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Post by Kapitan on Mar 11, 2021 22:00:31 GMT
The Gopher basketball team put up a shockingly good fight the past two days before falling to Ohio State in their Big Ten tourney game today. After an awful end to the regular season, they failed in yesterday's quest to lose--seriously both teams were awful--with Northwestern. Today began terribly (13-0 Ohio State) but they somehow got it to a 1-point game with only a few seconds to go.
Alas, it ended with the Buckeyes on top.
The general expectation in Minnesota is that Richard Pitino has coached his final game as a Gopher and will be fired sooner than later. Speculation is rampant about the next coach, and especially whether it'll be someone with strong Minnesota ties and/or a black coach. (Two of its past four head coaches have been black--Tubby Smith and Clem Haskins--but a recent story locally about the overwhelming whiteness of the current athletic dept builds on general attention to the topic nationwide.)
There are some candidates who both have historic ties to the program and/or state and are black. I'd be more than happy to see one of them get the job. My overwhelming priority would be an ability to consistently recruit the state, which has become very, very good for its population. I expect anyone here will lose some of the very top guys, as Duke, UNC, Kentucky and the like are always going to be hard to reject, but we've been losing plenty of good players to similar programs. That can't happen. Minnesota will never be able to consistently recruit top-level out-of-state talent, so we need to keep kids home. Plus, that dramatically increases fan attention, which benefits the bottom line (AND helps keep the talent focused on playing here).
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Post by Kapitan on Mar 16, 2021 11:55:39 GMT
It took a few more days than anticipated--yet not quite long enough for the buyout clause to expire (at the end of the month)--but the Gophers have fired head basketball coach Richard Pitino.
This was the right decision. Now the hard part: making the right decision on his successor.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Mar 16, 2021 12:11:24 GMT
It took a few more days than anticipated--yet not quite long enough for the buyout clause to expire (at the end of the month)--but the Gophers have fired head basketball coach Richard Pitino.
This was the right decision. Now the hard part: making the right decision on his successor.
Interesting timing as so much attention is presently being focused on...his father.
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Post by Kapitan on Mar 16, 2021 15:03:11 GMT
Around here there isn't really any discussion of Daddy Pitino, though obviously he took Iona to the dance in his first try. (Nothing surprising about that, actually. Guy is a great coach, nobody ever questioned that.)
There was one opinion piece today that he should be considered an overachiever...
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Post by Kapitan on Mar 16, 2021 18:05:38 GMT
Pitino (Richard, that is, not Rick) has reportedly been hired for the New Mexico job. Already before he was fired, he was being discussed as a candidate, and he moved to the front of the line over the weekend (again, before he was fired).
My interested speculation is this: Gophers AD Mark Coyle (who is well known to personally like and respect Pitino, which I should add is a common opinion around here ... if not for the basketball stuff, I'm sure he'd be kept around forever! Too bad the basketball stuff is the job...) wanted to avoid the buyout and also wanted to help Pitino land on his feet sooner than later.
The New Mexico job opened up and reportedly Billy Donovan, Rick Pitino, and the Gophers administration all worked back channels to promote him for it. He interviewed, he did well. The Gophers were going to wait for it to be apparent that he'd have another job waiting before firing him, thus eliminating or reducing their buyout.
In the interim, you can bet Coyle has been working back channels on his preferred candidates, too. I'm expecting a quick hire.
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Post by Kapitan on Mar 17, 2021 17:50:44 GMT
Well, within the first 24-48 hours of Richard Pitino being fired, two players have entered the transfer portal (and presumably won't be back).
Neither was especially surprising, for different reasons.
Junior forward Jarvis Omersa actually left the team around the holidays. The 6-6 power forward is a local kid and by all accounts a great kid. He reportedly helped recruit some of his fellow in-state recruits (Gabe Kalscheur and current LA Clipper center Daniel Oturu) to join him as a Gopher. However, while he's a freakishly good athlete and top-notch energy guy, he's just not that good a player compared to Big Ten competition. So there was a lot of speculation he might not return, and could go where he might have a bigger impact. (Many locals, myself included, hope he lands at St. Thomas, which will be D1 next year. He could really be a cultural and on-court cornerstone for that program during this exciting launch.)
And freshman guard Jamal Mashburn Jr, who came here in large part because of the relationship between his dad and Pitino's dad, today reportedly entered the portal. It isn't too surprising, considering that previous sentence. But it does leave Minnesota without a point guard on the roster, as junior star PG Marcus Carr is widely expected to enter the NBA draft and pursue a pro career regardless of who is hired. There were no other PGs on the roster or in next year's recruiting class thanks to what I'd consider Pitino's mismanagement of the roster.
