Sneak Preview of Smith/Pitino Comparison through 6 Seasons

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dpodoll68 said:
Here's what it honestly boils down to for me - in both cases, it was a new AD coming in and making their own hires. I truly think it was that simple. People make up nonsense to try to pretend that both were fired for cause. (Tubby "ran out of gas," "was tired," and "couldn't recruit"; Claeys had "lost control of his team," "isn't cut out to be a head coach," "was always intended to be an interim hire," and "never wanted the job in the first place.") It's all just mythology.

Teague fancied himself a basketball expert and had already hired Shaka Smart at VCU, so he obviously was going to install his own guy as quickly as feasible - particularly since Smith already had 6 years under his belt. He most likely thought (foolishly) that he could get Smart to come here. Kill was already pretty popular, and was only coming off his first season, so of course he didn't have the clout or the cachet to swing that one as well.

And Coyle already had a history of twice hiring his own football coaches at good-to-decent football programs (Bryan Harsin at Boise St., Dino Babers at Syracuse), so he was clearly going to do the same here. Short of something insane like going to the Rose Bowl, Claeys was going to be fired regardless - the "sex" "scandal" provided a timely and convenient cover. Pitino was young and energetic, and only 3 seasons in, so again it wasn't the right time. Depending on how this season turns out, it might end up being the right time.

Further, putting aside the history of the AD position (and the personal history of the ADs themselves), how anyone could look at what has since transpired and still hold to the above fictions is mind-boggling to me. Tubby had "run out of gas" and "didn't care," and yet not one, but TWO ADs at basketball programs at least as good as Minnesota (I would argue better, certainly in the case of Memphis) hired him subsequent to his firing here. Are those ADs just complete morons? Do the esteemed posters of GopherHole know something that two highly compensated Athletic Directors don't know? He left Texas Tech voluntarily, and a team filled with mostly his recruits just finished 2nd in the Big 12 and went to the Elite 8 last year. But people will still say that he can't recruit, and never could.

And Claeys, after taking a year off, led a fantastic defense and almost helped Mike Leach bring Washington St. (of all places) to the Rose Bowl. He may decide that he is happier being a defensive coordinator and never seek a head coaching position again, but he absolutely could if he wanted to.

My opinion is that, despite whatever evidence presents itself, people will cling desperately to the above fictions and try to make something more out of it than it is.
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Good post. I know you put a lot of effort into it to defend your pro Claeyes and pro Tubby takes.

I think Tubby was running out of steam. The talent he was going to have return was pretty bad. The future was looking bleak and on a downward trajectory. His firing may have a lit a fire once he was hired at TT.
 


dpodoll68 said:
Here's what it honestly boils down to for me - in both cases, it was a new AD coming in and making their own hires. I truly think it was that simple. People make up nonsense to try to pretend that both were fired for cause. (Tubby "ran out of gas," "was tired," and "couldn't recruit"; Claeys had "lost control of his team," "isn't cut out to be a head coach," "was always intended to be an interim hire," and "never wanted the job in the first place.") It's all just mythology.

Teague fancied himself a basketball expert and had already hired Shaka Smart at VCU, so he obviously was going to install his own guy as quickly as feasible - particularly since Smith already had 6 years under his belt. He most likely thought (foolishly) that he could get Smart to come here. Kill was already pretty popular, and was only coming off his first season, so of course he didn't have the clout or the cachet to swing that one as well.

And Coyle already had a history of twice hiring his own football coaches at good-to-decent football programs (Bryan Harsin at Boise St., Dino Babers at Syracuse), so he was clearly going to do the same here. Short of something insane like going to the Rose Bowl, Claeys was going to be fired regardless - the "sex" "scandal" provided a timely and convenient cover. Pitino was young and energetic, and only 3 seasons in, so again it wasn't the right time. Depending on how this season turns out, it might end up being the right time.

