Ben Johnson is a Disaster

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MNJay said:
Plenty of reason for optimism?? You & everyone on here were acting exactly how you are now. No way in **** were you thinking past the current season.
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I absolutely am, which is the main reason for my negativity. The roster as it's constructed today, including next year's recruits, doesn't have guards who have the quickness, defensive ability, or ball handling skills to compete in the B1G. This team is all forwards and centers with 1, slow footed, defensive liability PG.
 

MNJay said:
What you don't understand is...college basketball is a 4-year-cycle of players...who start out as freshmen and then get better as they get older.

Ben's job was to recruit. He shouldn't be blamed for the current state of Xavier's program that he inherited.
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Were you cryogenically frozen in 1989 and just thawed out 3 months ago?
 

MNJay said:
What you don't understand is...college basketball is a 4-year-cycle of players...who start out as freshmen and then get better as they get older.

Ben's job was to recruit. He shouldn't be blamed for the current state of Xavier's program that he inherited.
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I understand that while Ben was at Xavier, they went to the NIT, then missed the postseason twice, altogether, the next two seasons. This from a program that had made 5 straight tournament appearances, and 8 of 9 prior to him getting there. I'm not blaming all of Xavier's incompetence on Ben, but it was an abject failure while he was there.
 


MNJay said:
Plenty of reason for optimism?? You & everyone on here were acting exactly how you are now. No way in **** were you thinking past the current season.
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I think you are totally wrong here. Most fans are looking ahead to some degree.
 


GopherWeatherGuy said:
Were you cryogenically frozen in 1989 and just thawed out 3 months ago?
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The transfer portal is your excuse to act like a petulant child. Just like you did when Haskins' first players were freshmen & sophomores.

When a new coach inherits an empty roster, he should still be given a chance to recruit & develop. Especially when his recruiting is improving.
 

MNJay said:
Not even 5-star recruiting can get you guys to look beyond the current moment.

Maybe this will help... 🍼
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We are looking beyond. But one 5-star recruit doesn't fix 0-20.
 


MNJay said:
The transfer portal is your excuse to act like a petulant child. Just like you did when Haskins' first players were freshmen & sophomores.

When a new coach inherits an empty roster, he should still be given a chance to recruit & develop. Especially when his recruiting is improving.
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Drink!
 



howeda7 said:
We are looking beyond. But one 5-star recruit doesn't fix 0-20.
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It sure does. One 5-star, 2 other good recruits, and 3 or 4 freshmen improving certainly does fix 0-20.

Haskins made the Sweet-16 after 2-16 & 4-14 in conference in the previous years.

Although we CAN look for progress this year. If our freshmen don't improve enough to help us win any games late in the season, then I will start to worry.
 



Johnnyboy18 said:
18 games lost from the future tellers. Gotta love it. Fold the program
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Not at all. I'm simply saying you can't sell "wait for next year, Evans will fix everything, if we're 0-20. We need to win some games this year for that line to continue to work.
 



MNJay said:
It sure does. One 5-star, 2 other good recruits, and 3 or 4 freshmen improving certainly does fix 0-20.

Haskins made the Sweet-16 after 2-16 & 4-14 in conference in the previous years.

Although we CAN look for progress this year. If our freshmen don't improve enough to help us win any games late in the season, then I will start to worry.
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and yet you will never actually say what would show that they are "improving" pretty great when you have no actual frame of reference. You can just make it up and say well i was right. Good that you know you are so wrong you will refuse to put actual markers out there so show this "improvement". Lets see them points? minutes? assists? %'s? We know you don't actually care about wins or losses so what does matter ?
 

MNJay said:
It sure does. One 5-star, 2 other good recruits, and 3 or 4 freshmen improving certainly does fix 0-20.
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If we go 0-20, the freshman clearly didn't improve enough.
MNJay said:
Haskins made the Sweet-16 after 2-16 & 4-14 in conference in the previous years.

Although we CAN look for progress this year. If our freshmen don't improve enough to help us win any games late in the season, then I will start to worry.
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Clem! You seem to be moving the goalposts. Also, this much drinking early in the day isn't healthy.
 

MNJay said:
It sure does. One 5-star, 2 other good recruits, and 3 or 4 freshmen improving certainly does fix 0-20.

Haskins made the Sweet-16 after 2-16 & 4-14 in conference in the previous years.

Although we CAN look for progress this year. If our freshmen don't improve enough to help us win any games late in the season, then I will start to worry.
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you win MNJAY, we will be 4-16 next year. Can't wait.
 

MNJay said:
I highly disagree. When a team is losing, everyone automatically says the coach is an idiot. 100% of the time. And when a team is winning, everyone says the coach is a genius.

It's like magic. Every time.
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Nope, not 100% of the time. If I had been a Rutgers fan the first two Pikiell years, I'd have been a lot more patient with the losing because they were clearly establishing excellence on defense. I look beneath the W's and L's.

Michigan - under Howard - is the other side of the coin. They have a lot of talent and win more than they lose, but their underlying metrics are underwhelming* and therefore I'm not impressed.

*(at least relative to their perceived talent - MN would kill for those metrics)
 

MNJay said:
Not even 5-star recruiting can get you guys to look beyond the current moment.

