The first year of Richard Pitino’s tenure as Minnesota Golden Gophers basketball coach was a year of unexpected over-achievement, culminating in an NIT Championship. That built great promise for Year 2, which, as a result of the hype, was as disheartening as the first year was encouraging. Minnesota missed the postseason altogether.
The caveat all along, though, was that Pitino was still coaching Tubby Smith’s team. The unrelated Hollins boys were Pitino’s inherited playmakers, while Mo Walker and Elliott Eliason were his adopted big bodies. Pitino also brought in some reinforcements. He added transfers like Malik Smith, DeAndre Mathieu, Carlos Morris and Joey King to plug the holes left by Smith’s unsatisfying tenure.
Today, only a few, final stragglers of Smith’s regime remain while a fresh group of young faces – recruited with intentionality to meld with Pitino’s style – are set to spread their wings in Gophers Country.
But it won’t be this season. At least, not in the form of wins.
The next generation is still a chrysalis, incubating under the heat light of Pitino’s gaze, waiting until next season to hatch. “Where you have a younger team,” said Pitino prior to the season opener, “you’re starting from scratch.”
Scribes will be under the temptation to label this a defining year for Pitino. A must-win season. His chance to turn heads. Make a statement. Win something. Anything.
But that would be irrational to expect.
Oh, there will be valiance in the 2015-16 season. King will fill up the bucket with 3’s aplenty. Morris will be given a big role in his second season with the program. And Charles Buggs, a Smith recruit, will continue to dunk on all creation. But of more consequence this season will be the development of next year’s contributors; or perhaps more accurately, finding out which players have what it takes to contribute on next year’s team, because next year looks to be a rare intersection of existing young talent, tremendous transfers and a high-level recruiting class.
The Existing Young Talent
Mirroring their professional counterpart in the Twin Cities, the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Maroon and Gold have an age gap on their roster: inexperienced youth and chiseled veterans without much in between. There are the infant freshmen: Dupree McBrayer, Kevin Dorsey, Jr., and Jordan Murphy, all of whom project to have a place in next year’s top eight.
McBrayer is a long, lean ballhandler with a lefty stroke who still needs to work on his shot. Dorsey, another guard, is more refined than McBrayer with “lightning quick” speed that he is still trying to harness, especially on defense. “Obviously you see that lateral quickness, and it is freakishly fast, but he gambles a little bit too much,” said Pitino, “and he opens up angles when they don’t need to be opened because he’s so fast. But I do think he can be an awesome defender. He does things talent-wise that you just don’t see.” Murphy, a former commit to Shaka Smart’s VCU powerhouse, is ready to make an impact now. He delivered a 24-point, 10-rebound double-double in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge against Clemson as Minnesota notched its finest win of the season Monday night. “He was the best player on the court,” said Pitino.
Then there’s the big fellas. Sophomores Bakary Konate and Gaston Diedhiou have a long way to go but possess size that can’t be taught – Konate at 6-foot-11 and Diedhiou at 6-foot-9. Both received looks as freshmen but lingered in the shadows behind seniors Mo Walker and Elliott Eliason. Big men develop later in their careers, as they say, so any difficulties can be chalked up to rawness, but it’s an indictment of their progress that Pitino has opted to keep Konate and Diedhiou on the bench multiple times in the non-conference season in order to go with smaller, faster lineups that put King at center, even doing so against a bigger Clemson foe on Monday.
In his own category is sophomore Nate Mason, who emerged as a part-time starter last season in place of DeAndre Mathieu and made a name for himself with a silky three-point shot and incredible poise for a freshman. Mason is an example of what the Gophers are hoping to get someday from McBrayer and Dorsey; a steady, able ballhandler with a quick first step and a knack for wearing out the 3-point arc.
These six – McBrayer, Dorsey, Murphy, Konate, Diedhiou and Mason – constitute the primary building blocks for this developmental season. “It’s exciting because we have to do a lot of teaching,” said Pitino, “They’ve got to do a lot of learning, but all bring something different to the table.
