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MPLS columnist refers to Gophers as the "Little Richards" & a Clown Show

OnceAhawk

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Jan 29, 2015
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Ouch. Can you imagine an Iowa reporter/columnist ripping into an Iowa program like this?

Some of the column:

If I was paying the hefty price as a season-ticket holder for the Timberwolves or the male Gophers, it would be tempting to kick the shin of the next person associated with those teams who told me to “be patient.”

You know what “be patient” means? It means they are asking you to waste another winter following these clown shows. It means wasting thousands more dollars to watch losers. It means paying hefty parking prices to enter the two worst venues in the Twin Cities when it comes to infrastructure.

Patient?

In the spring of 2013, Pitino took over a team that handily had beaten Shabazz Muhammad, Kyle Anderson and UCLA in the first round of the NCAA tournament. In three short years, Pitino has turned the Gophers into a joke … a team destined to be in the fight for 14th in the Big Ten.

There was a lively crowd for Michigan State on Saturday, allegedly, but that’s not likely to be repeated more than a couple of more times this winter at Williams Arena. And it came after a December when actual crowds of 4,000-5,000 were routine for the usual litany of nobodies for home games.

The difference this time, in Season 3 of the coach with the famous surname, is that the Gophers lost to the nobodies. They had a 47-game winning streak vs. nonconference opponents in the Barn, and then came a four-game home stretch with a victory over Chicago State and losses to South Dakota (two overtimes), South Dakota State (mismatch) and Milwaukee (mismatch).

Do we have no shame remaining in men’s athletics at the University of Minnesota?


The football team lays the grotesque, giant egg of a 5-7 season, suffers the humiliation of going to a bowl game in Detroit, and the followers are asked to celebrate a seven-point victory over Central Michigan in front of a crowd that did not equal your average Eden Prairie home game.

And now the Little Richards lose to South Dakota and South Dakota State in a 72-hour period, you wait around to get beat by Penn State with its wretched basketball tradition, and you want us to talk about Amir Coffey at Hopkins High School.


The Gophers were No. 34 in RPI before the start of the 2013 NCAA tournament. Tubby Smith was fired, Richard Pitino was hired and on Wednesday, the Gophers were rated No. 186 in RPI.

Foul by foul, coach. Keep building. We’re proud of you.

And then there’s the Timberwolves. Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins. What a future!

You have the Twin Cities on fire thinking about the glory that awaits, Woofies. You betcha — 29th among 30 NBA teams with a padded attendance average of 14,087 entering Wednesday night’s showdown with …

Somebody.

You Timberwolves, you pretenders young and old, just were blown out in the fourth quarter by Philadelphia. That should be an excellent momentum builder for another 60-loss season.

The battle cry at Target Center is the same as at Williams Arena: “Be patient.”

Trouble is, Wolves, there’s hardly anyone left to be patient. The customers are gone. You’ve destroyed the product with 12 straight seasons of pathetic play.


The entire column:


http://www.startribune.com/patience-wanes-for-gophers-men-s-basketball-and-wolves/364464331/
 
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Pretty harsh, but hard to argue with. Head coaching in the Big is a tough way to learn the trade, ask Steve Alford. I thought Pitino did a great job coaching his first year, but his teams have progressively gotten worse. If you can't win by year three in college basketball, in all likelihood you are never going to turn it around.
 
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Couldn't happen to a better fanbase than those F bags up there.
I share your dislike of the Minnesota fan base, but the choice of words is unnecessarily harsh IMO. At least the writer's name is on the article and he will have to face those he disparages at some point. Beats your average anonymous internet bully, but wow.
 
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That's a good read. I am reluctant to talk smack about MN because they will get a couple wins this year and hopefully not against us. Hard to imagine RP sees another season unless they turn it around in a hurry. The NBA is unwatchable with the exception of Golden State and even that is a stretch because you have to watch the other team too.

The NBA used to be about compelling matchups, big personalities, and star players. Now it's about who got shot at a club, who is unhappy making $10M per season and which handful of one and done college kids will make ESPN's 'Former NBA Players Who Are Broke' List.
 
I share your dislike of the Minnesota fan base, but the choice of words is unnecessarily harsh IMO. At least the writer's name is on the article and he will have to face those he disparages at some point. Beats your average anonymous internet bully, but wow.
Blah blah, what? It is Minnesota who freaking cares. You see all they have to say about us and every game no matter what it is the We Hate Iowa BS goes on, cannot stand them.
 
