The peak of the Pitino era

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Bad Gopher said:
To me, this is the strongest case for retaining Pitino: that this year's team more or less met expectations and that next year's team will be better. Of course, you have to be careful making that point because any program where a 12th-place finish is meeting expectations hasn't set the bar high enough. Ultimately the question is whether it's reasonable to judge someone on a 7-year body of work, and of course it is.
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You have to remember that a 12th place team out of the 2020 B1G Conf would be equivalent to a much higher finishing team in several other conferences.
 

KillmeNow said:
So, what do we have coming into the program next year? I'm asking because I've been a Pitino Apologist up until tonight. Tonight was a must win game, and well, I'm asking because Oturu has not been improving his Draft status, if he comes back next year, well hopefully he improves, maybe Curry finally gets to play helping out bench, maybe Gabe fixes his shooting issues, if Carr matures and improves, I guess what I am saying is we don't lose anyone worth a damn, do we? If you add some young talent, everyone improves, maybe some of our competition loses some players and so if the B1G isn't as deep as it was this year, Pitino could have a much better season and then of course, that decreases the chances of him being fired. I'm thinking then we opt to stick with him for a few more years? If we are going to part ways with Pitino, it needs to probably happen at the end of this year so whoever the new coach is will have some talent to work with.
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But let me ask you this. Say all of that happens, and this Mashburn kid is an absolute stud and Ihnen turns out to be a pretty darn good Big Ten player. Do you have any confidence that they would seriously challenge for a BT title? Or even top 3 finish? Because that roster with Tom Izzo at the helm would be a shoe in for that type of finish. Here, I think you'd be looking at a 5-7 finish and a 7-10 seed in the dance.
What I am saying is that even in the best case scenario you are looking at a mediocre team and program. I'd like to start thinking bigger than that. Especially after Fleck showing everyone what is possible here.
 

KillmeNow said:
You have to remember that a 12th place team out of the 2020 B1G Conf would be equivalent to a much higher finishing team in several other conferences.
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But here's the thing WE ARE A BIG TEN SCHOOL. Start acting like it. Who cares if we could finish top 3 in a weaker or mid major conference. Is that what you want to be?
 

Go Gophs said:
But let me ask you this. Say all of that happens, and this Mashburn kid is an absolute stud and Ihnen turns out to be a pretty darn good Big Ten player. Do you have any confidence that they would seriously challenge for a BT title? Or even top 3 finish? Because that roster with Tom Izzo at the helm would be a shoe in for that type of finish. Here, I think you'd be looking at a 5-7 finish and a 7-10 seed in the dance.
What I am saying is that even in the best case scenario you are looking at a mediocre team and program. I'd like to start thinking bigger than that. Especially after Fleck showing everyone what is possible here.
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I think the 2017 team, had Springs not been injured, would have had a shot at making a decent enough of a run. They finished 4th in the conference that year. And then the following season could have been pretty special as well, had we not been hit so hard by the injury bug. Both of those negatives probably negatively affected Pitino's ability to fully fill out the 2019 class and the 2017 recruiting class could have been better as well?

Now I am not trying to make excuses, necessarily, injuries happen and all, but now Pitino's last 3 recruits combined are the 7th, 8th and 18th best Gopher recruits in the 247 era. If he snags another Top 100 player or maybe 2 more, the future could be very bright even with Pitino at the helm. It's amazing how good players and a deep bench can make a coach look good, and a rash of injuries and cold shooting can make a coach look bad.
 



KillmeNow said:
You have to remember that a 12th place team out of the 2020 B1G Conf would be equivalent to a much higher finishing team in several other conferences.
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probably but they would still have to win road games in the ACC,SEC,Big 12. we can not just give them would have wins.
 

KillmeNow said:
You have to remember that a 12th place team out of the 2020 B1G Conf would be equivalent to a much higher finishing team in several other conferences.
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Any Power 6 conferences? Doubt it. They lost at Butler a middle of the pack Big East team and DePaul at home, who is rock bottom. They also fell at Utah who is entrenched in the bottom half of the Pac12 conference.