Maybe this will help... 🍼
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Look, we get that you're 16, maybe 17 yrs old, but what you're advocating is NOT just "looking beyond the current moment" to look forward; you're also demanding that everyone completely ignore the last 18 months's body of work, dismiss 100%, nothing we've seen up to this point should tell us anything about what the next 18 months might hold. Idiotic.

You should drop your schtick or at least maybe tone it down if you want anyone to remotely take you seriously.
 


howeda7 said:
If we go 0-20, the freshman clearly didn't improve enough.

Clem! You seem to be moving the goalposts. Also, this much drinking early in the day isn't healthy.
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If that happens it would really question Ben's coaching/player evaluation ability,

Wisconsin is a chance for Johnson to put on display his coaching ability, Wisconsin doesn't have five dominant guys. On offense can he expose Wisky's weaknesses, they are there. Can he come up with a game plan to defend them. They don't have to win but they sure should be able to keep it close
 

Spaulding!No! said:
Yep, the portal has changed the game.
MNJay said:
That's such bullshit. That's simply your excuse to act like a petulant child.
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So one-time free transfers without the prospect of having to sit a year has changed nothing in regard to building a roster? The fact that the transfer portal has ballooned 4-5x in the last 5 years means nothing? Well now you're peeing on my leg and telling me it's raining :cool:
 

MNJay said:
The transfer portal is your excuse to act like a petulant child. Just like you did when Haskins' first players were freshmen & sophomores.

When a new coach inherits an empty roster, he should still be given a chance to recruit & develop. Especially when his recruiting is improving.
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I was a well behaved toddler during Haskins first two seasons.

And Johnson did not inherit an empty roster. Mashburn and Carr were the only two in the portal at that time, and remained uncommitted for several weeks post the Johnson hire. The rest of the roster was intact, and the 'empty roster' was Johnson's fault as much anyones.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
I was a well behaved toddler during Haskins first two seasons.

And Johnson did not inherit an empty roster. Mashburn and Carr were the only two in the portal at that time, and remained uncommitted for several weeks post the Johnson hire. The rest of the roster was intact, and the 'empty roster' was Johnson's fault as much anyones.
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This is correct. Ben made a conscious decision to start over and build his own culture. For better or for worse, that was a choice he made and if he didn't make it, he was unable to convince any of the guys to stay with him.
 

jovs said:
If that happens it would really question Ben's coaching/player evaluation ability,

Wisconsin is a chance for Johnson to put on display his coaching ability, Wisconsin doesn't have five dominant guys. On offense can he expose Wisky's weaknesses, they are there. Can he come up with a game plan to defend them. They don't have to win but they sure should be able to keep it close
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Keep it close? You've got to be kidding. Did u watch Chicago State? Come up with a game plan? Are you serious? Our guys can barely function out there. Wisconsin will win by at least 15 to 20.
 


Allshade said:
Keep it close? You've got to be kidding. Did u watch Chicago State? Come up with a game plan? Are you serious? Our guys can barely function out there. Wisconsin will win by at least 15 to 20.
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Trust the process.
 

MNJay said:
I highly disagree. When a team is losing, everyone automatically says the coach is an idiot. 100% of the time. And when a team is winning, everyone says the coach is a genius.

It's like magic. Every time.
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It's also true that sh!tty coaches lose more games than genius coaches. Are there exceptions? Sure. But in general, it's a pretty good standard to judge a coach.

It's not magic, it's logic.
 


Bob_Loblaw said:
It's also true that sh!tty coaches lose more games than genius coaches. Are there exceptions? Sure. But in general, it's a pretty good standard to judge a coach.

It's not magic, it's logic.
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So, after one season and 12 games have you, in your great discernment, determined that Coach Johnson is a "sh!tty" coach?
I suppose it doesn't matter that last year's team is entirely different from this year's team. And, I suppose that you have broken down every decision Ben has made to determine which decision was "sh!tty" and which wasn't.
From basic observation I will state that when Ben calls a timeout and draws up a play, it is almost always successful in getting the Gophers a basket. His inbounds plays have been solid. When have you seen the Pitino patented toss the ball 3/4 of the court to inbound play?

The conclusion I am left with is that you are being illogical.
 

MennoSota said:
So, after one season and 12 games have you, in your great discernment, determined that Coach Johnson is a "sh!tty" coach?
I suppose it doesn't matter that last year's team is entirely different from this year's team. And, I suppose that you have broken down every decision Ben has made to determine which decision was "sh!tty" and which wasn't.
From basic observation I will state that when Ben calls a timeout and draws up a play, it is almost always successful in getting the Gophers a basket. His inbounds plays have been solid. When have you seen the Pitino patented toss the ball 3/4 of the court to inbound play?

The conclusion I am left with is that you are being illogical.
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Here's what we have so far:

Ben is 19-23 overall and 4-18 in the Big Ten

What we are being sold is that we should be okay with being 6-34 in the Big Ten after year 2. And furthermore the same people that tell us to be happy with that are saying that next year might bring it to 13-47. Come on back in year 5- that will be awesome!!

That's not okay and it is totally rational to say that. I think it is reasonable to expect, 6 Big Ten wins this year as a baseline performance and 10 next year. That would be good progress. Less than those numbers is poor. Less than that and he can win the conference title for plays after time outs and out of bounds plays and it is still a poor job of coaching.
 

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