Still have faith in Pitino?

Donate To GopherHole



Winasota Gopher said:
Confirmed by JNBaller... Wonk Woo was how he spelt it I believe...
Click to expand...

JNBball said:
Nwankwo pronounced (wonk-whoa)
Click to expand...

Bemidijigopher was right.

In looking for this post, I revisited the thread where he told us he committed before we found out on twitter... Cool kid, and also something to remember next year, he might be lurking so lets not be our usual selves and trash him the first time he travels/misses a dunk.
 

MadtownGopher said:
Agreed. I think Pitino only took King because he was desperate for a PF and he could play right away because of his family situation. I doubt he'd recruit King out of HS.
Click to expand...

I've said all along, other than Hollins, I don't think Pitino would have recruited any of the starters out of HS. Mo, EE and even Matheiu would never have been on his radar for the style he wants to play. Heck, even Hollins would have been borderline. But, its what he has to work with. He certainly has "coached up" Mo do a marginal starter. EE? I think if Pitino had it his way, he wouldn't see the floor, BUT its what he has available.

Its all speculation and its all disappointment for all of us right now. However, I am willing to give coach a flyer on the first 2 years til he can get what he really wants on the floor.

Besides all that...we have been in a lot of games this year that could have gone either way. How many front ends did we miss the other night? 7???

The B1G is a bitch...plain and simple. Its not the prettiest basketball regardless of who is on the floor. Other than Wisconsin & Maryland, we will probably be in every game... Lets get a few!

Ski-U-Mah
 


EG#9 said:
I think this is a very fair post. I've been encouraged by the Gophers ability to get a good shot in late game situations, but nobody is knocking them down. Nothing Pitino could do about Andre literally handing the ball to the Michigan defender when the Gophers had a chance to win or tie and there's was nothing he could do about Joey missing a wide open 3 and Nate and Elliott missing 1-1's late against Iowa or Nate missing against Ohio State or all the missed free throws and open looks at 3 the Gophers missed late against Nebraska. If these guys played with the composure that's expected of a B1G team that (initially) started 5 upperclassmen, we'd be 5-2 right now and bemoaning the one win we choked away (pick one of the 5 losses).

That said, it's on Pitino that this group doesn't rebound or defend at a level above atrocious. It's on Pitino that the team kept feeding Walker in the post last night when it was clear it wasn't working. It's on Pitino that his guys came out and gave zero effort in the first half against Iowa.

Most glaringly, it's on Pitino that he didn't think he needed to move heaven and earth to find a PF to start over King for this season or to find another guard who was eligible to play immediately. I think most of us knew Joey King was not the answer at the 4 and that having just 5 eligible players for the 1-3 spots on the floor was a very dangerous proposition. As it turns out, Joey just can't rebound at this level as a 4 and he certainly can't be asked to guard 3's on the perimeter. McNeil was lost for the season and now when "Bad Squirrel" shows up or Andre can't throw it in the ocean, Pitino has no other option but to keep putting them out there.
Click to expand...

He missed on Travis and got Martin - who I am sure he hoped would at least split minutes with King. It didn't work out and as a coach - you get credit for the recruits that work out and you get the blame for the ones that don't- so some of it is on him. Recruiting is something where you can lay the blame at the coach's doorstep more firmly after three or four years when he has his own guys and a few shots at it. Then the numbers will tell you if the guy can recruit and fit the recruits to his system. What killed Tubby was that after 6 years he still couldn't put a PG on the floor to run his offense. I hope it's not the PF position that hurts Pitino.
 






Winasota Gopher said:
Bemidijigopher was right.

In looking for this post, I revisited the thread where he told us he committed before we found out on twitter... Cool kid, and also something to remember next year, he might be lurking so lets not be our usual selves and trash him the first time he travels/misses a dunk.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm hoping joey King doesn't ever see this site.
 

Tim1406 said:
Yeah, I'm hoping joey King doesn't ever see this site.
Click to expand...

I hope he does, cause one day I'll look at him and say, I'm Winasota Gopher, and he'll smile and give me a pound and be like, "Thanks man", we'll brush our shoulders off, and then frolic into the sunset.
 

sonnygarcia said:
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.....
Click to expand...

