I forgot how they ended last conference season.Just be patient, we're 1-17 over our last 18 B1G games, with a good chance of being 1-24 over our last 25 by the end of the season.
Totally normal and a part of the process...
Give me a fucking break
Consider how close we could be to the BT record without the OSU win. Phew.
The board of directors made the decision to hire a local guy with little experience partially for reasons other than the "absolute success" of the program. Looking back a few years I am surprised that nobody saw it coming. This thread should be named (the "UofM board is a disaster").
So no one can categorically say things would be better if we had a different coach. Thus you can always fight for your side. That said we have 1 win (against the 13th placed team) in conference. Yes some bad luck, but it is really hard to imagine it could be worse.
I happen to think that a coach that can coach is more than half the battle (no pun intended), maybe closer to 2/3rds of it. Many, many people disagree with that; they think that the main battle - maybe the only battle that matters - is to get better players. It matters, for sure, but a coach at Minnesota has to get the most out of what will almost always be equal to inferior talent to the league. Indiana/Illinois/Michigan/MSU/OSU/PU, maybe even Maryland will have at least as good talent every year. You gotta be able to coach. Maybe Ben will learn. The metrics (and I don't mean Ws and Ls) are unkind. I certainly think there are coaches out there that could do better metrics-wise with this roster.
He cannot be fired now. Program suicide. What could have happened is ....we could have brought in a coach with a track record. We didn't. Now we are where we are.
"Coach X"
I loved that team. Hagen improved so much, as did Arob. Lots of effort.
The problem could be that 1 or 2 of the current freshmen are convinced to go into the portal for a better program and/or more NIL $. To think that current freshmen class will stick it out might be a wish and a prayer. Then what?
Things should and could be better, and it would be difficult to fathom how they could possibly be any worse. We've managed to go from a 3rd-quartile team in the Big Ten to easily the worst, a laughingstock embarrassment, and somehow achieved it in less than 2 calendar years.
Who the hell are the U Board of Directors?
Firing a well liked, scandal free, local, black coach after 2 years would be program suicide. I don’t like what I see but I have hope for Ben. The U put him in this spot and they need to give him the time.
To be more charitable and probably accurate, the Ben Johnson hire is a disaster (at least so far). He's not personally a disaster. That's why I wish and pray he'll still be successful. He's high character and from all appearances has recruited high-character kids. That's not nothing.
I'll bite. I'm a supporter of Ben's to some extent. I give him an F for your "on court" production question. If he earns that from me again next year, after bringing in what seems to be a nice class, then I would be all for a change. With the portal and our incoming class, he has to move them out of the cellar.
Wasn't fishing.... But thanks for the nibble... I'm just shocked as how much support he is getting after the production to date... I agree completely with your sentiment. D-/f grade for the on court performance
I'm a supporter until I'm not. I'm on board giving a guy a three year go. Portal may work or it may not. Look at Wyoming, they brought three guys in this year from USC and UCLA, and they're already off the team. Said coach should have a noticeable system in place with a few of his own players running that system in year three. If improvement from pre-hire isn't there, maybe even substantial improvement, my support is probably gone. I think that's pretty reasonable.
There's a huge difference between "good" and "better than this." Can we say that if we hired Craig Smith or Brian Dutcher as we should have, we'd be a good solid NCAA team this year? No. Can we say we'd be better than we are now? Yes. 100%.
No it wouldn't. No one cares enough about the program for it to be a "suicide". Public interest is already dead. You might get a tersely worded column from Jim Souhan, who knows squat about college basketball, but that would be the extent of the media outrage. Maybe some AAU coaches would be mad or something, but I hope we've learned not to let them influence hires by now.
You are right - that is confusing. I am referring to the Hiring committee that was relied upon to find and select a candidate and is lead by President Gabel who is the most senior member on the team but also includes Coyle who was charged with assembling it. Also the greater group of internal leadership that has input on decisions like this and sometimes includes the Board of Regents chiming in through backdoor channels.
This is really where the fair discussion lies imo. Some others want to scream roster construction and I see some of that argument being fair too, but could a different staff teach this ground better? I don’t know yet.
Remember that game that Grier appeared to single handedly beat the Badgers? Great seats
