Was this Season a Success?

Was the season a success?

  • Yes

    Votes: 121 95.3%

  • No

    Votes: 6 4.7%
  • Total voters
    127
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Gonna quote myself from another thread as I think it fits this thread better. No one is happy we didn't make the NCAA tournament, but that doesn't mean this season wasn't a success or that we should sit here and debate whether or not we should be happy with an NIT win. After we didn't make the NCAA that was no longer possible. We beat who was laid out in front of us.

Winasota Gopher said:
I couldn't be happier for Richard. I know the great debate on GH is get to the tournament and lose or win the NIT. Thats a very trite conversation considering what happened and how we've already discussed it at length. We didn't make the NCAA, we made the NIT, and we won the NIT. I'm not going to be unhappy we won the NIT because we didn't make the NCAA, I was unhappy about not making the NCAA about a month ago.

Quit dwelling on the past and lets look at what we have in front of us. A very enthusiastic head coach who is chomping at the bit to succeed.

Quit being fearful of the future that our coach will have so much success that he leaves us. Given said success, the ride is going to be fantastic and we will all remember him favorably and thank him for said ride.

It's a great day to be a Gopher fan. Our Hockey programs are doing well, wrestling is doing well, gymnastics is doing well, footballl is on the rise and so is basketball.

I'm a proud Gopher in Buckyville today. I'll weather the jabs at our 3 letter tournament vs their 4 letter tournament. Bottom line is, given what we had been given, we won the damn championship. Something I, as a Gopher Fan, have never seen before, a team end the year on a win.
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For a first year coach trying to instil a totally different system of basketball, I call this season a success. I had a fun time, wish we would have made the tournament, but enjoyed us winning the NIT.

That said, there will be no other point in Pitino's tenure here where I will consider an NIT title a success. From here on out, tourney or bust (obviously, if we miss the tourney, I'll be disappointed, but still want us to win the NIT).
 

bleedsmaroonandgold said:
For a first year coach trying to instil a totally different system of basketball, I call this season a success. ... wish we would have made the tournament, but enjoyed us winning the NIT.
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That would be my summation, as well. Something to build on, we have some pieces coming back, but still a lot of work to do to move up the Big Ten ladder.
 

Yes. I would say that if, as a first year coach, you win an NIT title while starting a skinny Drake transfer at power forward backed up by another skinny guy playing with a career-ending injury, the season is a success.


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bleedsmaroonandgold said:
For a first year coach trying to instill a totally different system of basketball, I call this season a success. I had a fun time, wish we would have made the tournament, but enjoyed us winning the NIT.
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Well said. To even be thinking about a possible NCAA bid at the end of this season was amazing considering Coach Pitino had brought in characters from the island of misfit toys just to try plug the holes in this team. Considering the collection and this being Coach Pitino's second year as a head coach anywhere, I am amazed at what this team did.

However, as a Gopher fan, I will continue to paraphrase poet "William Butler Yeats"...

"Being a (Gopher fan), he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy."
 


I consider it a success. Could it have been a greater success? Of course. But I'll look back fondly on this season, so I consider it a success. It was fun.
 

John Galt said:
No. If you aren't one of the top 68 teams in the country playing in the only tournament that matters, it's not a successful season.

But I do like Pitino and think he got the most out of this team.
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I am so sick of weaklings who think making the tournament is some sort of accomplishment. I have higher expectations than the sniveling crowd hoping for a mere tournament bid. Anything short of winning the NCAA championship is abject failure. In fact, winning MULTIPLE CONSECUTIVE championships should be the minimally accepted outcome.

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FWIW, Minnesota won more post season games than Duke (Tyus), UNLV (Rashad), Xavier (Macura), and Stanford (Travis) combined.
 

My only problem this season was that it looked so promising at one point in the middle before coming back down to earth. As others have said, taken from my pre-season expectations this season is a success.

And a great job by Pitino and team to win the NIT. Really fun stuff (even if I'm a little unsure how excited to be about it).
 



Yes. I never thought we'd make the NCAA Tournament or win the NIT before the season started.
 

This season overall was pretty strong for a program with a new young coach and a group of players getting their first real taste of being the guy on a team. Austin and Andre Hollins in the past always had Mbakwe and Williams to take the spotlight this year it started out as their team and soon Mathiue proved he belonged in the mix as well. I think it says a lot about a team when you can point to a couple of things that really changed the season one way or the other. For the Gophers two things really set them back this year as far as finishing in the NIT. #1 The NCAA not allowing Buckles to transfer really hurt this team. He would have been a big player for us at or weakest position. #2. The injury to Andre Hollins really slowed this team. Hollins was never the same after that and it killed some of the momentum. We had some losses after that killed our NCAA hopes. If I was going to throw in one other smaller thing into his post it would be the suspension of Walker just before the season started. Not that he shouldnt have been suspended but he was out those games and then took him a while to get into the flow. If he was playing the entire time maybe his season would have started off stronger than it did.
 

This is the first year in a long time we haven't wondered if we are going to have a new coach, one way or another. The first 4 years we wondered if Tubby was going to bolt since he embraced the pick-up-the-phone-if-it-rings-and-we-don't-have-a-practice-facility approach. The past 2 years, we wondered if he was going to be fired. Not to mention about the last 4 years of the Monson regime, we wondered if Maturi would fire him.

Rich Pit will be back next year, no question about it. And I am VERY happy that is the case. He really grew this year, and did a helluva job coaching in the NIT.

Success.
 




I want to know what coach said during that timeout when we were down 7. The team came out flat in the second half, but was fired up after that timeout.


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Without a coaching change, this was probably a 10-11th place Big Ten team. Instead we got a new coach who forces Mo to lose weight, brings in Mathieu, injects some confidence into Oto, and we win the NIT title. From that perspective this season was wildly successful.
 

34 on rpi
39 on sagarin
48 on kenpom

Would have been beyond my top expectations with a healthy team. 25 wins wasn't on my radar

Kudos to the players and coaches. An outstanding year
 

I was just surprised because I thought you'd appreciate our ability to win close games after we play terrible games overall. That's a main quality in great teams. It's even more impressive when you consider how short-handed we were at C. I realize I've already made these points, however. Anyway, I enjoyed the back and forth. It's much more interesting when you respect the other poster. I don't know why I waste time with some of the other people on here (aka The-Real-Truth, kyle guy from Kentucky, etc.).

SelectionSunday said:
There's no rule against disagreeing with me.

That was an excellent basketball game last night (unlike the ugly one vs. FSU), one that should give the program some momentum heading into 2014-15. Most importantly, the Gophers now need to consistently translate that level of play into the January-March portion of their schedule, especially on the road.

Agree, if Rakeem Buckles is on this team we're not discussing a NIT championship. That ship sailed a long time ago, though.
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It's (mildly) interesting to see how the Gophers' RPI moved during the NIT run, but it really doesn't mean a hill of beans. The time to improve your RPI is February and early March (when you're trying to make the 4-letter tournament), not late March and early April (when you're playing in a 3-letter tournament).
 

SelectionSunday said:
It's (mildly) interesting to see how the Gophers' RPI moved during the NIT run, but it really doesn't mean a hill of beans. The time to improve your RPI is February and early March (when you're trying to make the 4-letter tournament), not late March and early April (when you're playing in a 3-letter tournament).
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Except when you are utilizing RPI as a standard of how good one's season is. Its still a resume, one is for a job application (NCAA), one is for vanity's sake.
 

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