Ben Is the Coach - We Need Some Patience

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60's Guy

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Ben isn't going to get fired without a mass exodus or other circumstances beyond losing Evans and games.
He did recruit Evans to a NLI, he deserves credit for that. Evans likes Ben. His advisors want him to accept a big money NIL deal. The AD has not provided Ben with any NIL boosters so that's not on Ben.

Imagine you are a high school kid and your advisors want you to follow big money. $100k or $500k or more... it's a lot of money. Tough situation...not the kids fault, not Ben's fault.

We gotta wait to see how many guys are coming back. Then we need two guard scorers in the portal. We need more points...we aren't going to win shutting people down. Then we can judge Ben next year. Can't win 1,2,3,4 conference games next year to see year 4. If 2, 3, 4 current players leave...if Christie asks for his release...that's a different discussion.

Dennis Evans is a non story going forward to Gopher fortunes. Are we going to get a NIL collective in place? Are we going to find a business partner for NIL? That's not Ben's job. He did his job on the recruiting trail.
Separate argument whether you focus on the portal in this era.
 


Offense will help but this league is too strong to compete while being weak defensively. If they are not in the top half of the league defensively, they will continue to be mediocre at best. If we held teams to under 60 instead of 75 a game, we would be far more successful even in this season. I thought Ben understood this. Why else is Thorson the top assistant, wasn't elite defense the plan from the beginning?
 

Don’t you need good lateral foot speed for elite defense? We only have 2 players with above average lateral quickness for their position JOJ and Payne, that’s just 2 players.
 

If Bad Gopher is using Samuel Beckett, I’m dragging out Robert Burns. “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”
 


march madness said:
Don’t you need good lateral foot speed for elite defense? We only have 2 players with above average lateral quickness for their position JOJ and Payne, that’s just 2 players.
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They lack foot speed but don't lack size. Someone is getting paid a lot of money to figure out how to make that work for the team. If Ben didn't recruit good offensive players, and those players also can't play or be taught how to defend, then what the hell are we even doing?
 

GopherBlood666 said:
They lack foot speed but don't lack size. Someone is getting paid a lot of money to figure out how to make that work for the team. If Ben didn't recruit good offensive players, and those players also can't play or be taught how to defend, then what the hell are we even doing?
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We're missing free throws, that's the hell what we're doing!
 

GopherBlood666 said:
Offense will help but this league is too strong to compete while being weak defensively. If they are not in the top half of the league defensively, they will continue to be mediocre at best. If we held teams to under 60 instead of 75 a game, we would be far more successful even in this season. I thought Ben understood this. Why else is Thorson the top assistant, wasn't elite defense the plan from the beginning?
Click to expand...
The primary reason this team can't compete isn't defense, it's lack of offensive skill. They aren't capable of consistently putting the ball in hoop.

They lack shooting, individual skills to beat defenders one on one, ball handling, offensive rebounders, and they turn the ball over too often.

Until/unless they fix that, defense won't help enough to make any real difference. You can't defend your way to any meaningful level of success.
 

USAF said:
The primary reason this team can't compete isn't defense, it's lack of offensive skill. They aren't capable of consistently putting the ball in hoop.

They lack shooting, individual skills to beat defenders one on one, ball handling, offensive rebounders, and they turn the ball over too often.

Until/unless they fix that, defense won't help enough to make any real difference. You can't defend your way to any meaningful level of success.
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And that made me wonder with Evans. He was averaging 14 points in high school at 7'1"

He would not have helped the scoring much at all.
 



march madness said:
Don’t you need good lateral foot speed for elite defense? We only have 2 players with above average lateral quickness for their position JOJ and Payne, that’s just 2 players.
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what makes you think Payne has good lateral quickness?
 



kg21 said:
And that made me wonder with Evans. He was averaging 14 points in high school at 7'1"

He would not have helped the scoring much at all.
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Evans was all about the rating...once he started playing he's on the wrong team style and with the wrong teammates fit to have any chance of impressing anybody.
 




GopherBlood666 said:
Offense will help but this league is too strong to compete while being weak defensively. If they are not in the top half of the league defensively, they will continue to be mediocre at best. If we held teams to under 60 instead of 75 a game, we would be far more successful even in this season. I thought Ben understood this. Why else is Thorson the top assistant, wasn't elite defense the plan from the beginning?
Click to expand...
What Ben says is the emphasis and what the players show us is the emphasis don't match up.
So much so...I'm not sure what the emphasis in practice is?