Further, putting aside the history of the AD position (and the personal history of the ADs themselves), how anyone could look at what has since transpired and still hold to the above fictions is mind-boggling to me. Tubby had "run out of gas" and "didn't care," and yet not one, but TWO ADs at basketball programs at least as good as Minnesota (I would argue better, certainly in the case of Memphis) hired him subsequent to his firing here. Are those ADs just complete morons? Do the esteemed posters of GopherHole know something that two highly compensated Athletic Directors don't know? He left Texas Tech voluntarily, and a team filled with mostly his recruits just finished 2nd in the Big 12 and went to the Elite 8 last year. But people will still say that he can't recruit, and never could.

And Claeys, after taking a year off, led a fantastic defense and almost helped Mike Leach bring Washington St. (of all places) to the Rose Bowl. He may decide that he is happier being a defensive coordinator and never seek a head coaching position again, but he absolutely could if he wanted to.

My opinion is that, despite whatever evidence presents itself, people will cling desperately to the above fictions and try to make something more out of it than it is.
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All great and valid points especially with Teague being a moron/fool. To be fair about TT, last years team played 10 guys over 10 minutes a game and only 4 were Tubby's and the rest were brought in by Beard. I think Tubby's frustrations with the lack of practice facilities made him upset as well and I know relationships with MN coaches and boosters were starting to wane (Whether that is fire-able offense can be discussed, but it had some play in it imo). I think Tubby would've MAYBE had one more tournament team in 2014 and then it was going to be scary after that. There was going to be no depth in the 2015 group unless Tubby would've found some other transfers (Which he may well have seeing he did get guys like Trevor M back). True that people cling, but my opinion was and still is that moving on from Tubby was the best option. I wanted it done the year before honestly, but it didn't happen. I will also advocate for moving on from Pitino if this year tanks as well and I've been a pretty big supporter of him as I felt he did a good job to repair a lot of bridges that had been broken.
 

dpodoll68 said:
Here's what it honestly boils down to for me - in both cases, it was a new AD coming in and making their own hires. I truly think it was that simple. People make up nonsense to try to pretend that both were fired for cause. (Tubby "ran out of gas," "was tired," and "couldn't recruit"; Claeys had "lost control of his team," "isn't cut out to be a head coach," "was always intended to be an interim hire," and "never wanted the job in the first place.") It's all just mythology.

Teague fancied himself a basketball expert and had already hired Shaka Smart at VCU, so he obviously was going to install his own guy as quickly as feasible - particularly since Smith already had 6 years under his belt. He most likely thought (foolishly) that he could get Smart to come here. Kill was already pretty popular, and was only coming off his first season, so of course he didn't have the clout or the cachet to swing that one as well.

And Coyle already had a history of twice hiring his own football coaches at good-to-decent football programs (Bryan Harsin at Boise St., Dino Babers at Syracuse), so he was clearly going to do the same here. Short of something insane like going to the Rose Bowl, Claeys was going to be fired regardless - the "sex" "scandal" provided a timely and convenient cover. Pitino was young and energetic, and only 3 seasons in, so again it wasn't the right time. Depending on how this season turns out, it might end up being the right time.

Further, putting aside the history of the AD position (and the personal history of the ADs themselves), how anyone could look at what has since transpired and still hold to the above fictions is mind-boggling to me. Tubby had "run out of gas" and "didn't care," and yet not one, but TWO ADs at basketball programs at least as good as Minnesota (I would argue better, certainly in the case of Memphis) hired him subsequent to his firing here. Are those ADs just complete morons? Do the esteemed posters of GopherHole know something that two highly compensated Athletic Directors don't know? He left Texas Tech voluntarily, and a team filled with mostly his recruits just finished 2nd in the Big 12 and went to the Elite 8 last year. But people will still say that he can't recruit, and never could.

And Claeys, after taking a year off, led a fantastic defense and almost helped Mike Leach bring Washington St. (of all places) to the Rose Bowl. He may decide that he is happier being a defensive coordinator and never seek a head coaching position again, but he absolutely could if he wanted to.

