Still have faith in Pitino?

[bemidjigopher]

Bleed, I have always had so much respect for you, SS and many others on this board. You tell me realistically, what has changed. Tubby had to go for his or MN good for sure. However, what he was getting killed here was for :

1. Losing to NW when it had a 1-3-1 zone
2. Players leaving the program (as they did this year
3. Being at the bottom of the B1G
4. Players standing around
5. Throwing players under the bus (players don't have hearts just was said by Richard)

You tell me as a diehard fan, what is the difference between the two coaches. It won't be long before Richard will start using Tubby's excuse of Practice Facility. There needs to be some changes with the MN program. The current AD is not able to do it.

You conveniently leave out the fact that lil dre said this not . pitino didn't toss anyone under the bus at the media. Lil Dre shared what he said in the locker which quite frankly they looked gutless vs nw. If I was pitino I would have grabbed my whistle and ran them into the ground in front of the fans after that game. IMO lil dre needs to sack up

 

[goldy93]

I agree with your reservations about Pitino but I don't agree with any comparisons of Northwestern to Furman. Alex Olah is one of the better centers in the Big Ten. Tre Demps is one tough customer. Bryant McIntosh is one of the better freshman in the Big Ten. In fact, they had three freshmen (McIntosh, Law, and Lindsey) playing significant roles in that win and soph Taphorn was no slouch either. As they say, at this point of the year those freshmen are no longer freshmen.

You shouldn't look at the jersey and make up your mind about who is inferior. I bet if you went to Purdue and Iowa message boards you would have been reading lots of gripes about losing to an "inferior" Minnesota team.

Some on here would claim this has nothing to do with coaching. If Northwestern is a better team than us, what does it say about our coaching staff when compared to Northwestern's? Nothing? Does Northwestern have better recruiters?

 

[bga1]

Some on here would claim this has nothing to do with coaching. If Northwestern is a better team than us, what does it say about our coaching staff when compared to Northwestern's? Nothing? Does Northwestern have better recruiters?

Northwestern is not a better team than Minnesota. Period. They shot lights out in a game against us. We'd beat them 7 of 10.

 

[cjbfbp]

Northwestern is not a better team than Minnesota. Period. They shot lights out in a game against us. We'd beat them 7 of 10.

If they're worse, they're not much worse. They have four conference wins and we have five. They've won three straight including Saturday's 60-39 dismantling of Penn State, a team we haven't beaten yet. Since the best we can do against Penn State this year is 1 of 2, I wouldn't be too sure of your 7 out of 10 declaration.

 

[SelectionSunday]

Northwestern is not a better team than Minnesota. Period. They shot lights out in a game against us. We'd beat them 7 of 10.

Not sure I'm buying that. I don't see much difference between the teams, other than NW has more promising freshmen, sophomores, and juniors than the Gophers do.

 

[maxwellsmart]

You conveniently leave out the fact that lil dre said this not . pitino didn't toss anyone under the bus at the media. Lil Dre shared what he said in the locker which quite frankly they looked gutless vs nw. If I was pitino I would have grabbed my whistle and ran them into the ground in front of the fans after that game. IMO lil dre needs to sack up

Now there is a coaching tool certain to get results...all negative, bridge burning results. No thanks.

 

[goldy93]

Northwestern is not a better team than Minnesota. Period. They shot lights out in a game against us. We'd beat them 7 of 10.

Based on what? How about next year, think we would beat them 7 out of 10 based on how well they have apparently recruited and developed their young players?

 

[bottlebass]

You conveniently leave out the fact that lil dre said this not . pitino didn't toss anyone under the bus at the media. Lil Dre shared what he said in the locker which quite frankly they looked gutless vs nw. If I was pitino I would have grabbed my whistle and ran them into the ground in front of the fans after that game. IMO lil dre needs to sack up

Now there is a coaching tool certain to get results...all negative, bridge burning results. No thanks.

Seemed to work out OK for Herb Brooks in that one movie. I say run them til they collapse.

 

[bga1]

Based on what? How about next year, think we would beat them 7 out of 10 based on how well they have apparently recruited and developed their young players?

This year yes- I think this year's Gophers would/should beat them 7 of 10. Next year - I'd say they are better than us on paper at the moment. Their recruits for next year are right in the same ratings range as ours and they don't lose much at all.

 

[cjbfbp]

This year yes- I think this year's Gophers would/should beat them 7 of 10. Next year - I'd say they are better than us on paper at the moment. Their recruits for next year are right in the same ratings range as ours and they don't lose much at all.

