Ben Johnson is a Disaster

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Dupreefor3 said:
There's definitely roster construction issue, and the coaches deserve heat for that. This is a guards game and our guard play is poor and the supposed strength of our team (Battle and Garcia) are not delivering, nor do they seem to fit together. Freshman are cming along nicely but from the results stand point that's not going to matter if we don't get it from Cooper, Garcia and Battle. Cooper shoots it alot better than I anticipated, I don't really have a problem with how he facilitates the offense, his strengths are negated if guys aren't making shots, but him and Garcia ain't it on defense. Next year they're going to need someone next to Cooper who can guard quick one's and have the speed to beat their man off the dribble. Garcia and Battle just don't fit together, Battle wasn't engaged or doing anything to get open last night, Garcia too slow to guard anything that isn't afive and he's too soft to play the five. On paper I don't blame Ben for taking him a lot of talent, him and Cooper on paper have good credentials as transfers, but it's clearly not working and I don't see that aspect getting any better. Alot of people got that wrong but the staff gets paid to get it right more than they get it wrong and between that and letting the Freshman take their lumps, it's been a bad recipe for success. I think the High School recruiting has been good in the 2022 and 2023 classes. Payne has been everything the Ryan James hype train made him out to be. JOJ been a pleasent surprise. Carrington reminds me alot of Austin Hollins as a Freshman, similar build, plays a similar style. I believe he will get better. Henley doing the one step forweard two steps back thing right now. He flashes at times and you see what he can become , but he's not ready to play this year, so there's going to be painful moments like the last two games with him. Treyton, he's playing his way into either transferring out or being happy as the 12th/13th man on the bench, he will not play if Fox is healthy and when Evans here. Overall, it's too early to throw in the towel, this isn't the worst gopher team in any of our lifetimes, not even close, Ben played on a worse won in 03-04, 05-06, 06-07, 15-16. Post Madison 85-86, 86-87 and 87-88 were god awful years. post Reggie Lynch 2017-18 was bad and we had two all timers for this program still healthy for that one. I'm not going to defend last nights effort, especially defensive end, it may have answered some truths about veteran players that are going to be tough pills swallow.
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Its pretty sad when you can count 4 season in the last 19 years that the team is worse than this one.
 

howeda7 said:
Hiring Ben over Craig Smith seems likely to go down as one of the stupidest/inept decisions in Gopher athletics in a long time.

I'm certainly not on board with "4 years no matter what." He needs a massive turnaround next year or he needs to go. No sense dragging it out. Yes getting talent can take time, but the lack of hustle, discipline and plan on offense is unacceptable. This team will not reach 10 wins this season.
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He needs significant improvement this season or I would fire after this year. MBB is next in line to Football and in 2022-23 you can't let this string out.

They don't play as a team. Seriously they should be required to pass 5 times each possession like youth coaches sometimes require. They have some excellent local talent in the freshmen and I'd hate to blow their 4 years with this mess.

If Ben can't get this team improved, the right hire could be able to keep those local kids on board.

They've also played Purdue and Michigan who are expected to be in the top 4 of the conference, so the rest of the season is huge.
 

So lot of things.

1. Johnson has been an absolute train wreck this year. We have no offensive scheme, our defense is a total joke, we cant rebound, we can shoot FT and we arent even putting in effort (JOJ and Payne aside). And Ben goes into the presser like a sad little puppy. BUCK UP AND DO SOMETHING. Those are all squarely on the coach.
2. We missed on every single coach we thought about (Dutcher, Smith, Nedved, Muss). It is pitiful that we ended up with a guy who couldnt get a job in the MAC.
3. I think the freshman/23 recruits are a nice base. But I think some people arent seeing the big picture. MSU has their top recruit ever coming next year, Mich multiple 5*, Rutgers has a guy right behind Evans coming in, OSU has multiple top 40 guys, same with MD. So next year the talent will be fine but this isnt like we have a Duke/UK class. Furthermore, good luck keeping all of them for multiple years, it just wont happen.
3b. What has johnson shown to make you think he can help guys improve? I have seen nothing. Battle has regressed, TT is totally worthless, he cant get anything out of Garcia. I would argue our only two positives this year are Payne and JOJ who I think are simply physically more mature than we thought, I am not sure they are improving skill wise, they are just ready to play college ball now size wise.
4. Good for you people who think a 30 point margin is "positive". Way to live in La La land, I hope you are buying 6,000 tickets a year since you are so enthused about losing. Sorry the rest of us live in the real world where the team we love is spiraling into utter darkness.
 

touchdownvikings said:
Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner!

