Jack Wilson commits

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MonikerSchmoniker45 said:
Wouldn't we rather have a one year guy who we know can hold his ground physically over a questionable freshman that could potentially waste a scholarship for 4 years?
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Not if every single year we add another guy who wastes a scholarship (Ogele, Wilson, etc.). We have had three straight seasons of doing this kind of thing with scholarships and the answer is always a PT thing or "yeah, but we only waste it for 1 season". I guess I don't see how wasting a scholarship on different one year players 4 years in a row is any difference than the freshman scenario.

Also, with the portal and players being "pushed" out, it's largely moot anyway, the FR doesn't need to last if we don't want him to (Thiam).
 

MNVCGUY said:
Counting on them to be major contributors is risky.....counting on them to be rotational players who come in off the bench and provide some quality minutes is far less so.

There is a lot of unknown with those guys. The likelihood that either is a star play for us is slim but some of you act like they are pushing around walkers and can barely move. Guys recover from injuries all the time. Curry had a very productive final season. Ibrahim came back from an injury that some see as a death sentence for RB.
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Curry and Mo were proven good players at this level prior to their injuries. Fox and Ihnen were not. And we could have definitely used better posts than what we had in Curry his final season.
 

DarthGopher said:
Are you under the impression you can disallow something and enforce a different outcome? Because I've got news for you - you can't. There isn't a damn thing you can do about it. You know it. I know it. Everybody knows it. You could strap yourself to a tree and refuse to eat until the University made things right in your eyes. Unfortunately, you'll starve to death and CBJ will still be the coach this fall.

Don't confuse accepting the brutal truth of the situation with being pollyannish about it. The program either takes significant steps this season or there will be changes. If something can't continue, it won't.

Do I think CBJ turns it around? Truthfully, no. But I've been wrong before and I'm hoping I'm wrong again. We have another year on this lease for sure. In the meantime, I am choosing to wait and see what happens. Much less stressful than constantly fretting over something I literally have zero control over.
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It really can't be said any better for the Gretas who have strapped themselves to trees and gone on hunger strike.
 





60's Guy said:
So, if I add Jack to the frontcourt list above that's 12 scholarships.
Who is the 13th? Didn't we have 4 available before Jack? Why only two left?
Who we forgetting?
Isn't the walkon from New Life at center also filling the backup center role?
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No chance Reader is the backup center......you think TT was skinny? He has 25 lbs on Reader.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
Not if every single year we add another guy who wastes a scholarship (Ogele, Wilson, etc.). We have had three straight seasons of doing this kind of thing with scholarships and the answer is always a PT thing or "yeah, but we only waste it for 1 season". I guess I don't see how wasting a scholarship on different one year players 4 years in a row is any difference than the freshman scenario.

Also, with the portal and players being "pushed" out, it's largely moot anyway, the FR doesn't need to last if we don't want him to (Thiam).
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True. But we wouldn't have went after Wilson if our 5-star center recruit didn't bail after he signed the papers.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Betts, Ihnen, Fox.....all fit into the front court rotation somewhere with Payne, Garcia and JOJ, we don't need a 10-15 minute a night center....we just don't.
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Yeah, I just don't see any of those guys minus payne being able to guard someone like Steven Crowl or even Tyler Wahl for that matter in the post, and that is just one team currently above us in the conference depth chart. We will see, I am hoping for better defense this season overall.
 



GopherTheJugular said:
Interesting. Regarding #2, did you make that up yourself? Or is Ben somehow opposed to offering guys that could legitimately earn more playing time? And surely the last thing we'd want is to bring in someone who could compete with Payne, right? Pity the thought!

I'm not sure I see the brilliance in the anti-PJ Fleck approach: "you're kinda good and have potential, so I'll make sure to bring in people worse than you".

I like the Fleck approach of trying to out-recruit your roster, but that's just me.
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Lots of luck getting a good one to come in and compete with Payne for a starting job.
 


