What are realistic expectations for gopher basketball

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To me:

finish over .500 in conference over 60% of the time. (3/5 seasons)
Contend for a big ten title into the last 2 weeks of regular season at least 1/5 seasons.


hard for me to put ncaa tourney and big ten tourney into expectations because so much is outside your control and it is kind of a crapshoot. I assume if you do the two above the rest will take care of itself.

I think that should all be reasonable and attainable.

What say you?
 

Above .500 5 out of 7 years after year 4. You should be really good by then or you did not build. One conference title every 10 years, top 4 5 out of 7 years. Tourney is a crap shoot. If your a high seed regularly you will eventually get to the 8 and beyond. That part takes care of itself if your good year after year.
 


Have the same level of success as Clem without cheating. NCAA's ~6/10 years or better and make a couple Sweet 16's or better in that period.
 



Well, it’s been far and few that we do finish above .500 in conference.
But, I’d say finishing at or above .500 3 out of every 5 years is a reasonable expectation. That would also mean making the NCAAs 3 out of every 5 years.

But it’s been a long time since that’s happened!
We did make the tourney 3 out of 5 years from 1989 to 2013. Pitino has actually come close to this standard.
I would also like to see us threaten for the B1G champions at least once a decade.
 

Yeah I kind of base my success of the team on the Big Ten record and NCAA or no.

So, probably NCAA 3 out of 5 years and maybe 1 of those years being a top 4 in the Big Ten/ranked throughout the year type of season.
 

Otis said:
Well, it’s been far and few that we do finish above .500 in conference.
But, I’d say finishing at or above .500 3 out of every 5 years is a reasonable expectation. That would also mean making the NCAAs 3 out of every 5 years.

But it’s been a long time since that’s happened!
We did make the tourney 3 out of 5 years from 1989 to 2013. Pitino has actually come close to this standard.
I would also like to see us threaten for the B1G champions at least once a decade.
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Well he has never been remotely close to contending for a Big 10 title. His record says it all.
 

NCAA 4/5 years. On March 20th, I won’t care what seed, but it will make my year.

Do that for a while and set a higher bar if you must.
 




For me, what McCaffery has done at Iowa in 11 years is what I would call reasonable.

In 11 years his B1G finishes are 10th-7th-6th-6th-T3-T3-T5-11th-6th-5th- and then whatever they end up this year. 5 of 11 NCAA tourney's could be better but better than 2 of 7. Roughly a 60% overall win % and 50% in the B1G. I think its not realistic to be consistently a top 2-3 B1G team, and thats fine, you will have those 4-14 years in conference, but man wouldnt it be fun to be in the top half of the league pretty much every year? I know they have also hit the skids some this year but they were a top 5 team much of the year, have the POY on their team, like man that would be fun to have too!
 

Like in football, I compare the success of the basketball team directly against the badgers, so a great Gopher program would:

1. Beat the badgers in more games than you lose to them
2. Finish ahead of the badgers in the standings more than 50% of the time (yikes this hasn't gone well)
3. Have more postseason success
 

Its reasonable to make the tournament every year. and have an off year every say 5-6 years where you don't make. AT A MINIMUM.
 




I'm not going to focus on records.

My "expectations" of Gopher basketball:

play smart basketball
show the ability to adapt to different defenses and systems
avoid dumb fouls and lazy turnovers
no 4 and 5-minute offensive black holes
have players who show improvement during the season - should absolutely be playing better at the
end of the season compared to the start of the season
have players who show improvement from season to season. A junior should absolutely be playing
better than they did as a Freshman.
know the team's system and execute that system

and - CONSISTENT EFFORT! on offense and especially on defense.

if you do all of those things, the record and the tournament appearances will follow.
Fail to do those things......and the record will reflect it.
 

alaska said:
Its reasonable to make the tournament every year. and have an off year every say 5-6 years where you don't make. AT A MINIMUM.
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If you miss it every 5 years, you aren’t making it every year? That’s only 80% of the time

I agree though. Right now it’s easier to make the tourney than it is to go over .500 in the conference
 


Finish top half of the conference 3 out of 5 seasons with at least one of the seasons making a legit run at a conference title.

Make the NCAA tourney 3 out of 5 seasons and win at least one tourney game every 5 years.
 

Play over .500 in the Big 7/10 years.

Make the dance 2/3 of the time.

Challenge for a conference title once every 10 years.

Sweet 16 once every 7-8 years.


Lastly, quit losing so many disappointing games all the time. Give your fans something to cheer for. Be consistent. Establish an identity that we are tough, we rebound, we play defense and YOU are going to have to beat US. Rather than us beat ourselves so often.
 

WriterGoph said:
That was actually one of our best teams until we lost 3 starters (Lynch suspended, Coffey and Dupree hurt) and we were never the same
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I joke about this a lot, but it was honestly very telling for me with the glaring lack of direction and coaching in those moments. That was one of the most embarrassing things i've witnessed as a hometown sports fan.
 