I loved last night, and have been thoroughly impressed this year. MNJay is on-point. Stop watching for wins and losses. Look at what is developing, not whether the team is constructed to win now - it isn't. Ben is getting young guys - who have talent galore - experience. Period. That's this entire year. Now relax and enjoy.
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Talent galore my arse.
Why are people around here so clueless to what talent looks like.

Let me simplify it for you. If your recruits didn't have offers from other strong power 5 programs, then your talent is middle to bottom power 5 or mid major.

IF THESE GUYS WERE THAT TALENTED, OTHER TEAMS WOULD HAVE WANTED THEM.
 
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You need good guards to win in high level college basketball. Guards that can distribute, shoot the three well, defend the 3 well and not get broken down on defense every other time down the floor.

Guard play here hasn't been good for year and we have sucked for year. Battle, Garcia, etc, none of them matter if you don't have guards. Even the big cat they have coming next year will make little difference if you don't have fantastic guards.
 


Bad Gopher said:
I keep thinking we should give Johnson the same pass we gave Haskins the first couple years, which included--if I remember this right--the longest losing streak in program history. Transfer rules or no, it's not easy to assemble a functional team, especially from the bare shelf BJ started with last year. That said, Clem coached them to the Sweet Sixteen in his third year. If you know what you're doing as a coach, that kind of turnaround isn't just possible; it's practically expected. You don't hire Ben Johnson or anyone if you don't believe there's going to be some glory in the medium term. You don't hire a first-time head coach if you don't think they're a coaching prodigy with uncommon abilities just waiting for an opportunity. At some point, you have to show some results, and as I've said in other threads, it's totally fair to compare him to other second-year head coaches.
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Clem was also 9-9 in the big ten, 1-8 on the road that year, that road win was the last game of the year and was his first big ten road win not against Wisconsin. They did pull an upset over six seeded Kansas State, but were fortunate to draw 14 seed in round two. Clem's 93 and 96 teams had a better conference record than the 89 team so as fun as that was they were also more lucky than good and dominant in the barn that year
 




golfing18now said:
Good point here.

For me an appearance on Weakling Wednesday is the definition of a bad year in the Big Ten. We certainly had a number of those under the Pitino era. The most obvious was the year three team we keep referencing. This team is on par with that team. A couple of the other Pitino years had promise and then slid dramatically in late January/February. I don't think we have to worry about not appearing on Weakling Wednesday this year. Another year like that next year and I'd have a hard time seeing a positive trajectory for this regime.
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Of course! It's a recognized benchmark and we appear to have a long-term lease on that Wednesday space. Initially I figured that Johnson would get four years regardless but he could be gone after 3 if all of those are bad years. Iowa fired Todd Lickliter after only three years (all losing). Rutgers also fired Eddie Jordan after three terrible years and he was an illustrious player alum (1,633 pts and 14.1 ppg in his Rutgers career) and former NBA player and coach.
 







leib0039 said:
So lot of things.

1. Johnson has been an absolute train wreck this year. We have no offensive scheme, our defense is a total joke, we cant rebound, we can shoot FT and we arent even putting in effort (JOJ and Payne aside). And Ben goes into the presser like a sad little puppy. BUCK UP AND DO SOMETHING. Those are all squarely on the coach.
2. We missed on every single coach we thought about (Dutcher, Smith, Nedved, Muss). It is pitiful that we ended up with a guy who couldnt get a job in the MAC.
3. I think the freshman/23 recruits are a nice base. But I think some people arent seeing the big picture. MSU has their top recruit ever coming next year, Mich multiple 5*, Rutgers has a guy right behind Evans coming in, OSU has multiple top 40 guys, same with MD. So next year the talent will be fine but this isnt like we have a Duke/UK class. Furthermore, good luck keeping all of them for multiple years, it just wont happen.
3b. What has johnson shown to make you think he can help guys improve? I have seen nothing. Battle has regressed, TT is totally worthless, he cant get anything out of Garcia. I would argue our only two positives this year are Payne and JOJ who I think are simply physically more mature than we thought, I am not sure they are improving skill wise, they are just ready to play college ball now size wise.
4. Good for you people who think a 30 point margin is "positive". Way to live in La La land, I hope you are buying 6,000 tickets a year since you are so enthused about losing. Sorry the rest of us live in the real world where the team we love is spiraling into utter darkness.
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The media pushed a check the box local guy with no resume to deserve the job. I believe we could’ve landed most those others if we wanted them.
 

