Big Ten Basketball: 5 bold predictions for 2020-21 season

Richard Pitino will be fired at season’s end

Richard Pitino’s first head coaching gig was with Florida International, where he coached the Panthers to an 11-9 Sun Belt record that landed them third in the conference at the end of the 2012-13 season.

Less than a month after losing 65-63 to Western Kentucky in the Sun Belt finals Pitino agreed to a contract with Minnesota Basketball less than a month from narrowing capturing an automatic bid in the National Tournament.

Currently, Pitino’s conference record with the Golden Gophers stands 48-82, with just two appearances in the NCAA tournament over his 6 seasons, both resulting in a loss before the first weekend ended. Despite Pitino not originally being hired by the current Minnesota athletic director Mark Coyle, Cyle did extend Pitino’s contract through the 2024 season in May of 2019. An interesting caveat is, at the end of the 2020-’21 season, it will cost less than two-million dollars to buy out Pitino’s contract.

With zero top 100 prospects on the 2020-21 roster, and zero having committed from the 2021 class, as of yet, there is no threat of a mass exodus of talent if Pitino does not return. The combination of the historical expectations for Men’s Basketball which is illustrated by the firing of Tubby Smith after a 46-62 conference record and the expectations of the university’s success that was illustrated when Coyle had his own contract extended.

"Coyle was originally introduced as Director of Athletics on May 11, 2016. Since that time, Minnesota has won 11 regular-season conference championships and seven tournament titles."

With none of those accolades coming from the Men’s Basketball Program, Pitino and the Golden Gophers will not have a season that will save Pitino’s job.