The record is what the record is, no denying that. However, the Gophers have been outscored by a grand total of 19 points through 7 conference games. Not exactly a situation where the team has quit and/or is getting completely blown out night after night and a change is unavoidable. But yet, we have people actually calling for a complete reset after 1.5 years. It's unbelievable to me how fickle fan reaction is to a small window of games. If the Gophers had managed to score 25 more points over the last handful of games and their record stood at 6-1, this thread would likely be entitled "When will Florida and/or Louisville come calling?" We need to have a little more perspective here.
 

golfing18now said:
The record is what the record is, no denying that. However, the Gophers have been outscored by a grand total of 19 points through 7 conference games. Not exactly a situation where the team has quit and/or is getting completely blown out night after night and a change is unavoidable. But yet, we have people actually calling for a complete reset after 1.5 years. It's unbelievable to me how fickle fan reaction is to a small window of games. If the Gophers had managed to score 25 more points over the last handful of games and their record stood at 6-1, this thread would likely be entitled "When will Florida and/or Louisville come calling?" We need to have a little more perspective here.
Click to expand...

Excellent post.

Our boys could value the rock a little better and we'd be singing to the dance. It hasn't worked out that way, but there is time for improvement. Hard to understand why folks are baling at this point.
 



sonnygarcia said:
How bad do we need a 4 next year? Wouldn't it be nice to have illikainen coming in !!! Too bad we decided to take a flier on an average shooting guard with behavioral issues instead. Mismanagement!!! He's made soooo many errors with this roster he'll never get out from under it! Book it (and someone said OP was not on board with initial hire; I was actually, but too many mistakes for me to still be drinking the Pitino kool-aid).
Click to expand...

I'm beginning to think some comments are not just hyperbole but baseless comments that are actually believed. All seems very toxic knowing full well that Patino will get a minimum of 4 years and probably 5 to show what he can do.
 

tinyarch said:
Excellent post.

Our boys could value the rock a little better and we'd be singing to the dance. It hasn't worked out that way, but there is time for improvement. Hard to understand why folks are baling at this point.
Click to expand...

You can argue that there are good reasons not to bail, but you have to be able to understand why folks are. We have the second to worst record in a conference that is weaker than last year with a senior heavy team playing significantly worse than it was the year before. Furthermore, the coach has enough talent to compete in these games (we have led at some point after halftime in 6 of our 7 B1G games). We are now 0-5 in B1G games which have had a tie or lead change in the second half. When you have a team that has the talent to compete with pretty much every team we have faced in conference, yet are losing all of the competitive games, there is a finite list of reasons for why the sufficient talent level is not translating to wins. Attitude? Effort? Coaching? Something is wrong, and it isn't talent, because the talent was good enough to have us in the game late against Iowa, Purdue, Michigan, OSU, and Nebraska (and in two cases well in control with less than 10 minutes to play).
 

bleedsmaroonandgold said:
You can argue that there are good reasons not to bail, but you have to be able to understand why folks are. We have the second to worst record in a conference that is weaker than last year with a senior heavy team playing significantly worse than it was the year before. Furthermore, the coach has enough talent to compete in these games (we have led at some point after halftime in 6 of our 7 B1G games). We are now 0-5 in B1G games which have had a tie or lead change in the second half. When you have a team that has the talent to compete with pretty much every team we have faced in conference, yet are losing all of the competitive games, there is a finite list of reasons for why the sufficient talent level is not translating to wins. Attitude? Effort? Coaching? Something is wrong, and it isn't talent, because the talent was good enough to have us in the game late against Iowa, Purdue, Michigan, OSU, and Nebraska (and in two cases well in control with less than 10 minutes to play).
Click to expand...

Are these seniors actually playing worse than last year? Where's dpo with his statistics? These seniors, incredibly, miss Austin Hollins and to an extent Maverick. Austin was incredibly consistent on both ends of the floor and helped mitigate a lot of the mistakes that are happening this year.

What I see as being wrong with this team is: They are not mentally smart with the ball. They are so nice that no one is mentally strong enough to tell the team to climb on their back when it comes down to crunch time. It's just a psychological flaw in this group of kids who are going to be great citizens and contributors to the MN economy in the near future.
 

Tiny, I wish you would go root for another team, any team, and God would come back to our side.
 


Rodney's Open said:
People have actually given up on Pitino? I really hate Minnesota fans sometimes.
Click to expand...

Seriously doubt there are very many of them. They come on here and their numbers are all blown out of proportion because they use a lot of hyperbole and tend to keep beating the same dead horse.
 

60's Guy said:
Pitino is an upgrade. The situation is a short term regression. Not the coach. Pitino is a better coach in 2015 than Tubby is. Not talking teams, personnel or schools...talking coaching.
Click to expand...

OK, any time someone is critical of Pitino, someone else inevitably goes into the "He's better than Tubby!" harangue.

Can you please try to view this correctly so there is no more of this irrelevant association?

1) The logical progression of events WAS: Tubby was fired which created a coaching vacancy. As a result of the search, Pitino was hired.
2) The logical progression of events WAS NOT: Pitino was hired. There wasn't an immediate vacancy so they had to fire Tubby to create one for Pitino.

