At 1:19am, 3.13.25. - The Ben Johnson Era has ended and Ben is fired

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I'm bummed out it didn't work.

One of my buddies has known Ben since 5th grade, and considers Thorson one of his best friends.

They are both solid guys, but it was time for a change.

And I enjoy Nadine and have even made BBQ for her and brought over some food when she had COVID. She is passionate about what she believes in and doesn't hold back punches defending her beliefs.
 


Spaulding!No! said:
Simply a great man. He gave 100% for the U and asked for nothing in return.
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Ummm, $1.95M per year with almost a $3M going away present is nothing to you? The man asked for way more than her deserved and got way more than he deserved while delivering almost none of what he said he would.

I really hope you are joking, because if I read it sarcastically, it's funny.
 

MilosRevenge said:
We were sold on the hire due to his ability to recruit high school players, specifically Minnesota players. Through no fault of his own, transfers and NIL made that less important.
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Blame NIL all you want Ben apologists!

If he had just recruited the kids who became skunks our talent level would have been at least three times better.

Making excuses for a failed coach, pathetic!

Scoreboard don’t lie! Ben might be the greatest guy ever but he sucks as a coach.
 



stocker08 said:
Re-read the post you responded to. Transfers and NIL absolutely made the job more difficult. If the team wasn't scraping the bottom of the barrel for NIL.....decent chance that Hawkins and Payne wouldn't have jumped ship.
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Without transfers we don't have Garcia or Hawkins
 
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Ski-U-Ham said:
Without transfers we don't have Garcia or Hawkinns
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Garcia would have likely gotten a waiver for his transfer and I believe this was Hawkins first transfer.....was it not? Those NCAA rules were already in place prior to the wild west NIL free agency situation that's happening now. Hawkins and Payne went to the highest bidders. Hard to argue that.
 


stocker08 said:
Garcia would have likely gotten a waiver for his transfer and I believe this was Hawkins first transfer.....was it not? Those NCAA rules were already in place prior to the wild west NIL free agency situation that's happening now. Hawkins and Payne went to the highest bidders. Hard to argue that.
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Poor Ben.
 



Zeppelin Gopher said:
GopherLady is throwing a complete hissy fit, par for the course.

Lump her in with Souhan, Fuller, Gaard, Jonny K, Meat Sauce, Lavelle, and the rest of the local loser media cabal.
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We sure do seem to be blessed with lots of "homer journalists" that do not seem to understand that the fan base was fed up with mediocrity at best and that the apathy shown is not by our choice but driven by an administration at the U that cannot read the room.
 


Zeppelin Gopher said:
I mean Nadine is an idiot. That's all there is to it.

If she was a nice person I wouldn't call her out out as much. But she's an awful person with awful basketball takes to match.
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Yeah, I'm just not sure how you can watch the last 4 years of Gopher basketball and come up with a post like that. Are we even watching the same game? A lot of posts on twitter were very sympathetic towards Ben under the announcement on the U of M page.
 




GopherTheJugular said:
Is he the one who's really a badger fan but posts on here all the time? I think I recall people calling someone out like that, but can't remember who.
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It's pretty much sarcasm across the board with him. Sometimes he hits and makes me laugh. Sometimes he misses.
 

GopherBlood777 said:
Yeah, I'm just not sure how you can watch the last 4 years of Gopher basketball and come up with a post like that. Are we even watching the same game? A lot of posts on twitter were very sympathetic towards Ben under the announcement on the U of M page.
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It's not HOW the game is played/coached. It's WHO is playing/coaching the game. You've already established that if she likes you, then you are a winner, even if you're conference winning percentage is 0.220.

Image über alles.
 

Ben's a nice enough guy, but this needed to be done.



Now I'll make it about me...

I've essentially had season tickets since I was born and gone to most home games since 1970. I can honestly say that I've never been less interested in this program and the thought of paying $3k-ish for my 3 tickets had gotten increasingly painful over the last 4 years.

Each year is basically a completely new team, save for a few players. When you can't follow a team year to year and watch players grow through the system, it becomes that much more difficult to care. Yeah, yeah. NIL But it seems like we have this problem more than the other basement dwellers in the Big Ten. (Yes, we're officially a basement dweller) Why is that?