My opinion is that, despite whatever evidence presents itself, people will cling desperately to the above fictions and try to make something more out of it than it is.
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Agree with all of this. Though personally I was more ok with Claeys being let go vs Tubby. Some of that has to do with the coaching searches that followed. Teague was basically on a wild goose chase when it came to hiring a new basketball coach and was turned down many times, whereas Coyle ran an efficient search that ended with getting his top choice. Time will tell if hiring PJ was the right call. If he has losing B1G records in 4 of his first 5 years he will have plenty of detractors on GopherHole. Probably deservedly so. Firing Tubby hasn't looked great over the 5+ years since we moved on from him, but Pitino has a chance to turn that around this year and give us hope that the next five years will be much better than the past five.

I'm fine with people who want to cite the fact that we had a new AD who wanted to make his own hire and a couple down years in recruiting as reasons for firing Tubby. Those are legitimate reasons, and the facts bear them out to be true. My problem is with people saying we were on a "downward trajectory" or other things like that as reasons for firing him. That simply isn't true. It may be a personal opinion that some hold, but it's not supported by facts.
 

manderson1984 said:
All great and valid points especially with Teague being a moron/fool. To be fair about TT, last years team played 10 guys over 10 minutes a game and only 4 were Tubby's and the rest were brought in by Beard. I think Tubby's frustrations with the lack of practice facilities made him upset as well and I know relationships with MN coaches and boosters were starting to wane (Whether that is fire-able offense can be discussed, but it had some play in it imo). I think Tubby would've MAYBE had one more tournament team in 2014 and then it was going to be scary after that. There was going to be no depth in the 2015 group unless Tubby would've found some other transfers (Which he may well have seeing he did get guys like Trevor M back). True that people cling, but my opinion was and still is that moving on from Tubby was the best option. I wanted it done the year before honestly, but it didn't happen. I will also advocate for moving on from Pitino if this year tanks as well and I've been a pretty big supporter of him as I felt he did a good job to repair a lot of bridges that had been broken.
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Thanks for the honest and respectful discussion. If people can just put aside the fiction and deal with the actual facts, we can have a meaningful dialogue.

In the interest of accuracy re: the 2017-18 Texas Tech roster, here are the 10 players who played 10+ mpg:

Keenan Evans (29.5) - Tubby
Zhaire Smith (28.4) - Beard
Jarrett Culver (26.4) - Beard
Justin Gray (21.4) - Tubby
Zach Smith (20.6) - Tubby
Niem Stevenson (20.5) - Beard
Brandone Francis (15.3) - Beard
Norense Odiase (14.8) - Tubby
Tommy Hamilton (14.0) - Beard
Davide Moretti (12.3) - Beard

So you are correct that it was 6 for Beard and 4 for Tubby, with Tubby recruits taking up 4 of the 8 highest spots. I don't follow Texas Tech basketball at all, so I'm not certain who to give "credit" for Niem Stevenson. He committed less than two weeks after Tubby left for Memphis, so knowing nothing else about the situation, I have to believe Tubby had been recruiting him to Texas Tech. If that is the case, it would be 5 of the top 8 as Tubby recruits.
 


Tubby's last 4 recruits here were Charles Buggs, Wally Ellenson, Alex Foster and Alvin Ellis. The first 3 were not B1G caliber players and Ellis was a solid back-up on a good team. Let's not pretend the recruiting trajectory was good.
 

dpodoll68 said:
Richard Pitino is such a vastly superior coach to Tubby that he took a "pretty bad" team to the NIT championship?



Based on make-believe?
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Based on the fact that recruiting was going downhill. He left Pitino with solid upperclassmen and brutal underclassmen, which is why people predicted that the next coach would be able to hit the ground running, but then would struggle after those upperclassmen were gone, which is exactly what happened.
 

benlaur said:
Silly point. The court is the same in Williams arena as it is in Cameron. A good coach creates a good "basketball school". There is no magic. Many programs pivot up or down dramatically based on the coach. Minus the fact that there are certainly coaches willing to ignore rules and an NCAA that is willing to turn a blind eye to certain programs, basketball is basketball. Sell your programs strengths. Sell your vision. Sell yourself. Sell it to the administration. Sell it to the kids. Sell it to parents. Sell it to assistant coaches. Sell it to the fans. Properly manage your roster. Recruit character first. Recruit competitors. Recruit to your coaching style. Assign roles and have clear expectations for everyone. Develop an identity. Have fun. Listen. Adjust. Develop players. Build. Deliver on your vision. Nothing is easy, but in the realm of possible, anything is possible.

