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trinity92
01-12-2009, 12:29 PM
http://www.kentucky.com/818/story/646643.html

I don't think I've ever heard of this before. Initially it hit me as really wrong, but as I'm thinking . . .

Thoughts?

CameronBornAndBred
01-12-2009, 12:35 PM
Sounds like an interesting strategy on Pitino's part, and it looks like it paid off, at least for one game. I was expecting to come to the conclusion that Pitino is a jackass, but after reading the article, it seems like a sound move on his part and a good way to get a player on board with what he is trying to teach.

trinity92
01-12-2009, 12:37 PM
Like I said, my gut reaction was very negative, but it might have been a great motivation technique. Even if Pitino really meant it, I wonder if it's the worst thing to let a player know the fit isn't there? I also wonder how often this happens and we never know about it.

PDDuke85
01-12-2009, 12:39 PM
I believe Rick finds motivating college players a tad easier than motivating multi-millionaire athletes

SilkyJ
01-12-2009, 12:54 PM
motivational technique or not, I think its inappropriate. Pitino shouldn't screw with a young guy's head by suggesting he transfer, just to try and motivate him. What if he really respected pitino's opinion and did it just cause pitino told him too? There are many, many other ways of motivating players that don't potentially involve uprooting his life.

p.s. I just got done reading the jay bilas thread, and let me say that I am biased against rick pitino.

OZZIE4DUKE
01-12-2009, 01:02 PM
"I basically told him that if I were you I'd transfer, and I wouldn't wait," Pitino said. "You could go somewhere and have a year to learn the system. The fans aren't happy with you, you're not happy with yourself, and you're not having fun. We'll look at some schools that don't play any defense. There aren't that many, but I know a few."
Well, he could always transfer to carolina!

BlueintheFace
01-12-2009, 01:21 PM
Taylor King? ....haha jk.... kind of

juise
01-12-2009, 01:47 PM
This was also discussed here (http://www.dukebasketballreport.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13515&highlight=louisville), after I brought up Sosa's disappearance during the last few seasons.

trinity92
01-12-2009, 01:56 PM
This was also discussed here (http://www.dukebasketballreport.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13515&highlight=louisville), after I brought up Sosa's disappearance during the last few seasons.

I did a quick search of "Pitino" before posting but missed that one.

dukemomLA
01-12-2009, 02:42 PM
These guys are young students. To try to "motivate" someone by suggesting he should transfer is appalling. Never been a big fan of Pitino -- and now even more so. YUCK.

Coaches are dealing with student/athletes.... may I express my commitment to "students?" And yes, if things pan out, a lot of them have the opportunity to have the world on a string and earn big bucks for a few years. That's cool -- wish I were one of them.

But I also know that in the long run, ....there's more to life than the NBA.

Billy Dat
01-12-2009, 03:36 PM
I've seen a lot written about the concept of coaches "running players off", but never seen it really well explained and I still don't quite understand how it works. For all intents and purposes, I understand it to be the practice of a coach letting a scholarship player know that it's never going to happen for them in the program and that they should leave if they want to be any more than a practice player, in the hopes of freeing up scholarships. Whether that is communicated directly or indirectly, the message is sent.

A quick google search found the following snippet from an article about Jerry Glanville of all people, "Running a player off his scholarship"—the practice of making a player's life so miserable through lack of playing time or other disincentives—is far from unusual in college athletics."
http://wweek.com/wwire/?p=12469

I've mostly seen the term used in an accusatory tone, for example, Coach X is know for regularly running players off. I bring this up because while the Pitino move was not "running someone off", it seems like a fairly regular practice across the country. I've heard K (wrongly, I assume) accussed of doing this in some of the more nefarious corners of the internet using transfers as examples.

Here's another mention of the practice I found:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/college/2002/ncaa_preview/news/2001/11/04/waag/
AIR BALL: Five/Eight Scholarship Rule
Meant to keep coaches from running players off, the obscure rule penalizes teams that lose players to NBA. Thankfully, the NCAA put a moratorium on the rule this year and added one scholarship.

And one more mention:
"'Overbooking' is a hoary tradition at Air Wildcat - remember the 1986 comment by Eddie Sutton, Kentucky's coach at the time: 'I'll bring in a whole new team each year if I want to' - and running players off is a lamentable consequence of that practice. It seems unlikely that an NBA team will want someone a college team doesn't, but Rhodes can only hope one does." - by Alexander Wolff and Christian Stone, "Hitting the Rhode," Sports Illustrated, April 10, 1995.

