Ben Johnson is a Disaster

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Gophers7633 said:
I mean, yeah his trajectory is up because it was literally at the lowest point possible, so I mean, congrats? You don't think you're defending Ben, but saying stuff like he had no players, is defending him. Utah State's coach has a completely brand new team, and they seem to be doing okay.

The program is worse off than when he took over, that's a fact and not arguable. He's in charge of this program. I don't hate Ben, but his tenure has been awful. The only thing that has saved him, is he has decreased the expectation level so low, that even a below avg season is considered merit to bring him back.
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They we are probably more in agreement than you think except

Coyle has hired Ben knowing that he had no experience. Ben came in and had 2 horrible years and now we are finishing 9th or 10th. Not a great trajectory but enough to give hope that players returning and some additions will make next year a tournament year. Who knows, maybe he will overdeliver next year. We don't really know how successful Ben will eventually be - he could figure it out.

With Coyle, on the other hand, we do know who he is. He is not a great Athletic Director. He just made a comment that we should have a good team next year if everyone returns (assuming he includes Ben). He is planning to bring him back. If this is the case why hassle us on Ben? Bring in an AD that can build all our programs.
 

CPTMidnight said:
This is not the collapse you guys were looking for and Ben will be back next year. The average prediction here was 9 wins and he has met that. A run in the Big Ten tournament would be gravy. From here the trajectory looks good.

If you guys are serious about making it a better program then we should skip chatting about Ben and take the first (and most important step) of firing Coyle.
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Coyle just signed an extension. He's not going anywhere.
 




CPTMidnight said:
They we are probably more in agreement than you think except

Coyle has hired Ben knowing that he had no experience. Ben came in and had 2 horrible years and now we are finishing 9th or 10th. Not a great trajectory but enough to give hope that players returning and some additions will make next year a tournament year. Who knows, maybe he will overdeliver next year. We don't really know how successful Ben will eventually be - he could figure it out.

With Coyle, on the other hand, we do know who he is. He is not a great Athletic Director. He just made a comment that we should have a good team next year if everyone returns (assuming he includes Ben). He is planning to bring him back. If this is the case why hassle us on Ben? Bring in an AD that can build all our programs.
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Ben's been an unsuccessful AC and HC going on 6 seasons now. There is nothing on his resume to suggest he will over deliver anything IMO.

I admittedly, had some hope, but this collapse down the stretch leads me to believe nothing will be different next year.

I'd be perfectly fine with a new AD, but that ain't happening either. Ben was an abject failure of a hire. Ben must be a good salesman in that regard, because he certainly didn't deserve this opportunity based on his coaching track record.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
No, we're paying Ben Johnson $2 million per year to deliver this garbage.
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Great, so why are you telling me this? - you should mention it to his boss (who brought him in and is going to give him another year). He could make a change tomorrow morning first thing.
 



Gophers7633 said:
Ben's been an unsuccessful AC and HC going on 6 seasons now. There is nothing on his resume to suggest he will over deliver anything IMO.

I admittedly, had some hope, but this collapse down the stretch leads me to believe nothing will be different next year.

I'd be perfectly fine with a new AD, but that ain't happening either. Ben was an abject failure of a hire. Ben must be a good salesman in that regard, because he certainly didn't deserve this opportunity based on his coaching track record.
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Ben is there because Coyle wants him there.
 



I don't think many people know how tough big ten basketball is. I am sure many other teams boards are very similar to this one expecting everything to be gravy and their team to not lose any games and when a game does go bad it is all over and big win it is all celebration. Not making any excuses for the Gophers or CBJ, but in reality they were 3 games away from being a top 3 team in the big ten this year. YES, they easily had their chances to do that and could have been a top 3 team this year and are NOT. But encouraging to know how close.

If they are all willing to stick it out with CBJ that would be the best case scenario and the expectation should be top 3 in big ten and DANCING! Heck, maybe even a BIG TEN TITLE!

