GOPHERS HIRING BEN JOHNSON

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Here is the thing. He has been an Assistant Coach for 15 years. Played at DeLasalle and has connections as does his former coach and AAU coaches actually like him.

After thinking about what Pitino's big ten record is, what lack of bench use by Pitino, what a lack of a true offense or defense scheme by Pitino.....I am ready to see a Dave Thorson run team (I don't know if you all remember watching them play or not).

Now recruiting. Pitino has had most of his recruiting success with transfers over the last 3 years......(maybe that is because Ben left). Now whether he can get Chet to play here or not isn't the question.....look at all the very good players from MN that Pitino didn't even try to recruit (McKinley at Colorado as an example).
 


laazrakit said:
I'll just throw this in here... on paper, that Brewster hire wasn't a bad hire. That dude could (and still can, for that matter) recruit his ass off. Problem was, he couldn't figure out how to hire the right assistant coaches to make it work.

If what people are throwing around about the AAU stuff... if it proves out that Ben is the new coach... maybe it could be a good hire. He's still gonna need the right assistants, though.
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Disagree as Brew has a horrendous attrition rate, he took a lot of chances on players who were high risk.
 

gopher7 said:
This feels a lot like the Brewster hire.
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Brewster had a longer track record as a recruiter. Otherwise, yes. And there's no Super Bowl winning coach Mike Shanahan to lie to us about a spectacular coach he is.
 


fair said:
Of course it played some role. It does in any hiring process. But a lot of the posters emphasizing the minority aspect above all else are predicting that Coyle is going to be fired in a matter of years because of this decision. With that logic, why on Earth would Coyle take such a massive leap just to appease the few voices asking for more diversity? I'm willing to believe he has quite a few more reasons for the hire. Implying that this was predominantly a "diversity hire" just feels very short-sighted to me.
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I simply support merit based hiring.
 

our track record is that we overlooked some asst at Xavier. Good luck to that guy!
Flipper1a said:
Here is the thing. He has been an Assistant Coach for 15 years. Played at DeLasalle and has connections as does his former coach. He has connections to the Coffey's, local AAU programs, and has had some success.

After thinking about what Pitino's big ten record is, what lack of bench use by Pitino, what a lack of a true offense or defense scheme by Pitino.....I am ready to see a Dave Thorson run team (I don't know if you all remember watching them play or not).

Now recruiting. Pitino has had most of his recruiting success with transfers over the last 3 years......(maybe that is because Ben left). Now whether he can get Chet to play here or not isn't the question.....look at all the very good players from MN that Pitino didn't even try to recruit (McKinley at Colorado as an example).
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Look up Ron Sanchez and tell me why he wasn’t considered.
 


howeda7 said:
Brewster had a longer track record as a recruiter. Otherwise, yes. And there's no Super Bowl winning coach Mike Shanahan to lie to us about a spectacular coach he is.
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And he'll tell you that!
 



60's Guy said:
I know ain’t it crazy? Guy wins 3 games and people ask some questions on a message board and instantly they are haters. I mean come on...everybody has a couple losing seasons....lighten up people.
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3 games in a COVID-shortened season. You must be worried about this upcoming fall.
 

Other than Moser, Dutcher, and Musselman (the only three big ones I would have gone after IMO) you would be in the same boat as Johnson....I think Johnson can recruit locally.
 

gopherdudepart2 said:
All these diversity cheap shots are annoying as F. What does it matter about a person's race? That is total crap and y'all know it even if you are using it as a crutch or excuse for disliking something. Ben's a great dude and people are sh!tting all over him. A lot should be ashamed here, be pissed at Coyle maybe, but give Ben a chance for cripes sakes.
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I don’t see Ben getting crapped on. The rage is against Coyle and the U. I like Ben. I don’t think this is a great career move for him.
 




Not a B-Ball guy but do bleed Maroon and Gold.

Couldn't go through all 16 pages. Has the question of "buyout" amount come up as a reason for this hire?

Seems like if the buyout is small enough the AD would still be on the prowl...

Not a confidence builder for the new guy but this may be a "just buying some time" hire. Actually seems to be within Coyle's style after firing you know who early on. If yes, two years max to get the better coach (no matter what race, creed, or never mind) or real damage done...UNLESS Coach Johnson indeed has The Right Stuff...then we'll never know.

Might as well wish him good luck...So, Good Luck Coach Johnson.
 

Pitino is Brewster.....can somewhat recruit but is a better recruiter than coach.
 

Northeastgopher said:
If we were gonna go with a coach with local ties and limited college experience, why not just hire Sam Mitchell? At least he has a proven history of an NBA coach and did a decent job developing the younger wolves players a few years back. I’m not upset, I just don’t follow the logic.
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...and you can at least sell recruits on the fact you were an NBA guy; player and coach.
 