Dakota2 said:
Lots of luck getting a good one to come in and compete with Payne for a starting job.
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Lots of schools bring in great talent year after year after year.... Many benches are filled with better tallent... And not one of em brings in a guy who hasn't paned out and who also took 2 years off to play football and gives them a scholarship... I'm fine with the decision to bring in a player like this.. but why oh why would you waste a scholarship on him...
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
Curry and Mo were proven good players at this level prior to their injuries. Fox and Ihnen were not. And we could have definitely used better posts than what we had in Curry his final season.
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Look....you can write them off and assume they are lost causes. I am going to give them a chance to show what they can do before giving up on them. Ihnen was highly rated out of high school and Fox was a prized target in the portal so both have some ability.

My point on Curry is that he came back and was able to play his entire final year. He was in a terrible situation given the lack of front court players but would have been very successful most likely if he could have been looked at for a role similar to what Fox and or Ihnen will most likely need to play on the 23-24 team.
 



Dakota2 said:
Lots of luck getting a good one to come in and compete with Payne for a starting job.
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We don't need someone to compete with Payne, just someone who can at least provide defense at a high level if he needs to rest or sit with foul trouble. Maybe that is already Parker Fox? We shall see.
 

GopherBlood666 said:
We will see if Wilson can give 5 per game. He is more likely a DNP barring unfavorable circumstances. Ben has not shown much in terms of mixing in bench players. He goes with 7-8 tops as he prefers. Wilson already is outside of that if everyone is healthy.
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Ben has had some limited rosters.
 

GopherBlood666 said:
Yeah, I just don't see any of those guys minus payne being able to guard someone like Steven Crowl or even Tyler Wahl for that matter in the post, and that is just one team currently above us in the conference depth chart. We will see, I am hoping for better defense this season overall.
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With all due respect....how can you be so certain those guys won't be able to cut it on the defensive end of the court?
 

Big Dawg said:
Name a 4 and 5 currently in the portal better than Garcia and Payne. There are probably some (10-15 maybe). After you name them, tell me why they would want to come to a last place team to compete for playing time at positions of relative strength. I would submit that Ben has a much easier time selling the 1-3 positions on the court to portal players than he does to 4's and 5's. I don't think Payne and Garcia are irreplaceable. I do think they will be (barring injury) one of the top 4-6 front courts in the BIG this coming season. 4's and 5's currently in the portal who are better than Garcia and Payne will be heading to programs much better than the gophers.
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Dickinson, Edwards, Ware, Nkamhoua, Ike, Cisse, Aimaq, Shredrick, Handlogten, Baker, Krikke, Minor, DeLoach, Oduro, Boone, Mast, Samuel, Lampkin Jr. I'm sure there are others. I'd take all them over Payne for next year.
 

leib0039 said:
You are correct on this. That said, I hope you understand why some of us have 0 faith in CBJ and don't trust him. He's done a horrible job of building rosters, he's had a terrible record, and has no history otherwise. Sure it's his team, we all get that. And you can say that we should trust them but, it's just hard when we are getting guys who are almost assuredly useless in terms of on court production. I don't think that's an unreasonable take.
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The take is not unreasonable. Stating it thousands of times is.
 

Dakota2 said:
Emergency minutes backing up Payne will happen from the first non-con game in November and every game until April. There is no game in Payne's career where he will play 40 minutes, nor should anyone want that even if he was never whistled for a foul.

Payne might average 25 minutes. The other 15 minutes are emergency because we had no one besides Payne to defend at post. Fox will get a good shot and we'll see how he holds up.

It is foolish to play Garcia at 5. He's not strong enough to defend, plus all smart coaches will go right at him to foul him out.

If Wilson can give us 5-10 minutes a night, his job is to play tough D, push opposing center away from hoop, get some rebounds, and hammer anyone coming into his zone. He will have 5 fouls to give, the harder the better.
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Stop with this 5-10 minute bull crap. If he's playing that, we are gonna be even worse than last year. He shouldn't see the court.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
Whose opinion on the roster do you trust more?

I disagree with Howie on most things, but he's been much more accurate with assessing Gopher basketball players over the last couple of years than Ben Johnson.
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LOL! Dumbest post in history. Howie is negative. Every game where we fall behind he declares over. It’s been a negative two years. I don’t know if Ben is a good coach or a bad one but either way I trust his judgement on basketball players far more than any poster here.
 