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Post by Kapitan on Mar 22, 2021 22:01:51 GMT
In the interim, you can bet Coyle has been working back channels on his preferred candidates, too. I'm expecting a quick hire.And less than a week later, the position is filled: Ben Johnson, a former DeLaSalle (Minneapolis) HS standout, Northwestern Wildcat and Golden Gopher, and longtime ace assistant and recruiter at places including UT-Pan American, U of Northern Iowa, Minnesota, and until today the assoc. head coach at Xavier.
I'm excited. He's a first time head coach and so I expect at least one former head coach on his staff (possibly just retaining Ed Conroy, who is there now). Obviously ties to the community. Exciting hire.
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Post by Kapitan on Mar 27, 2021 17:35:52 GMT
I don't watch a lot of women's basketball, but the UConn v Iowa game right now is a lot of fun.
Both teams have a great freshman. UConn has Paige Bueckers, a 6-0 guard from Minnesota (the powerhouse Hopkins HS program), who is freshman of the year and a legit candidate for player of the year in all of college basketball. She's a do-it-all player from the point guard spot.
Iowa's Caitlin Clark, a high-scoring 6-0 guard, is also fantastic. And really both teams are good. This is a well played, fun, uptempo game.
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Post by Kapitan on Mar 30, 2021 20:28:32 GMT
Well, within the first 24-48 hours of Richard Pitino being fired, two players have entered the transfer portal (and presumably won't be back).
Neither was especially surprising, for different reasons.
Junior forward Jarvis Omersa actually left the team around the holidays....
And freshman guard Jamal Mashburn Jr...
That number has shot up. Since then, we've also lost sophomore wing Tre Williams, sophomore center Sam Freeman, and freshman forward Martice Mitchell. Junior point guard Marcus Carr also technically has entered the transfer portal, but he is generally assumed to be going pro, with that as a backup option (to go elsewhere).
However, new coach Ben Johnson did sign his first new recruit: Minneapolis native Jamison Battle, a 6-7 wing, is transferring in from George Washington, where he averaged about 17 and 5 as a true sophomore last year (so he'll have three years of eligibility left). There are a handful of other Minnesotans in the portal who seem possible-to-likely as Gopher recruits.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Apr 1, 2021 16:49:15 GMT
Roy Williams is retiring. You could tell from some of his post-game conferences that he...had enough:
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Post by Kapitan on Apr 1, 2021 17:07:59 GMT
Roy Williams is retiring. You could tell from some of his post-game conferences that he...had enough:
It seems to me that program has been falling slightly from grace in the past 10 years or so. I counted something like seven double-digit loss seasons since 2010, and five seasons with winning percentages below .700 in that time. Now, for many programs that's still quite good, but for UNC, it's pretty bad.
He also has fallen behind in recruiting when compared to the best programs in that regard: Kentucky, Arizona (which is also at risk now due to their pretty blatantly obvious corruption), Duke, even Gonzaga lately.
I think the game is simply passing him by--not necessarily the game of basketball, but the game of the whole NCAA basketball scene, the industry.
Hopefully his retirement means Minnesota native Kerwin Walton, a 6-4 shooting guard who started about half of this season's games there, will transfer home!
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Post by Kapitan on Apr 4, 2021 13:10:22 GMT
Anyone watch Gonzaga v UCLA?
Jalen Suggs...Minnesota's finest!
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Apr 4, 2021 15:47:35 GMT
Anyone watch Gonzaga v UCLA?
Jalen Suggs...Minnesota's finest! I saw the end of regulation and overtime (I was watching to see if the Sixers were gonna blow the game to the Wolves ). Anyway, an all-timer. They'll be talking about that game for a long time. It's right up there with the "Laettner shot" ending. The call that I keep replaying over and over in my head is the charge. When I saw it in real time I thought it was a block. Then, when I saw the first replay I wasn't sure; I thought maybe the defender wasn't squared up enough, and that only his shoulder was in the way (not that the whole body has to be). By the fourth or fifth replay...I guess it was a charge. Gutsy call by the official.
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Post by B.E. on Apr 4, 2021 16:16:46 GMT
I just checked out the charge call, I think they got it right. I don’t even think it was a ‘close’ call. But, I’m of the opinion that officiating unfairly favors offensive players these days. The defensive player was there first and the offensive player ran into him - case closed, IMO.
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Post by Kapitan on Apr 4, 2021 16:30:24 GMT
I thought it was a charge for sure. As SJS said, the only thing that might give a ref pause was that the contact wasn't totally square. But it doesn't have to be. I thought Timme was definitely there and set.
Amazing game, though. I've been pulling for Gonzaga because of Suggs (plus I've always liked their program), but I honestly was rooting for both teams last night. UCLA was really fun to watch.
And Juzang had such a tourney, I assume he's going to declare for the draft.
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