Former Gopher Jim Petersen has a unique perspective on the Gophers coaching search.
Former Gopher Jim Petersen has a unique perspective on the Gophers coaching search. He was a McDonald’s All American, Gopher great and NBA player. He is now a longtime TV analyst for the Timberwolves, assistant for the Lynx and his son plays for Northwestern. GopherHole’s Jay Ingber caught up with the former Gopher to get his take on the coaching search, what recruits and parents look for and more.
GH: What do you know about Mike Ellis and the Villa 7 program?
JP: I haven’t really had a chance to sit down with any of those new people at the University of Minnesota, but obviously with that group coming from VCU and hiring Shaka Smart, I think they know basketball. I think they’ll do a good job and do a diligent search. I think timeliness is very important because you’ve got recruits who are on the line and current players who want to know what’s going on. I’m in a similar situation right now at Northwestern with my son [Sanjay Lumpkin], after Bill Carmody got fired they’re waiting to find out who the next coach is, they’ve already had one recruit decommit [Jaren Sina] so it’s really incumbant upon everyone involved to not have this thing linger and to get the next person in there as quickly as possible.
GH: Pros/Cons of searching for head coach internally versus hiring outside firm?
JP: I don’t know what the inner workings are of hiring a committee versus making a decision internally, their record will be whatever it is at the end of the day. Whenever this group ends up leaving the University of Minnesota, their history of hiring and firing coaches is all laid out, you won’t know if it’s a good decision until after the fact. I don’t have enough information on this particular group to know whether or not this is a good decision. The Shaka Smart decision was a great one. Whether or not you can duplicate those kinds of decisions is what your legacy is going to be built on.
GH: How has recruiting evolved since your college playing days and how significant is having a practice facility in this process?
JP: The thing that we looked for first and foremost was academics (referring to Sanjay’s school search). We really wanted Sanjay to go to the best school possible. He was a good student so we wanted a great academic program. When Bill Carmody recruited Sanjay, we fell in love with him and getting a degree from Northwestern speaks for itself, that was a huge influence for us. That being said, if I were a top high school prospect in America, things would be very different. I think that a practice facility and having those kinds of amenities are absolutely vital in todays recruiting process. Playing on a Big Ten team and having the national TV spotlight in the Big Ten Network, you’re going to be seen just as much as anybody. I think the Big Ten does a great job featuring it’s schools and it makes playing in this conference a great thing.
I believe that schools are so different than when I came out, I mean I was a McDonald’s All-American and the level of schools I was familiar with, in terms of the coach, how they played, the buzz around the programs and even what their facilities were like were less important. I think the tradition of the school was much more important back then, I really didn’t care or even think about the practice facility when I was coming out. We didn’t even think about being able to get into a gym 24 hours a day to work on our game or having outside access to a facility, things that allow teams to congregate as a group and build team camaraderie.
I know that as a college athlete, the more you can bond together as a group and have access to those facilities, is a subtle point that makes a huge difference between the teams that have practice facilities versus those that don’t. You can minimize the importance of a practice facility if you want to but when you have an older building like Williams Arena, I think it’s vital. Williams Arena is nostalgic and great for us because we’re from Minnesota and we have the history of ‘The Barn’ and that kind of stuff. It’s different if you’re being recruited from out of state because if you don’t have a practice facility, you’re competing with the Michigan States, Wisconsin’s and all of the other school’s that do have those facilities in place. Tubby Smith was told he’d get that and he never did and I think it has a lot to do with a school’s ability to recruit the top kids, especially McDonald’s All-American’s.
GH: What do the Gophers need to do to have a shot at signing one of the three local nationally ranked recruits in class of 2014 (Reid Travis, Tyus Jones and Rashad Vaughn)?
JP: I think that a coach that’s a known commodity, when you’re talking about recruiting someone like Tyus Jones, who’s being recruited by schools like Duke and Michigan State and all of the elite level programs that have tremendous amounts of history and currency with the players, you’re up against that. The local angle still plays a part for the kid who wants to be able to stay home to play and let his family come watch him without a little hardship. For us [Peterson and his wife], having to go to Chicago to see our son play at Northwestern is inconvenient, having to jump on a plane just to see him play. I stayed at Minnesota because I wanted my family to see me play without having the hardship to do it. I think at the end of the day it’s going to be what’s best for the kid. If Tyus Jones has the chance to go to Kentucky, where they kick out ‘one-and-dones’ left and right, to be on that stage and play in that facility for [John] Calipari, who plays an open system where Tyus’ style of play can probably flourish, that’s also a good option. It’s hard to know and prioritize what’s important from one kid versus another. I know that Reid Travis and his family really value academics, Jonah (Travis’ older brother) went to Harvard, I know the Travis family and academics is very important to them. I don’t know how they would prioritize compared to Tyus or Rashad.
GH: How could Flip Saunders impact this program IF he was hired?
JP: I don’t know where a guy like Flip sits on their list, but I look at Flip Saunders and say, if you want to make a splash, I think a Flip Saunders kind of hire would be a hire that players like Tyus Jones or Reid Travis would like. If I’m their parent, I see Flip as someone who understands the NBA game, NBA defensive schemes and has an incredible wealth of basketball knowledge and on top of that, he’s been a college assistant coach and has a really good personality. I think the combination of being able to talk to kids, being familiar with the Minnesota programs and having a connection to all of the local high school coaches is huge. All of the local high school coaches are very familiar with Flip and Flip knows a lot of them. He has this ability to have a dynamic personality, so to me, I don’t know how a guy like Flip wouldn’t be at the top of someone’s list.
GH: How could Shaka Smart impact this program IF he was hired?
JP: If Shaka Smart comes to Minnesota and takes that job, if I’m Tyus Jones, Rashad Vaughn or Reid Travis, I’m really going to be swayed by that. If Flip Saunders comes in, it’s a different reason to be excited. I don’t know who’s on their list, but whoever it is has to pull at the hard strings of those players that are coming out of the state of Minnesota at this time.