Meanwhile, in Chapel Hill and Arizona..........
 

Tubby was the best for sure. Royce White screwed up Tubby's master plan. Not to mention Al Nolen's injury. Besides that, we need to remember that the Big Ten was arguably the toughest conference from top to bottom during most of Tubby's tenure. There was a point when we had the top point guards in the entire country like McCamey, Battle, Craft, etc. etc. It was a brutal game every night. Even Northwestern was tough. And I can't leave out how tough Wisconsin was under Bo.

Pitino also has the honor of coaching the worst season in Gopher history. And the Big Ten isn't nearly as tough during his tenure than the prior coaches, but he hasn't been able to take advantage of it.
 

KyGopherfan said:
Tubby was the best for sure. Royce White screwed up Tubby's master plan. Not to mention Al Nolen's injury. Besides that, we need to remember that the Big Ten was arguably the toughest conference from top to bottom during most of Tubby's tenure. There was a point when we had the top point guards in the entire country like McCamey, Battle, Craft, etc. etc. It was a brutal game every night. Even Northwestern was tough. And I can't leave out how tough Wisconsin was under Bo.

Pitino also has the honor of coaching the worst season in Gopher history. And the Big Ten isn't nearly as tough during his tenure than the prior coaches, but he hasn't been able to take advantage of it.
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The Big Ten has been in the Final Four 6 of the last 8 years. The previous 8 years- 4 of 8.
Seems it might have been okay lately.
 

60's Guy said:
The Big Ten has been in the Final Four 6 of the last 8 years. The previous 8 years- 4 of 8.
Seems it might have been okay lately.
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Also averaging more teams in the NCAA tournament, so the depth is better as well.
 

jblass said:
This is a ridiculous thread. Can't believe a true Gopher fan would even start something like this much less respond to it.
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My order from best to worst is Tubby, Pitino, Monson. What's yours?
 

KyGopherfan said:
Tubby was the best for sure. Royce White screwed up Tubby's master plan. Not to mention Al Nolen's injury. Besides that, we need to remember that the Big Ten was arguably the toughest conference from top to bottom during most of Tubby's tenure. There was a point when we had the top point guards in the entire country like McCamey, Battle, Craft, etc. etc. It was a brutal game every night. Even Northwestern was tough. And I can't leave out how tough Wisconsin was under Bo.

Pitino also has the honor of coaching the worst season in Gopher history. And the Big Ten isn't nearly as tough during his tenure than the prior coaches, but he hasn't been able to take advantage of it.
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Tubby was the best coach but Tubby was also, easily, the biggest disappointment of all. We brought him in as a sure thing guy who would recruit on his name brand and who would be highly paid to surely bring a winner. What we go was not one season over .500 in the Big Ten. His squads never sunk to the depths that a few Pitino and Monson squads did but they never won either. Not once. My greatest concern with Tubby was always that we HAD TO win big with him otherwise we would be branded as the first place Tubby failed and it would hurt our ability to get the right coach in the future.

Pitino has not done well, but his awful third year you mention owes in part to a big thank you to Tubby who recruited no one his last two years that Pitino could use in year 3. With what Pitino was handed year three was fated to stink unless he would have run out and got a bunch of jucos to fill the gap. Pitino exacerbated that by going after 5 stars in his first full year of recruiting and then having to settle for reaches like Konate, Gaston, Martin and Morris when he could not attract the big prospects.

Just a reminder of who Pitino got handed...Tubby's last three classes:

Andre Hollins (terrific but got injured and lost his speed and hops late in his career)
Coleman- bust
Ingram- juco
Welch- juco

Buggs - bust
Ellenson- bust

Ellis -never played here
Foster- never played here

He got one usable player out of Tubby's last three classes and only Buggs for year three. Had Pitino recruited well he would have had two full recruiting classes of Frosh and Sophs to play in that third year. As it turned out he got a lousy first full class and a good second full class which was then partially blown up by one bad actor in Dorsey. Before the Dorsey incident that team was starting to compete at a pretty high level and would have created a lot of excitement for the following year. Instead Pitino was on the hot seat by the end of year three.
 


jblass said:
This is a ridiculous thread. Can't believe a true Gopher fan would even start something like this much less respond to it.
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I suggest you start a "true Gopher fan" thread or threads. I'm curious what they'd be about.

On the contrary, although its title might be unfortunate, this is a good topic of conversation. All three guys have had about the same length of tenure, so it's the perfect time to compare and discuss.
 

What about Jim Molinari? He was pretty bad too. As I remember he coached a full season, no?
 


Gopherfan1000 said:
What about Jim Molinari? He was pretty bad too. As I remember he coached a full season, no?
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As an interim coach, I thought he did fine. By all accounts a great person and a good coach. He ended up on Tim Miles' staff at Nebraska and was presumably the author of several game plans that outcoached and beat the Gophers. Defensive specialist.
 


Parcival said:
My order from best to worst is Tubby, Pitino, Monson. What's yours?
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I rate them all to be about equal as the record shows. How about a different thread. Who were the best three coaches over the past 50 years?
 

Bad Gopher said:
I suggest you start a "true Gopher fan" thread or threads. I'm curious what they'd be about.

On the contrary, although its title might be unfortunate, this is a good topic of conversation. All three guys have had about the same length of tenure, so it's the perfect time to compare and discuss.
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Then just leave the thread title at rate the last three coaches. No need to include awful in the title.
 

Always curious why there is a fan police, other fans who decide what a good fan is. The last 3 coaches came nowhere close to making us a nationally relevant program. This is a great job but not easy. None of the non blue blood program jobs are easy. When those that have become elite, people tend to think winning there was easier than here. Simply not true, they hired extraordinary, once in a programs lives coach. They are not easy to find because they are few, that is what makes them special. That is true in any profession. Top Gun is real, best surgeons is real, best player, best engineer, best coach. In addition. the few who built sustained excellence were not names that win the press conference. Tubby was the best teacher but this was a soft landing. Monson came in with by far the worst starting point but is not special, Pitino came in under great circumstances. If he was just .500 in conference with one sweet 16, a 3rd place conference finish then he would be loved around here. With all that said, contrary to the popular opinion i still like this team.
 

howeda7 said:
I'm not sure what the point of this is. Tubby was the best coach of the 3 and nearly had it rolling before Royce White and etc. blew up. Pitino has had more success overall than Monson, but he had a harder situation. I'd rate them a tie.
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Don’t know how you can credit Tubby for almost having it rolling and not credit Pitino for almost having it rolling before Lynch was suspended.
That Royce White team would’ve been good.
The Lynch thing cost us 3 straight NCAA births for the first time in my lifetime (though I don’t think that Lynch team was going to win the conference or anything).

I’d call Monson the worst and Tubby and Richard a tie for being below average. But then I might give a pass to Monson for having to deal with the scandal.
 

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