If you are willing to adjust, who you are is not who you are going to be. MN hired a young coach who should have already gained valuable lessons. Some people never learn, some are always learning. We are kind of approaching crunch time relative to coaching duration. The hope should be that learned lessons are being applied, but tough to tell for sure.

The one thing I do know is you never make excuses when you are winning. When you are losing there is always the refs, the program, the NCAA, the schedule, the fan base, the writers, etc...This is a highly compensated role and with it comes high expectations. Let's hope for the best for this coach and the hard-working kids he recruited.
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I am speaking about the past. UMN has historically been a mid/low tier basketball program. This is a fact. The future has not been written.
However, comparing Tubby with Richard is an exercise in comparing two low/mid tier eras in UMN history. Will that change? Only time will tell.
 

benlaur said:
Silly point. The court is the same in Williams arena as it is in Cameron. A good coach creates a good "basketball school". There is no magic. Many programs pivot up or down dramatically based on the coach. Minus the fact that there are certainly coaches willing to ignore rules and an NCAA that is willing to turn a blind eye to certain programs, basketball is basketball. Sell your programs strengths. Sell your vision. Sell yourself. Sell it to the administration. Sell it to the kids. Sell it to parents. Sell it to assistant coaches. Sell it to the fans. Properly manage your roster. Recruit character first. Recruit competitors. Recruit to your coaching style. Assign roles and have clear expectations for everyone. Develop an identity. Have fun. Listen. Adjust. Develop players. Build. Deliver on your vision. Nothing is easy, but in the realm of possible, anything is possible.

If you are willing to adjust, who you are is not who you are going to be. MN hired a young coach who should have already gained valuable lessons. Some people never learn, some are always learning. We are kind of approaching crunch time relative to coaching duration. The hope should be that learned lessons are being applied, but tough to tell for sure.

The one thing I do know is you never make excuses when you are winning. When you are losing there is always the refs, the program, the NCAA, the schedule, the fan base, the writers, etc...This is a highly compensated role and with it comes high expectations. Let's hope for the best for this coach and the hard-working kids he recruited.
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If you subtract that fact, it makes it simple. You cant subtract that fact.

Dismissing the impact of cheating for the "haves" and telling the "have nots" to ignore and develop your team is a joke. A bad joke.
 



Keyser Söze said:
Based on the fact that recruiting was going downhill. He left Pitino with solid upperclassmen and brutal underclassmen, which is why people predicted that the next coach would be able to hit the ground running, but then would struggle after those upperclassmen were gone, which is exactly what happened.
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I am a big believer in recruiting rankings, but they are not gospel. They are fallible. Just because they weren't great recruits on paper doesn't mean that they couldn't have turned out to be serviceable or better Big Ten players. No one knows how those players would've turned out in a Tubby system with fellow Tubby players and, more importantly, no one knows how his 2014, 2015, etc. classes would've turned out. The Tubby recruits to Texas Tech mentioned above were not even close to 4-star status and formed the upperclassmen core of an Elite 8 team.