MNVCGUY said:
With all due respect....how can you be so certain those guys won't be able to cut it on the defensive end of the court?
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JOJ is small and okay in short bursts, not good for extended minutes against true bigs, could be better this season for sure. Garcia gets pushed around by bigger players, we saw that this season. Ihnen and fox both coming off multiple knee surgeries and are complete wild cards. Betts has some size but I would imagine he won't be moving guys in the post his first year on the court. I don't know they won't cut it, but I also don't know that they will. All of those players are also better than the subject of the this thread. I feel this is the biggest problem with this signing. It addresses a need in spirit without actually physically address the need.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
Not if every single year we add another guy who wastes a scholarship (Ogele, Wilson, etc.). We have had three straight seasons of doing this kind of thing with scholarships and the answer is always a PT thing or "yeah, but we only waste it for 1 season". I guess I don't see how wasting a scholarship on different one year players 4 years in a row is any difference than the freshman scenario.

Also, with the portal and players being "pushed" out, it's largely moot anyway, the FR doesn't need to last if we don't want him to (Thiam).
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Wilson's scholarship is not wasted. You might be able to say that a year from now, but not today. If he plays a role in keeping Payne and Garcia from fouling out many games, it will be a scholarship well spent.
 

bga1 said:
LOL! Dumbest post in history. Howie is negative. Every game where we fall behind he declares over. It’s been a negative two years. I don’t know if Ben is a good coach or a bad one but either way I trust his judgement on basketball players far more than any poster here.
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That does objectively lineup with the general performance of the team the last 2 seasons.
 


MNVCGUY said:
I know some don't like the whole "the coaches are with these guys everyday" line of thinking and prefer to assume that we as fans know better.....but....

Johnson knows what kind of shape Fox and Ihnen are in right now, and he is going to have a pretty good idea of what each brings to the table. Could they have another season ending injury....sure....could happen to any player but until it happens the coach has to look at the pieces they have and use them accordingly.

The fact that we don't appear to be actively pursuing heavy minute front court players tells me they think they are going to get something from Betts, Ihnen and Fox to go along with the players we have already. Maybe they will end up being wrong but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt in terms of knowing where guys are at in their recovery and how they are recovering.
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Giving this staff the benefit of the doubt seems like the wrong thing to do.
 

USAF said:
FFS, he played a grand total of 41 minutes last year. Forty. One. Minutes. At WSU. Took 4 shots. He's had years to show what he's capable of. He's not going to "provide 10-15 minutes of backup to Payne, rebound and play defense."
It's a complete waste of a scholarship. Provides NOTHING that will help win B1G games. Nothing. Zilch. Zero.

It would be better to leave the scholarship open and save the Athletic Department $60000 or whatever a sholarship costs.
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And he got most of those shots playing football, right?
 

Big Dawg said:
Major contributors? 10+ minutes per game from both? 2 of the top 8-9 players in the rotation? I could possibly see that, but I'm thinking more of guys who can BACKUP the 3,4,5 positions for a few minutes per game. I could easily see our top 8-9 guys (10+ min/gm) being:

PG Mitchell
SG portal/Christie/Carrington
3 Christie/JOJ/Betts/portal shooter/Ihnen
4 Garcia with Betts/JOJ/Ihnen/Fox backing up
5 Payne with Garcia/Wilson/Fox backing up

(Top 8 in minutes bolded-my guess)

That scenario could play out with Fox and Ihnen being contributors but I would say MAJOR contirbutors. I do hope they are both healthy.
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All good except Garcia as first backup to Payne. We don't want both in foul trouble all night.
 


Gophers7633 said:
Dickinson, Edwards, Ware, Nkamhoua, Ike, Cisse, Aimaq, Shredrick, Handlogten, Baker, Krikke, Minor, DeLoach, Oduro, Boone, Mast, Samuel, Lampkin Jr. I'm sure there are others. I'd take all them over Payne for next year.
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Good job naming them....now do the second part and explain why they would want to come here and are realistic gets for us.
 


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