And then there's the number of games this year we pissed away either due to missed free throws (66% as a team on the season...), lack of situational awareness, bonehead fouls (intentional foul at half court when up 2, anyone?), or just shot clock violations (I am convinced we set the NCAA record for those this year). These are not NIL issues.

And waaaay too many games where the Barn has basically been 1/2 full. That's frankly embarrassing. And then there's the games I can't make due to travel...I'm lucky to get $20/ticket because the program is basically giving the open seats away...and due to the number of open seats people can purchase a baseline balcony seat and go sit midcourt down low and nobody cares.

Yeah, NIL and the portal have made it tough, but can we honestly do any worse than we've done over the last 4 years?


SeasonBT RecordOverallBT TournamentNITNCAA
2021-224-16 (tie for last)13-170-10-00-0
2022-232-17 (dead last by 3 games)9-221-10-00-0
2023-249-11 (3-way tie for 9th out of 14)19-150-11-10-0
2024-257-13 (5-way tie for 12th out of 18)15-170-10-0 (assumed)0-0

I am now looking forward to next season more than I was yesterday.
 
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stocker08 said:
Garcia would have likely gotten a waiver for his transfer and I believe this was Hawkins first transfer.....was it not? Those NCAA rules were already in place prior to the wild west NIL free agency situation that's happening now. Hawkins and Payne went to the highest bidders. Hard to argue that.
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It's possible but you don't know that. People want to completely remove the head coach as a factor. In both cases, there are also solid head coaches in place.
 

brucekaupa said:
Yeah, NIL and the portal have made it tough, but can we honestly do any worse than we've done over the last 4 years?


SeasonBT RecordOverallBT TournamentNITNCAA
2021-224-16 (tie for last)13-170-10-00-0
2022-232-17 (dead last by 3 games)9-221-10-00-0
2023-249-11 (3-way tie for 9th out of 14)19-150-11-10-0
2024-257-13 (5-way tie for 12th out of 18)15-170-10-0 (assumed)0-0

I am now looking forward to next season more than I was yesterday.
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I hate to break it to you, but yes, it is possible to do worse. Finishing dead freaking last 4 straight years would be worse, in now an even B1Gger conference.

I'm not making an argument that have should entitled Ben to another year, just pointing out an even lower finish in the Big 10 standings is quite conceivable and missing the Big 10 Tournament entirely.

But now there's hope. Unfortunately that guarantees squat.
 
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Ope3 said:
I hate to break it to you, but yes, it is possible to do worse. Finishing dead freaking last 4 straight years would be worse, in now an even B1Gger conference.

I'm not making an argument that have should entitled Ben to another year, just pointing out an even lower finish in the Big 10 standings is quite conceivable.

But now there's hope. Unfortunately that guarantees squat.
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"Hey, it could be worse!" is the official slogan of all Minnesota sports. You don't need to remind us.
 



Ope3 said:
I hate to break it to you, but yes, it is possible to do worse. Finishing dead freaking last 4 straight years would be worse, in now an even B1Gger conference.
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To put it in a different light, looking at the ties a different way (from the bottom)

2021-22: Tied for last
2022-23: Dead last
2023-24: Tied for 11th out of 14
2024-25: Tied for 16th out of 18

Could we do worse? Barely.
 

GopherBlood777 said:
Power trip morning show has no idea how anyone will win here if Ben Johnson couldn't.
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I'm not going to tell them how to do their jobs. They have great ratings, so they're obviously doing something right. But all they're doing with bad takes like this is making themselves look like clowns and antagonizing fans who listen to the games on their own station. SMH
 

brucekaupa said:
To put it in a different light, looking at the ties a different way (from the bottom)

2021-22: Tied for last
2022-23: Dead last
2023-24: Tied for 11th out of 14
2024-25: Tied for 16th out of 18

Could we do worse? Barely.
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That's what johnnyboy said when we hired Ben: ) "Can't do much worse than 13th" was the motto at the time
 

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