Sid: I've been covering Gophs for 70 years, Tubby firing was one of most unfair ever

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Whether you believe in Pitino or not, at least you aren't complaining about whether or not we can inbound the basketball.
 


topos said:
Whether you believe in Pitino or not, at least you aren't complaining about whether or not we can inbound the basketball.
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Well I'd rather be complaining about inbounding the ball on the way to the tournament.
 



BleedGopher said:
per Sid:

• Former Gophers basketball coach Tubby Smith is 6-2 at Memphis, with one of those victories coming against Iowa. I have been covering the Gophers for 70 years, and I rate the firing of Smith and Mason as two of the most unfair dismissals of any coaches.

http://www.startribune.com/kyle-rudolph-vikings-must-curb-mistakes/405553016/

Go Gophers!!
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odd time to bring/retread this old story. What has it been 4 years? And bringing it up when the current coach is 8-1?
 

macgopher said:
odd time to bring/retread this old story. What has it been 4 years? And bringing it up when the current coach is 8-1?
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9-1 actually but yeah it's a bit odd. It would be interesting to see what this team would look like with Alvin Ellis/Alex Foster/Julian Welch type recruits sprinkled with an athletic swing player with an 8 foot range. Hard to believe that team would be 9-1 at this point.
 




I figured someone has been ghostwriting Sid's columns, but I had no idea it was Friend of Tubby.
 

Gophers7NatTitlesBadgers0 said:
The Gophers would be a tournament team if Tubby was still here. Precious!!
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He did make the tournament at Texas Tech last year, which was a program that is probably even more starved for success than we are.

Also Julian Welch wasn't deadweight or anything. He was actually a 43% 3 point shooter his first year here, and could reliably hit free throws, except for seemingly when it meant the difference between winning and losing a game.

To be clear, I'm not pining for Tubby and like where the program is headed right now.
 

What tubby did at Texas tech was impressive to get them into the tourney. But that was then and this is now. Let's go Goohers and coach Pitino.
 

Cayman said:
He did make the tournament at Texas Tech last year, which was a program that is probably even more starved for success than we are.

Also Julian Welch wasn't deadweight or anything. He was actually a 43% 3 point shooter his first year here, and could reliably hit free throws, except for seemingly when it meant the difference between winning and losing a game.

To be clear, I'm not pining for Tubby and like where the program is headed right now.
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I know Welch looked pretty good at times. But I also remember some bonehead passes and the caving in pressure situations. The kid just didn't seem to be very mentally tough for whatever reason. I don't have confidence that Tubby would have brought in the high caliber recruits that Pitino is starting to bring in. He will take teams to the tourney occasionally probably as an 8-12 seed. I can see Pitino consistently taking teams to the tourney, finishing in the top half of the BT, and contend for a title from time to time if Pitino keeps this momentum. We'll see teams that compare to what Clem had sans the shenanigans hopefully.
 



I'm pretty confident that the Gophers would beat Memphis on a neutral court right now.

So, yeah, if you are going to say that Tubby's firing was harsh, at least add a caveat or qualifier that explains that the coach who replaced him has the program on the right track...

I mean, as of right now the Gophers look like the 5/6 best team in the Big 10. Sagarin has us at 34, Joe Lunardi has us in the tourney in his latest bracketology...
 

Sid is lost as usual. Tubby had ZERO winning seasons in conference play in 6 years finishing 6th, 7th, 6th, 9th, 9th, and 7th and not once finishing in the upper half of the league. Those 6th place finishes were when the Big Ten was at 11. Career conference record of 46-62 and a .426 winning %. Why would any school keep a coach with that record?
 

beatles said:
Sid is lost as usual. Tubby had ZERO winning seasons in conference play in 6 years finishing 6th, 7th, 6th, 9th, 9th, and 7th and not once finishing in the upper half of the league. Those 6th place finishes were when the Big Ten was at 11. Career conference record of 46-62 and a .426 winning %. Why would any school keep a coach with that record?
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Pitino has a pretty size-able hole to dig out of just to get to these numbers by his 6th year.

For the record I'm super pumped about the team right now and was hoping they wouldn't fire pitino after last season. I'm just pointing out the above.
 