MNJay said:
Musselman was the totally beyond obvious choice.
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That was never going to happen because of the cost and family history here. Muss has done a great job coaching but he still gives off that flare of something a little shady going on in the background feel. The U is never going for that and it’s almost the only thing I am okay with in the U administration.
 

The people that keep talking about this year being about development of the freshmen are pretending this is college basketball of 10 to 20 years ago. Very little chance all of our freshmen stick around. You think Payne doesn't have multiple people close to him telling him to get the heck out of here so he can get coached and play in meaningful games?
 

CentralGopher said:
You should be able to give an effort on defense though no matter if you are a freshman. I could live with them learning on the fly as freshman if this team could play better defense. We are completely terrible on defense and that’s on our coach.
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Well at least he has our post player double covering their point guard and running around like a chicken with his head cut off. Meanwhile the guy he's supposed to gaurd is scoring at will. Really clever stuff.:rolleyes::rolleyes:
 


Allshade said:
Well at least he has our post player double covering their point guard and running around like a chicken with his head cut off. Meanwhile the guy he's supposed to gaurd is scoring at will. Really clever stuff.:rolleyes::rolleyes:
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There are other teams that do this too but way better executed. I wouldn’t do it often or regularly like this though.
 



leib0039 said:

3b. What has johnson shown to make you think he can help guys improve? I have seen nothing. Battle has regressed, TT is totally worthless, he cant get anything out of Garcia. I would argue our only two positives this year are Payne and JOJ who I think are simply physically more mature than we thought, I am not sure they are improving skill wise, they are just ready to play college ball now size wise.
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Honestly way too early to say one way or another. He’s basically had 9 games with freshman this year, since last year was full of senior transfers. Anyone who’s transferred in as an upperclassman probably won’t develop into a different caliber player than they are on day 1. I also disagree about Battle - I think he’s just catching up this season and doesn’t have as bright of a green light as last year, and imo he was always a streaky volume shooter with below average athleticism for the big ten.

On the positive side, JOJ looks like he’s taken a stride. But we are going to need a lot more time before we can assess BJ’s ability to develop. This class is full of three star players, some of whom shouldn’t be under the microscope yet. I think it’s possible Carrington and Payne can make noticeable improvements like JOJ’s yet this year. Henley might need more time. Unfortunately we won’t know until they are juniors, but if JOJ is rising into a 12&6 guy, I’m excited about the future possibilities.
 

stocker08 said:
Exactly. Some of these posters have zero patience. They'd rather trade in all the promise of our freshman class for a few more upper classmen transfers and finish 12th or 13th in the conference rather than build from the ground up with a roster of players that were recruited by some of the more successful programs in the nation.
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I like a couple of the Minnesota freshmen. Good building blocks. Should never be down 30 to Michigan at home, though. Illinois often has four freshmen on the court together plus Dainja who is essentially a freshman in experience. Lost the entire starting five from last year and 85% of the scoring. Reloaded with freshmen and transfers plus reserves from last year. Playing freshmen and transfers like Minnesota and Illinois are is more the norm these days than the exception. Got to get the right guys and coach them up.
 

Bad Gopher said:
I'm still struggling to connect last year to this year and believe that the same staff coached both teams. Last year's team was far more sound, ran offense that got guys good looks and easy baskets, and defended well for their physicality, including and especially from the perimeter. This year's team looks like a hapless new staff took over. What gives? This is a big a mystery as I've seen, and I've watched sports for a lot of years.

More than a few people I've talked to say something like, this team looks off...although nobody can put their finger on what's wrong. I realize this post probably begins in one of those other "what's wrong with this team" threads, but I find it difficult to judge Johnson with so many questions about just which of these two seasons we should judge him by.
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Good point. What is BJ's teams offensive identity?
 

