Apologizing up front for the length of this message. Venting!
I usually only watch the message boards, but after watching the exhibition game and the past 15 years he's been here. And after watching the comments being made about how great this team is.
I had to at least get this off my chest.
This team will be like all the other teams Pitino has fielded, they will play hard, have average talent for the most part, maybe one guy will prove to be a little more than average. Donovan Mitchell is the only guy that has a chance to compete at the highest level in my opinion. The rest are a combination of projects, discards from other teams and guys that the elite teams didn't really want. He has turned Louisville into a Georgia, Clemson, Wake Forest, and NC State although they seem to recruit better than him.
The program has had constant embarrassing issues with the coach himself, players grades, drug problems, now hookers. 27 players have transferred or been kicked off the team in his 15 years here, thats more than any other top 25 program can claim. We have missed or been out of the NCAA tournament by the second round 8 of those fifteen years. We have had only 3 final fours in 15 years, one I'm not sure how they got there, because the team couldn't hit the side of a barn. I know we won a national championship, but it took a great draw and an unfortunate injury to get it. You do realize that that team only had to play one team (Duke) throughout their entire run, that had a player on their team ranked in the top 20 coming out of high school. And the Duke game as horrible as the injury was, was probably the only reason they won. Also, thank the basketball gods that we didn't have to play a North Carolina, Kansas, or even an Arizona. And lets really be thankful that Nerlens Noel got hurt, because if he had not and they won three or four more games they would have probably made the tournament that year and likely would have been put in our region, if so, we probably get knocked out again by our more talented rival. Remember we barely beat them at home with supposedly our best team ever and their worst.
When it comes to recruiting which is 80% of your success Pitino is either lazy, his ego and their ego's don't mesh or these elite kids don't have any desire to play for him. Let's face it what is his sales pitch, I'll get your body fat percentage down to 5% and get you to the Euro League? My god at one point he had 6 or 7 foreign project players on the team at one time, we looked like a NCAA developmental league team, it's a joke. In 2014 we had lost Gorgi and had no big men left and still couldn't get an elite 5 star big man to come here when he could have stepped right in and started from day one. It's a fallacy that he develops players, if so, many more would have made it into the NBA and stayed. he gets kids to play hard, no question. but talent wins, elite talent makes elite plays, average players make average plays. You don't necessarily have to have 6 or 7 elite players, but you do need 1 or 2 maybe three now that teams are stockpiling them like AAU teams. You need players who can take over when necessary against elite competition.
When did Louisville one of the top 6 or 7 teams in the history of the NCAA get relegated to having to hope that a Matz Stockman improved enough over the summer or a Mango is healed enough to play, or a Ryan McMahon can play enough to help our shooting. These guys should never have been offered scholarships unless you've got elite 5 star players in front of them and they are just there as the occasional support player. We've become that team hovering in the second tier of the ACC, occasionally upset a NC or Duke at Home, hope to get a good draw for the NCAA tournament. Didn't we use to be the team everyone feared and had to plan for, draw didn't matter, was a sure thing for the final four most years, the team everyone tried to avoid in the tournament?
Yes we had a nice run from 2012-2014, but so did Butler in 2009-2011and the only difference was they missed a last second shot. It also didn't hurt that we played in a horrible AAC for one of those years. I don't have to remind anyone of 2014 and up 13 on Kentucky and then their talent took over and our not so talent disappeared or choked.
It's time to make a change, a coach that understands to compete regularly for a national championship you must have the talent. Times have changed and like Denny he obviously refuse to change with it. If you get enough talent you don't have to be the best coach, just look down the road in Lexington.
I will say one coach at UofL has gotten the memo, Jeff Waltz. Jeff please share with the mens basketball, volleyball, womens soccer your strategy.
I usually only watch the message boards, but after watching the exhibition game and the past 15 years he's been here. And after watching the comments being made about how great this team is.
I had to at least get this off my chest.
This team will be like all the other teams Pitino has fielded, they will play hard, have average talent for the most part, maybe one guy will prove to be a little more than average. Donovan Mitchell is the only guy that has a chance to compete at the highest level in my opinion. The rest are a combination of projects, discards from other teams and guys that the elite teams didn't really want. He has turned Louisville into a Georgia, Clemson, Wake Forest, and NC State although they seem to recruit better than him.
The program has had constant embarrassing issues with the coach himself, players grades, drug problems, now hookers. 27 players have transferred or been kicked off the team in his 15 years here, thats more than any other top 25 program can claim. We have missed or been out of the NCAA tournament by the second round 8 of those fifteen years. We have had only 3 final fours in 15 years, one I'm not sure how they got there, because the team couldn't hit the side of a barn. I know we won a national championship, but it took a great draw and an unfortunate injury to get it. You do realize that that team only had to play one team (Duke) throughout their entire run, that had a player on their team ranked in the top 20 coming out of high school. And the Duke game as horrible as the injury was, was probably the only reason they won. Also, thank the basketball gods that we didn't have to play a North Carolina, Kansas, or even an Arizona. And lets really be thankful that Nerlens Noel got hurt, because if he had not and they won three or four more games they would have probably made the tournament that year and likely would have been put in our region, if so, we probably get knocked out again by our more talented rival. Remember we barely beat them at home with supposedly our best team ever and their worst.
When it comes to recruiting which is 80% of your success Pitino is either lazy, his ego and their ego's don't mesh or these elite kids don't have any desire to play for him. Let's face it what is his sales pitch, I'll get your body fat percentage down to 5% and get you to the Euro League? My god at one point he had 6 or 7 foreign project players on the team at one time, we looked like a NCAA developmental league team, it's a joke. In 2014 we had lost Gorgi and had no big men left and still couldn't get an elite 5 star big man to come here when he could have stepped right in and started from day one. It's a fallacy that he develops players, if so, many more would have made it into the NBA and stayed. he gets kids to play hard, no question. but talent wins, elite talent makes elite plays, average players make average plays. You don't necessarily have to have 6 or 7 elite players, but you do need 1 or 2 maybe three now that teams are stockpiling them like AAU teams. You need players who can take over when necessary against elite competition.
When did Louisville one of the top 6 or 7 teams in the history of the NCAA get relegated to having to hope that a Matz Stockman improved enough over the summer or a Mango is healed enough to play, or a Ryan McMahon can play enough to help our shooting. These guys should never have been offered scholarships unless you've got elite 5 star players in front of them and they are just there as the occasional support player. We've become that team hovering in the second tier of the ACC, occasionally upset a NC or Duke at Home, hope to get a good draw for the NCAA tournament. Didn't we use to be the team everyone feared and had to plan for, draw didn't matter, was a sure thing for the final four most years, the team everyone tried to avoid in the tournament?
Yes we had a nice run from 2012-2014, but so did Butler in 2009-2011and the only difference was they missed a last second shot. It also didn't hurt that we played in a horrible AAC for one of those years. I don't have to remind anyone of 2014 and up 13 on Kentucky and then their talent took over and our not so talent disappeared or choked.
It's time to make a change, a coach that understands to compete regularly for a national championship you must have the talent. Times have changed and like Denny he obviously refuse to change with it. If you get enough talent you don't have to be the best coach, just look down the road in Lexington.
I will say one coach at UofL has gotten the memo, Jeff Waltz. Jeff please share with the mens basketball, volleyball, womens soccer your strategy.