If you were being sarcastic, my apologies. The Gophers are what their record says they are.
 

I thought a .500 conference record would have been meeting expectations. Anything below that combined with the disappointing Non-conference record is beneath expectations.

He hyped that this would be his "Best Shooting Team". They might end up being the worst.

That alone could get someone fired.
 

Ope3 said:
Any Power 6 conferences? Doubt it. They lost at Butler a middle of the pack Big East team and DePaul at home, who is rock bottom. They also fell at Utah who is entrenched in the bottom half of the Pac12 conference.

If you were being sarcastic, my apologies. The Gophers are what their record says they are.
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They also beat Clemson and Okla St, have swept Ohio St, and beat Top 25 ranked PSU.


UMn is ranked #44 in the NET rankings. Going only by that, they'd be ranked

4th in the ACC, 5th in the Big 12, 5th in the Pac, and 6th in the SEC.

So railing on about their being 12th in the B1G in a year like this year seems disingenuous at best.



And they'd probably be 1st or 2nd in a whole load of Mid-Major Conferences.
 




I guess it's kind of difficult to find one specific peak during the Pitino era. His tenure has been really up and down, with good moments scattered throughout, but not really strung together if that makes sense.

I went back over the past few seasons and looked up some of the bright spots that could be considered peaks.
  • 2014 Beating No. 11 Ohio State at home
  • 2014 Beating No. 9 Wisconsin at home
  • 2014 NIT Championship
  • 2016 The upset vs No. 6 Maryland
  • 2017 Defeating No. 15 Purdue on the road
  • 2017 Winning B1G Record
  • 2017 Barclays Center Classic Championship
  • 2018 Vancouver Showcase Championship
  • 2019 Win vs No. 11 Purdue
  • 2019 B1G Tourney win vs No. 13 Purdue
  • 2019 NCAA Tourney Win vs Louisville
 


IceBoxGopher said:
I guess it's kind of difficult to find one specific peak during the Pitino era. His tenure has been really up and down, with good moments scattered throughout, but not really strung together if that makes sense.

I went back over the past few seasons and looked up some of the bright spots that could be considered peaks.
  • 2014 Beating No. 11 Ohio State at home
  • 2014 Beating No. 9 Wisconsin at home
  • 2014 NIT Championship
  • 2016 The upset vs No. 6 Maryland
  • 2017 Defeating No. 15 Purdue on the road
  • 2017 Winning B1G Record
  • 2017 Barclays Center Classic Championship
  • 2018 Vancouver Showcase Championship
  • 2019 Win vs No. 11 Purdue
  • 2019 B1G Tourney win vs No. 13 Purdue
  • 2019 NCAA Tourney Win vs Louisville
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Good list, some that would add:

- 2017 Win at Maryland
- 2017 Big 10 Semi-Finals
- Getting Jordan Murphy to stay after rocky 2015-2016 season
 



KillmeNow said:
They also beat Clemson and Okla St, have swept Ohio St, and beat Top 25 ranked PSU.


UMn is ranked #44 in the NET rankings. Going only by that, they'd be ranked

4th in the ACC, 5th in the Big 12, 5th in the Pac, and 6th in the SEC.

So railing on about their being 12th in the B1G in a year like this year seems disingenuous at best.



And they'd probably be 1st or 2nd in a whole load of Mid-Major Conferences.
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Being in those positions in those leagues would have got the Gophers right were they were up until 24 hrs ago, very fringe NCAA team and with only 2 wins away from home on the outside looking in.

Not railing on it, but 12th in a 14 team league with only Nebraska & Northwestern behind speaks for itself.
 

KillmeNow said:
I think the 2017 team, had Springs not been injured, would have had a shot at making a decent enough of a run. They finished 4th in the conference that year. And then the following season could have been pretty special as well, had we not been hit so hard by the injury bug. Both of those negatives probably negatively affected Pitino's ability to fully fill out the 2019 class and the 2017 recruiting class could have been better as well?