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Thing is last season Little Richard Pitino had kind of what Iowa has this year with lot of senior starters on his team and they were a huge disappointment finishing in the bottom 4 of the conference. Yet Minnesota gave him a 2 year extension this summer which I can't understand why the heck they'd do that.
 
Pitino has only 2 seniors on his roster and neither of them were his recruits. His first season was 2014. It's hard to evaluate a new coach using their predecessor's upper classmen. It's not like Pitino hasn't recruited well the past two years. Jordan Murphy is playing very well for a freshman. Nate Mason is only a sophomore averaging 13 ppg and 4 assists. Kevin Dorsey looks like a promising freshman too. Next year they have a 4* SG recruit, Amir Coffey, coming in who had offers from Michigan St., Xavier, Wisconsin, Arizona and Marquette.

I'll think they'll be ok.
 
The other night they had a shot of Richie sitting on the bench with his head in his hands. Quite reminiscent.
 
I'm reading the reader's comments at the bottom of the article. These guys sound like us w/ the Lackluster situation. God bless Fran for getting Iowa back to respectability and possibly better. And also to Barta for listening to the fan base and the players when they said Lackluster had to go.
 
Lil Ricki gets at least one more year because of the mess in the Athletic Dept. up there. They don't even have a permanent AD hired yet, so no one's getting canned this year.

However... I agree that they likely have to make the Dance next season for him to still be employed there.

The fans don't really care too much, anyway... it's a hockey town.
 
Agree with MitchL. Pitino has at least one more year because the AD is interim. They should have a permanent AD hired by the following year and Pitino will either have to win or will be gone. Getting another good (not great) recruiting class (third in a row) in place will give him a chance.
 
Simply put Lil Rich it's a below average coach and his teams do not play smart. Even with the senior leadership last year they were making freshmen mistakes. It's like Brewster took over the basketball program. MN tried to make a splash with a last name.... It's not working and I couldn't be more happy.
 
I call Minnesota's coach Rick Pitino's son, and will continue to do so until he proves that he has earned something professionally that he would still have attained if he were not the son of a Hall of Fame coach.
 
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Richard Pitino is the bball equivalent of Lane Kiffin. Father's were great coaches and they got jobs at very young ages they probably didn't deserve (or would have gotten with another last name) based off their dad's coaching reputation.
 
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20140101__140102pitino_300.jpg
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Pretty harsh, but hard to argue with. Head coaching in the Big is a tough way to learn the trade, ask Steve Alford. I thought Pitino did a great job coaching his first year, but his teams have progressively gotten worse. If you can't win by year three in college basketball, in all likelihood you are never going to turn it around.

Tubby Smith getting let go for Little Pitino reminds me of the Tom Davis/Steve Alford fiasco. Both programs fired veteran coaches to "take the next step."

I do think coaches deserve 4 years unless you have a Todd Lickliter situation where the coach is destroying the program.
 
Tubby Smith getting let go for Little Pitino reminds me of the Tom Davis/Steve Alford fiasco. Both programs fired veteran coaches to "take the next step."

I do think coaches deserve 4 years unless you have a Todd Lickliter situation where the coach is destroying the program.

I cannot help but think the same thing...,be careful what you wish for. Before Tubby Minny had gone through a pretty bad stretch. Tubby put together some pretty good teams to the point that their fan base had some big expectations. Unfortunately a couple of Tubby's teams fell short down the stretch but several made the tourney and won a game or two. Minny pushes him out the door and look where they are at now.

In the meantime Tubby lands down at down trodden Texas Tech and after a tough first year already has them improved in year 2.

As Iowa fans we know this scenario all too well.
 
Minnesota wanted a trendy hire when they got Pitino Jr.
Little Rick had no credentials but only a famous last name.
Tubby Smith was the victim of a bad decision in the AD
Department of Minnesota. The Gophers are not going to
the Promised Land with Pitino Jr.
 
I was trying to find info on Pitino's contract extension. Particularly any buy out business. I see where if he decides to leave he has to pay to do so, but can't find anything regarding what Minnesota would have to pay to boot him. I'm supposing there is some protection in there.

What was interesting, is for an extension the dollars aren't impressive. Even with his incentives added in Pitino will be in the bottom half of the league regarding income.

The buyout, if there is one, is the key IMO as to how long Pitino lasts.
 
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