What Coach Could Automatically Make Minnesota B-Ball Elite?

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Save all the salary and promote David Mutaf to player-coach. Obviously a legend in the making.



* .....what's Mashburn Sr. up to these days? ;)
 

builtbadgers said:
Simply not true, Bennett has turned down more than double his UVA gig. And even better, the U is not offering blank checks to anyone. We pay nowhere near top dollar for basketball and we never will.
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Wrong. Everyone has a price!! Even your hero/idol!!
 



LongTimeGopher said:
Wrong. Everyone has a price!! Even your hero/idol!!
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I disagree with this. If you have everything you want, you and generations to follow are set, and your wife is more than happy, no amount of money makes you disrupt that as money becomes irrelevant.
 



builtbadgers said:
Simply not true, Bennett has turned down more than double his UVA gig. And even better, the U is not offering blank checks to anyone. We pay nowhere near top dollar for basketball and we never will.
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Of course we would, as would any school -- if we got the ROI out of it. If we were a top elite program, pulling in say 18k per night, and routinely going to the Sweet Sixteen and beyond, they absolutely would. Would build a new arena too.

Have to get there first.
 

MplsGopher said:
Of course we would, as would any school -- if we got the ROI out of it. If we were a top elite program, pulling in say 18k per night, and routinely going to the Sweet Sixteen and beyond, they absolutely would. Would build a new arena too.

Have to get there first.
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Literally no school has offered a blank check. Lets say we for some reason offer more than ANYONE GETS PAID IN THE PROFESSION. Bennett and Wright do not come here. They have already said no to the KNICKS at 9.8 Million. Some coaches and their wives hate the Minnesota weather, despise living in a big metro and value the community and school, family more than money. There are a whole bunch of people who find things that are far more valuable than money. Return on investment has already failed here. We lose , pre Covid hundreds of thousands of dollars per game for 7 years of small crowds, lost donations not even included. If we simply could get Calipari ( he would win fastest)for 10 million it would pay off but he would not come. Talk of a blank check is foolish. Show me one person in sports or business who ever got one.
 

howeda7 said:
If it was that easy, Power 5 schools would routinely hire DII and DIII coaches. They don't. I'm sure there are many brilliant X's and O's guys at that level, but if they don't work their way up through smaller D-1 schools you have no idea if they can recruit. It's a crap shoot and not one I'm signing up for. It'd be like hiring Marc Trestman on the football side.
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I want a grinder. I want a guy that works his butt off and expects the same from his players. That doesn't even recruit guys that he knows have any bit of give up in them.

I never said it was easy. It won't be easy to build a winner here. It takes special coaches to do that sort of thing. It took Dick Bennet and Bo Ryan to build Wisconsin basketball, Barry Alvarez in football. There are countless other examples.

PJ Fleck is building something here at the U in football.

This is not Duke or Kansas or UNC where we can just pay players, cheat, etc. We also don't have a history to rely on. The University sits in a metro area that is not looked upon favorably right now and it's cold as hell here.

It will take a special person.
 



Go Gophs said:
I want a grinder. I want a guy that works his butt off and expects the same from his players. That doesn't even recruit guys that he knows have any bit of give up in them.

I never said it was easy. It won't be easy to build a winner here. It takes special coaches to do that sort of thing. It took Dick Bennet and Bo Ryan to build Wisconsin basketball, Barry Alvarez in football. There are countless other examples.

PJ Fleck is building something here at the U in football.

This is not Duke or Kansas or UNC where we can just pay players, cheat, etc. We also don't have a history to rely on. The University sits in a metro area that is not looked upon favorably right now and it's cold as hell here.

It will take a special person.
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I disagree with this premise, you need to convince an excellent recruiting base to stay home vs. heading to Spokane. This isn't convincing kids from Florida or California to come to Minnesota.
 