Now I am not trying to make excuses, necessarily, injuries happen and all, but now Pitino's last 3 recruits combined are the 7th, 8th and 18th best Gopher recruits in the 247 era. If he snags another Top 100 player or maybe 2 more, the future could be very bright even with Pitino at the helm. It's amazing how good players and a deep bench can make a coach look good, and a rash of injuries and cold shooting can make a coach look bad.
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My point is there isn't anyone that has any faith that even with all of those things going right he would do better than middle of the pack.
Also, the 7th, 8th and 18th best rated guys that have been recruited here, to me look like 20-40th players on the top teams in our conference. I don't care that he is outperforming himself. He has brought in Coffey, Carr, and Oturo that would be classified as top recruits.

Meanwhile, he has lost countless top 10s from our state. All the while these guys go on and kick butt elsewhere.

Anyone that thinks he is a good recruiter just isn't watching. He isn't. He's marginal. He bottom third of the Big Ten in that aspect. And that is exactly where he finishes with his teams most years. He got lucky that Jordan Murphy was way underrated or he wouldn't have had even the success that he had.
 

KillmeNow said:
You have to remember that a 12th place team out of the 2020 B1G Conf would be equivalent to a much higher finishing team in several other conferences.
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He would not have the players in those conferences that he has here.
 

GopherBlood666 said:
The curse of Reggie Lynch
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The Lynch team was the team that was going to solidify Pitino as a serious young coach which would have improved recruiting. When Reggie went off the rails everything began the long slow decline of reputation and then recruiting. The loss of the nail that led to the loss of the Kingdom.
 

Veritas said:
The Lynch team was the team that was going to solidify Pitino as a serious young coach which would have improved recruiting. When Reggie went off the rails everything began the long slow decline of reputation and then recruiting. The loss of the nail that led to the loss of the Kingdom.
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Yeah, and had Jim Dutcher's team full of high-risk cases not committed all those acts...

You can go on and on with ifs and buts, and there's not a defense of Pitino in this forum that isn't heavy on ifs and buts. Believe it or not...
1) This is a bottom-line business, just like [checking list] every fucking business in the world.
2) Recruiting low-character kids can and will blow up in your face.
 


Veritas said:
The Lynch team was the team that was going to solidify Pitino as a serious young coach which would have improved recruiting. When Reggie went off the rails everything began the long slow decline of reputation and then recruiting. The loss of the nail that led to the loss of the Kingdom.
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You are right. But not all is lost. I'm NOT arguing we should keep Pitino, just arguing that IF Coyle chooses to keep Pitino, I won't feel all hope is lost.

These players could all be on next year's team

Oturu, Curry, Carr, Willis, Williams, Ihnen, Gabe, Omersa & the incoming recruits.

Who do we lose? lol Hurt & Demir?

So we add 2-3 with lots of potential, almost a guarantee all 3 will be at least as good but probably will be better than those 2 we are losing? Or am I not giving Demir enough credit?

Now if we lose Oturu, then maybe we can snag a Grad transfer?
 

KillmeNow said:
You are right. But not all is lost. I'm NOT arguing we should keep Pitino, just arguing that IF Coyle chooses to keep Pitino, I won't feel all hope is lost.

These players could all be on next year's team

Oturu, Curry, Carr, Willis, Williams, Ihnen, Gabe, Omersa & the incoming recruits.

Who do we lose? lol Hurt & Demir?

So we add 2-3 with lots of potential, almost a guarantee all 3 will be at least as good but probably will be better than those 2 we are losing? Or am I not giving Demir enough credit?

Now if we lose Oturu, then maybe we can snag a Grad transfer?
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Have you seen what other teams are doing in recruiting ?
 

builtbadgers said:
Have you seen what other teams are doing in recruiting ?
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What about other teams? So every team out there is losing the same or less than UMn? Every team out there has a better recruiting class than UMn coming in? Funny, I thought our class being ranked #48 meant that only 47 teams had better recruiting classes than us? Gonzaga has 8 times since 2003 had recruiting classes ranked higher than #110, while Pitino has only twice had a class above #48, but none over #71.
 

