Some Coaches in Year 1

[tinyarch]

Previous failures being 100% on the coach, and this failure being 100% on the players, is NOT hypocrisy? Do tell.

Dip, you're being purposely dense on this.

Tubby was given a grace period. For me it was his first three years. I excused a lot of situations, both injuries and transfers. After year three and a track record of clear demonstrable struggles both on and off the court, I began to hold Tubby more responsible. If we're all here in three years we can see what the attitude is in regard to Richard Pitino. If his system continues to result in mediocre B1G play and high profile transfers then we can talk about a need for a change.

Until then, quit trying to compare a first year coaches output with a coach who had 6 years to prove himself. At this point it is NOT hypocrisy. Talk to me in 5 more years.

 

[ethomasp31]

McHale was not that highly regarded coming out of high school. Steve Ligenfelter(Bloomington) was more highly regarded. Ligenfelter stayed two years at the U then transferred to SDSU.

Jefferson did win the state championship when they beat Hibbing....but neither Lingenfelter nor McHale was as big of a recruit as Mark Olberding or Randy Brewer who were both playing around that time. Olberding was the biggest recruit in Minnesota in the 70's.....he graduated in '74 I believe and after one year with the Gophers went to the ABA where he played for the Spurs. The ABA merged with the NBA before his second season. Brewer graduated from high school in '79 I believe, and had a nice career with the Gophers....his junior year they actually win the Big Ten with Trent Tucker, Darrel Mitchell and Cookie Holmes. McHale graduated from high school in '76 and his senior year the Gophers lost to Virginia in the Championship of the NIT when Ralph Sampson was a freshmen. Back then....college basketball wasn't the same as it is now....and actually the Gophers were very good. When McHale was a high school senior, the Gophers had Michael Thompson and Orborne Lockhart who were both sophomores, as well as Ray Williams and Flip Saunders who were both juniors. The teams who were big then were UCLA obviously, Indiana, Michigan, Marquette, Norte Dame, DePaul, Kentucky, Louisville, and North Carolina. You want to talk about some legendary coaches....look at the names who coached those teams sometime. Back then the tournament was only 32 teams and only 2 teams from the Big Ten made the tournament.....ironically, Indiana beat Michigan in the finals in 1976 and they were the last undefeated National Champion.

Fortunately I had two older brothers who played basketball in the early to mid 70's so I was able to watch both Olberding and McHale play in person at the state tournament. One of my biggest moments growing up and something I will remember to my grave is going to Williams Arena and watching the Gophers play the eventual National Champion Indiana Hoosiers. I'll remember it for two reasons.....first because I believe the Gophers were leading Indiana at half time that game, and secondly because Michael Thompson wore tassels or bells on his shoes.

 

[ethomasp31]

Dip, you're being purposely dense on this.

Tubby was given a grace period. For me it was his first three years. I excused a lot of situations, both injuries and transfers. After year three and a track record of clear demonstrable struggles both on and off the court, I began to hold Tubby more responsible. If we're all here in three years we can see what the attitude is in regard to Richard Pitino. If his system continues to result in mediocre B1G play and high profile transfers then we can talk about a need for a change.

Until then, quit trying to compare a first year coaches output with a coach who had 6 years to prove himself. At this point it is NOT hypocrisy. Talk to me in 5 more years.

Here is the deal and what dpodoll is trying to say. Some of the things that happened to the Gophers during Tubby's tenure were out of his control. In 2011 Nolen got hurt and the Gophers lost 10 of their last 11 games. We were 5-3 in the B1g when he got hurt and that was a very nice team that would have made the NCAA tournament and probably done some damage. We beat North Carolina that year!!!! The next year, Mbakwe got hurt on another pretty nice team that ended up losing in the NIT Finals. With Mbakwe that team is a definite NCAA tournament team that could have also won some games in the tournament. Last year the fan base was so toxic, that I believe that had a lot to do with the collapse of the team down the stretch. I've watched Gopher basketball for over 40 years and those are my observations. I have seen this happen before back in the early 90's between the Burton teams and the Jackson teams. I remember walking out of the Barn on some nights in the early 90's when half the crowd wanted Clem out of here ASAP!!!! Heck....the year before we made it to the Final 4 we lost on our home court to Tulane by 20 points and that was with Bobby Jackson.

Now, there comes a time when you have to drop it and move on....I get that is what most of you are trying to say to Dpodoll.....but I also understand his point totally....there does seem to be a lot of hypocrisy. I also think that if Nolen and Mbakwe had never been hurt, we wouldn't be talking about Pitino at all because Tubby would still our coach.

