What went wrong this season?

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Dr.Don said:
The Gophers did not offer the job of locker room chaplain to tinyarch, he got pissed and cast damnation on the team.

It's all tinyarch's fault.
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I thought you had to be an atheist to be a locker room chaplain at a public university...
 


Bottom line. Lack of quality players. I've been watching the conference tournament finals. Let's just look at Notre Dame and North Carolina. I honestly believe Nate Mason, and possibly Hollins would crack the top 10.With the mix of players we had. I could pretty much take you through the top 2 teams in each tournament and would be extremely hard to fit some of the Gophers even in the top 7.
Pitino gets a stay of execution with this team. Gear yourself to watching let's say the teams with no higher then a# 6 ranking and then ask yourself how many of the Gophers would play on said team.
If you have played higher than 9th grade basketball you'll understand what I'm talking about
 

Nothing humbles a good coach like a lousy season like we had this year.

Remember, Coach K damned near got fired at Duke after his second year.
 

I've changed my mind a little bit on this. Last night I re-watched the 2014 win over Wisconsin, which has been on my DVR forever. Not only was it striking how Austin Hollins was in the middle of the action so often (even though he didn't score much that game), but the team overall was just smarter. You saw few if any easy bunnies due to defensive mistakes. Malik Smith and Oto logged a lot of minutes that game, and they just looked like they knew what they were doing on both ends of the floor. They talked a lot.

I tend to forget about Malik because of his awful shooting slump at the end of the year, but he also had a real tough edge and swagger to his game, he was aggressive, and he also knew where he was supposed to be. This year's team missed him, or someone like him. Deandre of course looked much more confident, but it partly may have had to do with the players around him. Also, I was reminded that a big reason we beat Wiscy was Kaminsky picked up 2 dumb fouls in the first 2 minutes of the game and sat the entire rest of the half. He never really got into a groove after that. In other words, we were a bit lucky.

In short, what I'm trying to say is that I think we lost more than I thought we did from last year, both physically and mentally. The guys we lost were more important than I realized, and it wasn't just Austin.
 


How long a leash will Woody give RP before "the body of work" translates into a boot size to kick with?
 


tinyarch said:
How about the same length of time that Monson and Smith received?
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No way. Monson was handcuffed by sanctions thanks to Clem-the-Gem. Tubby took a wretched team that won 9 games total the prior year and won 20 games his first year and then went to consecutive NCAA tourneys the next 2. He had a couple of down years after that, but the B1G was much tougher those years than this year and he beat several ranked teams. Unless Pitino gets to the NCAA and finishes at least .500 in the B1G sometime in the next 2 years, why wait any longer?
 

goldy93 said:
No way. Monson was handcuffed by sanctions thanks to Clem-the-Gem. Tubby took a wretched team that won 9 games total the prior year and won 20 games his first year and then went to consecutive NCAA tourneys the next 2. He had a couple of down years after that, but the B1G was much tougher those years than this year and he beat several ranked teams. Unless Pitino gets to the NCAA and finishes at least .500 in the B1G sometime in the next 2 years, why wait any longer?
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Becuase Tubby should have been given 1 more year, and probably would have under Maturi who hired him. As long as Teague is still here Pitino will get 5 before a decision is made.
 



What went wrong? Just about everything. Crimes, transfers, admissions, recruiting losses, coaching inexperience, injuries...but it mostly comes down to lack of new talent. One freshman, Nate Mason, really brought this team something. Konate and Diedhou were two projects learning to play the game. Morris had some moments but was too often out of control. That's it.
Fortunately, next year, we have two savvy point guards, a super smooth shooting guard, and a true center coming in. And I think, with the right forward to complement them, Pitino is going to be looking very good in his third year.
 

WanderingGopher said:
I've changed my mind a little bit on this. Last night I re-watched the 2014 win over Wisconsin, which has been on my DVR forever. Not only was it striking how Austin Hollins was in the middle of the action so often (even though he didn't score much that game), but the team overall was just smarter. You saw few if any easy bunnies due to defensive mistakes. Malik Smith and Oto logged a lot of minutes that game, and they just looked like they knew what they were doing on both ends of the floor. They talked a lot.

I tend to forget about Malik because of his awful shooting slump at the end of the year, but he also had a real tough edge and swagger to his game, he was aggressive, and he also knew where he was supposed to be. This year's team missed him, or someone like him. Deandre of course looked much more confident, but it partly may have had to do with the players around him. Also, I was reminded that a big reason we beat Wiscy was Kaminsky picked up 2 dumb fouls in the first 2 minutes of the game and sat the entire rest of the half. He never really got into a groove after that. In other words, we were a bit lucky.

In short, what I'm trying to say is that I think we lost more than I thought we did from last year, both physically and mentally. The guys we lost were more important than I realized, and it wasn't just Austin.
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I agree with your main point that we lost more than Hollins and that guys who knew Pitino's system like Malik were missing. Maybe McNeil would have helped more this year if he hadn't blown it with is behavior. On the WI game though sure they lost Frank for most of the half which hurt them but we lost Andre Hollins for the entire game and played on.
 

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