Mason yes....smith no

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Gopherbbdude said:
Mason yes....smith no

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They both were coming off of average years, weren't progressing much, and had terrible recruiting success at the end.

Tubby is gone because Hayes, Brown, and Koenig are at Wisconsin, Tubby blamed his recruiting woes on Minnesota, the AD blamed it on Tubby.
 

Bad Gopher said:
I figured someone has been ghostwriting Sid's columns, but I had no idea it was Friend of Tubby.
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Despite the good start and the trending up long term metrics of this team, it is obvious there is fifth column with some influence in the university (and with Sid) that has it out for Pitino for reasons other than basketball. I heard from a long time season ticket holder and modest financial supporter of the program say, "I just don't like the guy" and gave only vague and easily refutable reasons. It was clearly personal. The sources feeding Sid must be the same ones that had Pitino's expense reports for rental car gas put on the front page of the Strib. I am very happy with the direction of this program and I think a lot of the dedicated basketball fan base are as well, but there is an invisible mob that isn't and Coach could ruin their dispositions by having a clean and above expectations season. They have Sid's ear and/or notepad.
 

Holy Man said:
Despite the good start and the trending up long term metrics of this team, it is obvious there is fifth column with some influence in the university (and with Sid) that has it out for Pitino for reasons other than basketball. I heard from a long time season ticket holder and modest financial supporter of the program say, "I just don't like the guy" and gave only vague and easily refutable reasons. It was clearly personal. The sources feeding Sid must be the same ones that had Pitino's expense reports for rental car gas put on the front page of the Strib. I am very happy with the direction of this program and I think a lot of the dedicated basketball fan base are as well, but there is an invisible mob that isn't and Coach could ruin their dispositions by having a clean and above expectations season. They have Sid's ear and/or notepad.
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Sadly I believe this is spot on.


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bottlebass said:
Pitino has a pretty size-able hole to dig out of just to get to these numbers by his 6th year.

For the record I'm super pumped about the team right now and was hoping they wouldn't fire pitino after last season. I'm just pointing out the above.
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I care more about Pitino's ceiling than I do about making a "in each of their first six seasons" comparison. Tubby was coming in year 1 as a national champ. Pitino was learning how to tie a tie.

If you had to pick a coach right now to lead your team for the next five years, who would you pick? I'd pick Pitino.
 

jovs said:
They both were coming off of average years, weren't progressing much, and had terrible recruiting success at the end.

Tubby is gone because Hayes, Brown, and Koenig are at Wisconsin, Tubby blamed his recruiting woes on Minnesota, the AD blamed it on Tubby.
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Vitto Brown was not a job saving recruit. He was a 3-star ranked around 200. 247 actually has Alex Foster ranked slightly ahead of Vitto Brown. Koenig could have been, but from what I remember, we offered kinda late and didn't make a major push for him. Nigel Hayes was also only a 3-star, but he was top 150. I think we actually had him on campus. I also remember him retweeting some Badger fan saying "F*** Minnesota" to him.

We also offered Matt Thomas, a 4-star top 60 guard, and from what I heard we had a shot, but then just kind of lost interest. Kyle Washington, Nick Fuller, Sterling Brown, Maverick Morgan, and Gavin Schilling were some of the top 150-ish talent Tubby went after in 2013 and didn't get. Was that also the year of Daniel Edozie, the guy whose highlight film was just him shooting free throws in an empty gym? We had no idea why we supposedly offered him, and then it turned out maybe we didn't offer him, and then he went to Iowa State.

We had other targets that we missed on who were higher rated than Hayes and Brown, it wasn't just because Wisconsin took our dudes. I remember people being disappointed that we even offered Vitto Brown, and then coming around on him a bit after hearing Wisconsin was interested.

For those interested, our 2013 recruiting offers according to 247.

http://minnesota.247sports.com/Season/2013-Basketball/Offers

I recognize some, but not all of the names shown. Some offers were Pitino, some were Tubby. Remember when we almost got 4-star Allerik Freeman after Pitino was hired? If we got him and Rakeem Buckles, Pitino could have really given this program a shot in the arm early on.
 

