More than twelve years ago, Dan Monson was forced out as men’s basketball coach at the University of Minnesota because athletic director Joel Maturi thought someone else could do better.
Maturi appeared right at first. But ultimately, he was wrong.
Almost six years ago, athletic director Norwood Teague fired Tubby Smith because he, too, thought someone else could do better.
Teague was wrong. Spectacularly.
Now, U athletic director Mark Coyle has a decision to make about Richard Pitino, whose sixth season plods along. Thursday night’s 69-60 loss to No. 7 Michigan at Williams Arena, a game the Wolverines dominated until the final minutes, didn’t help Minnesota’s borderline NCAA Tournament chances. The flustered Gophers shot poorly, defended badly and trailed by 21 points in the second half while falling to 17-10 overall and 7-9 in Big Ten Conference play. That left the Gophers in danger of missing the NCAAs for the second consecutive season and fifth time in Pitino’s tenure.
“It was one of those things where we let our offense totally affect everything else,” Pitino said at his postgame press conference, with Coyle in the back of the room. That sounded familiar to anyone who has been around awhile. When Pitino finished, he headed quickly for the elevator, followed closely by Coyle.
How many coaches have to cycle through here before Minnesota officials acknowledge what should have been obvious a long time ago: Middle-of-the-pack Big Ten finishes, with an occasional NCAA Tournament appearance, are the best Gopher fans can hope for. Fawning exposure from the Big Ten Network and ESPN hasn’t made Minnesota a basketball destination. And the handful of Minnesota prep standouts good to enough to play anywhere depart happily for Duke or another name school.
It comes down to one thing: The Gophers’ failure to consistently qualify for NCAA Tournament. It’s happened only five times since 2000 — once under Monson, three times under Smith, and once under Pitino. Recruits considering Minnesota risk going their entire college career without making the Big Dance. That’s too big a negative. The new practice facility puts the Gophers on equal ground with most programs, but NCAA appearances matter more than plush lounges and 24-hour key cards.
If Monson, who took unheralded Gonzaga to the Elite Eight before coming to Dinkytown, and Smith, who led Kentucky to one national title and ten NCAA Tournament appearances in ten seasons, couldn’t win enough here, who can? Monson inherited NCAA-imposed scholarship reductions and recruiting limits from the Clem Haskins-era academic scandal and helped restore the program’s credibility. He’s still coaching at Long Beach State, where he enjoyed modest success post-Minnesota, winning three Big West Conference titles with one NCAA bid.
For all the carping about Smith’s age and energy level, his tenure here shines a lot better in hindsight: Five 20-win seasons out of six, with three NCAA Tournament appearances and another in National Invitation Tournament. Smith proved you could succeed here without cheating, and his last season was his best, but that didn’t stop Teague from thinking he could upgrade.
Instead, after Shaka Smart and others turned him down, Teague settled for a downgrade: A 30-year-old with a famous last name and one season of mid-major head coaching experience at Florida International. Pitino wasn’t ready for this job, and still hasn’t grown into it. His 38-68 conference record is worse than Smith’s (46-62) or Monson’s (36-60), which shouldn’t be surprising. Asking a newbie to match coaching chops with all-timers like Tom Izzo, Bo Ryan and John Beilein is asking a lot. Pitino never should have been put in that position.
And yet, branding him a loser and a failure isn’t right either. It took Rick Pitino, Richard’s father, five seasons in his first head coaching stint at Boston University to reach the NCAA Tournament. Boston College basketball is everything in Boston; every other program might as well be Division III for all the coverage they get. So Pitino learned his craft and made his mistakes without the daily scrutiny his son faces. Two years after Pitino departed B.U. for the Big East and Providence, he took the Friars to the Final Four.
That’s why Coyle should stick with Pitino a while longer, unless — and only unless — former Timberwolves player and front office executive Fred Hoiberg shows interest. Even then, Coyle should tread carefully. Hoiberg, the former Iowa State and Chicago Bulls coach, must agree to stay five years and not chase the next NBA coaching vacancy. And the U must let in junior college kids similar to those Hoiberg recruited to Iowa State, kids that quickly lifted Cyclones back to national prominence.
Otherwise, Pitino should be given the chance for more growth. His recruiting has been spotty. Rugged senior forward Jordan Murphy proved the perfect Minnesota recruit, a three-star high school talent from Texas with a five-star work ethic who made himself into one of the Big Ten’s best players. Junior swingman Amir Coffey, probably Pitino’s best home state recruit, improved as well. The development of Coffey and another Minnesotan, freshman center Daniel Oturu, show Pitino and his staff can teach. That’s critical.