WhoFellDownTheGopherHole? said:
I joke about this a lot, but it was honestly very telling for me with the glaring lack of direction and coaching in those moments. That was one of the most embarrassing things i've witnessed as a hometown sports fan.
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You must be pretty new then. I can think of tons of other instances that were far more embarrassing (that one was more strange and quirky than anything):

-- Gopher football losing to Michigan after leading 28-7 in the 4th
-- Gopher football losing to Wisconsin on a blocked punt in the end zone
-- Gopher football losing to Purdue on a crazy last-second FG
-- Gopher football losing to NW on a Hail Mary after Brew went for it on 4th down late in the 4th
-- Gopher football getting stomped by 50+ at the Dome by Iowa and their idiot fans tearing down our goal posts
-- Gopher football 14 straight losses to Bucky
-- The Twins postseason losing streak
-- The Vikings losing to the Giants 41-0 in the NFC Title Game
-- The Vikings losing to the Eagles badly in the NFC Title Game
-- The Timberwolves post-2004
-- Gopher basketball losing on Kevin Burleson's horrible inbounds pass stolen by Frank Williams and missing the tournament because of it
-- Any one of Gopher basketball's many late-game collapses in the post-Clem years
 

WriterGoph said:
You must be pretty new then. I can think of tons of other instances that were far more embarrassing (that one was more strange and quirky than anything):

-- Gopher football losing to Michigan after leading 28-7 in the 4th
-- Gopher football losing to Wisconsin on a blocked punt in the end zone
-- Gopher football losing to Purdue on a crazy last-second FG
-- Gopher football losing to NW on a Hail Mary after Brew went for it on 4th down late in the 4th
-- Gopher football getting stomped by 50+ at the Dome by Iowa and their idiot fans tearing down our goal posts
-- Gopher football 14 straight losses to Bucky
-- The Twins postseason losing streak
-- The Vikings losing to the Giants 41-0 in the NFC Title Game
-- The Vikings losing to the Eagles badly in the NFC Title Game
-- The Timberwolves post-2004
-- Gopher basketball losing on Kevin Burleson's horrible inbounds pass stolen by Frank Williams and missing the tournament because of it
-- Any one of Gopher basketball's many late-game collapses in the post-Clem years
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Haha if there isn't a thread for this very topic there should be...you could have it be just gophers or all MN sports and there could be 23094957 pages of content. They'd have to purchase more server space and charge us a subscription fee.
 

It would be a tall order to say we should be able to emulate Wisconsin's success. That was due to a hall-of-fame coach, and you just can't demand that. That said, you do need to be looking for the next hall-of-famer--the next Mark Few or Bo Ryan. Nate Oats might be that, and I think we could have gotten him a couple years ago with the right effort and enticement...and the stomach to break from the devil you know and take a risk. As Wisconsin discovered many years ago now in both their revenue sports, you have to kiss a number of frogs before you find your prince, but once you do...
 

I think it would help if the gophers made a better impression on the high school kids in the state. I'm not sure what the degree is of what can and can't be done with recruiting violations but have more coaches and even players present at AAU events and things. You never know who might ACTUALLY keep us around in their top 5 and fall in love with the campus or coaches.
 

The problem is there are no expectations thus there is no excitement or motivation to attend a dead program if you are a recruit.
 

tmvander said:
Haha if there isn't a thread for this very topic there should be...you could have it be just gophers or all MN sports and there could be 23094957 pages of content. They'd have to purchase more server space and charge us a subscription fee.
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Maybe they kick in a year prescription of prozac and anti nausea medicine w the subscription fee ;)
 

Honestly I think Pitino has been able to get some talent here, it’s just abundantly clear he is a terrible in game coach. If the talent level stays the same and we get a coach who can teach a coherent offense there is no reason why we can’t make the tournament 4 out of 5 years and have a top 4 big ten finish and high tournament seed at least one of those years.
 


Northeastgopher said:
Honestly I think Pitino has been able to get some talent here, it’s just abundantly clear he is a terrible in game coach. If the talent level stays the same and we get a coach who can teach a coherent offense there is no reason why we can’t make the tournament 4 out of 5 years and have a top 4 big ten finish and high tournament seed at least one of those years.
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What about the defense. We have been 9th or worse every year but one and that was his best team. Not a coincidence that we average 9th in the conference standings.
 

Northeastgopher said:
Honestly I think Pitino has been able to get some talent here, it’s just abundantly clear he is a terrible in game coach. If the talent level stays the same and we get a coach who can teach a coherent offense there is no reason why we can’t make the tournament 4 out of 5 years and have a top 4 big ten finish and high tournament seed at least one of those years.
Click to expand...
I’m going to go ahead and disagree.
Roster construction and lack of depth of shooters has been the number one issue
 

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