But....they got hurt.....Tubby seems to be doing pretty well at Texas Tech.....we have Pitino as our coach....let's support him and the Gophers by getting new facilities built so he can be successful here. We have a young coach, hopefully he can live up to our expectations and bring excitement and winning to the U.

 

[cjbfbp]

McHale was not that highly regarded coming out of high school. Steve Ligenfelter(Bloomington) was more highly regarded. Ligenfelter stayed two years at the U then transferred to SDSU.

But, was he not highly regarded because he wasn't so good or because he just wasn't so well known? I find it fairly hard to believe that he wasn't already a very good player coming out of high school. You can find plenty of examples from his general time and earlier (e.g., Robert Parrish, Charles Barkley, Bob Lanier, just to name a very few) of players who were great but were not well known and, as a result, just played for a local collegiate program or a fairly obscure one. Scouting is way, way more advanced today. Johnny Orr once said that when to an East Coast coaches' meeting in the seventies, few of them from that region ever heard of Ervin Johnson and Magic played in a far more populous and urbanized area than McHale.

 

[dtrain19]

Here is the deal and what dpodoll is trying to say. Some of the things that happened to the Gophers during Tubby's tenure were out of his control. In 2011 Nolen got hurt and the Gophers lost 10 of their last 11 games. We were 5-3 in the B1g when he got hurt and that was a very nice team that would have made the NCAA tournament and probably done some damage. We beat North Carolina that year!!!! The next year, Mbakwe got hurt on another pretty nice team that ended up losing in the NIT Finals. With Mbakwe that team is a definite NCAA tournament team that could have also won some games in the tournament. Last year the fan base was so toxic, that I believe that had a lot to do with the collapse of the team down the stretch. I've watched Gopher basketball for over 40 years and those are my observations. I have seen this happen before back in the early 90's between the Burton teams and the Jackson teams. I remember walking out of the Barn on some nights in the early 90's when half the crowd wanted Clem out of here ASAP!!!! Heck....the year before we made it to the Final 4 we lost on our home court to Tulane by 20 points and that was with Bobby Jackson.

Now, there comes a time when you have to drop it and move on....I get that is what most of you are trying to say to Dpodoll.....but I also understand his point totally....there does seem to be a lot of hypocrisy. I also think that if Nolen and Mbakwe had never been hurt, we wouldn't be talking about Pitino at all because Tubby would still our coach.

But....they got hurt.....Tubby seems to be doing pretty well at Texas Tech.....we have Pitino as our coach....let's support him and the Gophers by getting new facilities built so he can be successful here. We have a young coach, hopefully he can live up to our expectations and bring excitement and winning to the U.

I can't argue with most of what you stated. All very good points but I disagree with the idea that a toxic fan base caused the team to collapse down the stretch. Wasn't toxic when we were #8 in the polls and wasn't toxic inside the Barn. Just my opinion.

 

[gregbrady]

No I have all kinds of patience and will give Pitino a lot longer than most on here who right now think of him as the baby Jesus. My point was just because you list off a bunch of guys who didn't have great first years as a head coach but went on to have very successful careers as head coaches, that has no bearing on whether Pitino will become a successful head coach or not. He has to get recruits....and actually I'm a little disappointed we didn't get either Travis or Macura, that we weren't in the last 5 for Vaughn, and that I've heard rumors we might not be doing that well with Jarvis Johnson. We are the only Division 1 program in Minnesota.....we have to start keeping our best players in state.

I think that this post points out that most of these coaches struggled in their first years and part of the reason for their success later on was that most of them came from winning programs and worked for successful coaches. They learned how to build winners and tasted success as an assistant. Roy Williams was a completely unknown commodity when he went to Kansas. He was the #2 assistant to Dean Smith at UNC behind Bill Guthridge and inherited the defending National Champs at Kansas (minus POY Danny Manning) and NCAA probation thanks to Larry Brown. I would also point out that Kansas rarely has many great basketball players and has to 'import' most of them from out of state. Paul Pierce came from California, Nick Collison was from Iowa, and many more were from out of state. Good grief, get over the fact that you have to keep all or most of the in state talent here. Let him bring in the players he wants, no matter where they are from.

 

[ethomasp31]

But, was he not highly regarded because he wasn't so good or because he just wasn't so well known? I find it fairly hard to believe that he wasn't already a very good player coming out of high school. You can find plenty of examples from his general time and earlier (e.g., Robert Parrish, Charles Barkley, Bob Lanier, just to name a very few) of players who were great but were not well known and, as a result, just played for a local collegiate program or a fairly obscure one. Scouting is way, way more advanced today. Johnny Orr once said that when to an East Coast coaches' meeting in the seventies, few of them from that region ever heard of Ervin Johnson and Magic played in a far more populous and urbanized area than McHale.