The idea of making the decision to fire someone based on speculative hypotheticals is insanely idiotic to me. One can make an argument based on hypotheticals and suit it to whatever outcome they want to produce. People didn't like Tubby, so they made up a fiction that he was lazy, the trajectory was pointing down, etc. Conversely, people like Pitino, so they make up the fiction that all he needs is a healthy team for a full season and it is the jumpstart to bigger and better things. Results and production are what actually matter, not hypotheticals.
 


manderson1984 said:
No one wanted the job. Offered it to like 12 people before Pitino. Ran into some bad luck with both Saunders and Hoiberg almost taking it. My biggest issue or worry about firing Pitino is that I don't know who we may get. Musselman ain't coming here and I'm not sold Hoiberg would or do great here.
Now with that all being said, if this year they flounder, then there is no loss in changing leadership. A major reason Tubby got fired was two bad recruiting classes in a row and he'd basically wrecked relationships with HS and AAU coaches in the state. Teague also was way too arrogant in believing he would get a higher tier guy without giving them money and facilities. We went through the same process in hiring a football coach too.
Coyle at least has a better track record imo of hiring coaches and will at least have a plan if he chooses to change our coach, but we might not get as high a quality candidate as we would hope for.
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False. Name a few of those who turned us down.

Saunders was interested. Who knows what sunk that, but I choose to blame Teague. Musselman was said to have an interview scheduled here for the day after Pitino accepted the job. Teague found Shaka Smart and Villa 7 and fancied himself an elite evaluator of young coaching talent. Who knows how he went about this search? Regardless, a Big Ten job for a program coming off two NCAA appearances would've been attractive to quality coaches if the guy in charge knows how to conduct such a search.
 

dpodoll68 said:
I am a big believer in recruiting rankings, but they are not gospel. They are fallible. Just because they weren't great recruits on paper doesn't mean that they couldn't have turned out to be serviceable or better Big Ten players. No one knows how those players would've turned out in a Tubby system with fellow Tubby players and, more importantly, no one knows how his 2014, 2015, etc. classes would've turned out. The Tubby recruits to Texas Tech mentioned above were not even close to 4-star status and formed the upperclassmen core of an Elite 8 team.

The idea of making the decision to fire someone based on speculative hypotheticals is insanely idiotic to me. One can make an argument based on hypotheticals and suit it to whatever outcome they want to produce. People didn't like Tubby, so they made up a fiction that he was lazy, the trajectory was pointing down, etc. Conversely, people like Pitino, so they make up the fiction that all he needs is a healthy team for a full season and it is the jumpstart to bigger and better things. Results and production are what actually matter, not hypotheticals.
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Just for the record, Tubby was let go because he was not running the type of program that the University thought would be successful in the future. We sat next to some of the families of the players at the Big 10 tourney (these were starters) and the consensus is that he is a great guy in front of the camera but brutal to his players. He coached using one explicit tirade after another. The players would make a mistake on court and instantly look to see how Tubby reacted to see what kind of week they were going to be up against. That worked in the past but times have changed and the current generation is looking for coaches that motivate using other methods (did it ever really work that well?). Nowdays that makes it hard to recruit, *sometimes* good for winning on court, and hard to keep players.

Now, I have no problem with it, spent time in the military, my kids grew prepared to excel under someone like Tubby, but it is not something that plays well anymore. I believe that the university was scared to death of how he got his results. If you were wondering why he was let go after advancing in the tourney you have to go deeper than his record for recruiting and winning.
 



Hates Monikers said:
False. Name a few of those who turned us down.

Saunders was interested. Who knows what sunk that, but I choose to blame Teague. Musselman was said to have an interview scheduled here for the day after Pitino accepted the job. Teague found Shaka Smart and Villa 7 and fancied himself an elite evaluator of young coaching talent. Who knows how he went about this search? Regardless, a Big Ten job for a program coming off two NCAA appearances would've been attractive to quality coaches if the guy in charge knows how to conduct such a search.
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Shaka (Was never coming here), Saunders (Thank Glen Taylor for that one), Tim Miles (Was at Nebraska for only one year so he didn't want to leave), and Hoiberg (Almost took it, but didn't offer enough money and at the time were no guarantee of resources) to name 4 were all offered and turned down. Teague thought he was going to get a hot shot because of his Villa 7 like you said and was wrong and settled on Pitino a ways down the line.
 

