Open thread: Can U of M basketball be fixed?

Several reports, mostly citing CBS sports (update: now confirmed by WCCO’s Mark Rosen), say Tubby Smith has been fired by the University of Minnesota as men’s basketball coach.

The Gophers season went the way many Gopher sports’ (men’s) seasons go: Win enough games early to get people to believe, crash and burn in the Big 10, leave people calling for a coach’s head to distract from their own massive self-loathing for taking the bait again.

Between last week’s first-round NCAA win against UCLA (which got its coach fired) and the last non-cheating tournament win, 23 years elapsed.

Part of the problem — actually the problem is enough good high school basketball players don’t want to go to the University of Minnesota. Why would they?

And college basketball is merely a quick stop now anyway so even if Minnesota were to attract great talent, they would only be here for a year before going to the NBA, where we would continually target them for leaving beloved Minnesota.

The U of M already has the worst graduation rates in the Big 10 for basketball (source).

Basketball Graduation Rates: Big Ten
Illinois 100%
Penn St. 90%
Michigan St. 82%
Northwestern 80%
Nebraska 75%
Iowa 73%
Ohio St. 57%
Purdue 50%
Wisconsin 50%
Indiana 47%
Michigan 45%
Minnesota 43%
Bottom 10 Basketball Grad Rates: Major Programs
Connecticut 25%
Arkansas 25%
Georgia Tech 27%
Mississippi St. 27%
Auburn 29%
Cal 33%
Florida 38%
USC 38%
Tennessee 40%
Arizona 43%
Colorado 43%
Georgia 43%
Minnesota 43%
Temple 43%

This is an open thread. Go ahead, make the argument below to a good basketball player on why they should want to play at the U.