The Big East wasn't even a conference when Magic Johnson was in college. Coming out of high school Magic was considered the best player to ever come out of Michigan and was recruited by both Indiana and UCLA who at that time were the biggest programs in the country. UCLA was coming off almost a decades worth of titles and Indiana had just come off their undefeated season.

I remember the 1976 state tournament. Jefferson beat Prior Lake in the first round. Prior Lake had two Pederson brothers....one of which played at the U and the other at Texas A&M. They had another kid who was 6'9 named Heise or something and still another who played football and had tryouts for the NFL. The older Pederson had three quick fouls that had a big impact on that game. Jefferson went on to win the championship against Hibbing. That year McHale was Mr. Basketball for the state of Minnesota. The next year the younger Pederson, the one who went to the U, was Mr Basketball for the state of Minnesota. I get what you are saying about recruiting and media not being the same back in the late 70's. Recruiting obviously was a lot more regional then than it so now.....but I still doubt McHale would have gone anywhere but the U.....especially considering how good the Gophers were at the time.

 

[ethomasp31]

I think that this post points out that most of these coaches struggled in their first years and part of the reason for their success later on was that most of them came from winning programs and worked for successful coaches. They learned how to build winners and tasted success as an assistant. Roy Williams was a completely unknown commodity when he went to Kansas. He was the #2 assistant to Dean Smith at UNC behind Bill Guthridge and inherited the defending National Champs at Kansas (minus POY Danny Manning) and NCAA probation thanks to Larry Brown. I would also point out that Kansas rarely has many great basketball players and has to 'import' most of them from out of state. Paul Pierce came from California, Nick Collison was from Iowa, and many more were from out of state. Good grief, get over the fact that you have to keep all or most of the in state talent here. Let him bring in the players he wants, no matter where they are from.

Come on....Kansas is going to be able to recruit a lot different players nationally than the Gophers. If Kansas is after the same kid as Minnesota and the kid isn't from Minnesota...there is no chance he will pick Minnesota over Kansas.

 

[golfing18now]

I get what you are saying about recruiting and media not being the same back in the late 70's. Recruiting obviously was a lot more regional then than it so now.....QUOTE]

Isn't that almost an acknowledgement that we probably should change our attitudes about recruiting too? Instead of basing our opinions on the decisions made by a few that happened to grow up here and holding the coach accountable, don't we look for talent that wants to be here? Some on this board have suggested Tubby was fired because he hadn't made enough progress on the big three. I really hope we have branched out a little bit from that sort of mentality.

 

[golfing18now]

Come on....Kansas is going to be able to recruit a lot different players nationally than the Gophers. If Kansas is after the same kid as Minnesota and the kid isn't from Minnesota...there is no chance he will pick Minnesota over Kansas.

I really hope Pitino doesn't share this view. This is a "give everybody a participation ribbon" type attitude. Golly gee, I hope we can get to nine wins in conference one of these years.

Your posts today have been interesting and informative. But, I can't agree with this provincialism and fear of trying to compete for players that don't grow up here. We need to think a little bigger than this.

 

[gregbrady]

Come on....Kansas is going to be able to recruit a lot different players nationally than the Gophers. If Kansas is after the same kid as Minnesota and the kid isn't from Minnesota...there is no chance he will pick Minnesota over Kansas.

Kansas back in the 80's and early 90's was not what it is today. Larry Brown and Roy Williams had to do a lot of hard work to recruit kids from all over. Yes KU had a nice history with Phog Allen, Wilt Chamberlain, etc, but before Larry Brown came, they hadn't been to a Final Four since 1974. Brown basically got Danny Manning to come to KU by giving his dad an assistant coaching position.

I am sure that with success, recruits will want to stay in state, but until sustained success, we are going to have to get used to out of state recruits and possibly juco's. A first rate practice facility will also help show recruits that Minnesota is serious about contending and developing players.

 

[ethomasp31]

Who is the last top 10 recruit we were in the running for who wasn't a Minnesota kid......I mean that we really were in the running for.....

Have you ever heard Henry Lake talk about the experience of going to a Kansas game or even the Midnight Madness Night?

Go to ESPN's college basketball recruiting site and look where the top players are going.....don't just look at this year, go back the last several years and check it out.....they aren't picking schools like Minnesota unless they are from that state or a neighboring state....they are all picking programs with huge traditions.

I hope Minnesota can get to that point sometime......but right now we don't have the facilities, atmosphere or tradition to attract those kind of players.

 

[cjbfbp]

The Big East wasn't even a conference when Magic Johnson was in college.

I knew that. I said East Coast not Big East. Orr told this story about the relative lack of familiarity with Magic Johnson when he attended a national coaches' conference in the seventies. He told the story in the late eighties or early nineties to highlight how much scouting has changed since that time.

