Ben Johnson growing 'a culture of winning' with UMN (video)

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BleedGopher said:
www.nbcsports.com

Johnson growing 'a culture of winning' with UMN

Minnesota men's basketball coach Ben Johnson to discuss how the Golden Gophers will build on their successes from last season and "growing a culture of winning", as well as the state of the Big Ten conference.
www.nbcsports.com www.nbcsports.com

Go Gophers!!
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Thanks for posting.

Good interview and amazing that we have only won 10 conference games twice since 1990z
 


Gopher_In_NYC said:
Thanks for posting.

Good interview and amazing that we have only won 10 conference games twice since 1990z
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I hate his line, "let's get 10!" (because last year we won 9). I just can't imagine going into the locker room and addressing the team with - "Boys, we have a chance to be .500 this year!"
 




bga1 said:
I hate his line, "let's get 10!" (because last year we won 9). I just can't imagine going into the locker room and addressing the team with - "Boys, we have a chance to be .500 this year!"
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That's our high watermark. We will never be better than an NCAA bubble team. Ever.

The days of a possible Clem Haskins team are OVER. Never again.
 

EasyThere Pilgrim said:
That's our high watermark. We will never be better than an NCAA bubble team. Ever.

The days of a possible Clem Haskins team are OVER. Never again.
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Let the Barnstorming Commence!

To clarify, I am not calling on you to take The Barn hostage and install yourself as Over Lord of the Gopher Men’s BB Program.
 

bga1 said:
I hate his line, "let's get 10!" (because last year we won 9). I just can't imagine going into the locker room and addressing the team with - "Boys, we have a chance to be .500 this year!"
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I take it as more of an intermediary goal. Like if you’re playing a scramble tournament in golf and parred the first two holes, and you start telling your partners “let’s get a birdie here”. That is not the final goal, but the next step.

Last year Ben started using “Stack ‘Em”, as a saying. I’m taking this “challenge” of getting to 10 as the first part of the stacking.
 




bga1 said:
I hate his line, "let's get 10!" (because last year we won 9). I just can't imagine going into the locker room and addressing the team with - "Boys, we have a chance to be .500 this year!"
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Agree to disagree on this one.

I don’t hate it, since it’s a high water mark for us and has only happened twice since 2004 (incorrectly noted as 1990 in my previous post), so twice in 19 years, thus far, with this being the 20th season. This encompasses four different coaching staffs: Monson, Tubbster, Jr. Pitino and Gentle Ben.

It’s a realistic goal and if they win 10, then they gave a shot at the real tournament. Players hate unrealistic goals in my experience; my sophomore year we had a good core of baseball players and our coach put up the sign that said State Tournament here we come - a reach, but the mumbling wasn’t a cacophony. Half the starters got kicked off the team for partying and the sign still stayed up, the mumbling was heard throughout the MidWest and the coach, lost the team.

I think posters on here regularly overestimate what type of program we are. Clem was in a different time and place and cheated to achieve those results, based on the rules in place at that time.

I highly doubt we could have gotten some/any of the “Comparable Four” or Jr. Mussy to come here based on the salary they had allocated; maybe Nico.

Coyle is rolling with Ben and Ben probably has this year to make the real tourney or he’s gone.

It’s only one more winter, in our shadow of discontent - to paraphrase Billy Shakes.
 

bga1 said:
I hate his line, "let's get 10!" (because last year we won 9). I just can't imagine going into the locker room and addressing the team with - "Boys, we have a chance to be .500 this year!"
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The sad thing is 10-10 won't even make the NCAA tournament since Ben scheduled such a pathetic non-conference schedule once again. 10-10 should get him fired in this case.
 





Gopher_In_NYC said:
Agree to disagree on this one.

I don’t hate it, since it’s a high water mark for us and has only happened twice since 2004 (incorrectly noted as 1990 in my previous post), so twice in 19 years, thus far, with this being the 20th season. This encompasses four different coaching staffs: Monson, Tubbster, Jr. Pitino and Gentle Ben.

It’s a realistic goal and if they win 10, then they gave a shot at the real tournament. Players hate unrealistic goals in my experience; my sophomore year we had a good core of baseball players and our coach put up the sign that said State Tournament here we come - a reach, but the mumbling wasn’t a cacophony. Half the starters got kicked off the team for partying and the sign still stayed up, the mumbling was heard throughout the MidWest and the coach, lost the team.
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I don't think the problem had anything to do with high expectations.
Gopher_In_NYC said:
I think posters on here regularly overestimate what type of program we are.
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We are a crap program. I want it to be better.
Gopher_In_NYC said:
Clem was in a different time and place and cheated to achieve those results, based on the rules in place at that time.