From the Parkinglot said:
What I don’t want is a 17 person committee including Mike Grimm going out to hire the coach. This has to be the AD’s call and that’s it. If he needs to call boosters to get money for the buyout or other items like a plane fine. Minnesotans are always too worried about finding one of our own and having everyone give input. Bleep it just go get someone that can coach cause Pitino has shown he doesn’t have that capability.
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Mark Coyle agrees with you, and this hasn't been an issue since he's been the AD.
 

goldengophers said:
I disagree with this premise, you need to convince an excellent recruiting base to stay home vs. heading to Spokane. This isn't convincing kids from Florida or California to come to Minnesota.
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Not happening. Other programs have huge success with similar recruiting rankings while losing their home state kids to better programs.
 




builtbadgers said:
Funny. Another guy that would not come here for 10 million. Has had dozens of chances to leave Spokane and will not do that. Loves the culture of the school, the community and fly fishing out his back door.
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Nothing in the OP said realistic. Let me dream, I just bought a powerball ticket.
 

builtbadgers said:
Not happening. Other programs have huge success with similar recruiting rankings while losing their home state kids to better programs.
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Pitino is beyond awful at recruiting in his home state, the degree of his incompetence in this area is truly unique.
 


goldengophers said:
Pitino is beyond awful at recruiting in his home state, the degree of his incompetence in this area is truly unique.
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I do not think his misses are on Suggs or Hurt level recruits. Other programs always lose their best in state kids to better programs. Hell, UVA misses nearly every local kid that is blur blood material.
 

goldengophers said:
Pitino is beyond awful at recruiting in his home state, the degree of his incompetence in this area is truly unique.
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This has been debated 7500 times in other threads. Would it be nice sure to get them? Sure, but it’s not required for success. Majority of top programs recruit nationally and lose in state recruits all the time.
Hiring a guy because he’d “recruit MN kids better” would be an error. Need to hire the best basketball coach who loves this university first and foremost.
 

TNGophfan said:
I disagree with this. If you have everything you want, you and generations to follow are set, and your wife is more than happy, no amount of money makes you disrupt that as money becomes irrelevant.
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No matter how happy the wife is, she too has a price...
 

manderson1984 said:
This has been debated 7500 times in other threads. Would it be nice sure to get them? Sure, but it’s not required for success. Majority of top programs recruit nationally and lose in state recruits all the time.
Hiring a guy because he’d “recruit MN kids better” would be an error. Need to hire the best basketball coach who loves this university first and foremost.
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Yes and no. Get good players period. But can you win at MN long-term with 2 MN kids on the roster out of 13? I don't think so...
 

howeda7 said:
No matter how happy the wife is, she too has a price...
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Wrong again. You simply do not know others values or their generational wealth. Some people would not live in Minnesota no matter what you paid them.
 

tmvander said:
I'd have to disagree with this. The gophers are consistently bringing in better or at least similar type of talent as a team like Iowa yet Iowa is a national title contender and we aren't. Wisconsin doesn't out recruit us to a point where they are always on top of the Big Ten and we're middle at best. The reasoning for this is player development, coaching, game management, motivation for guys to work hard, etc.

Finding a guy that can bring in the level of talent that Wisconsin and Iowa does should be very very easy.

If by "elite" you mean a blue blood then I'd agree with you. We will probably never be pulling in 5 5* guys a year like Kentucky or Duke no matter who our coach is.
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Agreed. The old conventional wisdom is that the NBA is a players' league but college basketball is a coach's game and those things you mention matter a hell of a lot to long-term success at this level. Pitino is rather poor at those things compared to his peers. I've always been amazed when some people around here have claimed that Pitino is really good at player development. Coaches who are good at those things also manage to improve their recruiting results over time. Mark Few didn't start out at Gonzaga with the kind of teams he has now.

As far as semantics, I think the term "elite" when applied to the college basketball world should mean those relatively small number of programs who are ranked mostly year in and year out, preferably in the upper half of the Top 25 in a large share of those years. By that standard, we probably only have one "elite" team in the Big Ten: Michigan State (certainly Wisconsin had to be considered "elite" with Bo Ryan). Below that, you have the "very good" and the "good." Minnesota has the capability to be a program at the "good" level with occasional "very good" years but we're not there now and it's hard to see us getting to that level with this coach.
 

