Ben Johnson is a Disaster

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John Galt said:
Roster management is Johnson’s biggest issue imo. He needed to retain at least a few players besides Ihnen after he got here to create some level of continuity. Because he didn’t or couldn’t, he was forced to add a bunch of 1 year grad transfers last year. Last year’s team was composed of some hard-nosed smart basketball players, but it was basically a waste because everyone other than Battle is now gone. So year 2 is now worse than year 1. We’re forced to play 4 freshman 20-30 minutes per game, when they aren’t top recruits and are the type of players that should be getting 5-10 minutes a game and will need a few years to develop. Compound that with Garcia being a shell of his former self, Battle not playing as well as last year, season ending injuries to Fox and Ihnen, and a hot mess at the PG position, and this is what you get.
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Disagree. IMO, a competent *coach* makes do with what they have. Make Matt Painter or Steve Pikiell the coach of this team with its current roster and they’d be much, much better. Do they need a better roster? Sure. That’s not the base problem, though.
 

formerlybis said:
Disagree. IMO, a competent *coach* makes do with what they have. Make Matt Painter or Steve Pikiell the coach of this team with its current roster and they’d be much, much better. Do they need a better roster? Sure. That’s not the base problem, though.
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Steve Pikiell won 6 games his first 2 seasons at Rutgers. Amazing how little knowledge fans have
 


Johnnyboy18 said:
Steve Pikiell won 6 games his first 2 seasons at Rutgers. Amazing how little knowledge fans have
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Steve Pikiell was 63rd and 23rd his first two years at Rutgers in defensive efficiency. It was pretty clear from day one what his teams would look like once they got better talent. His team is 3rd this year and coming off three consecutive NCAA appearances. He is a very underrated coach that would be very good to emulate given Rutger's relative lack of success prior to his hire.
 

golfing18now said:
Steve Pikiell was 63rd and 23rd his first two years at Rutgers in defensive efficiency. It was pretty clear from day one what his teams would look like once they got better talent. His team is 3rd this year and coming off three consecutive NCAA appearances. He is a very underrated coach that would be very good to emulate given Rutger's relative lack of success prior to his hire.
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Sweet and he won 6 games in the B1G. I can't imagine fans were ready to fire him less than 1.5 seasons in.
 


GopherWeatherGuy said:
Maybe you should go back and look at how much the defense improved in those first 2 seasons. Amazing how little knowledge you have
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And one of the worst offenses. And won 6 games in the B1G. Amazing what giving a coach time to establish a team instead of giving up 22 games in.
 

Johnnyboy18 said:
Steve Pikiell won 6 games his first 2 seasons at Rutgers. Amazing how little knowledge fans have
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6 B1G regular season games. Add in the B1G Tournament and it was 9. I'd call it a miracle if we somehow managed 5 wins to equal that number. Also, the year before he took over Rutgers finished 279 at KenPom. Year 1 they finished 135, year 2 they finished 130 and year 3 he had them up to 78. As you can see, big leap in year 1 with incremental improvement the next 3 years(year 3 they finished 28 at KenPom). That's the main issue, we look like hot garbage out there. Also, Pikiell at least established an identity of what they want to be early on, something severely lacking now.
 

Gophers7633 said:
6 B1G regular season games. Add in the B1G Tournament and it was 9. I'd call it a miracle if we somehow managed 5 wins to equal that number. Also, the year before he took over Rutgers finished 279 at KenPom. Year 1 they finished 135, year 2 they finished 130 and year 3 he had them up to 78. As you can see, big leap in year 1 with incremental improvement the next 3 years(year 3 they finished 28 at KenPom). That's the main issue, we look like hot garbage out there. Also, Pikiell at least established an identity of what they want to be early on, something severely lacking now.
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He returned multiple players before the transfer portal was a thing. Minnesota finished 13th in the B1G before Ben took over and he had to replace the entire team.
 

Johnnyboy18 said:
Sweet and he won 6 games in the B1G. I can't imagine fans were ready to fire him less than 1.5 seasons in.
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That's because he had a track record of sustained success before going to Rutgers. He won 20 or more games in 6 of his previous 7 seasons, won the league regular season 5 of those seasons and made the NIT 3 times and NCAA Tournament once. We hired an assistant who was a extreme failure. Big difference. Also, his team didn't bottom out in year two like ours is right now.
 



Gophers7633 said:
That's because he had a track record of sustained success before going to Rutgers. He won 20 or more games in 6 of his previous 7 seasons, won the league regular season 5 of those seasons and made the NIT 3 times and NCAA Tournament once. We hired an assistant who was a extreme failure. Big difference. Also, his team didn't bottom out in year two like ours is right now.
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Awesome good for him. He still won 6 B1G games his first two seasons. We've played 2 games in the B1G. I'm willing to see how the team plays the rest of the season.
 


Johnnyboy18 said:
He returned multiple players before the transfer portal was a thing. Minnesota finished 13th in the B1G before Ben took over and he had to replace the entire team.
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Returned multiple players from a team that was 279 in KenPom and improved them to 135? I'd say that's a positive. And yeah, I get the roster turnover aspect, but there's numerous examples of other coaches that had to do the same thing, and are much more successful.
 