Tubby would be gone regardless of whether or not Pitino was hired. If Pitino wasn't here, we would have some other coach whose name would not be Tubby Smith. Furthermore, if Pitino were fired, Tubby would not be rehired. Therefore, Tubby should be completely irrelevant to ones satisfaction level with Pitino.

You can say all you want about Tubby not leaving him with much in the way of recruits last year but he left him a core that adding a couple of more regulars to was good enough to win the NIT. Five of those regulars are back this year and two new recruits of his own are in the top rotation. If there is a player regression going on, that's on Pitino, just like the problems in Tubby's last year were on him.
 

Let's not forget Malik Smith carried the team in a few early games last year.
 



cjbfbp said:
OK, any time someone is critical of Pitino, someone else inevitably goes into the "He's better than Tubby!" harangue.

Can you please try to view this correctly so there is no more of this irrelevant association?

1) The logical progression of events WAS: Tubby was fired which created a coaching vacancy. As a result of the search, Pitino was hired.
2) The logical progression of events WAS NOT: Pitino was hired. There wasn't an immediate vacancy so they had to fire Tubby to create one for Pitino.

Tubby would be gone regardless of whether or not Pitino was hired. If Pitino wasn't here, we would have some other coach whose name would not be Tubby Smith. Furthermore, if Pitino were fired, Tubby would not be rehired. Therefore, Tubby should be completely irrelevant to ones satisfaction level with Pitino.

You can say all you want about Tubby not leaving him with much in the way of recruits last year but he left him a core that adding a couple of more regulars to was good enough to win the NIT. Five of those regulars are back this year and two new recruits of his own are in the top rotation. If there is a player regression going on, that's on Pitino, just like the problems in Tubby's last year were on him.
Click to expand...

Good post.

Question: Is there a player regression going on? I don't know that there is. Could it be that the seniors we do have are playing at the same level as last year, but the kids being asked to fill in for last years seniors are not rising to the same level as last years seniors? Could it be that Austin Hollins was much, much more imporant than many of us gave him credit?

One area that very likely has seen digression is in freethrow shooting. Austin and Maverick, I believe, were descent at the line. Mason has clearly struggled and EE...well...that's the best example of a kid who has digressed, in my opinion.

As others have pointed out. We are merely a handful of possessions away from being 5-2 or 6-1 in the B1G. We're not as bad as our record indicates, but we are not as good as we could be.
 

Dr.Don said:
We're sick of you. Tiny the tiny...
Click to expand...

Why are you making this a personal thing when the issue is about whether we have faith in Coach Pitino. Please go and slither off to your watering hole in Fargo...
 

tinyarch said:
Question: Is there a player regression going on? I don't know that there is. Could it be that the seniors we do have are playing at the same level as last year, but the kids being asked to fill in for last years seniors are not rising to the same level as last years seniors? Could it be that Austin Hollins was much, much more imporant than many of us gave him credit?
Click to expand...

Thanks! I clearly think Austin's loss was much more significant than some anticipated. I always thought that Austin was a player who may not have had a lot of big games but was always rock steady and would be very tough to replace. Other than that, I don't have much in the way of answers. Some of our vets are playing worse than expected but Mason is much better than expected. I think some of this is psychological, some of this might be disruption of team chemistry, and some of this might be due to coaching influenced by reaction and panic.
 

cjbfbp said:
Thanks! I clearly think Austin's loss was much more significant than some anticipated. I always thought that Austin was a player who may not have had a lot of big games but was always rock steady and would be very tough to replace. Other than that, I don't have much in the way of answers. Some of our vets are playing worse than expected but Mason is much better than expected. I think some of this is psychological, some of this might be disruption of team chemistry, and some of this might be due to coaching influenced by reaction and panic.
Click to expand...

Perhaps. It's intriguing, which is why I'm looking forward to seeing how this season pans out into March. Sure wish we had a kid on this team with a mean streak, however.
 

tinyarch said:
Perhaps. It's intriguing, which is why I'm looking forward to seeing how this season pans out into March. Sure wish we had a kid on this team with a mean streak, however.
Click to expand...

We did, but he's in jail.
 

GoodasGold said:
We did, but he's in jail.
Click to expand...

LOL. I was wondering how long it would take for a good snide remark regarding McNeil.

Can you think of anyone on this team who plays with a chip on his shoulder? This team has some great kids with fantastic personalities. Every parent would be proud to have these kinds of gentlemen. (McNeil excluded...:) ) I just wish they weren't all "Peace Corp Volunteers"! ;)
 

station19 said:
Let's not forget Malik Smith carried the team in a few early games last year.
Click to expand...

Malik smith never carried the team last year. He was a solid option, but never carried the team. The one game he dominated, 29 points, we lost.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom