Big Ten Basketball: Early grades for each teams 2023 offseason moves (14. Minnesota Golden Gophers – Grade: F)

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Rockraven said:
I won’t be concerned about the comments and criticisms of ex-marine.

I expect nothing in return from you when he is named to the Freshman All B1G team. No thing due.
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You really struggle with replying to these threads. I don't even know what your first comment means. As to your second comment, yeah, you're right, I would never change my screen name because I was wrong. Then again, in terms of frequency and proportion, I've never been wrong quite like you.

That said, if Betts is in the Big 10 all freshman tea, I'll be ecstatic. I certainly wouldn't change my screenname for the 7th team, then again, I'd have to be wrong about everything for about 9 straight months before it was an apples to apples comparison.
 


CoMn said:
Considering Mitchell is rated as a 92 transfer and Cooper is rated 89 (you can agree or disagree with the ratings but without head to head play it's what we have) I think it's a bit harsh to say Johnson got an F. We needed point guards and we got 2. Some aren't disappointed about losing Battle, but I am. But even with Battle's loss IMHO, this year's team will be better than last year's just because we have more depth and experience....and two point guards.
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247 has Mitchell ranked 50 and Cooper 129, until he gets on the court
Bob_Loblaw said:
C: Payne (25) / Garcia (10) / Thompson (5)
PF: Garcia (20) / Battle (15) / Olo-Joseph (5)

There, it took me 20 seconds to figure out a way to get one of our best players PT at his best position.

Can people now stop saying that it would have required benching Garcia? It's an idiotic argument.
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That's fine but you are playing Payne with Battle and Garcia with Ola-Joseph and limited time with Payne and Garcia on the floor. No thanks. Battle and Garcia didn't work because of defense and rebounding.

The big thing with losing Battle is the focus he attracted defensively. If they can present a balanced attack with four or five guys scoring then no big deal. If they are relying on Garcia and Payne for much of the scoring then it becomes a problem.
 

Ryan James gave a thorough analysis of zHawkins game on 247. I trust his work plus I have seen nothing here other than speculation. RJ sees Hawkins as one who will facilitate the Gopher offense unlike Cooper and sn equal to him with assist ability. TO’s are a concern but likely correctable for the most part. His FT and 3 % are better and has ability to get a couple steals:game. He could equal Coopers point output. Even with his quicks he could be a liability on D like Cooper. But he will apply more 1:1 ball pressure but struggle fighting through BIG ball screens. Mitchell is clearly an improvement over Samuels. PG and off guard guard positions will be much better in 23.

Question is who replace Battles numbers and game experience? Right now it’s all speculation and hope.
 


Bayfieldgopher said:
Ryan James gave a thorough analysis of zHawkins game on 247. I trust his work plus I have seen nothing here other than speculation. RJ sees Hawkins as one who will facilitate the Gopher offense unlike Cooper and sn equal to him with assist ability. TO’s are a concern but likely correctable for the most part. His FT and 3 % are better and has ability to get a couple steals:game. He could equal Coopers point output. Even with his quicks he could be a liability on D like Cooper. But he will apply more 1:1 ball pressure but struggle fighting through BIG ball screens. Mitchell is clearly an improvement over Samuels. PG and off guard guard positions will be much better in 23.

Question is who replace Battles numbers and game experience? Right now it’s all speculation and hope.
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Cooper has 119 steals in 4 years. Hawkins has 117 in 2.

Cooper was good with his backside blocks.
 

Look, it is entirely possible that Johnson is fired after this year, and the next coach comes in and does a better job.

but there is no guarantee. the next coach could come in and struggle with the exact same issues that Johnson is struggling with - how to attract better talent to a school with no real history of success for the last 25 years, an old arena, and limited NIL.

If people are expecting the next coach to be a miracle worker who can magically fix all of the problems with the program, well, I suppose that's possible. but I'm not going to hold my breath.

there is generally a reason, or multiple reasons, why good programs are good. and there is a reason, or multiple reasons, why bad programs are bad.

simply changing coaches has not made a real difference for the Gopher program for over 25 years. Why does anyone think that is going to change?
 

short ornery norwegian said:
Look, it is entirely possible that Johnson is fired after this year, and the next coach comes in and does a better job.

but there is no guarantee. the next coach could come in and struggle with the exact same issues that Johnson is struggling with - how to attract better talent to a school with no real history of success for the last 25 years, an old arena, and limited NIL.

If people are expecting the next coach to be a miracle worker who can magically fix all of the problems with the program, well, I suppose that's possible. but I'm not going to hold my breath.

there is generally a reason, or multiple reasons, why good programs are good. and there is a reason, or multiple reasons, why bad programs are bad.

simply changing coaches has not made a real difference for the Gopher program for over 25 years. Why does anyone think that is going to change?
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We expect competence not a miracle worker.

It's also false to say a coaching change has never made a difference in 25 years. Tubby was extremely competent and a huge upgrade over Monson. He was paid to be more than that so eventually his time ran out.
 

jovs said:
247 has Mitchell ranked 50 and Cooper 129, until he gets on the court

That's fine but you are playing Payne with Battle and Garcia with Ola-Joseph and limited time with Payne and Garcia on the floor. No thanks. Battle and Garcia didn't work because of defense and rebounding.

The big thing with losing Battle is the focus he attracted defensively. If they can present a balanced attack with four or five guys scoring then no big deal. If they are relying on Garcia and Payne for much of the scoring then it becomes a problem.
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I would never argue that our roster was constructed in a way that made us a very good team. The fact of the matter is that when Payne was sitting down, we needed to play some combination of players at the 4/5 and our choices were Garcia, Battle, Thompson and Olo-Joseph.