 

[ethomasp31]

Kansas back in the 80's and early 90's was not what it is today. Larry Brown and Roy Williams had to do a lot of hard work to recruit kids from all over. Yes KU had a nice history with Phog Allen, Wilt Chamberlain, etc, but before Larry Brown came, they hadn't been to a Final Four since 1974. Brown basically got Danny Manning to come to KU by giving his dad an assistant coaching position.

I am sure that with success, recruits will want to stay in state, but until sustained success, we are going to have to get used to out of state recruits and possibly juco's. A first rate practice facility will also help show recruits that Minnesota is serious about contending and developing players.

Kansas went to the Final 4 in 1986, 1988, 1991 and 1993. They have made the tournament in 29 of the last 30 years.....my point was the best chance for Minnesota to get a top recruit BY FAR would be if he was from Minnesota.....Kansas on the other hand can get top recruits from anywhere in the country.

 

[golfing18now]

Kansas went to the Final 4 in 1986, 1988, 1991 and 1993. They have made the tournament in 29 of the last 30 years.....my point was the best chance for Minnesota to get a top recruit BY FAR would be if he was from Minnesota.....Kansas on the other hand can get top recruits from anywhere in the country.

If by top recruit you mean top 10, as you indicated in your other post, then yes I would agree. But that's not really what I'm talking about and those players don't come around in Minnesota very often either. Your original point about Minnesota kids being the key is really what I respectfully disagree with. I think there is a big gap between top ten kids on the one hand and relying on Minnesota kids coupled with out-of-state scholarship fillers on the other hand, which is frankly what I'm hearing you say.

 

[ethomasp31]

I knew that. I said East Coast not Big East. Orr told this story about the relative lack of familiarity with Magic Johnson when he attended a national coaches' conference in the seventies. He told the story in the late eighties or early nineties to highlight how much scouting has changed since that time.

Sorry misread your comment. Just because McHale was a top 10 NBA prospect by the time he graduated from college does not mean he would have been a top 10 college prospect coming out of high school.

 

[ethomasp31]

If by top recruit you mean top 10, as you indicated in your other post, then yes I would agree. But that's not really what I'm talking about and those players don't come around in Minnesota very often either. Your original point about Minnesota kids being the key is really what I respectfully disagree with. I think there is a big gap between top ten kids on the one hand and relying on Minnesota kids coupled with out-of-state scholarship fillers on the other hand, which is frankly what I'm hearing you say.

I've never said it should be mainly Minnesota kids with out of state scholarship fillers.....you didn't read it very carefully if that is what you were hearing me say. But believe me we have a better chance to sign a top 100 Minnesota kid than a top 100 out of state kid....and there are becoming more and more top 100 kids coming out of Minnesota. The Minnesotans I'm talking about are the ones being recruited by bigger programs outside of Minnesota.....not by Drake, UNI, or NDSU, but by ones being offered by Stanford, Florida, Duke and Kansas.

 

[golfing18now]

I've never said it should be mainly Minnesota kids with out of state scholarship fillers.....you didn't read it very carefully if that is what you were hearing me say. But believe me we have a better chance to sign a top 100 Minnesota kid than a top 100 out of state kid....and there are becoming more and more top 100 kids coming out of Minnesota. The Minnesotans I'm talking about are the ones being recruited by bigger programs outside of Minnesota.....not by Drake, UNI, or NDSU, but by ones being offered by Stanford, Florida, Duke and Kansas.

Fair enough. I'll give you the opportunity to recruit the 4 or 5 guys that fall into that category over the next few years if you give me the 300 to 400 others that fall into that category that don't reside in Minnesota. Not all of those 4 or 5 players will come to Minnesota for very legitimate reasons like Tyus at Duke and Travis at Stanford. If we don't find a way to land some of those other 300 to 400 players, we will be looking at constant 7 or 8 win seasons in conference.

Did enjoy the dialogue, ethomasp31

 

[zambam]

In 2011 Nolen got hurt and the Gophers lost 10 of their last 11 games. We were 5-3 in the B1g when he got hurt and that was a very nice team that would have made the NCAA tournament and probably done some damage. We beat North Carolina that year!!!!

If Justin Cobbs and Devoe Joseph hadn't transferred, that team would have been fine. Literally all they needed was a decent PG, and two of them transferred before Nolen got hurt. Granted, all accounts say Devoe was a bad egg but that doesn't justify Cobbs. Tubby brings the guy in saying he wants his team to play fast, and then Cobbs transfers because the team isn't playing fast. Cobbs never showed much while he was here, but based on his performance at Cal I gotta assume it would have been better to have him running the point that Mav and Blake.