Go4Broke said:

NCAA college basketball: Xavier Musketeers' recruiting tracker​

2019 (Top 25)

Since Travis Steele took over as the men's basketball head coach at Xavier University in the spring of 2018, he hired a young staff of assistants in Jonas Hayes, Ben Johnson and Dante Jackson, and together, they've cast a wide net in the upcoming recruiting races.

The first class they compiled in 2019 was ranked top-25 nationally by 247Sports, but that original five-member class is now down to three players because Dahmir Bishop entered the transfer portal after Xavier's trip to Villanova and big man Dieonte Miles has been redshirted for this season.

2020 (Top 15)

When Travis Steele took over as head coach of Xavier, he did so with the reputation as a great recruiter. The 2019 class went a long way toward confirming that, the 2020 class has cemented it. In locking down CJ Wilcher, Dwan Odom, and Colby Jones, Steele has landed a class that easily top 15 and even hits the top 10 on some lists.

2021

After back-to-back successful recruiting classes, the 2021 class was going to be a smaller class that focused on forwards and centers. The 2021 recruiting process was different because coaches had to do almost all of their scouting online since in-person recruiting was not allowed due to COVID-19. This also meant a lot of players had to decide where to spend their college careers without ever stepping on a college campus.

College coaches were forced to get creative to find ways to get commits. This meant a lot of Zoom discussions and FaceTime tours of campus and athletic facilities. Xavier’s first commit in the class of 2021 was Cesare Edwards out of Hartsville, S.C., where he attends Hartsville High School. Edwards is 6-foot-10, 205 pounds, and ranked the 91st best player overall and the 17th best center in the class. Xavier was chosen over a list of other schools, including Florida, Florida State, Clemson and many others.

The second commit in Xavier’s 2021 class is Elijah Tucker. Tucker is from Canton, Ga. where he attends Cherokee high school. Tucker is 6-foot-7, 190 pounds and ranked as the 144th overall and the 25th best power forward in the class. He chose Xavier over St. Johns, Iowa, Georgia Tech and others.
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All that recruiting yet 0 NCAA tournament appearances after they went to 8 in 9 seasons under Mack.
 


ethomasp31 said:
Look at Ryan James tweet on who he played a big part of bringing to Minnesota...
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Yeah those are good players...he also missed on like 10 more in state guys.

We also weren't cutting nets down with those players, xavier wasn't recruiting great with him on staff, xavier has been very down since he's been on staff, and he has no coaching experience. The coaches in this league will eat him for breakfast in game.

This isn't Ben's fault...it just isn't a good hire right now
 

WindyCityGopher said:
It’s freaking Pitino 2.0! But at least Richard had a year as a head coach under his belt and he was soon exposed to be a vastly unqualified Big Ten head coach.This smacks of Teague’s desperation hire when nobody wanted the job. I can’t take any more of the bottom-feeding shit. Act like a damn Big Ten school and stop with the crony hires!
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Except it's pretty obvious that we didn't even interview most of the obvious candidates since they all got knocked out of the tournament in the last 72 hours.
 

NDGopher69420 said:
Either way it's painfully obvious that we need to move on from Coyle who can no longer effectively do his job for whatever reason. He bowed to the media and hired a cheap minority coach who no one else wanted over proven head coaches who badly wanted the job. Time to find someone who is willing to stand up to the critics and actually make the best hire for the program.
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Take your racist ass back to ND and stay there.
 




Bad Gopher said:
This is a classic case of the U outsmarting itself again.
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It was a prisoner of the moment hire to get a black coach because of the George Floyd movement and a delusional thought of recruiting every single MN recruit....Coyle will be heading for the exits in a few years.
 

GopherGangsta said:
He will be gone in 4 and Coyle will be forced to resign after the spectacular failure....Glad i dropped my season tickets years ago.
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So now we all get to see every post from you being about how much Johnson sucks for 4 years. What a welcome change from all your previous posts the past few years.
 

JimmyJamesMD said:
I just don't know how someone with zero HC experience at any level can be hired for this job? It's inexcusable
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Tom Izzo, Juwan Howard, Greg Gard, and Chris Collins all had their first ever HC job at their current Big Ten school.

Matt Painter had 2 yrs at SIU. Penn State’s guy also had 2 years from 2005-7 at IU South Bend.

It’s pretty common to have coaches with no HC exp in Big Ten and a good number of them have been big successes.
 

gopherdudepart2 said:
A lot of local coaches and players hated Richard Pitinio, the guy was a monster douche.
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While personally I didn't enjoy his sarcasm I doubt most thought he was a douche otherwise you would have seen many articles citing a dislike of him as a main reason someone didn't commit here. Just sour grapes on your part because you believe he rode daddy's coat tails and feel the need to run your mouth about it continually.
 

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