The Minnesota Golden Gophers hit rock bottom with their 84-59 loss at Nebraska last Tuesday – a 25-point defeat in which they trailed by as many as 38 against a middling Cornhuskers team. “They certainly just blitzed us,” said head coach Richard Pitino.
The Lambasting in Lincoln came one game after an embarrassing home loss against Northwestern by the same margin of defeat – arguably the most lifeless effort at The Barn in Pitino’s thus-far rocky tenure.
Saturday, a different, livelier Gophers team showed up, but the same result ensued. Minnesota grappled to the wire with an Indiana squad that was undefeated in conference but fell short 70-63 in a game they had led by as many as nine in the first half. It was more of a morale victory than a moral victory, considering the Gophers had valleyed with their previous loss to the Huskers. The postgame remarks were upbeat, players made eye contact with reporters, and fans were able to leave Williams Arena without feeling they had just been robbed of their admission. Yet, Minnesota’s losing ways continued.
The old saying, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,’ doesn’t apply here. But the inverse does. The Gophers were broken, so Pitino has done — and is doing — everything he can to fix them.
His most recent ploy was a younger, more energetic starting lineup that included freshmen Ahmad Gilbert, Jr., Jordan Murphy and Dupree McBrayer, as well as sophomores Bakary Konate and Nate Mason. While that lineup will need to change now due to an ugly finger injury to Gilbert, Pitino liked what he saw from his new starting five. “I played that lineup because of the spirit part of it,” Pitino said. “I loved how connected that group was in a sense of talking to each other, picking each other up, not feeling sorry for themselves, all those things. That’s why I went with that lineup. Is it the most talented lineup? No. Does it mean that the guys I took out of the lineup, it’s their fault? No. You’ve got to try different things when you’re losing the way that we’re losing.”
Thanks to a 6-12 overall record and a winless Big 10 mark, Pitino has the luxury – if you can call it that – of getting a better glimpse of his future core, even if it means putting up with some growing pains. The third-year coach removed seniors Joey King and Carlos Morris from the starting lineup to form his all-underclassmen unit that got a quick jump on the Hoosiers last Saturday. While the move may have affected the respective psyches of King and Morris, Pitino is within his rights to try any rotation he likes with a club that’s now lost seven straight games. Not only does the change expedite development, it might even lead to a couple wins. “I felt like we came out there with energy,” said Mason on the new lineup. “I felt like everybody was engaged.”
Catalyzing a struggling college team can be tricky. Late-teens and early 20-somethings have a lot on their mind as it is, and the public criticism associated a bottom-feeding program can get vicious. Pitino and his staff have mandated that the players stay off Twitter to help block out the “loud minority,” as Pitino calls the critics. Pitino’s father, Rick, has spoken to the team twice, including on Saturday when Minnesota nearly pulled the upset over Indiana. The coaching staff has also considered bringing in sports psychologists to help the team stay positive.
There’s a lot to deal with besides basketball for these Gophers. The first step is building confidence and learning to handle emotional adversity, which should eventually translate to the team’s play on the hardwood. “I think our biggest problem as a team,” said Pitino, “is when things don’t go well on the court, we just don’t know how to respond.”
The Gophers have constantly preached patience as they await the arrival of two talented transfers and three promising freshmen, including Hopkins’ Amir Coffey. Coffey’s father, a former Golden Gopher, reached out to Pitino recently to provide some encouragement and will likely come speak to the team. “He said, ‘Coach, I went through this, and the next year we went to the Sweet 16.’ We lost 20-something league games in a row,” recalled Pitino. “’I’ve dealt with it,’ he said. ‘We believe in what you’re doing. Tell those guys we believe in them.’”
The Gophers have a dozen regular season games remaining, and if they play them all with the same effort they displayed against Indiana, they’ll likely win a handful. Murphy stayed out of foul trouble against the Hoosiers, which kept Pitino’s rotations in order. King responded well to his newfound bench role with 18 points. Konate solidified the interior of the defense and kept Indiana out of the paint. That’s a winning formula.
Nonetheless, there’s a good possibility the Gophers won’t reach five conference wins, and that’s OK. Expectations need to be tampered for the remainder of the season. If Pitino’s staff can develop good habits in their underclassmen and strengthen them through the turmoil of the current season, they’ll be equipped to make a run in 2016-17.