I definitely see what the naysayers are talking about, but I'll reserve judgment til the end of the season. You guys are acting like Michigan isn't a really good team with a player of the year candidate. Anyone giving up on next year after last night should probably find something else to do with their time.
 

goldengophers said:
We got priced out on him.
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No we didn't. We never went down that road, which was stupid. With the revenue the Big Ten has right now, there is no reason to be "priced out". They are top 20 in country in overall revenue, and Musselman would have brought in a lot more through ticket sales and other supports.
 

as Bad Gopher said much earlier in the thread, it's hard to comprehend the difference between last year and this year.

Last year's team had limited athletic ability, but they worked hard and for the most part, played competitive games. they were a team you could root for.

this year's team just looks lost at times. on paper, they have more athletic ability, but at this point it is not translating to results on the floor. That rests on the players, but also on the coaches.

so the conundrum - how can it be that Johnson seemed to be a better coach with lesser talent, and now looks like a worse coach with better talent?

idea - sometimes, the whole is less than the sum of the parts. for whatever reason, it seems as if this year's group of players just doesn't fit together. a group of players does not always equal a "team." there are intangible components to team play, and right now, this group is lacking those intangibles. is it personalities, work ethic, off-court differences? I don't know.

all I know is something is wrong.
 

bc2211 said:
On the positive side, JOJ looks like he’s taken a stride. But we are going to need a lot more time before we can assess BJ’s ability to develop. This class is full of three star players, some of whom shouldn’t be under the microscope yet. I think it’s possible Carrington and Payne can make noticeable improvements like JOJ’s yet this year. Henley might need more time. Unfortunately we won’t know until they are juniors, but if JOJ is rising into a 12&6 guy, I’m excited about the future possibilities.
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I agree with this yet we have some acting like this class are all for sure can’t miss recruits.

Payne looks like he is a chance to be special. Ola-J looks like he may have a chance to be a top 6 rotational player. Carrington and Henley based on what they have shown so far appeared to be back end of the rotation types once and if more talented recruits are added.

However, at this point it is way too early to make a definitive judgment on any of these players and we also don’t know which guys or if any will be here 2-3 years from now.
 

Wet_Blanket_Guy said:
I understand that they are young…but our offensive / defensive schemes suck, our effort is garbage, we can’t make free throws…there are so many basic things that you can’t just revert to saying it’s all youth and we lack a leader. He can’t coach. Plus, his roster construction (as he is also the GM of the program) is horrendous. If this was pro sports and he was the GM of the team and someone else was the coach and he provided the coach with this roster that contained no guards with speed (which is a must and someone who played college basketball knows that…as he did), he would be fired as the GM)..

Which comes to…maybe he can recruit, but he clearly doesn’t think of roster construction (as we still don’t have a true PG with speed coming next year) or roster construction …massive logjam of Forwards and Centers… but he can’t coach offensive and defensive schemes effectively to produce winning basketball.
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Yet to be seen. We have a lot of inexperience on the court at all times. Going to take time to get settled. Fact is....we were expected to be terrible last year and weren't expected to be much better this year. The freshman look good and we have at least one potential game changer coming in next year. This year....I'm looking for improvement out of the freshman and hopefully even Garcia, Battle, and Cooper. There's a legitimate possibility that we lose no player of note from this year's roster. Hopefully get back Fox and Ihnen. If Johnson can add another good ball handler....the results next year could be WAY different without really needing to change the makeup of the roster.

Johnnyboy18 said:
Musselman was not coming here. The more you say it doesn't make it true.
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Musselman would have been the homerun hire. But I agree....I think it would have been a longshot for him to leave a very cozy situation at Arkansas. 58 isn't super old as far as basketball coaches go....especially in the NCAA. But would he have wanted to leave a program that he's built into a legit high seed tournament team to rebuild from the ground again? I'm skeptical.

tikited said:
I don't see anyone saying Ben needs to get rid of the young kids.
You need both youth and experience. Ben absolutely needs o bring in a few more experienced guys next year or it will be a repeat of this year.
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My point is that people are calling for his head. Saying that he should be on the hot seat. You know what happens if he were fired, right? Probably another mass exodus and another couple years of pulling together scraps from the new coach.

It's silly. Freshman class looks to have a ton of potential....and the two incoming guys were both highly sought after. Thanks....but I'll let this play out. Johnson will soon have a roster full of talent that we haven't had in a very long time. If he can't make it work then? Well that would be disappointing. For now....I'll be less focused on the W/L column....and more focused on seeing how the young guys develop. Freshman to Sophomore leap can often be significant. And thee guys are all seeing plenty of court time.
 

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