Cayman said:
Vitto Brown was not a job saving recruit. He was a 3-star ranked around 200. 247 actually has Alex Foster ranked slightly ahead of Vitto Brown. Koenig could have been, but from what I remember, we offered kinda late and didn't make a major push for him. Nigel Hayes was also only a 3-star, but he was top 150. I think we actually had him on campus. I also remember him retweeting some Badger fan saying "F*** Minnesota" to him.

We also offered Matt Thomas, a 4-star top 60 guard, and from what I heard we had a shot, but then just kind of lost interest. Kyle Washington, Nick Fuller, Sterling Brown, Maverick Morgan, and Gavin Schilling were some of the top 150-ish talent Tubby went after in 2013 and didn't get. Was that also the year of Daniel Edozie, the guy whose highlight film was just him shooting free throws in an empty gym? We had no idea why we supposedly offered him, and then it turned out maybe we didn't offer him, and then he went to Iowa State.

We had other targets that we missed on who were higher rated than Hayes and Brown, it wasn't just because Wisconsin took our dudes. I remember people being disappointed that we even offered Vitto Brown, and then coming around on him a bit after hearing Wisconsin was interested.

For those interested, our 2013 recruiting offers according to 247.

http://minnesota.247sports.com/Season/2013-Basketball/Offers

I thought Hayes was a solid four star recruit when we were after him. After the first couple of years, recruiting really went south for Tubby's crew. That last class did not have a first line Big Ten player in it and is one of the reasons the program took a big dip. Add that to Pitino's first full class when he went for the moon and then got virtually nothing and that was a recipe for a bare cupboard of talent for a couple of years. The ship is being righted talent wise with the last two classes, though.
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what are Pitino's conference finishes and record? For the record i supported the change from Tubby but it must result in improvement to be considered a success.
 

BarnBoy said:
I care more about Pitino's ceiling than I do about making a "in each of their first six seasons" comparison. Tubby was coming in year 1 as a national champ. Pitino was learning how to tie a tie.

If you had to pick a coach right now to lead your team for the next five years, who would you pick? I'd pick Pitino.
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Totally agree. Im not going to go into specifics about tubby's coaching (I could write 5 pages) but I feel like the ceiling with him was limited. With pitino the floor was lower but hopefully the ceiling is much higher
 

He can put those against him by getting a top 4 conference finish. Why not by year 4 ? Why settle for mediocre. That idea that being a first division team is ok is what defines being mediocre. If your a special coach your contending for the league title by year 4. He has put together a roster that can do that and deserves the chance to show that he can develop them as a team. As a long time booster and season ticket holder i was in favor of bringing him back this year.
 

Holy Man said:
Despite the good start and the trending up long term metrics of this team, it is obvious there is fifth column with some influence in the university (and with Sid) that has it out for Pitino for reasons other than basketball. I heard from a long time season ticket holder and modest financial supporter of the program say, "I just don't like the guy" and gave only vague and easily refutable reasons. It was clearly personal. The sources feeding Sid must be the same ones that had Pitino's expense reports for rental car gas put on the front page of the Strib. I am very happy with the direction of this program and I think a lot of the dedicated basketball fan base are as well, but there is an invisible mob that isn't and Coach could ruin their dispositions by having a clean and above expectations season. They have Sid's ear and/or notepad.
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I love a good conspiracy story in the morning!

Not that I remember where I heard this, but there have been rumblings that Richard can be an ass to subordinates and associates. He probably comes off as an arrogant East Coaster, which probably any of us would bristle at. (It's bad enough to listen to Barreiro's arrogant Chicagoan superiority routine every afternoon.) So the idea that there's an inside source in the Athletic Department feeding things like this to Sid and expense report crap to columnists and beat writers is not at all far fetched. As you say, where else does that stuff come from?
 

Remember when the student section bowed to Tubby? How embarrassing in retrospect.

Tubby never exceeded expectations aside from maybe his first year. He dealt with injuries, off-court issues, etc. But he was a huge problem as well. Underachieving offenses, playing Blake at point the year Nolen went down, etc. He had plenty of chances. The program was not really moving forward. It was time to move on.
 



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