The Tremendous Transfers
Juniors Reggie Lynch of Illinois State and Davonte Fitzgerald of Texas A&M will join the Gophers next year after sitting out the current season due to NCAA transfer rules. “I think they’ll make an immediate impact next year,” said Pitino. “They’re two of the better players on the team this year.”
Lynch is a 6-foot-10 big man who attended Edina High School in the local metro area. His uncle is former Gopher and current Fox Sports North analyst Kevin Lynch. The younger Lynch set a Missouri Valley Conference record in blocked shots by a freshman and was an All-Conference second-teamer as a sophomore.
Fitzgerald, 6-foot-8, shapes up to be a natural replacement for either Morris at the 3 or King at the 4 next season. The former Aggie was a 3-star recruit out of high school who tore his ACL as a freshman at A&M and wasn’t the same while playing with a knee brace his sophomore season.
ESPN profiled him as a “long and athletic” wing. “The ultra-bouncy Fitzgerald can slash his way to the rim in transition or knock down the 3-point shot,” said ESPN’s summary. “He has a solid looking jump shot (gets great lift), but it’s streaky. He plays with good energy and has active hands at both ends of the floor. He can fill the lane after causing a steal and he has the length and bounce to finish above the rim.”
It’s not a guarantee, but it’s possible that the two newcomers will comprise the Gophers’ front court next year. Both are well-suited to play in Pitino’s fast-paced system that emphasizes transition offense and aggressive defense – and better-suited than Konate or Diedhiou, who would probably be best utilized off the bench.
The Recruits
Minnesota basketball fans were distraught when the ‘Big Three’ of Tyus Jones, Reid Travis and Rashad Vaughn – each an in-state high school basketball star – shirked the local university to play at Duke, Stanford and UNLV, respectively. Folks were pessimistic, as a result, about Minnesota’s chances of ever retaining another local standout, but Pitino, or more specifically assistant coach Ben Johnson, pulled it off by securing the commitment of Hopkins’ Amir Coffey for next season. “When I first saw [Amir] when I got the job, I don’t know, two years ago,” remembers Pitino, “he was a guy we really wanted because he’s got size and versatility. He is an offensive mismatch nightmare. He’s the type of guy when it comes to his size and skill, you see them in the NBA.”
Coffey went viral when he hit this three-quarter-court buzzer beater in the state semi-final against Shakopee. As a junior, his seasoned ended prematurely when he tore his ACL.
This was a must-have recruit for Pitino, who may now possess the first Gopher with an NBA future since Kris Humphries.
Coffey, who turned down five other major Division I offers to attend Minnesota, will be joined by 4-star recruit Michael Hurt from Rochester and arguably the best big in the state of Arkansas, Eric Curry. Hurt is a lengthy 6-foot-8 scorer. “Can really shoot the ball,” said Pitino. “Knows how to play, has great intangibles, got a great understanding of how to play the game.” Curry is the same height as Hurt but with more bulk and should be able to play inside and out, giving Pitino and his staff the versatility they’re seeking up and down the roster. “I think next year’s team shapes up to be really big,” Pitino said. “I mean, really big.”
The sum of the parts: A top-15 recruiting class.
Just Be Patient
This is the time to daydream about the Gophers’ future. With all due respect to the efforts of King and Morris, they are merely keeping the seat warm for the rug rats, who are hoping to grow up quickly and inherit a spot at the head table.
After a dull 4-2 start to the season with lackluster losses to Temple and Texas Tech, Monday’s win over Clemson gave Williams Arena its first glimpse of what could be in store down the road. The crowd roared the loudest for the freshman Murphy, without a doubt knowing he is a long-term cog in Pitino’s rotations for the next four years.
The glimpses this season could be few and far between once the conference season begins. The Gophers are young, and the Big Ten is deep; not excellent at the top, but deep.
Year 3 for Pitino cannot be his measuring stick. Give him one more year of grace. After that, it’s fair game.