CPTMidnight said:
Just for the record, Tubby was let go because he was not running the type of program that the University thought would be successful in the future. We sat next to some of the families of the players at the Big 10 tourney (these were starters) and the consensus is that he is a great guy in front of the camera but brutal to his players. He coached using one explicit tirade after another. The players would make a mistake on court and instantly look to see how Tubby reacted to see what kind of week they were going to be up against. That worked in the past but times have changed and the current generation is looking for coaches that motivate using other methods (did it ever really work that well?). Nowdays that makes it hard to recruit, *sometimes* good for winning on court, and hard to keep players.

Now, I have no problem with it, spent time in the military, my kids grew prepared to excel under someone like Tubby, but it is not something that plays well anymore. I believe that the university was scared to death of how he got his results. If you were wondering why he was let go after advancing in the tourney you have to go deeper than his record for recruiting and winning.
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If that is true --- then I'm glad he was let go.

There is no place for yelling/screaming/personally abusive style coaches anymore at the college level. Also why I was very glad that Durkin was let go at Maryland and I hope he never coaches in college again. (Pros is a different story)
 

MennoSota said:
Do you think the program as a whole has been anything other than lower-tier/mid-tier?
We have what...one B1G championship and one vacated B1G championship in 114 years.
What does that tell you?
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There's not a long list of championships, but your credibility drops quickly when when you write things like this.

I believe there was good reason for this lack of success in the past -- we were not exactly a hotbed of high school basketball talent. In good years there would be one guy from Minnesota that might interest the U. That's no longer the case. We no longer need 10 players from out of state. That's a huge difference.
 

CPTMidnight said:
Just for the record, Tubby was let go because he was not running the type of program that the University thought would be successful in the future. We sat next to some of the families of the players at the Big 10 tourney (these were starters) and the consensus is that he is a great guy in front of the camera but brutal to his players. He coached using one explicit tirade after another. The players would make a mistake on court and instantly look to see how Tubby reacted to see what kind of week they were going to be up against. That worked in the past but times have changed and the current generation is looking for coaches that motivate using other methods (did it ever really work that well?). Nowdays that makes it hard to recruit, *sometimes* good for winning on court, and hard to keep players.

Now, I have no problem with it, spent time in the military, my kids grew prepared to excel under someone like Tubby, but it is not something that plays well anymore. I believe that the university was scared to death of how he got his results. If you were wondering why he was let go after advancing in the tourney you have to go deeper than his record for recruiting and winning.
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:rolleyes:

I'll bet that Nick Saban gives each of his players hugs when they make a mistake in practice or during a game. Krzyzewski probably does too, along with telling them why they're special.
 

manderson1984 said:
Shaka (Was never coming here), Saunders (Thank Glen Taylor for that one), Tim Miles (Was at Nebraska for only one year so he didn't want to leave), and Hoiberg (Almost took it, but didn't offer enough money and at the time were no guarantee of resources) to name 4 were all offered and turned down. Teague thought he was going to get a hot shot because of his Villa 7 like you said and was wrong and settled on Pitino a ways down the line.
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I'll give you that (we offered Miles?), and I appreciate that Teague shot for the moon, but none of those guys were coming here. (I think there was a shot with Saunders just due to his history here.) But Nebraska and ISU are similar programs -- it would be rare for a coach to make a lateral move like that -- and Smart was always going to do better.

I like Pitino fine, but we could have found a dozen coaches at lesser programs or assistants at big programs with more experience who would've been interested in this job. I don't know if that person would've had any more success; I just take issue with the idea that nobody would come here.
 

dpodoll68 said:
I am a big believer in recruiting rankings, but they are not gospel. They are fallible. Just because they weren't great recruits on paper doesn't mean that they couldn't have turned out to be serviceable or better Big Ten players. No one knows how those players would've turned out in a Tubby system with fellow Tubby players and, more importantly, no one knows how his 2014, 2015, etc. classes would've turned out. The Tubby recruits to Texas Tech mentioned above were not even close to 4-star status and formed the upperclassmen core of an Elite 8 team.

