Ben Johnson to complete Gophers staff with Richmond assistant Marcus Jenkins

BleedGopher

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per Marcus:

Ben Johnson's Gophers men's basketball staff is expected to be complete soon with the hiring of Richmond associate head coach Marcus Jenkins, sources told the Star Tribune.

Johnson's first two assistants hired were former DeLaSalle coach and Colorado State assistant Dave Thorson and William & Mary assistant Jason Kemp.

Jenkins would join the Gophers after spending the last six seasons as an assistant for Richmond coach Chris Mooney. He's been in the associate head coach role since 2018.


Go Gophers!!
 


Good luck to Marcus. Enjoy the Twin Cities and coaching in the Big Ten!
 




Nice! We have a staff! Now let's fill out this roster with some players that will make us competitive this year. This isn't football, if you're a good coach and recruiter, you can turn a basketball program around in your first year.
First year is a bit optimistic unless you already have great players coming in. But agree that a turnaround in basketball can happen way faster than it can in football. You only need to hit a few home runs in recruiting for basketball to dramatically shift your team's fortunes.
 








First year is a bit optimistic unless you already have great players coming in. But agree that a turnaround in basketball can happen way faster than it can in football. You only need to hit a few home runs in recruiting for basketball to dramatically shift your team's fortunes.

Yup, I agree. We still have 4-5 spots open, so we still have a shot at building out a team that can compete. Let's raise the expectations a bit.
 

First year is a bit optimistic unless you already have great players coming in. But agree that a turnaround in basketball can happen way faster than it can in football. You only need to hit a few home runs in recruiting for basketball to dramatically shift your team's fortunes.
Come on now, I need instant gratification, I can't wait two years.
 




If you're a recruit that wants to get to the NBA, it helps to have coaches that have NBA experience and therefore NBA contacts.
I get what you are saying but don't think a lack of NBA experience on a coaching staff would be a major driving force for most recruits when picking their college of choice.

For example, I looked at the Gonzaga coaching staff. The only NBA experience i could find was one coach who was on a couple rosters but never played.
 

I get what you are saying but don't think a lack of NBA experience on a coaching staff would be a major driving force for most recruits when picking their college of choice.

For example, I looked at the Gonzaga coaching staff. The only NBA experience i could find was one coach who was on a couple rosters but never played.
Agreed, not major, but it all adds up. What are the items that make a cruit' want to play for BJ and his coaches? There isn't much of a track record saying those coaches will get you to the NBA. We'll see what he can do in terms of W/L next year, and that'll set them up for landing (or not) the 22' recruits.
 

I get what you are saying but don't think a lack of NBA experience on a coaching staff would be a major driving force for most recruits when picking their college of choice.

For example, I looked at the Gonzaga coaching staff. The only NBA experience i could find was one coach who was on a couple rosters but never played.
You wanna know why Gonzaga is Gonzaga..they win all the time. Yes they may not have great results in the NCAA tournament, but they are always top seed in the torunamnt. Plus Mark Few has been there for 22 bleeping years. They are an outlier not an example.
 

Agreed, not major, but it all adds up. What are the items that make a cruit' want to play for BJ and his coaches? There isn't much of a track record saying those coaches will get you to the NBA. We'll see what he can do in terms of W/L next year, and that'll set them up for landing (or not) the 22' recruits.
W/L record next year won't be a massive factor with recruits. Style of play will be far more important, so that players can see how they would fit into what Johnson wants to do here.
 

You wanna know why Gonzaga is Gonzaga..they win all the time. Yes they may not have great results in the NCAA tournament, but they are always top seed in the torunamnt. Plus Mark Few has been there for 22 bleeping years. They are an outlier not an example.
Was just using Gonzaga as an example of a staff with little to no NBA experience that is very successful. I am sure there are a lot of other staffs that have minimal NBA experience of any kind on them, I am just too lazy to go hunting. I took a guess that Gonzaga would be one and was right.
 

If you're a recruit that wants to get to the NBA, it helps to have coaches that have NBA experience and therefore NBA contacts.
Plenty of really successful coaches, such as Mark Few and staff, who never had NBA experience. More common than not.
 

You wanna know why Gonzaga is Gonzaga..they win all the time. Yes they may not have great results in the NCAA tournament, but they are always top seed in the torunamnt. Plus Mark Few has been there for 22 bleeping years. They are an outlier not an example.
They are an example. They were getting good players 15-20 years ago as well. Tom Izzo started getting good players with no NBA experience, he or his staff. Bennett? Beard? Bo Ryan?
 


You wanna know why Gonzaga is Gonzaga..they win all the time. Yes they may not have great results in the NCAA tournament, but they are always top seed in the torunamnt. Plus Mark Few has been there for 22 bleeping years. They are an outlier not an example.
Not to beat a dead horse, but why does Gonzaga win all the time????? Because they play weak competition, like you said they are an outlier not an example...
 

I get what you are saying but don't think a lack of NBA experience on a coaching staff would be a major driving force for most recruits when picking their college of choice.

For example, I looked at the Gonzaga coaching staff. The only NBA experience i could find was one coach who was on a couple rosters but never played.

Yeah, whats more important is how many kids have we sent to the NBA.

only 11 players have been drafted to the NBA from gonzaga since 2002.

We have had 2 players drafted since then.

wisconsin 5.
 

Was just using Gonzaga as an example of a staff with little to no NBA experience that is very successful. I am sure there are a lot of other staffs that have minimal NBA experience of any kind on them, I am just too lazy to go hunting. I took a guess that Gonzaga would be one and was right.
I don’t think nba experience on a staff makes any difference. Players wanna win and they wanna expose their brand on a national stage. Both things that Minnesota struggles to do.
 

I don’t think nba experience on a staff makes any difference. Players wanna win and they wanna expose their brand on a national stage. Both things that Minnesota struggles to do.
NBA connections do matter, if it makes your case more credible that you can help a player get into the NBA. Take for instance Anfernee Hardaway who went from being a HS coach to coaching Memphis and pulls in the number one recruiting class in the nation, all he had to sell was NBA.
 

I'm just happy about the bio on the Richmond website:

"A proven recruiter, Jenkins and the Spiders..."
 


NBA connections do matter, if it makes your case more credible that you can help a player get into the NBA. Take for instance Anfernee Hardaway who went from being a HS coach to coaching Memphis and pulls in the number one recruiting class in the nation, all he had to sell was NBA.
We shall see if that is sustained success. Don’t think coaching James Weismann at both the high school and AAU programs didn’t have something to do with landing him? Plus there was definitely some back door money to Weismann through the AAU program. Winning and exposing their brand is what matters to college kids. It’s about him many likes on Twitter and TikTok they get so they can market themselves for future earning power.
 





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