If they don't all stick around it will be a bummer(sad for sports), but unless you get a chance to snag a coach like the Creighton coach to come here, CBJ is eventually going to get his experience too, and tough to restart all yet again. Other big ten teams have tried things and almost similar results to Minnesota. Yes it is painful to watch the collapses but it isn't just Minnesota it happens too. BIG TEN IS TOUGH, sports are tough, and always going to be a FIGHT. Minnesota is a tough spot to be in with the Big ten conference only growing and getting tougher...(yes wish they would move out, but won't happen).

One thing I do hope CBJ starts to except is sometimes YOU NEED OFFENSE TOO. To much talk about getting stops, but in the tough closing minutes you also need to learn to score the ball. This team is built to run, throw more alley oops and be electric. FOR NOW, lets try to get behind them in and hopefully a good run in the BIG TEN TOURNY! Anything can happen in March!
 



Ben has undoubtedly earned a fourth year. He would benefit greatly by hiring a Phil Martelli type as an associate head coach. His
Inexperience surfaced throughout the season. He needs a basketball lifer with a national scope to hold his hand.
 

Bad Gopher said:
This is patently untrue. There were way better candidates who would've won here that are working elsewhere right now for significantly less than what the U pays Johnson.
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Never said pay was the only reason.
 

bomba$$_golf said:
Ben has undoubtedly earned a fourth year. He would benefit greatly by hiring a Phil Martelli type as an associate head coach. His
Inexperience surfaced throughout the season. He needs a basketball lifer with a national scope to hold his hand.
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He needed that three years ago. A bit late now. They're thrilled with the staff. Unless someone leaves for a better gig there will be no changes.
 


CPTMidnight said:
Great, so why are you telling me this? - you should mention it to his boss (who brought him in and is going to give him another year). He could make a change tomorrow morning first thing.
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Actually the main person responsible for the hiring of BJ is gone now. I'm not expecting a change to happen, but I don't think Ben is out of the woods yet either. If a change was going to happen, it won't be until after they are done playing in the BTT.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
Actually the main person responsible for the hiring of BJ is gone now.
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We can speculate and tell ourselves this as much as possible, but deep down I think we all have a sinking feeling that Coyle pushed it because he thinks he's a great judge of talent and finding diamonds.
 


CPTMidnight said:
This is not the collapse you guys were looking for and Ben will be back next year. The average prediction here was 9 wins and he has met that. A run in the Big Ten tournament would be gravy. From here the trajectory looks good.

If you guys are serious about making it a better program then we should skip chatting about Ben and take the first (and most important step) of firing Coyle.
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Exactly. The Gophers made a big step forward this year and could very well return every player of note. We just have a lot of goldfish around here who give their knee jerk reactions based on a game or two.

Gophers7633 said:
The program is worse off than when he took over, that's a fact and not arguable. He's in charge of this program. I don't hate Ben, but his tenure has been awful. The only thing that has saved him, is he has decreased the expectation level so low, that even a below avg season is considered merit to bring him back.
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Actually......it's nowhere close to being a "fact". Only reason Pitino's last team won any Big Ten games was because of Carr.....who wasn't returning. If you think that Pitino's program wasn't trending in the wrong direction.....then you are ignoring "facts".
 

CPTMidnight said:
He just made a comment that we should have a good team next year if everyone returns (assuming he includes Ben).
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It is interesting how he makes this claim, and then we get housed by IU at home, and NW on the road.

Ben really got comfortable with that comment I guess.

There's no way we're getting all of our key players back, or at least it doesn't feel like it with how they are playing right now.

It doesn't strike me as an inspired group that is really enjoying playing together right now.
 

bomba$$_golf said:
Ben has undoubtedly earned a fourth year. He would benefit greatly by hiring a Phil Martelli type as an associate head coach. His
Inexperience surfaced throughout the season. He needs a basketball lifer with a national scope to hold his hand.
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If we need to hire someone to hold the head coach's hand we may as well just hire that guy to be head coach.
 

stocker08 said:
Exactly. The Gophers made a big step forward this year and could very well return every player of note. We just have a lot of goldfish around here who give their knee jerk reactions based on a game or two.