My point was...we have seen we are not going to be a strong defensive team so maybe with somme more points we can win some games. 100% to be a top team defense has to be a calling card...just don't see that with this group of coaches.
 

I love when people preach to Gopher fans to be patient. WE'RE MORE THAN FN PATIENT!!! We've advanced past the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament 1 time since 1990. 1 TIME!!!!!!!! We haven't been a Rose Bowl since JFK was in office. JFK!!!!!!!

There's not a P5 fan base more patient than us. It's getting a bit old though.

Go Gophers!!
 

march madness said:
Don’t you need good lateral foot speed for elite defense? We only have 2 players with above average lateral quickness for their position JOJ and Payne, that’s just 2 players.
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There are teams, such as WI, that does not have great quickness and they still play excellent team defense. We have good enough athletes to be a much better defensive team. So many mental and effort errors.
 

USAF said:
The primary reason this team can't compete isn't defense, it's lack of offensive skill. They aren't capable of consistently putting the ball in hoop.

They lack shooting, individual skills to beat defenders one on one, ball handling, offensive rebounders, and they turn the ball over too often.

Until/unless they fix that, defense won't help enough to make any real difference. You can't defend your way to any meaningful level of success.
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So....to summarize: we don't have very good basketball players.
 

The defense is subpar and that’s disappointing.

Offense requires talent, but defense is far more coachable / controllable.

Ben is just going to run out of time here. A big ten job isn’t a place to learn how to run a program. Or at least it shouldn’t be. He needs to learn that at a lower level.
 

60's Guy said:
Ben isn't going to get fired without a mass exodus or other circumstances beyond losing Evans and games.
He did recruit Evans to a NLI, he deserves credit for that. Evans likes Ben. His advisors want him to accept a big money NIL deal. The AD has not provided Ben with any NIL boosters so that's not on Ben.

Imagine you are a high school kid and your advisors want you to follow big money. $100k or $500k or more... it's a lot of money. Tough situation...not the kids fault, not Ben's fault.

We gotta wait to see how many guys are coming back. Then we need two guard scorers in the portal. We need more points...we aren't going to win shutting people down. Then we can judge Ben next year. Can't win 1,2,3,4 conference games next year to see year 4. If 2, 3, 4 current players leave...if Christie asks for his release...that's a different discussion.

Dennis Evans is a non story going forward to Gopher fortunes. Are we going to get a NIL collective in place? Are we going to find a business partner for NIL? That's not Ben's job. He did his job on the recruiting trail.
Separate argument whether you focus on the portal in this era.
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You make a good point that Ben gets major credit for recruiting Evans, building the relationship, and gaining his trust. That was phenomenal.

But I'm not sure all of the blame for his withdrawal can be laid to big NIL money.

Evans liked Ben. He made his own decision to play for Coach Johnson at the University of Minnesota. It is very possible he would have held firm against family pressure if only we could have shown something with this team. Had we been competitive in more games, won a handful in conference play, maybe it would have been enough.

Ben showed he can recruit at the highest level. But he didn't coach a competitive team. Evan's loss is partly on Ben.
 

BleedGopher said:
I love when people preach to Gopher fans to be patient. WE'RE MORE THAN FN PATIENT!!! We've advanced past the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament 1 time since 1990. 1 TIME!!!!!!!! We haven't been a Rose Bowl since JFK was in office. JFK!!!!!!!

There's not a P5 fan base more patient than us. It's getting a bit old though.

Go Gophers!!
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What's done is done. We hired the wrong guy. Unless some more players leave Ben is coaching in year 3 for certain. He is just not going to get fired because Dennis Evans leaves or because we only win one game. From that reality, I'm saying patience.
I'm not saying patience because I see progress on the horizon.
 

Dakota2 said:
You make a good point that Ben gets major credit for recruiting Evans, building the relationship, and gaining his trust. That was phenomenal.

But I'm not sure all of the blame for his withdrawal can be laid to big NIL money.