I highly doubt we could have gotten some/any of the “Comparable Four” or Jr. Mussy to come here based on the salary they had allocated; maybe Nico.
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Weak excuse. If you want to win, you pay to do so.
Gopher_In_NYC said:
Coyle is rolling with Ben and Ben probably
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mmmmhmmm- probably- last year it was NCAAs or bust because he had been so awful his first two years
Gopher_In_NYC said:
has this year to make the real tourney or he’s gone.
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It doesn't sound like he is concerned with that goal. Let's get 10! Does 10 make it with our bottom tier non-conference schedule?
Gopher_In_NYC said:
It’s only one more winter, in our shadow of discontent - to paraphrase Billy Shakes.
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Are you sure? I'm not. I think this slow boiling of the fan base could go on for years. Now we have the NIL excuse. We have to stick with Ben because:

We can't do any better.
Give it time.
We need a new arena.
We need more NIL.

The excuses go on. I like Ben and I have said so here, many times. But very few are interested in this program anymore because expectations have dropped so low and the past results are poor.

The bottom line: This is a university that is just not very concerned about winning or the fan base.
They do love the money from the TV contracts though.
 
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bga1 said:
Are you sure? I'm not. I think this slow boiling of the fan base could go on for years. Now we have the NIL excuse. We have to stick with Ben because:

We can't do any better.
Give it time.
We need a new arena.
We need more NIL.

The excuses go on. I like Ben and I have said so here, many times. But very few are interested in this program anymore because expectations have dropped so low and the past results are poor.

The bottom line: This is a university that is just not very concerned about winning or the fan base.
They do love the money from the TV contracts though.
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We can't do any better is patently false. Coyle might not care about basketball that much, but he's not stupid. And give it time is a joke considering 8-9 of the guys on the roster are seniors with no eligibility left. Time for what? This is an NCAA or bust year and next year will be an almost total rebuild whether it's Ben or a new coach.

Even if Coyle only cares about $$, there's no financial incentive to keep Ben if they fail to make the NCAAs this year. His buyout will be minimal and fan interest/tickets will be at an all-time low.
 

"Establish winning" It took us 20 games to win 9. 9 and 11 is a losing record. We used to play 16 and 18 games.
We won more conference games than most of us as fans thought we'd win. Yay! But, I hope the coaching staff and players were not surprised we won 9 games...I would hope they were disappointed we won 9 games. Not celebrate it. But, to listen to Ben he is proud and excited we won 9. It wouldn't be my mindset.

I'd prefer more immediate game goals with establishing an idenity to who we are. Things like 35 deflections a game, take away 3's and measure it...no 3's, 3 or less per game, hold teams under 24 points a half, make more free throws than the other guy gets attempts, hold the other guy under 35%...5 turnovers or less on offense...etc, etc whatever is important make your guys accountable...measure it....do it...emphasize it and you'll win. Achieve your game goals and you'll stack wins.

"Winning 10" is like fairy dust and it is .500....how you gonna do it? What's the plan? Why is that the goal?
Maybe they talk about the how? But it doesn't seem like it's the most important part. It's not the emphasis. 10 can't be the emphasis...how we gonna do that coach?
 

Unregistered User said:
I take it as more of an intermediary goal. Like if you’re playing a scramble tournament in golf and parred the first two holes, and you start telling your partners “let’s get a birdie here”. That is not the final goal, but the next step.

Last year Ben started using “Stack ‘Em”, as a saying. I’m taking this “challenge” of getting to 10 as the first part of the stacking.
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This cannot be true. Everyone knows pars and birdies don't exist.
 

60's Guy said:
"Establish winning" It took us 20 games to win 9. 9 and 11 is a losing record. We used to play 16 and 18 games.
We won more conference games than most of us as fans thought we'd win. Yay! But, I hope the coaching staff and players were not surprised we won 9 games...I would hope they were disappointed we won 9 games. Not celebrate it. But, to listen to Ben he is proud and excited we won 9. It wouldn't be my mindset.

I'd prefer more immediate game goals with establishing an idenity to who we are. Things like 35 deflections a game, take away 3's and measure it...no 3's, 3 or less per game, hold teams under 24 points a half, make more free throws than the other guy gets attempts, hold the other guy under 35%...5 turnovers or less on offense...etc, etc whatever is important make your guys accountable...measure it....do it...emphasize it and you'll win. Achieve your game goals and you'll stack wins.

"Winning 10" is like fairy dust and it is .500....how you gonna do it? What's the plan? Why is that the goal?
Maybe they talk about the how? But it doesn't seem like it's the most important part. It's not the emphasis. 10 can't be the emphasis...how we gonna do that coach?
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Couple the "win 10" statement with the "we won't know our identity until December" statement and you have- at least for me- a real reason for concern about whether this coach can inspire the Gophers to ever become at least an occasional top half of the Big Ten squad.
 