Since it would take more than a few years to play a team 10 times under the current conference configuration and the compositions of the two teams would differ considerably over that stretch, a hypothetical like that is impossible as well as meaningless. The only thing that matters is that we finished 0-1 against them this year, it happened at home, and it wasn't really as close as the final score. We'll see what happens next year.

 

[jamalo]

Relative to Tubby? Hell yes. Relative to the field, not so sure

 

[jamalo]

I'm not celebrating failure at all. I hate it. I've hated most of this season. Luckily for me, we're 3-0 in games I've attended, so that's the silver lining for me personally. I wish we were 14-0, or at least in position to make the Tournament. I wish I weren't in a position to remind the board of everyone's arrogance and hubris, guaranteeing that we could do so much better than the previous coach, regardless of who the hire would be. Unfortunately, here we are.

Tubby didn't give a ****e at the end. Get over it

 

[jamalo]

Let me try again; didn't give a sheeeeeeeet

 

[howeda7]

Let me try again; didn't give a sheeeeeeeet

I'm not a Tubby hater by any means. But can anyone honestly watch a tired looking Tubby going through the motions in Lubbock with a God-awful team and say 'damn, I wish we still had that?' I seriously doubt it.

 

[DoubleAlum]

The team has regressed this year. He has yet to recruit a skilled 3,4 or 5. His teams play like they don't have a fuggin clue how to play basketball. Why hasn't he brought in any skill yet, either through high school recruits or transfers. Mason will be a nice player, but everyone else he's brought in so far is crap. The 2 African guys are major projects and depth players. Morris is just crap, you can't win with guys like that, yet Pitino thought he could? Another recruiting mistake. Even McNeil, he brought in a 6'3" point guard to play small forward for you? Really? He has mismanaged the roster so far and while he has a couple nice guards coming in, both are undersized and won't be able to create their own shots. So who are the scoring threats inside? The 2016 recruits are the earliest we can hope to get skilled wings in here. Will he have lost the fan base by then? This team will be equally crappy next year. Blow it the fuc& up.....

To answer your question, my gut and my brain are telling me "no, I don't still have faith in Pitino". In fact, it feels like he has dug himself a hole But, I'm the first to admit that after about the 2-3 year point with Coach Kill, I was losing faith in him because I couldn't imagine our putrid offense could compete in D-1 football. Well, Kill has accomplished more than I ever imagined. Having learned from that experience, I guess I would ask this question: are there other markers you can point to that show Pitino is building something here? Such as: Nate Mason? A style of play? A great group of assistants? Better relationships with local high school coaches? Good relationships with his players? I don't know the answers to these questions, but nobody seems too excited about Richard Pitino. Has he lost credibility yet? What is the word on the street??

 

[Gold Vision]

Tubby didn't give a ****e at the end. Get over it

Racist.

 

[60's Guy]

Depends

To answer your question, my gut and my brain are telling me "no, I don't still have faith in Pitino". In fact, it feels like he has dug himself a hole But, I'm the first to admit that after about the 2-3 year point with Coach Kill, I was losing faith in him because I couldn't imagine our putrid offense could compete in D-1 football. Well, Kill has accomplished more than I ever imagined. Having learned from that experience, I guess I would ask this question: are there other markers you can point to that show Pitino is building something here? Such as: Nate Mason? A style of play? A great group of assistants? Better relationships with local high school coaches? Good relationships with his players? I don't know the answers to these questions, but nobody seems too excited about Richard Pitino. Has he lost credibility yet? What is the word on the street??

The answers totally depend on who you talk to. There is presently no concensus. I'm not sure why it's not more obvious to more people that Pitino obviously can coach, but he lacks talented players. The question is: Can he evaluate and acquire more talented players?

Next years recruits are predicted to be of greater ability. We have 3 other open scholarships. How he handles those 3 scholarships
and how the team competes next year will determine which direction the herd mobilizes their answers to your questions.

 

[jovs]

To answer your question, my gut and my brain are telling me "no, I don't still have faith in Pitino". In fact, it feels like he has dug himself a hole But, I'm the first to admit that after about the 2-3 year point with Coach Kill, I was losing faith in him because I couldn't imagine our putrid offense could compete in D-1 football. Well, Kill has accomplished more than I ever imagined. Having learned from that experience, I guess I would ask this question: are there other markers you can point to that show Pitino is building something here? Such as: Nate Mason? A style of play? A great group of assistants? Better relationships with local high school coaches? Good relationships with his players? I don't know the answers to these questions, but nobody seems too excited about Richard Pitino. Has he lost credibility yet? What is the word on the street??

