Destiny Pitts announces transfer, gives details on suspension

[Plebe]

It's pretty rare that a player goes into detail about why they were suspended.

According to Pitts, she was suspended due to her "body language" during the Northwestern game, and the Bello sisters protested her suspension by not joining the team on the Illnois trip.

 

[eebmg]

OMG.

It is weird to me that body language is the issue. I had mentioned how it sort of annoyed me how stoic Whalen was as a coach in comparison to her intense demonstrative personality.

Being a new coach in this era is no cake walk

 

[triaddukefan]

Anybody have a link to that Minnesota-Northwestern game? Asking for a friend

 

[Plebe]

Anybody have a link to that Minnesota-Northwestern game? Asking for a friend

Probably not, because that game was on BTN+/FloHoops.

But it's safe to say something has been brewing for a while. It was @azfan who noticed something amiss in the Minnesota-Nebraska game on Jan. 4:

Minnesota (24) @ Nebraska - 1/04/20

Lincoln, NE - 6:00 PM ET TV: Big Ten Network (Larry Punteney, Brenda VanLengen) Video stream: https://www.foxsports.com/events-schedule (tvpli) Audio https://huskers.com/watch/?Live=287&type=Live Live stats: https://huskers.com/sidearmstats/wbball/summary

the-boneyard.com

I went back and watched this interaction, and while it wasn't very dramatic, there's no doubt there was a weird moment heading into halftime when Whalen touched Pitts' shoulder as if she wanted to tell her something and Pitts seemed to pull away from her.

 

[azfan]

Actually not surprised by this decision by Pitts and Whalen. As the teams left for halftime at the Nebraska game it was clear that Pitts was completely unreceptive to whatever Whalenn had to say.

Certainly hope things go better for Pitts wherever she ends up.

On more than one occasion Geno has mentioned how much young people have changed over the last few years. He talks about the challenge of trying to coach young people who have a different reaction too events and authority.

 

[WestCoast]

The majority of commenters on the Minneapolis Star-Tribune website seem to be siding with Whalen. Observers who attended the NW-Minnesota game wrote that Pitts loafed on defense, hogged the ball on offense, and pouted on the bench during that game.

If Whalen's team is going to lose in the Big-10, it won't be due to Whalen having to coax effort out of her players. Pitts was a star player and the team's leading scorer. A very good three-point and free throw shooter this season, Pitts is however undeniably a volume shooter with a FG% under 40%.

After reading what observers have been seeing and reporting about Pitts, it is apparent that Whalen had to send some kind of message to Pitts. Pitts obviously didn't like that message and likely wasn't willing to change to suit Whalen's direction.