Actually......it's nowhere close to being a "fact". Only reason Pitino's last team won any Big Ten games was because of Carr.....who wasn't returning. If you think that Pitino's program wasn't trending in the wrong direction.....then you are ignoring "facts".
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But it is a fact though:

After the 2021 season rankings:
NET: 81
KPI: 77
SOR: 57
BPI: 75
KenPom: 62

Avg. Rankings: 70.4

This team:
NET: 87
KPI: 99
SOR: 81
BPI: 85
KenPom: 77

Avg. Rankings: 85.5

As I've been saying all year, this team is still worse than the team that got Pitino canned. That doesn't even take into account how much of a disaster years 1 and 2 were. We've played the easiest schedule we've had in decades.
 

stocker08 said:
Exactly. The Gophers made a big step forward this year and could very well return every player of note. We just have a lot of goldfish around here who give their knee jerk reactions based on a game or two.



Actually......it's nowhere close to being a "fact". Only reason Pitino's last team won any Big Ten games was because of Carr.....who wasn't returning. If you think that Pitino's program wasn't trending in the wrong direction.....then you are ignoring "facts".
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@Nebraska, Indiana and @Northwestern were 3 of their worst games of the season. Outside of the 2nd half against Penn State and making a bunch of 3's to stay in the game @Illinois they objectively played very poorly the last 5 games. The defense was simply awful for that entire stretch. And that's the one thing you're supposed to be able to rely on.
 

Gophers7633 said:
But it is a fact though:

After the 2021 season rankings:
NET: 81
KPI: 77
SOR: 57
BPI: 75
KenPom: 62

Avg. Rankings: 70.4

This team:
NET: 87
KPI: 99
SOR: 81
BPI: 85
KenPom: 77

Avg. Rankings: 85.5

As I've been saying all year, this team is still worse than the team that got Pitino canned. That doesn't even take into account how much of a disaster years 1 and 2 were. We've played the easiest schedule we've had in decades.
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They won more games. But the only ones that were even somewhat impressive for even an average team were Michigan State and Northwestern. The rest were winning games you should win and we still lost home games to Missouri and Indiana.
 

howeda7 said:
They won more games. But the only ones that were even somewhat impressive for even an average team were Michigan State and Northwestern. The rest were winning games you should win and we still lost home games to Missouri and Indiana.
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Yeah, pretty much. And if MSU keeps looking like shit, our only Q1 win, could quickly become a Q2 win. If they keep getting run by this terrible IU team not out of the question their NET drops to 31.
 

NateDawgUM said:
What does this mean though?

Hot mid-major coach coming off a tournament run like Dan Monson?
Aging legend like Tubby Smith?
Young coach with a famous last name like Richard Pitino?
Former alum like Ben Johnson?

It's just basketball. There's no secret sauce, you put the basketball into the hoop more than the other team.

When you're mediocre to bad for a quarter of a century, you need to start looking at systemic issues beyond coaching.
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You are in some ways absolutely correct. We have tried a mixture of vet, hot name, young name alum and it hasn't worked. But that's unfortunately the system, you never really know. It's almost exactly like the Vikings QB spot. We've tried all kinds of options and never found that 15 year HOF guy. HOWEVER that doesn't mean you give up and say it's just rigged against us. I get it, it sucks, u hate looking for a new coach and roster turnover etc, but like I said, kind of the nature of the beast. Just feels like we are due for a homerun hire.
 

Gophers7633 said:
But it is a fact though:

After the 2021 season rankings:
NET: 81
KPI: 77
SOR: 57
BPI: 75
KenPom: 62

Avg. Rankings: 70.4

This team:
NET: 87
KPI: 99
SOR: 81
BPI: 85
KenPom: 77

Avg. Rankings: 85.5

As I've been saying all year, this team is still worse than the team that got Pitino canned. That doesn't even take into account how much of a disaster years 1 and 2 were. We've played the easiest schedule we've had in decades.
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You said "the program is worse off than when he took over, that's a fact and not arguable". That isn't a fact....it's an opinion. And it's an INCORRECT opinion. It's almost guaranteed that had he been given another year....his 2021 team would have been worse. Carr wasn't coming back.

Zero question.....roster versus roster.....I'd take Johnson's roster going into next season than Pitino's. Pitino's team was about to implode and Johnson's is improving and should be very good next year.
 


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