At this point his recruiting has been terrible, Bakary and Gaston are projects that may or may not pan out, Martin was a complete bust, it really makes the loss of Illikainen more glaring, not sure it is really going to be possible to evaluate anything until well into his fourth year but coming in as inexperienced as Pitino was not sure this is all that unexpected.

 

[The-Real-Truth]

I'm not a Tubby hater by any means. But can anyone honestly watch a tired looking Tubby going through the motions in Lubbock with a God-awful team and say 'damn, I wish we still had that?' I seriously doubt it.

You do. The fact that you go there to watch his current team, shows how much you miss him. You can't tell me that this year was more exciting than Tubby's 2nd year. Like some of us has said, if Al didn't get hurt, If Trevor didn't punch a woman, if Royce didn't help himself with the stuff in MOA and if Devo didn't like to smoke so much, This program would have been in a much better shape. Anybody would have looked tired thinking about what could have happened and didn't so I don't blame a coach to look tired.

His current team is bad because they are so young. They will be better next year and the year after. Richard will go thru this next year when he loses all the experienced players. Like SS said, most likely, Gophers will finish 12-13th next year. For that reason, I would not make fun of other young programs because what will happen here in the near future.

 

[dpodoll68]

I'm not sure why it's not more obvious to more people that Pitino obviously can coach

Obviously? Based on what? I'm not saying that he can't, but I've seen nothing that screams "obvious coach" to me. All I've seen so far is a coach whose results are getting worse the more his imprint is put on the program. Some people are seeing what they want to see, not what is "obvious".

 

[BuckyGopher]

I do, but I am starting to think he may be a Josh Pastner...great recruiter, younger guy to be able to relate to the players, but a lousy in game coach. Hopefully I don't have this same feeling this time next year.

 

[goldy93]

Obviously? Based on what? I'm not saying that he can't, but I've seen nothing that screams "obvious coach" to me. All I've seen so far is a coach whose results are getting worse the more his imprint is put on the program. Some people are seeing what they want to see, not what is "obvious".

I agree. He really has proven nothing so far and his reputed recruiting prowess has really not been all that impressive. I would argue Collins is doing a better job recruiting at Northwestern currently, which is concerning. The more players Pitino gets for his "system", the more he tries to implement it, the worse we seem to get. I hope that changes next year or I fear we will be looking for another coach, again.

 

[goldy93]

I do, but I am starting to think he may be a Josh Pastner...great recruiter, younger guy to be able to relate to the players, but a lousy in game coach. Hopefully I don't have this same feeling this time next year.

We have a winner. The only difference is Pastner pulls in big time recruiting classes (I believe he has had several top 20 and at least one top 10 class) and does little with them. I do think Pitino has the potential to be a better coach than Pastner, but I have no idea if Pitino would ever come close to pulling in the type of talent Pastner brings in.

 

[bleedsmaroonandgold]

I have not lost faith in him, but I certainly have less of it than I did at pretty much any other point since he was hired. There was never a point during his tenure before now (including after he was hired but before he coached a game, all through last season, all through this offseason, and through most of this season) when I would have thought it remotely possible that we would be facing a possible 12 seed in the BTT at the end of year two. This season is a major step backwards for the program (pending some kind of BTT miracle). I'll reserve final judgment until after the postseason, but this could be the worst Gopher team since Jim Molinari was head coach.

 

[cjbfbp]

I agree. He really has proven nothing so far and his reputed recruiting prowess has really not been all that impressive. I would argue Collins is doing a better job recruiting at Northwestern currently, which is concerning. The more players Pitino gets for his "system", the more he tries to implement it, the worse we seem to get. I hope that changes next year or I fear we will be looking for another coach, again.

I would also say that Collins has done a better job dealing with adversity and coaching his players to keep their heads up and fight through adversity. Watching Northwestern these last few games gives no indication of watching a team that suffered through a 10 game conference losing streak. Meanwhile, Rutgers and Nebraska look cooked and many of us are not completely confident that we'll beat Penn State at home in the final game.

 

[cjbfbp]

Yes, hopefully we have a postseason that can provide some redemption. The 2011-12 team had a miserable 6-12 conference record but they did have the excuse of multiple injuries whereas this year's team has been more or less injury free. I do think the 2011-12 injury riddled team's run through the NIT with no games at home was inspiring and did provide quite a bit of redemption for their season.

