Ben Johnson's Gophers picked to finish 14th in the unofficial Big Ten men's hoops preseason media poll

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I am loving the underdog role. We will take our lumps, but our room for improvement is greater than any other team. A great chance for the youngin's to learn with no pressure.
 

Coach Johnson filled the roster with a bunch of young, promising kids with 3 or 4 years to play and this team will get much better as the season goes on and will be middle of the pack or better in 2022...oh wait.
 

EG#9 said:
Coach Johnson filled the roster with a bunch of young, promising kids with 3 or 4 years to play and this team will get much better as the season goes on and will be middle of the pack or better in 2022...oh wait.
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22 year olds can’t improve through the year? Next year we are bringing in 5 frosh, but with the portal, there is no reason to be super young.
 

Not expecting us to contend for the conference title (or even an NCAA berth), but dead last in the conference would be a gut punch. I think we will do better than that. We are still in the same conference as PSU and NW.
 

Gopherfan84 said:
22 year olds can’t improve through the year? Next year we are bringing in 5 frosh, but with the portal, there is no reason to be super young.
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How do you know that we're bringing in 5 freshmen next year? There only are 3 committed so far. I can't see why anyone would want to bring in more than four freshmen.
 



cjbfbp said:
How do you know that we're bringing in 5 freshmen next year? There only are 3 committed so far. I can't see why anyone would want to bring in more than four freshmen.
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It was an error and meant to be 3. My bad
 


short ornery norwegian said:
the way to evaluate this team is not on wins and losses.

yeah, some wins would be nice. but this season is not about winning per se - it's about setting a new direction for the program.
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Yeah, I keep reading that from some posters but if the team is sitting at
5-20 after 25 games, I suspect viewership will decline significantly even among some viewers who are now saying "wins don't matter this season."
 



cjbfbp said:
Yeah, I keep reading that from some posters but if the team is sitting at
5-20 after 25 games, I suspect viewership will decline significantly even among some viewers who are now saying "wins don't matter this season."
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As I said before, I am very curious to see what this team looks like.

I don't want to get into another of those stupid arguments about who is a "fan" of the team or not -
but if someone is saying that they will only follow the Gophers if they have a certain winning percentage, then you are certainly qualifying your status as a fan.

what, in the old days, we used to call a "fair weather fan."

and, one of my points of interest is seeing if the team can improve during the season, so there is an incentive to watch the entire season to track their progress - or lack thereof.
 


The only thing worth watching this season is getting a glimpse of what this might look like going forward. Hopefully Johnson can recruit the type of talent that can play the style of basketball that he is implementing at a high level.
 

MennoSota said:
I am loving the underdog role.
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Are you referring to being the underdog in the substantial majority of games, like the expected condition for this season, or, are you referring to being the underdog generally like most other seasons?
 



cjbfbp said:
Are you referring to being the underdog in the substantial majority of games, like the expected condition for this season, or, are you referring to being the underdog generally like most other seasons?
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I refer to this present year. We have absolutely nothing to lose. It's a year of great opportunity.
 

Remember the most talented Don't always win,sometimes the best TEAM does,that would be us, I hope.
 


kix4kix said:
Quoting for a laugh later. No game should be assumed this year.
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If you count Western Kentucky as a cupcake, it's a virtual lock they will lose at least one.

But losing to WKU would (likely) then add an 8th cupcake in Princeton and remove South Carolina. Bottom line is they should really get 6 non-conference wins at a minimum.
 

cjbfbp said:
Yeah, I keep reading that from some posters but if the team is sitting at
5-20 after 25 games, I suspect viewership will decline significantly even among some viewers who are now saying "wins don't matter this season."
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Agreed. You dopes who act like “wins don’t matter”. Deserve crap seasons in perpetuity.
 

howeda7 said:
If you count Western Kentucky as a cupcake, it's a virtual lock they will lose at least one.

But losing to WKU would (likely) then add an 8th cupcake in Princeton and remove South Carolina. Bottom line is they should really get 6 non-conference wins at a minimum.
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Based on delusion, sure
 

kix4kix said:
Based on delusion, sure
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What evidence do you have? You just see a brand new roster you know nothing about most likely. Have you looked at the non cons roster yet? I can see people’s argument for the B1G, but we have plenty of talent to be fine in the our non conference as we scheduled it very soft
 

kix4kix said:
Based on delusion, sure
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Going 6-2 against cupcakes is delusional? We haven't lost a single game to a cupcake in ~10 years. I recall losing to Portland in a tournament under Tubby. I can't recall any since. They will have a slip up or two this time around. But it shouldn't be more than 2.
 

howeda7 said:
Going 6-2 against cupcakes is delusional? We haven't lost a single game to a cupcake in ~10 years. I recall losing to Portland in a tournament under Tubby. I can't recall any since. They will have a slip up or two this time around. But it shouldn't be more than 2.
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It's amazing how doom and gloom some think this roster is. I seriously think many think it's not a D1 roster even. I get the worries about competing in the B1G, but we added a lot of good pieces that should be more than enough to beat most in our non con. We added plenty of players who played big minutes in D1 already.
 

Gopherfan84 said:
It's amazing how doom and gloom some think this roster is. I seriously think many think it's not a D1 roster even. I get the worries about competing in the B1G, but we added a lot of good pieces that should be more than enough to beat most in our non con. We added plenty of players who played big minutes in D1 already.
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Agreed. Yes we have a lot of mid-major transfers and we don't know how they will all pan out. But they should be favored in all 6 of the non-conference home games and have a decent shot vs WKU/Princeton and at Pitt. 6-4 non-conference is very fair. The B1G will be rough. If we can shoot the 3, we'll pull off a couple upsets though.
 