The idea of making the decision to fire someone based on speculative hypotheticals is insanely idiotic to me. One can make an argument based on hypotheticals and suit it to whatever outcome they want to produce. People didn't like Tubby, so they made up a fiction that he was lazy, the trajectory was pointing down, etc. Conversely, people like Pitino, so they make up the fiction that all he needs is a healthy team for a full season and it is the jumpstart to bigger and better things. Results and production are what actually matter, not hypotheticals.
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Can you explain how the bolded part is fiction? It's neither fact nor fiction at this point. It's speculative. And based on how his first full/healthy team did before Springs went down, I think it's reasonable to think that he can do well with a healthy roster.

I used to go to a lot of AAU tournaments and would always look out for our coaching staff. I saw Tubby a lot at first, but he seemed to become less and less visible at them as time went on. I only ever seemed to see Vince Taylor and Ron Jirsa toward the end. I don't believe I ever saw Saul and can't recall him ever being mentioned in recruiting interviews, so I'm skeptical that he was involved in recruiting at all. What a waste of an assistant.

Pitino, on the other hand, seems to always be at AAU events/high school games. The downward trajectory in how often I saw Tubby out recruiting/scouting matched the downward trajectory in the quality of recruits he was getting. That correlation made it seem like he was working less and less hard. That made me think it was time to move on. Sorry if you disagree. Whether or not Pitino is the long term answer here has no bearing on my opinion that we needed to move on.
 

Hates Monikers said:
I'll give you that (we offered Miles?), and I appreciate that Teague shot for the moon, but none of those guys were coming here. (I think there was a shot with Saunders just due to his history here.) But Nebraska and ISU are similar programs -- it would be rare for a coach to make a lateral move like that -- and Smart was always going to do better.

I like Pitino fine, but we could have found a dozen coaches at lesser programs or assistants at big programs with more experience who would've been interested in this job. I don't know if that person would've had any more success; I just take issue with the idea that nobody would come here.
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Saunders was very close to taking the job, but Glen Taylor told him to hold off because he was going to fire Kahn. That was basically even said in the media as well. Hoiberg's wife loves the Twin Cities and wanted a bigger metro than Ames and they have a cabin in Crosslake that they stay at a ton in the summer. Miles used to make it known that MN was his dream job, but he let it be known through 3rd parties that he could not accept if offered. The lack of facilities and money we were offering coaches (plus assistants) was a large factor and didn't make it as enviable a job as it could/should be.
 

Keyser Söze said:
Can you explain how the bolded part is fiction? It's neither fact nor fiction at this point. It's speculative. And based on how his first full/healthy team did before Springs went down, I think it's reasonable to think that he can do well with a healthy roster.

I used to go to a lot of AAU tournaments and would always look out for our coaching staff. I saw Tubby a lot at first, but he seemed to become less and less visible at them as time went on. I only ever seemed to see Vince Taylor and Ron Jirsa toward the end. I don't believe I ever saw Saul and can't recall him ever being mentioned in recruiting interviews, so I'm skeptical that he was involved in recruiting at all. What a waste of an assistant.

Pitino, on the other hand, seems to always be at AAU events/high school games. The downward trajectory in how often I saw Tubby out recruiting/scouting matched the downward trajectory in the quality of recruits he was getting. That correlation made it seem like he was working less and less hard. That made me think it was time to move on. Sorry if you disagree. Whether or not Pitino is the long term answer here has no bearing on my opinion that we needed to move on.
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Those are the kinds of rumblings that were going around at the time he was dismissed. The consensus opinion at the time was that his firing had as much to do with micro-level evaluations by the AD's office as much as the number of wins or the recruiting outlook, although presumably it encompassed all of these factors.

Similarly, if Pitino is indeed in good shape in terms of his job security, it's probably in great part due to Coyle's observation of his work, including how hard he works in recruiting. Nobody seems to dispute that; he really does appear to hit it hard.
 

Keyser Söze said:
Can you explain how the bolded part is fiction? It's neither fact nor fiction at this point. It's speculative. And based on how his first full/healthy team did before Springs went down, I think it's reasonable to think that he can do well with a healthy roster.