Evans liked Ben. He made his own decision to play for Coach Johnson at the University of Minnesota. It is very possible he would have held firm against family pressure if only we could have shown something with this team. Had we been competitive in more games, won a handful in conference play, maybe it would have been enough.

Ben showed he can recruit at the highest level. But he didn't coach a competitive team. Evan's loss is partly on Ben.
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Bold in the quote above is why there is so much ire. There is a synergy between recruiting and coaching. The sales pitch has to be backed by results. Ben has done the sales pitch, but the results, the effort on the court by previous recruits is sorely lacking. It is bad enough to scare off future recruits.
 

60's Guy said:
Imagine you are a high school kid and your advisors want you to follow big money. $100k or $500k or more... it's a lot of money. Tough situation...not the kids fault, not Ben's fault.
Click to expand...
Totally agree. That's life-changing money for a kid like that, so God bless him for chasing it I guess. Sucks for us, but this is the apparent big money reality going forward, and we will not be the only program impacted negatively by that. Either we find the will and way to get onboard the NIL money train, or we learn to manage our way and seek success around it. Those are the only alternatives, and either seems at least theoretically doable for us.
 

BleedGopher said:
I love when people preach to Gopher fans to be patient. WE'RE MORE THAN FN PATIENT!!! We've advanced past the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament 1 time since 1990. 1 TIME!!!!!!!! We haven't been a Rose Bowl since JFK was in office. JFK!!!!!!!

There's not a P5 fan base more patient than us. It's getting a bit old though.

Go Gophers!!
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Its actually pure foolishness to be a fan of 'college' basketball.
 

Seany said:
Totally agree. That's life-changing money for a kid like that, so God bless him for chasing it I guess. Sucks for us, but this is the apparent big money reality going forward, and we will not be the only program impacted negatively by that. Either we find the will and way to get onboard the NIL money train, or we learn to manage our way and seek success around it. Those are the only alternatives, and either seems at least theoretically doable for us.
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I think the raw dollar’s being quoted are both absurd and false, probably being fed by the agencies that sell themselves on getting these deals. The cash is grim but it still will be a relatively small number of players who actually get paid. A handful of schools have boosters who will lay out cash that makes no business sense so they can be part of a winning program. NIL when it makes business sense might work in a place like Minnesota but it’s not likely happening just as a booster project, like most places I think.

The key for the places with rational business people is creating a culture that succeeds in blending a few players who get some money with the majority in the poverty of a free education.

The far more serious challenge to reasonable parity is the combination of cash with free transfers. The sit out year has to come back on all transfers to bring some sense of stability to the sport. That will actually create a challenging decision to pay or get paid but not both for at least a year.
 

60's Guy said:
What's done is done. We hired the wrong guy. Unless some more players leave Ben is coaching in year 3 for certain. He is just not going to get fired because Dennis Evans leaves or because we only win one game. From that reality, I'm saying patience.
I'm not saying patience because I see progress on the horizon.
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If there's no progress on the horizon, then patience is pointless and it's time to move on.

I'm also not buying the NIL argument for Evans decommitment. Kansas was the first P6 team to offer Evans a year ago, with Texas and Florida St also being involved, you don't think NIL was a factor then? We also know TCU was offering $$$ and he still signed here.

So now NIL is the driving factor 3 months after signing his LOI, while the Gophers are going through a historically bad season, with little hope on the horizon? Not a chance, but that's the easy and convenient narrative to continue to try and save face for a hire that was a massive mistake from day 1.
 

60's Guy said:
What's done is done. We hired the wrong guy. Unless some more players leave Ben is coaching in year 3 for certain. He is just not going to get fired because Dennis Evans leaves or because we only win one game. From that reality, I'm saying patience.
I'm not saying patience because I see progress on the horizon.
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I think that's the biggest point of frustration around here, it seems regardless of outcome and poor future outlook we are stuck with this HC for another year which feels like a delaying of the inevitable. It's a game we played with Pitino but now with worse results and future outlook...
 

Honest question as I don't know the answer. Do coaches hit up boosters to contribute to NIL's? Is PJ doing it on tge football side or is that illegal? Should Ben be doing it?
 


bga1 said:
watching him play
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I watch him play and defensively he doesn't move overly well at all.

I will look closer. I'd ask that you do the same.
 

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