Once again, I’m overly frustrated with UofL’s basketball program. We lost to UMass at home last night which makes our record 1-2 versus Atlantic 10 schools this year. Before I get into this, UMass has a nice squad, but they shouldn’t be marching into Freedom Hall and taking home a victory. This comes on the heels of a rather poor showing over the weekend where the Cards played three mediocre teams in three days (all at home) and struggled with each one of them.
Usually, I try not to call people out, but it’s time to address the issue head on. Rick Pitino has lost his fire to coach I’m afraid. He made a ton of money with the Celtics, he’s getting $2 million plus per year here, and it’s deadened the value of a lucrative salary as motivation. He’s made it already! He’s not hungry like he was at UK or Providence. Yes, he took Louisville to the Final Four two seasons ago, but last year’s team and this year’s collection of athletes look absolutely lost, they don’t defend well like “typical” Pitino teams, there is no improvement noticeable, and the player rotations leave the majority of fans scratching their heads.
This is a prime example of someone’s salary being too high which shows in the final product. Would your company allow its leader to get away with this? If so, what about that particular person allows them to get away with such? If they own the company, that might explain part of it, but they would eventually be forced to sell or retire if their objective was to keep the company afloat.
If a major corporation repeatedly missed its numbers, and the CEO gave flimsy excuses every time as to why, that CEO would be replaced. That’s all I’m asking in this situation–hit your numbers (Rick) and honestly tell the public what is going on. Enough with the excuses and mind games–we’re not falling for it anymore. The product you’re producing is very below average, and it’s not delivering the value your customers paid for and you promised.
Many have criticized me for taking such a hard stance on this topic so early on in the season, but I took a similar stance during Denny Crum’s last season–it’s either the coach gets replaced or my season tickets will not be renewed. It’s come to this unfortunately. I was very excited when they hired Pitino, and I was thrilled with the Final Four run, but I refuse to waste my time watching a piss poor product that costs a lot of money for two straight seasons. The value equation is all out of whack, and that falls back on the CEO (head coach). It’s his “corporation” to run. He’s CEO of the basketball team, and he’s paid very handsomely to be that. He’s no different from Bob Nardelli at Home Depot or Terry Semel at Yahoo! They need to go too.
If you have a better solution to this dilemma, please share it.