Ben Johnson is a Disaster

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DanvilleGopher said:
Yes, have you watched him in front of the camera? There aren't too many things more uncomfortable than to watch him answering questions from the media..
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I mean they put the kid from PSU on there a couple years ago and he was terrible. Ben is a media darling.
 






MVC is too high for Ben. It was too high an entry point which makes his hiring here that much more egregious. P5 experience is of no value if you got slaughtered and it’s all you have. If he wants to rebound with an HC job he should be looking at low D1: NE conf, Horizon conf, HBCUs, etc. But if he’s going to wind up a successful D1 coach, which I hope happens, he needs a few more years assistant in D1 with more exposure to the tactical side. He’s totally lacking there but can improve. If he does, combined with his ability to instill some grittiness and resiliency, I think he could build a credible HC resume. I don’t see his poor ability to judge talent or to build a program identity off the court changing, but they can potentially be overcome.
 

I'm still not sure if Ben doesn't have an offensive system or didn't have the players to run the system he wanted. I lean toward the former. Was learning on the job, which you can't do in BIG.
Also, think he was too nice. Never saw him get in face of refs or his players for f' ups. You have to do that sometimes.
 




TNGophfan said:
I'm still not sure if Ben doesn't have an offensive system or didn't have the players to run the system he wanted. I lean toward the former. Was learning on the job, which you can't do in BIG.
Also, think he was too nice. Never saw him get in face of refs or his players for f' ups. You have to do that sometimes.
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I often thought the disconnect was him trying to be way above in complexity relative to his players.

I think it was 5 high with a read and react instead of setting constraints on gaurds. I don’t think he had the personnel this year. They couldn’t shoot consistently enough. So other teams could disappear Dawson, and we couldn’t respond,

Except of course when we did, we’d do fine for streaks. Then inevitably We’d go cold and have those scoring droughts of 3,4, or 5 minutes.

No option B to manufacture a bucket when shots were not falling was often a killer. Probably lost him his job.

Perhaps that was stubbornness? perhaps it was trying too hard to fit players to the offense versus fitting the offense to the players? And both coupled with not giving up on the Gaurds being free flowing?

If you think back, you probably recall Talon Cooper, Hawkins, and lu’Cye Patterson all getting a ton of hell on the board early season? Then, they appeared much better 2nd half. Anyhow, I took that as because he gave Gaurds a lot of freedom. Less set plays, they read and react to things on the floor.

It took a long time for them to learn how to read and react. It usually showed later that it was theoretically good, just too slow to implement relative to the changes in college basketball landscape.

I think having a year in the program then, having using that system would have neen fine for a lot of gaurds, if not excellent.

However, it didn’t jive with the reality of the situations Ben was facing. Too fancy, when good enough was what was warranted.

In order to be successful, Ben’s offenses needed a core together of 6-7 players with only a few newbies.

The 2nd year together, that would’ve been the payoff.

People would then be surprised, becuase read and react creates a secondary and tertiary problem when learning. I.e. one guy moves and everyone else responds, and reads wrong, it has flow through affects. The upside is it also creates those problems in 2nd and 3rd years together, for the other teams. So it looks exponentially better the longer groups of players work together.
 



gopherhoopsguy said:
I haven’t seen Ben do any job interviews yet! I wonder why. I was told by Nadine Ben is an awesome coach. I was guessing all kinds of schools are knocking on his door
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Most guys in his position take a year off and collect their $$. Can't fault him for that.

Or he's waiting for Tauer to take the Drake job so he can get St Thomas.
 
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Any AD reading or hearing Ben talk about all his superstitions is not going to hire him.
 


One hundred seventy-six pages of anxiety. Someday, we will move on and let the past dissolve into oblivion.

And yes, we can stop embracing the suck.
 




kg21 said:
I was no Ben fan but he tried his best.

I wish him luck.

This thread should be locked. It's over now!
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Agree. The point was proven valid, but it’s old news now.
 


MNVCGUY said:
Yeah.....kind of sad that some still feel the need to take shots at him even after he has been fired.

Just the way some people are wired though I guess.
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I was thinking about this. The people here care about Gopher basketball, and Ben presided over a time of alarming decline in and damage to Gopher basketball. There's bound to be lingering resentment. I think it's natural.

As far as whether that's fair to Johnson, let me put it this way to you: If I were to float you a deal where I give you more than 10 million dollars with the condition that, a few days later, people say some bad things about you, would you take that deal?
 

Bad Gopher said:
I was thinking about this. The people here care about Gopher basketball, and Ben presided over a time of alarming decline in and damage to Gopher basketball. There's bound to be lingering resentment. I think it's natural.

As far as whether that's fair to Johnson, let me put it this way to you: If I were to float you a deal where I give you more than 10 million dollars with the condition that, a few days later, people say some bad things about you, would you take that deal?
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People were saying some bad things about CBJ for a more than a few days, but I understand the point 👍
 

Bad Gopher said:
I was thinking about this. The people here care about Gopher basketball, and Ben presided over a time of alarming decline in and damage to Gopher basketball. There's bound to be lingering resentment. I think it's natural.

As far as whether that's fair to Johnson, let me put it this way to you: If I were to float you a deal where I give you more than 10 million dollars with the condition that, a few days later, people say some bad things about you, would you take that deal?
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Well said. He's 44 years old and $10 million fine and I doubt is reading this board. If he is reading this board, he's laughing at us amateurs while checks of a size none of us will ever see come in. Actually, he should just be thankful for all the interest in the program, even if it's temporarily very negative towards him, because that's how he got all that money anyway. He never needs to work another day in his life.
 

Bad Gopher said:
I was thinking about this. The people here care about Gopher basketball, and Ben presided over a time of alarming decline in and damage to Gopher basketball. There's bound to be lingering resentment. I think it's natural.

As far as whether that's fair to Johnson, let me put it this way to you: If I were to float you a deal where I give you more than 10 million dollars with the condition that, a few days later, people say some bad things about you, would you take that deal?
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It's done. Time to move on.
 


jamiche said:
It's done. Time to move on.
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I understand the sentiment, but it would be impossible to not draw parallels to the previous regime. When Tubby was let go for Pitino and even a whiff of negativity was voiced toward Tubby, it ended up being a bat signal for @dpodoll68 to defend him for years. Eventually the criticism faded. It will with Ben Johnson also.
 


golfing18now said:
I understand the sentiment, but it would be impossible to not draw parallels to the previous regime. When Tubby was let go for Pitino and even a whiff of negativity was voiced toward Tubby, it ended up being a bat signal for @dpodoll68 to defend him for years. Eventually the criticism faded. It will with Ben Johnson also.
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If I recall I was a Tubby defender as well. Looking back on it now it was pretty clear he was mailing it in.
 

jamiche said:
The only people who can regulate this board are the owners. Not sure why you are still litigating Johnson. He's gone.
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Litigating?? It's called conversation. People are free to talk about what they want to talk about whether you like it or not.
 

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