Minnesota Golden Gophers: It’s Time To Talk About Richard Pitino

After suffering their third non-conference home loss of the season, it’s time to examine the fit between the Minnesota Gophers and Richard Pitino.

When you run a coach with a winning history out of town, you can’t really complain about what you get to replace him.

Tubby Smith took a Minnesota program in shambles and made it into a respectable program in the Big Ten. The Golden Gophers were never great, but they earned some nice victories, made a couple NCAA tournament appearances and re-established themselves on the recruiting circuit.

Though some of those players (Royce White, Rodney Williams and Ralph Sampson III, for example) never became the players many thought they could under Smith, getting the players was half the battle.

Minnesota’s cold in the winter and has produced one NBA prospect — former reality television star Kris Humphries — over the last decade. Getting the top players in the country was never really an option, but Smith’s presence at least gave them a chance to get those secondary stars.

Of course, since there’s not a lot going on in Minnesota other than ice fishing from November to March, latching on to the only Division I school in the state and its athletics seems like the smart thing to do. Unfortunately the success just hasn’t been there, so the fans started getting antsy.

Which meant that Smith, who was also run out of Kentucky despite the national title, had to go.

Minnesota fans wanted Shaka Smart. They needed Shaka Smart. They were going to get Shaka Smart … according to Gopher fans, anyway.

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That didn’t work out, but they did get another “big name” coach. A guy by the name of Pitino.

Richard Pitino, Rick’s son.

Richard worked under Rick at Louisville before taking the head coaching gig at Florida International where the Panthers had their best conference record (11-9) in program history and came one basket shy of making an NCAA Tournament appearance.

That was enough for Minnesota to come calling. That and his last name made him a must-get coach.

In his first year, the Gophers didn’t make the NCAA tournament, but they did win the NIT championship, thanks to a little help from Dad. Things started to look like they’d be going Minnesota’s way. They had their coach and moderate success to start his career.

It’s been downhill ever since.

Year two was a rocky time for Minnesota, finishing with an 18-15 record after sleepwalking their way through the Big Ten.

Year three could not be off to a worse start. With a 6-6 record, the one thing the Gophers were able to hold on to this season was that they won at home out of conference.

Granted, much of that had to do with their unwillingness to schedule power conference teams in those games, but they won at home and touted their non-conference home winning streak whenever they could.

Now Minnesota has suffered its third non-conference loss at home this season after falling to Milwaukee on Wednesday night. This comes on the heels of two straight home losses to South Dakota and South Dakota State. Though these are solid-to-great mid-major teams, “This is Minnesota. We don’t lose to these teams.”

But they do and they have.

The one thing Pitino has been able to push off some of the blame to is that he hasn’t gotten ‘his’ guys in yet, meaning his recruits. Most of what he’s had to work with were Smith recruits.

The problem is, what he’s done with the players he has hasn’t exactly been great.

Length and athleticism is the best way to describe the 2015-16 Gophers. There isn’t a lot of technically sound basketball available on this roster. They’re athletes who also play basketball. Sometimes that’s good basketball, but it’s rarely been seen this season and they haven’t been put into good situations to win games.

Some of the biggest problems for Minnesota revolves around coaching decisions. For example, though Minnesota is a good free throw shooting team, their setup on FT attempts is odd.

Rather than putting big guys on the block to get potential offensive rebound opportunities, they stand along the three-point line, mostly so they can get back on defense quicker. That came into play on Tuesday as Carlos Morris went to the free throw line down seven for a one-and-one opportunity. With more than 30 seconds left, it’s still a manageable game, but they needed a rebound.

Morris missed the front end and nobody was inside to challenge Milwaukee for the rebound.

Their best defense, the one that yields the most results, is their full-court pressure. They’re a quick, lengthy team and opponents have struggled against their pressure. But they only run that defense when they’re trying to make a comeback, so it’s not utilized enough.

Subsitution patterns have also been extremely questionable.

In their Dec. 12 tilt against Oklahoma State at the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls, S.D., Minnesota had the momentum and the lead at halftime. Freshman Jordan Murphy was the only player, though, that seemed to have a handle on the game. He went inside and took advantage of his size and physicality in the paint, totaling 10 points and nine rebounds in the first half.

Rather than go with the guy that got him there, Pitino sat Murphy, playing his just nine minutes in the second half which led to the loss, their third straight. Granted, Murphy was in foul trouble, but desperation needed to be shown from both the coach and the team and it was nowhere to be found.

Minnesota is not a very good team. That’s obvious just by watching them. There’s no flow to the offense, the defensive effort is half-hearted and the players quit whenever they get down. There’s talented players, sure.

Murphy and sophomore point guard Nate Mason are nice players with potentially bright futures, but if this is the way the Gophers are going to play, it may be time to reconsider Pitino as the best guy for the job.

Of course, asking if he’s the best guy and trying to find a guy who would be better are two different conversations. First, you’d have to find somebody willing to take the job and second you’d have to find somebody who can turn things around. Both incredibly hard to do in a program that’s facing its own problems within the athletic department.

Things could be worse, depending on how you look at it, as the Star Tribune’s Amelia Rayno points out. There’s been a lot of changeover in the roster and a few transfers still waiting to become eligible, so the personnel change next year could certainly help.

This is a rather young team with just two seniors (Morris and Joey King, both starters) and just one eligible junior (Charles Buggs). However, with how the team looks right now, all the young players, the ones that are supposed to be learning the game so those final years are beneficial to both them and the team, they may be wasted years.

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Something needs to change for the rest of this season in order for next season to mean anything. Small adjustments, sending guys to the glass and running an offense would be helpful.