 

[tinyarch]

The problem I see with most folks here at the GH is that they seem to imagine that young Pitino should be producing the same talent and successful teams as old dad Pitino. It's completely unrealistic and unfair to little Richard. He's been a head coach for 3 years. He has one full year of true recruiting under his belt as the head coach (the first two years were scrounge and hope for the best recruits). He's essentially coaching at the bottom dregs of the B1G here at Minnesota with one of the worst facilities in the B1G other than a nostalgic arena. I have to give Pitino at least two more years to really assess what he's capable of at the B1G level.

What can be argued is whether or not Teague should have given such a young coach the opportunity to head up a B1G program. But, at this point, we have a young coach along the lines of Musselman. He is growing into this job and we either have to support him through the growing pains or we have to pine for an established coach to come to one of the worst facilities in the B1G and try produce.

Let's face it. We aren't wowing any big time coaches with the facilities we currently have. We have a new, potentially great, coach because our outdated facilities make it a an attractive job for a newbie with potential. We got what we could get. It was either that or continue with a coach who would rather sit at the bar with Bobby Knight and talk over the good ole' days.

 

[bga1]

At this point his recruiting has been terrible, Bakary and Gaston are projects that may or may not pan out, Martin was a complete bust, it really makes the loss of Illikainen more glaring, not sure it is really going to be possible to evaluate anything until well into his fourth year but coming in as inexperienced as Pitino was not sure this is all that unexpected.

The Illikainen loss is something that we are going to have to look at in two ways- 1. Did he really want to come here?
2. How will the pickup of Nwankwo compare with the loss of AI? I don't think it's fair at all to say his recruiting has been terrible. If there was a mistake they made- perhaps it was in shooting for the moon in their first class and getting shut out a a bunch of high level plan A and B guys. They had to hold spots open for Vaughn and Travis-especially Travis -those two were shadows over that recruiting class. When they missed on Travis - they went for Martin and obviously that didn't work out. So that's a miss.
Gaston and Bakary - it's way too early to call them misses and they had to get some bigs after missing on the plan A guys. I am very optimistic about Bakary and not as sure on Gaston yet. Based on the standard GHole fans use- Frank Kaminsky would have been ruled a recruiting bust (he averaged 6 minutes his frosh year and as a soph he average 4 points 2 boards). Mason was an excellent recruit.

Now we have 4 talented guys coming in - three 3 to 4 star guys and another not rated who some think will be a star. So I just don't see this poor recruiting stamp.

It's just been a tough year all around with Mcneil, Martin, Lofton and Gaston not getting to play in the fall. Then Matheui has a bad year and we start the season losing close game after close game. Have a little patience folks.

 

[scools12]

The Illikainen loss is something that we are going to have to look at in two ways- 1. Did he really want to come here?
2. How will the pickup of Nwankwo compare with the loss of AI? I don't think it's fair at all to say his recruiting has been terrible. If there was a mistake they made- perhaps it was in shooting for the moon in their first class and getting shut out a a bunch of high level plan A and B guys. They had to hold spots open for Vaughn and Travis-especially Travis -those two were shadows over that recruiting class. When they missed on Travis - they went for Martin and obviously that didn't work out. So that's a miss.
Gaston and Bakary - it's way too early to call them misses and they had to get some bigs after missing on the plan A guys. I am very optimistic about Bakary and not as sure on Gaston yet. Based on the standard GHole fans use- Frank Kaminsky would have been ruled a recruiting bust (he averaged 6 minutes his frosh year and as a soph he average 4 points 2 boards). Mason was an excellent recruit.

Now we have 4 talented guys coming in - three 3 to 4 star guys and another not rated who some think will be a star. So I just don't see this poor recruiting stamp.

It's just been a tough year all around with Mcneil, Martin, Lofton and Gaston not getting to play in the fall. Then Matheui has a bad year and we start the season losing close game after close game. Have a little patience folks.

No way. GHole has all the answers. Everyone would have known Kaminsky was a future player of the year candidate.

Just like last year when Pitino won 25 games and the NIT he could coach. Now this year the team is struggling and he can't coach.

 

[goldy93]

The problem I see with most folks here at the GH is that they seem to imagine that young Pitino should be producing the same talent and successful teams as old dad Pitino. It's completely unrealistic and unfair to little Richard.... It was either that or continue with a coach who would rather sit at the bar with Bobby Knight and talk over the good ole' days.

This is what gets me every time. People will make excuses for Pitino, but then turn around and bash Tubby, not acknowledging that he was faced with the exact same obstacles to recruiting and developing players. That does not mean I want him back, but when are people going to stop making excuses for Pitino and then in the same instance blame Tubby? Give it up already.