Gopherfan84 said:
How is Penn State and Northwestern that far above us in your eyes?
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NW returns alot more production from last year than we do. Bring in a 4* recruit as well. Get a pretty good grad transfer in to provide some depth. That's the difference between us and them. Their good grad transfer is providing depth for them, ours are being asked to start and play all the meaningful minutes.

PSU is a little bit more of an unknown. They had just about as much turnover as we did. But they do return 3 significant players from last year, bring in a really good transfer from Siena, and their coach is held in higher regard(whether that's right or not, we'll find out).

I'd vote us 14th too, unfortunately.
 

Gopherfan84 said:
Minnesota schedule some cupcakes early, they will get 6 wins in the non con easily.
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That would require us to win all the games outside of WKU then Princeton/South Carolina, Pitt and Miss State. 6 wins is probably the max we're getting OOC, unfortunately. The other 6 games are extremely easy, but I'm not sure we run that table. Wouldn't surprise me if UMKC, IPFW and Green-Bay are all hard fought games.
 

Gophers7633 said:
NW returns alot more production from last year than we do. Bring in a 4* recruit as well. Get a pretty good grad transfer in to provide some depth. That's the difference between us and them. Their good grad transfer is providing depth for them, ours are being asked to start and play all the meaningful minutes.

PSU is a little bit more of an unknown. They had just about as much turnover as we did. But they do return 3 significant players from last year, bring in a really good transfer from Siena, and their coach is held in higher regard(whether that's right or not, we'll find out).

I'd vote us 14th too, unfortunately.
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I'm not arguing that we should get voted 14th. I'd probably vote us there too because of unknowns. My point was that the poster said they were far above us. I don't think that's fair to say either.
 

Gophers7633 said:
That would require us to win all the games outside of WKU then Princeton/South Carolina, Pitt and Miss State. 6 wins is probably the max we're getting OOC, unfortunately. The other 6 games are extremely easy, but I'm not sure we run that table. Wouldn't surprise me if UMKC, IPFW and Green-Bay are all hard fought games.
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Again, none of those are world beaters this year and most (Besides WKU and Princeton) are mid to bottom tier in their conferences as well. In the case of Princeton, they didn't play at all last year. Again, I'm not saying we are an NCAA tournament team or even an NIT team, but to say we are going to be completely awful when most known nothing about the roster isn't fair either. We added some really nice pieces too.
 
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Gopherfan84 said:
I'm not arguing that we should get voted 14th. I'd probably vote us there too because of unknowns. My point was that the poster said they were far above us. I don't think that's fair to say either.
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Based on the point voting system, and with the Gophers basically getting every last place vote, there was bound to be a big discrepancy between whoever was 13th and then the Gophers. If we're looking in terms of actual wins/losses of the season, I can see something like PSU having 4/5 conference wins and us getting 3/4 so in the end not much separation. I do think PSU and us are the clear bottom two teams, unfortunately.
 

Gopherfan84 said:
Again, none of those are world beaters this year and most (Besides WKU and Princeton) are mid to bottom tier in their conferences as well. In the case of Princeton, they didn't play at all last year. Again, I'm not saying we are an NCAA tournament team or even an NIT team, but to say we are going to be completely awful when most known nothing about the roster isn't fair either. We added some really nice pieces too.
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WKU has been a top 3 CUSA team for the last 4 years and had the best winning % in the league last year. They lost alot off that team, but they bring in some nice transfers. A guard from Cincy who avg 14 ppg. That's a better addition then anyone we have brought in IMO, unfortunately, given his production and competition. They bring in a transfer from DePaul who avg 10 and 5. They also bring in a transfer from MD who avg 7 ppg last season. They won't be as good as they have been, but that roster is more talented than ours is IMO.

Princeton is an unknown. I'm more so basing that on their history as a program and what they've been the last 5 years or so. Maybe their roster is completely gutted, I admittedly, don't really know.
 

Gophers7633 said:
WKU has been a top 3 CUSA team for the last 4 years and had the best winning % in the league last year. They lost alot off that team, but they bring in some nice transfers. A guard from Cincy who avg 14 ppg. That's a better addition then anyone we have brought in IMO, unfortunately, given his production and competition. They bring in a transfer from DePaul who avg 10 and 5. They also bring in a transfer from MD who avg 7 ppg last season. They won't be as good as they have been, but that roster is more talented than ours is IMO.

Princeton is an unknown. I'm more so basing that on their history as a program and what they've been the last 5 years or so. Maybe their roster is completely gutted, I admittedly, don't really know.
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Agree on WKU and you can always expect Stansbury will always bring in dudes. They will be developing chemistry just like us as well though. Princeton didn't play last year, but are most likely a top 3 team in the Ivy if not the favorite, and James Jones is phenomenal as a coach.

Trust me I don't expect us to win a ton of B1G games. I can see the 3/4 wins for us being a realistic possibility with a ceiling of 6-7 (lot of things go right and bad for others). I just don't think NW will improve a ton more than last year and PSU isn't a ton better like you mentioned. I don't expect postseason births, but I don't think we will be as bad as Pitinos team with Dorsey, and a young Nate Mason though either.
 

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