Richard Pitino is A+ in the press conference game, so you could easily count on him to tell it like it is at Big Ten Media Day this past Wednesday. If October 2nd seems extremely early to hold basketball Media Day, well that’s because it is really is.
It was 89 degrees in Chicago, host city for this event, the night before. Just six years ago the same event was staged on Halloween. This year it took place before many football teams even had a chance to play a fourth game. It’s all a part of outgoing Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delaney’s grand vision to make November and December college basketball relevant.
It’s a sisyphean task to say the least.
Richard Pitino is definitely not a fan of moving the schedule up earlier and earlier every year. To the Minnesota basketball coach, right now is football season, and he’s enjoying the undefeated start of P.J. Fleck’s Gopher football team.
“I think what P.J. has done now going into his third year is phenomenal,” said Pitino at Big Ten Media Day to The Sports Bank.
“What I’ve always admired about him is he has a plan, he’s sticking to it, he’s confident in it. You’re seeing it, sometimes the wins come last.”
The wins are certainly coming now, in year three under Fleck, as Minnesota is 5-0 for the first time in 15 years. Going back to last season, they have won eight of their last nine. They cracked the top 25 of the coaches poll this week and sit just outside the AP top 25.
“It’s a disciplined, talented well-coached team,” Pitino continued. “The wide receivers, last game especially, are phenomenal.”
We asked him if he sees a lot of similarities between his team and Fleck’s.
“A little bit, we have a lot of new guys where in his mind, he’s building, got a lot of guys that will probably return next year, he’s got a plan and process,” he answered.
“Whereas, we’re a little bit different, going to the NCAA Tournament two of the last three years was great. It was probably our most talented team but we had so many injuries we’re all trying to build stability, and we have to be able to endure somebody going early to the NBA, and continue to move forward.”
It’s definitely a rebuilding year for Pitino, as his team will have to deal with the departures of Amir Coffey, Jordan Murphy, Dupree McBrayer, and Matz Stockman.
The nature of today’s college basketball beast is to move everything up; way up in the calendar year. We asked the coach in his seventh year at Minnesota how feels about it.
“No, I don’t like it to be honest with you, I love college football, I love it.”
“I’m fired up for Saturday when Illinois comes to our campus and I think that time should be for college football and then you turn the page.”
“We all try to do good non-conference games, six of my ten non-conference opponents are power five, power six teams which is very very challenging, but good for our fans and good for our program. I understand why we do it.
“I think the ACC is doing first game of the year, which is even crazier.”
Gopher basketball opens with Cleveland State on November 5. Their pre-conference slate includes match-ups against Oklahoma, Utah, Butler and Clemson. Gopher football looks like it has a very realistic chance of getting off to an 8-0 start this season.
“It’s football season right now, which is great. For me we get Big Ten Media Day (over with), for coaches this is kind of a challenging time,” Pitino concluded.
“We’re fundraising, we’re recruiting, we want to get a point to where we’re coaching our team but we have to do these things as well.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly appears on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
You can follow Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com on Twitter here and his cat on Instagram at this link.