But Pitino has yet to land as impactful a player from the New York metro, his home recruiting base, as Murphy, Coffey or Oturu. Greater New York produces fewer top players than it used to, and losing assistant coach Kimani Young to UConn last summer diminished Pitino’s efforts there. With Chicago product Rob Jeter, a former assistant to Ryan at Wisconsin, replacing Young, expect the Gophers to tilt more heavily toward Chicagoland — a smarter call in the long run.
Coyle, like Teague, is a basketball guy. He worked at Kentucky and Syracuse, both rich in basketball tradition, and it doesn’t take much to get him going on college basketball history. The Pitino legacy resonates with him. I’ve never sensed any lack of support or respect for Pitino, though Coyle undoubtedly compiled a list of potential replacements in case Pitino suddenly leaves. It’s hard to imagine Coyle firing Pitino, or Pitino landing a better job with his resume. But stranger things have happened. Just check the Gopher women’s basketball sideline.
Either way, an NCAA Tournament bid enhances Pitino’s standing. Thursday night’s loss didn’t help. Against one of the best defensive teams in the nation, the Gophers fell apart, missing nine of ten 3-pointers and half of their 18 foul shots. Championship teams handle pressure and persevere, but the Gophers too often come up short, no matter who walks the sideline of the Barn’s raised court.
A gracious Beilein said he assumes Minnesota will make the NCAA Tournament — “They’re good enough to,” he said — but the Gophers sit 52nd in the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET), the new ranking system used to seed the tournament. Thirty-six at-large teams make the 68-team field, and ESPN projects Minnesota as one of the last four teams in. Games Sunday at Rutgers and next Thursday at Northwestern, both unranked, loom as must-haves before the Gophers finish with No. 15 Purdue here and No. 24 Maryland on the road.
“We’ve got four more games and the conference tournament,” Pitino said. “They don’t end it early. I’m excited about Rutgers and getting these guys’ confidence going.”
I thought this was a really great article. I think this also all applies to football as well. Maybe its ok that the U isn’t going to excel at these sports.
I wonder if you have to cheat to get to the top in college sports. You see enough schools getting caught, and I’m sure plenty don’t (P.S. don’t throw the lady who writes your players papers under the bus).
I am ambivalent about Pitino. I don’t want to see the U spending tons of money buying out coaches to replace them with others who are no better.
I think it’s ridiculous that we have big time college sports. And I know it was a mistake to have high school sports. It’s best if sports and academia are separated, for numerous reasons.
And I say this as someone who has not missed a state boys hockey tournament since 1975.
Pitino needs to settle on who he is as a coach. Clem had tough gritty teams that competed nightly. Tubby had solid, not spectacular, but steady players. His teams didn’t beat themselves. Not sure what Patino believes is important as a coach. His teams are not a push/pace offensive team, not a trap and pressure defensive team. He seems to want to get the ball in the paint but poor spacing/poor angles prohibits clean passes to the post.
Before Pitino can lead a team successfully, he has to settle in on how he is going to coach his team.
Yes, I think players want to know what they’re getting into. Syracuse has a well-defined system that certain players know they can thrive in. Kentucky is great for the players who hope to be one-and-done. Being known for something (whether it’s developing big men or point guards) can go a long way in recruiting.
If you look at our neighbors to the east, Wisconsin built powerhouse programs in both football and basketball (from significantly worse situations than exist here currently) by hiring coaches with a clear philosophy and an understanding of how players fit together.
Pitino’s current team has a lot of talent that doesn’t work well together. They have no point guard (keeping Brad Davison home would have helped a lot) and little outside shooting.
It’s easier to recruit players when a coach such as Pitino says, “We like to play an uptempo, freewheeling pace on offense.” Wisconsin tells its recruits, “You won’t get on the court unless you can play tough man-to-man defense and be a strong rebounder. But you’ll leave here a complete player.” Wisconsin videotapes every practice and critiques players on their performance in practice. The Badgers control the tempo in every game, frustrate the teams that like to run, and play as physical as the refs allow them to. What they lack in artistry they make up for in victories.
Blame it on the weather. Accept the fact that Minnesota, and even the Big 10 is not necessarily the place a player looking for a pro career feels they will get showcased, or perhaps coddled, to the extent they might in the SEC or the Big East. We have been world beaters at med tech, iron mining and hockey, but you can’t win them all and from my point of view coaches are overrated and overpaid. The focus needs to return to the players. Recruiting close to home might add interest.