Unregistered User said:
I take it as more of an intermediary goal. Like if you’re playing a scramble tournament in golf and parred the first two holes, and you start telling your partners “let’s get a birdie here”. That is not the final goal, but the next step.

Last year Ben started using “Stack ‘Em”, as a saying. I’m taking this “challenge” of getting to 10 as the first part of the stacking.
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That's fair. However, you have three audiences:

Coyle- who it appears can be satisfied by fogging a mirror
The players- who probably are happy with low expectations
The fans- who are rapidly losing interest in paying for the product because their own expectations are so low.

Make me expect SOMETHING! Tell me that we are determined to have a defensive identity. Tell me that we are going to surprise in the Big Ten this year. Make me imagine that I am a customer that you want to buy the product. Or else don't expect that the fans will be there to build a rabid home court advantage to help the team win.

I have held season tickets since the 1980s and I didn't buy them this year. I'll go to some games. I will watch them all on TV, but I am tired of not competing and being told to be happy about it.
 


bga1 said:
I don't think the problem had anything to do with high expectations.

We are a crap program. I want it to be better.

Weak excuse. If you want to win, you pay to do so.
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It’s not an excuse, rather an explanation; why? Because I do not responsibility for paying the BB coach.

I stated that they weren’t willing to pay the freight for a higher tier coach at that point, based on who was hired.
bga1 said:
mmmmhmmm- probably- last year it was NCAAs or bust because he had been so awful his first two years
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Time will tell.
bga1 said:
It doesn't sound like he is concerned with that goal. Let's get 10!
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Your acrimony towards this concept, doesn’t change the Fact that historically, we haven’t reached 10 conference wins on any normative interval, have we?
bga1 said:
Does 10 make it with our bottom tier non-conference schedule?
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🤷‍♂️
bga1 said:
Are you sure? I'm not. I think this slow boiling of the fan base could go on for years.
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My expectation is he’s fired, if he doesn’t make the tournament this year.
bga1 said:
Now we have the NIL excuse. We have to stick with Ben because:

We can't do any better.
Give it time.
We need a new arena.
We need more NIL.
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See my point above.
bga1 said:
The excuses go on. I like Ben and I have said so here, many times. But very few are interested in this program anymore because expectations have dropped so low and the past results are poor.
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Agreed.
bga1 said:
The bottom line: This is a university that is just not very concerned about winning or the fan base.
They do love the money from the TV contracts though.
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No disagreement here.

Of course, nowhere did I say we shouldn’t be better, although I did say people conflate our success; it’s like waxing poetically about an Ex, while conveniently forgetting about all the reasons why they’ve your Ex.
 
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bga1 said:
That's fair. However, you have three audiences:

Coyle- who it appears can be satisfied by fogging a mirror
The players- who probably are happy with low expectations
The fans- who are rapidly losing interest in paying for the product because their own expectations are so low.

Make me expect SOMETHING! Tell me that we are determined to have a defensive identity. Tell me that we are going to surprise in the Big Ten this year. Make me imagine that I am a customer that you want to buy the product. Or else don't expect that the fans will be there to build a rabid home court advantage to help the team win.

I have held season tickets since the 1980s and I didn't buy them this year. I'll go to some games. I will watch them all on TV, but I am tired of not competing and being told to be happy about it.
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I don't think anyone would criticize you as an extremely loyal fan for not renewing your season tickets. It has obviously been a very slow, painful crawl for you to reach that decision.

Just look at the lack of activity on this board, especially recruiting threads, committed player stats/updates and anything pertaining to an optimistic forecast for this program.

The only thing more destructive than anger towards this program is utter apathy.
 

Slim Tubby said:
Just look at the lack of activity on this board, especially recruiting threads, committed player stats/updates and anything pertaining to an optimistic forecast for this program.

The only thing more destructive than anger towards this program is utter apathy.
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This has been very illuminating and something I've noticed, pretty much all offseason.

It's sad and the energy in the Barn for the non conference games is going to be pathetic.

I'll be there as usual doing my part, but I don't blame others for their apathy.
 

Slim Tubby said:
I don't think anyone would criticize you as an extremely loyal fan for not renewing your season tickets. It has obviously been a very slow, painful crawl for you to reach that decision.

Just look at the lack of activity on this board, especially recruiting threads, committed player stats/updates and anything pertaining to an optimistic forecast for this program.

The only thing more destructive than anger towards this program is utter apathy.
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In the last week, I've heard about 5 ads trying to sell me St. Thomas Men's basketball tickets. Zero about the Gophers. They don't even try.
 



Gopher_In_NYC said:
Let the Barnstorming Commence!

To clarify, I am not calling on you to take The Barn hostage and install yourself as Over Lord of the Gopher Men’s BB Program.
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Hey I'm open to any better suggestions.

Anything is better than the shitshow of the last 27 years...and that just got hamstrung even more.
 

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