manderson1984 said:
That being said I think looking at a school like Wisconsin is a good model for us to look at when looking for a new HC whenever that may be. A lot of good mid and low major D1 coaches out there who'd come here that have grinded and worked their way up.
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I agree that hiring someone like Richard who didn't pay his dues and earn his stripes in the profession was a very risky (and foolish) strategy. I'm not sure what lessons can be learned from looking at Wisconsin's hiring other than to say: Go out and hire a future Hall of Fame coach! Of course, no one knew that when Bo Ryan was hired and you're lucky if you can hire one of those over a generation or two.
 

builtbadgers said:
If we simply could get Calipari ( he would win fastest)for 10 million it would pay off but he would not come. Talk of a blank check is foolish. Show me one person in sports or business who ever got one.
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I chuckled at that because I said "Calipari" in response to this thread. I don't care that much who they hire as the next coach (other than that person should be able to demonstrate some fundamental strengths and experiential highlights) because I know that I'm not gifted when it comes to predicting success ahead of time.

It's an interesting question whether someone like Calipari would come here. I could only think that something like that could happen if he were restless and wanted a challenge in a relatively low pressure environment for the end of his career. I'm sure you are familiar with the career of the long-time NBA coach Larry Brown. He was sort of a restless vagabond who specialized in taking teams in the doldrums and elevating them to some level of success (he managed to do that with SMU and, to some degree, Kansas, temporarily in the doldrums, at the collegiate level as well). I don't think there are many of those in the collegiate coaching ranks though.
 

howeda7 said:
Yes and no. Get good players period. But can you win at MN long-term with 2 MN kids on the roster out of 13? I don't think so...
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It’s certainly cheaper and easier on resources if you have a local pipeline no doubt. Their of course are some outliers that can’t do this, but yes you can win consistently with only 2-4 kids on the team that are in state. Of course the number is also requiring we have good players in the state. Lately of course we’ve had some nice players and some depth. For the most part we’ve had 3-4 in state kids and we’ve been bad lol
 

cjbfbp said:
I agree that hiring someone like Richard who didn't pay his dues and earn his stripes in the profession was a very risky (and foolish) strategy. I'm not sure what lessons can be learned from looking at Wisconsin's hiring other than to say: Go out and hire a future Hall of Fame coach! Of course, no one knew that when Bo Ryan was hired and you're lucky if you can hire one of those over a generation or two.
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When you had an AD who fired without a plan, you get your 8th or 9th choice. Bo was in Wisconsin’s radar for awhile. Gard came with Ryan. It’s very hard to pull that off like you said. Easier to
 

I moved to Philadelphia for more money - Obviously, I will do anything for more money.
 

cjbfbp said:
I agree that hiring someone like Richard who didn't pay his dues and earn his stripes in the profession was a very risky (and foolish) strategy. I'm not sure what lessons can be learned from looking at Wisconsin's hiring other than to say: Go out and hire a future Hall of Fame coach! Of course, no one knew that when Bo Ryan was hired and you're lucky if you can hire one of those over a generation or two.
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The Gophers hired Pitino with their eyes wide open, knowing it was a calculated gamble. At the time there was a lot of discussion of how, with his low initial salary, you could easily cut bait if you find he can't do the job at this level. The mistake has been their not cutting bait as it's become more apparent that they should or should have. Like I posted in the other thread, by the end of this season he'll probably have in the neighborhood of George Hanson's league winning percentage, which by any measure is an unmitigated failure. Someone shouldn't be allowed to go eight years with that metric. That's the mistake, not the initial hire.
 

Bad Gopher said:
The Gophers hired Pitino with their eyes wide open, knowing it was a calculated gamble. At the time there was a lot of discussion of how, with his low initial salary, you could easily cut bait if you find he can't do the job at this level. The mistake has been their not cutting bait as it's become more apparent that they should or should have. Like I posted in the other thread, by the end of this season he'll probably have in the neighborhood of George Hanson's league winning percentage, which by any measure is an unmitigated failure. Someone shouldn't be allowed to go eight years with that metric. That's the mistake, not the initial hire.
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Well, recall that Richard wasn't cheap to fire for some time because of the extension the idiot former AD gave him during his second season. If he had been cheap to fire I expect he likely would have been fired after his historically awful 3rd season. He wasn't cheap to fire until about his 5th or 6th season and by that point he was managing to do enough (barely) just to stay around another year. He was cheap to fire after last season but COVID stepped in and made the status quo the preference for most teams.
 

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