I disagree with your premise that you’ve been continually pushing. You can’t state something as fact that it would be 3 straight years of NCAAs. That is no way of knowing how the season that would’ve ended.
Only thing we can state in fact is how it actually ended and not how you hoped it would’ve ended.
You need to unfog your Pitino hate glasses. Anyone who watched that 2017/18 team before the injury wave hit knew they were legitimately good enough to win the B1G.
The fact of the matter is that coming into the 2017/18 season Pitino was fresh off a 24-10 season with an 11-7 record in Big Ten play as the 4th seed. They also had just recorded a 2nd straight NCAA appearance as a 5 seed (I was at that game where they lost to a tough, under-seeded Middle Tennessee squad).
Pitino was the 2016-17 Big Ten Coach of the year, Nate Mason was an All-Big Ten First Teamer and Reggie Lynch was the Big Ten Defensive player of the year.
The Gophers started that season as #15 in the country. They were undefeated through the first 9 games and thoroughly dismantled a ranked Alabama squad led by lottery pick Colin Sexton (score was closer than the game indicated) until they lost to #10 Miami at home. They met the eye test and looked like a legitimate threat to win the Big Ten Conference.
Then the team got hit with injuries.
- Reggie Lynch, our Big 10 DPOTY and star rim protector got season a long suspension
- Amir Coffey, the teams 3rd leading scorer, became hampered by a shoulder injury for several games before having to undergo a season-ending surgery on it.
- Dupree Mcbrayer started missing games because of a stress fracture in his shin bone. He was seen wearing a walking boot around campus and couldn't even practice, but still played because Coffey and Lynch were out.
- Nate Mason played 31/32 games during the season but needed to undergo hip surgery accompanied by a lengthy rehab during the offseason.
This program and all its fans got robbed that year by the injury bug and an unfortunate Lynch situation. Had we come out with a REASONABLE conference record of 12-6 and an NCAA appearance (making 3 in a row as of last season) there would be far less posters on this board complaining about Pitino's success.
Pitino hasn't been great. I get that. But he's been on an upward trajectory and I want to see what he does this season and next before making the big decision of firing him and starting the program fresh again. As a matter of personal opinion I think his recruiting has improved drastically in the last several classes and losing the local recruits isn't due to lack of effort on his part.