Anyone have any greater info or insight into "running players off"? I think it's interesting that most of the references I was able to find to the alleged practice are quite old.

Diddy
01-12-2009, 08:00 PM
I think it happens, and I think Coach K has done it. And that is not a bad thing.

Out of all the transfers that Duke has had, do you never think K has never encouraged it? It is not like K takes a kid up in front of practice and screams "you suck, transfer now" until the kid collapses in a ball of quivering, urine soaked shame.

At the end of every season K has a personal meeting with every player to discuss the previous year, and one assumes the upcoming summer and what the player needs to do to improve, as well as the assumed role next season.

I am sure that at some of these meetings the player and K have come to realize that they had different views on the upcomming role. Taylor King is a great example. I am sure that he envisioned a larger role. K probably told him that no such role existed. King would have had a hard time earning minutes on this year's team. His primary role would have been backing up Kyle, and that doesn't amount to much. With Nolan starting, and Z and Lance playing well, and Plum also available, K was probably forthright about King's probable role barring tremendous summer improvement. If Taylor desired a larger role then a transfer was probably necessary. I am sure it was polite and cordial.

And sometimes, K probably had to tell a kid that he simply was not elite level NCAA talent. I am sure those players were free to stay at Duke, work hard in practice, and enjoy a Duke education. If we think back, I am sure we can find a few players who probably fit this mold. For other players, who wanted to play more in actual games, they transferred. We can probably find a few of those in our history as well.

I doubt K has ever told a kid to transfer, in so many words. But I am sure it has been danced arround, a lot.

Let's face it, we all think K is a great man. He is a great coach, but a large part of being a great coach is being a giant a-hole. Players have to be yelled at and motivated. A good coach, like K, does most of it in private so as not to embarrass a kid. And no player would ever say that he had been encouraged in private to transfer (if said transfer actually occurred), because it would be too demeaning. Pitino obviously meant this as a motivational tool to salvage a season for a team with great talent that was being wasted by one kid not really giving it his all.

Coaching a winning program at this level is probably like making sausage. It is easier to enjoy the end result as long as you don't know how the sausage was made.

Billy Dat
01-12-2009, 08:04 PM
Diddy - thanks for putting together such a solid response. I think you likely nailed it on the head.

Cell-R
01-12-2009, 10:27 PM
I think that this practice is much more common than many would believe.

Even outside of college basketball, things like this happen in High School as well. Coaches don't necessarily tell people to transfer but they do have similar conversations with players that aren't performing to their abilities. For example my soccer coach had two or three of these discussions with a few of my teammates on the team this year (thankfully not me). None of them left, and all except for one began to play better. (The one who didn't became the football kicker after the season... he didn't get any PT in the first place though).

I can see why many people would see this practice as an extremely negative and wrong practice. There comes a point, however, when it is almost impossible to motivate a player to perform better without insulting them to a certain point.

Most athletes with their heads on straight can see why the coach is doing this. They don't normally end up with a negative relationship with the coach. Often their relationship, work ethic, and performance improve because of it.

Sometimes this approach completely backfires, but many of the coaches that lose players because of this would probably claim they didn't want the player if he couldn't battle through a tough time and learn to give more effort or play better. Most of the coaches that use this tactic in the first place seem like the more intense, "don't back down" kind of coaches.

sagegrouse
01-12-2009, 11:00 PM
I've seen a lot written about the concept of coaches "running players off", but never seen it really well explained and I still don't quite understand how it works. For all intents and purposes, I understand it to be the practice of a coach letting a scholarship player know that it's never going to happen for them in the program and that they should leave if they want to be any more than a practice player, in the hopes of freeing up scholarships. Whether that is communicated directly or indirectly, the message is sent.



There is no need to threaten a player or make his life miserable to get him to leave. The NCAA gives the college the right to withdraw a scholarship at any time.

Why doesn't it happen at every school almost every year? The schools don't encourage it, for one. And ........... having a rep for jerking schollies for no particular good reason is not exactly helpful for recruiting.

While I absolutely loathe Pitino, the case in point seems OK to me -- kinda funny actually. It was creative and less abusive than the usual attempts to get in the player's face with "sissy," "chicken," and much, much worse.

sagegrouse