I used to go to a lot of AAU tournaments and would always look out for our coaching staff. I saw Tubby a lot at first, but he seemed to become less and less visible at them as time went on. I only ever seemed to see Vince Taylor and Ron Jirsa toward the end. I don't believe I ever saw Saul and can't recall him ever being mentioned in recruiting interviews, so I'm skeptical that he was involved in recruiting at all. What a waste of an assistant.

Pitino, on the other hand, seems to always be at AAU events/high school games. The downward trajectory in how often I saw Tubby out recruiting/scouting matched the downward trajectory in the quality of recruits he was getting. That correlation made it seem like he was working less and less hard. That made me think it was time to move on. Sorry if you disagree. Whether or not Pitino is the long term answer here has no bearing on my opinion that we needed to move on.
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I noticed the same things from the previous staff as well. They didn't get out on the trail nearly as much as the current one does. Why that is, can be up for debate or discussion, but it was definitely true in MN AAU events.
 

manderson1984 said:
I noticed the same things from the previous staff as well. They didn't get out on the trail nearly as much as the current one does. Why that is, can be up for debate or discussion, but it was definitely true in MN AAU events.
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Yup. Was true in AAU events outside of MN as well. Even ones with several MN targets.
 

dpodoll68 said:
:rolleyes:

I'll bet that Nick Saban gives each of his players hugs when they make a mistake in practice or during a game. Krzyzewski probably does too, along with telling them why they're special.
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You obviously didn't read his book. He gives them stickers (scented) and candy bars. Please do your research next time you bring up Saban. Thanks
 

dpodoll68 said:
:rolleyes:

I'll bet that Nick Saban gives each of his players hugs when they make a mistake in practice or during a game. Krzyzewski probably does too, along with telling them why they're special.
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Dpodoll68, if you talked to any players at the time, Tubby took the fun out of the game. Times change. Tubby was not willing to change. Comparing Tubby to other people is silly. Players today have been brought up under different circumstances. There is social media. Kind of defeats the purpose when you are not having fun, especially when you see your friends at other programs having it.
 

Hates Monikers said:
There's not a long list of championships, but your credibility drops quickly when when you write things like this.

I believe there was good reason for this lack of success in the past -- we were not exactly a hotbed of high school basketball talent. In good years there would be one guy from Minnesota that might interest the U. That's no longer the case. We no longer need 10 players from out of state. That's a huge difference.
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Again...I am only speaking of the past. The future is not yet written. So far the past two coaches have continued the mediocre to poor performance in the B1G. Maybe things will change. Time will tell.
Please actually read what I wrote next time.
 

MennoSota said:
Again...I am only speaking of the past. The future is not yet written. So far the past two coaches have continued the mediocre to poor performance in the B1G. Maybe things will change. Time will tell.
Please actually read what I wrote next time.
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I'm not sure what you think I misread. Here's what you wrote -- again:

"We have what...one B1G championship and one vacated B1G championship in 114 years."​

If you placed a question mark at the end of that sentence instead of a period, the answer is: "No." It's wrong. That's all.
 


CPTMidnight said:
Just for the record, Tubby was let go because he was not running the type of program that the University thought would be successful in the future. We sat next to some of the families of the players at the Big 10 tourney (these were starters) and the consensus is that he is a great guy in front of the camera but brutal to his players. He coached using one explicit tirade after another. The players would make a mistake on court and instantly look to see how Tubby reacted to see what kind of week they were going to be up against. That worked in the past but times have changed and the current generation is looking for coaches that motivate using other methods (did it ever really work that well?). Nowdays that makes it hard to recruit, *sometimes* good for winning on court, and hard to keep players.

Now, I have no problem with it, spent time in the military, my kids grew prepared to excel under someone like Tubby, but it is not something that plays well anymore. I believe that the university was scared to death of how he got his results. If you were wondering why he was let go after advancing in the tourney you have to go deeper than his record for recruiting and winning.
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I just remember the players looking around at each other as they walked back on to the court, shrugging their shoulder like they had no idea what Tubby had just said in the timeout. He had lost his ability to communicate with the players.
 


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