All of those combinations had drawbacks, we were one of the worst basketball teams in the history of the Big 10. For all of the Garcia/Battle issues that you pointed out, I'm not sure any other combo is better. Now, we can dig more into the minutes pretty easily. Like - there should never have been a minute where neither Garcia and Battle were on the bench - so the Garcia/Battle frontcourt would have played together a TOTAL of 5 minutes per game, you could have even further limited that to situations where our opponents didn't have a true C in the game (super common in college basketball).

Combos:
Payne/Garcia (15 minutes)
Payne/Battle (10 minutes)
Thompson/Garcia (5 minutes)
Garcia/Battle (5 minutes)
Garcia/Olo-Joseph (5 minutes)

This game of finding minutes for Battle at the 4 is extremely easy. I get that none of our combos were great but they weren't great for any of our positions - we were awful. My whole point is that we should have made it a premium to find situations where our better players were put into their best positions to succeed.

The more difficult question is who would we have played at the PG/SG/SF without Battle getting a ton of those minutes but that's an entirely different point to the idea that Battle moved because Garcia was so good. Battle moved because we either couldn't or refused to recruit wings and at the beginning of the season, it appeared Ben thought a PF who could shoot was roughly the same thing as a wing.
 



There are lots of examples of downtrodden programs that found the right coach and turned it around (e.g. Pikiell). It is usually indeed the primary thing that does it. It is not the administration or the decrepit arena.
 


howeda7 said:
Ihnen and Betts will both be better than Battle if fans will just believe!
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I'm actually a little worried about Garcia, Christie, Ihnen and the newcomers. It's hard to see how their confidence won't be crushed after having to even practice with Betts. We saw what it did to Battle.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
I would never argue that our roster was constructed in a way that made us a very good team. The fact of the matter is that when Payne was sitting down, we needed to play some combination of players at the 4/5 and our choices were Garcia, Battle, Thompson and Olo-Joseph.

All of those combinations had drawbacks, we were one of the worst basketball teams in the history of the Big 10. For all of the Garcia/Battle issues that you pointed out, I'm not sure any other combo is better. Now, we can dig more into the minutes pretty easily. Like - there should never have been a minute where neither Garcia and Battle were on the bench - so the Garcia/Battle frontcourt would have played together a TOTAL of 5 minutes per game, you could have even further limited that to situations where our opponents didn't have a true C in the game (super common in college basketball).

Combos:
Payne/Garcia (15 minutes)
Payne/Battle (10 minutes)
Thompson/Garcia (5 minutes)
Garcia/Battle (5 minutes)
Garcia/Olo-Joseph (5 minutes)

This game of finding minutes for Battle at the 4 is extremely easy. I get that none of our combos were great but they weren't great for any of our positions - we were awful. My whole point is that we should have made it a premium to find situations where our better players were put into their best positions to succeed.

The more difficult question is who would we have played at the PG/SG/SF without Battle getting a ton of those minutes but that's an entirely different point to the idea that Battle moved because Garcia was so good. Battle moved because we either couldn't or refused to recruit wings and at the beginning of the season, it appeared Ben thought a PF who could shoot was roughly the same thing as a wing.
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Wow! Just Wow! You can’t change the fact that Battle had negative impact on our season. He hurt this team last year.
 



Rockraven said:
Wow! Just Wow! You can’t change the fact that Battle had negative impact on our season. He hurt this team last year.
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Yeah, he wasn't very good. My whole point was that it was because we were playing him out of position the entire season.

Also - "not very good", was still one of our better players.
 

Gopheritnow said:
Cooper was slow footed, but did have some nice assists, and also dribbled too much. Battle had a nice first year, but the lack of other shooters didnt take any pressure off him. As for him going NBA? Really? He is a nice shooter when free, and maybe will do better in a program with a couple scorers better than he is. I do like him, but he can’t carry a team by himself. That said, when he tore himself loose from the scrum to hug his GMA after the game winner, was one of the finer moments in the barns history!
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If Sam Jacobsen couldn’t make it in the NBA there is no way in hell Battle can
 

I really don't get the people crapping on Battle. He was a bit of a chucker last season, but as others have stated, that's on coaching to reel him in. One thing that is overlooked is his 78% FT shooting. He was about the only guy on the team that you actually wanted at the FT line at the end of a game. When you are literally the worst FT shooting team in all of the NCAA and you lose your best FT shooter, I can't say that's a good thing. At least both new guards are both over 70%, so maybe it's a wash, but they're already at the bottom, so there's that.

I really hope Payne is shooting 100 FT's a day.
 

I got a feeling that Baby Ben couldn’t tell Battle what to do. Sad.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
Yeah, he wasn't very good. My whole point was that it was because we were playing him out of position the entire season.

Also - "not very good", was still one of our better players.
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One of our better players? Net impact he was down there with Samuels.
 

You read these threads and the legend of Ihnen grows with every day he doesn’t play. It was awhile ago that he played, but there must be more there than what I remember.
 

WoodburyTim said:
You read these threads and the legend of Ihnen grows with every day he doesn’t play. It was awhile ago that he played, but there must be more there than what I remember.
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Our version of the back-up quarterback, who rarely takes a snap.
 



Maryland just took a player from New Mexico State who had 10 points and 11 fouls last season.
 


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