Gophers7633 said:
Returned multiple players from a team that was 279 in KenPom and improved them to 135? I'd say that's a positive. And yeah, I get the roster turnover aspect, but there's numerous examples of other coaches that had to do the same thing, and are much more successful.
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What about the ones that aren't successful?
 




Johnnyboy18 said:
Awesome good for him. He still won 6 B1G games his first two seasons. We've played 2 games in the B1G. I'm willing to see how the team plays the rest of the season.
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Yes, but you're failing to see that they were getting incrementally better. Rutgers administration realized it, and signed him to an extension after year 2. No way in hell Johnson is getting a contract extension after this season.
 

Johnnyboy18 said:
Sweet and he won 6 games in the B1G. I can't imagine fans were ready to fire him less than 1.5 seasons in.
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Most people on here are not asking for him to be fired right now. That's ridiculous. I certainly am not. Nobody anticipated a particularly good record this year. Maybe an NIT caliber team? Right now that isn't close either.

My opinion is Ben Johnson was not ready to be a Big Ten coach. I don't blame him for taking the job as you never know whether or not you will be offered another opportunity like this but he had nothing in his resume to suggest he was ready for this job. It took him forever to fill out his staff and by that time the entire team had left before he could sell his vision. All coaches talk about "culture" and "laying the foundation" and other cliches. You don't do that when you replace 12 players the first two recruiting cycles. I agree with the @John Galt post above about roster construction. He deserves through year three to show improvement. That's another 40ish conference games. That is a long enough window, particularly when you see many example of other coaches doing more with less time.

You might not be impressed with what Steve Pikiell has done at Rutgers. I think he's done an unbelievable job at a conference doormat. Ben Johnson would be wise to get the same kind of effort here.
 



Gophers7633 said:
Yes, but you're failing to see that they were getting incrementally better. Rutgers administration realized it, and signed him to an extension after year 2. No way in hell Johnson is getting a contract extension after this season.
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Every coach gets a contract extension, since when does that mean anything?
 


golfing18now said:
Most people on here are not asking for him to be fired right now. That's ridiculous. I certainly am not. Nobody anticipated a particularly good record this year. Maybe an NIT caliber team? Right now that isn't close either.

My opinion is Ben Johnson was not ready to be a Big Ten coach. I don't blame him for taking the job as you never know whether or not you will be offered another opportunity like this but he had nothing in his resume to suggest he was ready for this job. It took him forever to fill out his staff and by that time the entire team had left before he could sell his vision. All coaches talk about "culture" and "laying the foundation" and other cliches. You don't do that when you replace 12 players the first two recruiting cycles. I agree with the @John Galt post above about roster construction. He deserves through year three to show improvement. That's another 40ish conference games. That is a long enough window, particularly when you see many example of other coaches doing more with less time.

You might not be impressed with what Steve Pikiell has done at Rutgers. I think he's done an unbelievable job at a conference doormat. Ben Johnson would be wise to get the same kind of effort here.
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Who said I'm not impressed with what he's done at Rutgers? OP said a competent coach would do well with whatever roster. And I pointed out a competent coach won 6 games in the B1G his first two seasons.
 


Johnnyboy18 said:
He literally got one last year after finishing last. So yes unless they plan on firing him after year 2. Extentions mean nothing.
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Lmao. We aren't giving him an extension after this tire fire of a season. If we do, just join the Summit League for Christ sakes.
 

Gophers7633 said:
Lmao. We aren't giving him an extension after this tire fire of a season. If we do, just join the Summit League for Christ sakes.
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I'll bet you. If I win, you stop posting. If I lose, I'll stop posting. Deal?
 

Johnnyboy18 said:
He returned multiple players before the transfer portal was a thing. Minnesota finished 13th in the B1G before Ben took over and he had to replace the entire team.
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And now he is on pace for back to back 14th place finishes, what's your point? If he got rid of all the players from a terrible team (assuming that's why you pointed out they were 13th in standings), then shouldn't they have improved? No one is asking for conference championships right now. Only asking for them not to be historically bad after firing a coach for having a historically bad conference record.
 


Johnnyboy18 said:
He literally got one last year after finishing last. So yes unless they plan on firing him after year 2. Extentions mean nothing.
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Unfortunately, I think you are correct.
 

GopherBlood666 said:
And now he is on pace for back to back 14th place finishes, what's your point? If he got rid of all the players from a terrible team (assuming that's why you pointed out they were 13th in standings), then shouldn't they have improved? No one is asking for conference championships right now. Only asking for them not to be historically bad after firing a coach for having a historically bad conference record.
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Just pointing out it takes more than 1.5 seasons to show progress at an awful program with back to back complete roster turnovers.
 

Gophers7633 said:
Why would I do that? I like interacting with you! If we do I'll probably just stop caring, and therefore, stop posting. If they don't give a shit about winning why should I?
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It has nothing to do with winning. Literally every coach signs an extension at the U every year unless they are fired.
 


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