The only big-name basketball coach who expressed a willingness to coach at Minnesota was the late Rick Majerus, and he said it was so he could be closer to his mother in Milwaukee. It says something when the Gophers’ three most successful coaches — Musselman, Dutcher and Haskins — left amid scandal. Like all major sports at the university, the best and brightest alumni chose to leave for pro jobs and not look back. So, instead of a Lou Nanne or Tony Dungy running the athletic department for decades, you get outsiders coming and going as ADs hiring outsiders coming and going as coaches. Isn’t it great that the coach leans toward recruiting New York and his assistant mines Chicagoland at a time when the Twin Cities talent pool has never been deeper. If Fred Hoiberg is smart, he’ll pass on trying to re-create Hilton Magic in a 90-year-old low-revenue This Name for Rent Arena.
Please note that while there was scandal during the Gopher years with his players, it was them…not Dutcher…who also had a top recruiting year in the nation…the best in the nation…under Dutcher.
Haskins, while a great coach…did get his players to improve each year….but cheated in the academic area.
Under Monson and Smith…the player regressed.
I’m not buying it that you cannot win in MN.
I don’t think the University of Minnesota on the whole is an athletic school. In the major sports, they mostly play the role of opponent, someone for Michigan to play when they aren’t playing Ohio State. The result is that we spend hundreds of millions of dollars on sports programs that have little presence in the University community itself, and have nothing to do with the University’s mission.
I think it’s obvious the U of M is not a basketball OR a football school. This has been going on since all the money started flowing through the NCAA D1 programs. Blame in on TV contracts, but the fact is conferences changed years ago to take advantage of the money. The Big 10 was late to the game, but more than that, they are in the Midwest ( Rutgers and Maryland don’t count, add on’s because they couldn’t make it on the east coast)
Cold and boring. If you were a major recruit, wouldn’t you go south or west? That is what’s happening, and schools do not want to admit it because there’s nothing they can do about it.
My idea (which willl be rejected instantly ) is for the U to move to D2. Has anyone written about how much money the athletic department loses at the U? I’ve never seen a study. All they seem to be doing is chasing their past glories.
They could win with at home talent at the D2 level, and fans would appreciate seeing their teams win instead of losing year after year. And state residents would appreciate not having to dump millions down the athletic drain.
Never happen, too much male pride involved.
Not sure what to think of Pitino, but…especially last year…he was devastated by injuries and the Lynch expulsion.
Until this team can prove they can win, why wouldn’t top rated players who want to go pro go to the best teams?
Please also note they did not have a viable point guard this year. They thought one player would get approval by the NCAA to play this year…but no…and Washington…while you can see his potential…seems to play out of control.
I don’t know what to expect this year, but I’m really impressed with Their two starting freshman for next year, plus Coffey, plus a point guard and Curry. I’m hoping they can find their way this year, but they’re too inconsistent…and that’s probably on the coach.
Gophers shoot an average floor %age and an average free throw %age against Michigan and they would have won the game, no question. Thus, this article would have had a totally different take.
Nothing unusual. The vast majority of schools do not at any sport. It’s time to sit back and enjoy college sports for what it is…entertainment. Let all of the “ athletes” skip college and go straight to the professional ranks. It’s about time that the pros started taking care of their own player development.
What I want to know is what are college sports for generally, and what are they for at the University of Minnesota? Cynics tell me they are all about Benjamins as my Congresswoman would put it. Is that true? Does the U get a lot of money from sports? Does it mean big checks to the chemistry department? How much, exactly, does the sports program save the taxpayer?
If one thinks history goes back only 20 years, then, of course, the author’s assessment is correct. But under his criteria, Minneapolis hasn’t been a baseball town since 1991, the Twin Cities metropolitan area has not been a football area since 1961 and Bloomington and St. Paul have never been hockey towns. The key is ticket sales and TV ratings, and the Gopher men hoops team is close to being off the radar. If the U could ever forgive Nevada’s Ereic Musselman for the sins of his father (during pre-historic times), he is the one coach who could gin up some excitement at the Barn.
Minneapolis isn’t a baseball town. It’s a pro football town. It’s a Vikings town despite the fact that they have never won a Super Bowl and haven’t been in one for over 40 years.
Minnesota might be a step up from Nevada because of conference affiliation, but Eric Musselman is all too familiar with the landscape here, and it’s not as conducive to coaching success as Nevada-Reno is. Pro sports in the Twin Cities steal potential coaches and ADs from the U, as well as media coverage, boosters, corporate sponsors and entertainment dollars. Why does every pro team in town play in a new or remodeled venue while the Gopher basketball team plays in a 90-year-old relic that gray-haired alums cherish a lot more than potential recruits? Current Gophers assistant Rob Jeter is a better head coach than Richard Pitino and would put up with the disadvantages here after getting the shaft at Wisconsin-Milwaukee, but he appears to be flying under the radar here.
I agree with you Pat.
We should stick with Pitino. I think he is a good coach and deserves more time and patience from the fans. I think he has the fire and passion to keep building this program – slowly but surely.
Plus – I think the coach wants to stay here!