KillmeNow said:
Not without being given a lot of time, like Gonzaga gave Few.
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Few won a ton of games and got to the tourney . No major conference coach gets 13 years of a .365 winning % and then goes on to do great things. You keep putting Pitino in a conversation with Few. Just me perhaps but I see no connection to some hyper criticism of Few's early success no matter the tourney results and Pitino's failure. Now if Few had won .365 % of his games he would not have kept his job 5 years ! The conference argument does not work, Pitino would not have these players if he coached in that conference.
 

KillmeNow said:
What about other teams? So every team out there is losing the same or less than UMn? Every team out there has a better recruiting class than UMn coming in? Funny, I thought our class being ranked #48 meant that only 47 teams had better recruiting classes than us? Gonzaga has 8 times since 2003 had recruiting classes ranked higher than #110, while Pitino has only twice had a class above #48, but none over #71.
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Even a worse argument as if he has recruited so well he should be winning huge. People with less class rankings are. You keep bringing up Gonzaga. That makes us even worse.
 

KillmeNow said:
What about other teams? So every team out there is losing the same or less than UMn? Every team out there has a better recruiting class than UMn coming in? Funny, I thought our class being ranked #48 meant that only 47 teams had better recruiting classes than us? Gonzaga has 8 times since 2003 had recruiting classes ranked higher than #110, while Pitino has only twice had a class above #48, but none over #71.
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Fyi, Few had 9 wins in the tourney his first 7 years, another reason they stayed with him. 9. !!!!!
 

builtbadgers said:
Even a worse argument as if he has recruited so well he should be winning huge. People with less class rankings are. You keep bringing up Gonzaga. That makes us even worse.
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Pretty sure we all know Pitino recruited poorly his first few years. Not necessarily with finding gems in the rough (Nate Mason, Jordan Murphy), but with roster management; Bakari Konate and Gaston Diedhou aren't exactly household names and tied up scholies for 4 years apiece.

We're struggling with depth so bad this year because of an absent 2017 class, Eric Curry blowing out his knee out again, and Amir Coffey leaving early. There is no way he should be winning huge this season. Now if Pitino manages to string a solid 2020 class ontop of 2018 and 2019 then he is recruiting much better, no?

The 2017 class was pretty good on paper. Personally, I think Pitino is on the verge of stringing 4 solid classes in a row (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020) and even if 2017 didn't work out the recrutiing trajectory is going in the right direction.
 

Parcival said:
Pretty sure we all know Pitino recruited poorly his first few years. Not necessarily with finding gems in the rough (Nate Mason, Jordan Murphy), but with roster management; Bakari Konate and Gaston Diedhou aren't exactly household names and tied up scholies for 4 years apiece.

We're struggling with depth so bad this year because of an absent 2017 class, Eric Curry blowing out his knee out again, and Amir Coffey leaving early. There is no way he should be winning huge this season. Now if Pitino manages to string a solid 2020 class ontop of 2018 and 2019 then he is recruiting much better, no?

The 2017 class was pretty good on paper. Personally, I think Pitino is on the verge of stringing 4 solid classes in a row (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020) and even if 2017 didn't work out the recrutiing trajectory is going in the right direction.
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Greenlee and Freeman are this years Konate and Diedhou.
 

builtbadgers said:
Fyi, Few had 9 wins in the tourney his first 7 years, another reason they stayed with him. 9. !!!!!
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Dude, you are SO biased it's hard to take you seriously, EVERYONE here knows your deal. Wisconsin this, Virginia that. You can't see/recognize plain facts.

Few struggled with lower rated recruits, but won against very low ranked competition.
Few, over time, improved his recruiting, then finally started winning against higher rated competition.
 


USAF said:
Greenlee and Freeman are this years Konate and Diedhou.
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That’s quite the reach considering we’ve seen them on the court only a handful of times. Also, Greenlee and Freeman are both true freshman.

Sounds like you’re just being a hater but that’s nothing new.
 

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