Caledonia native Eli King in portal from Iowa State

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UpAndUnder43 said:
I think my expectations for what Ben will accomplish in the portal are so low that I'd be happy with a former top-150ish recruit who struggled for playing time at a top 25ish school. Especially knowing quite a bit about his game as I've seen him play many times.

I'd take a cast off from a P6 top-25 tournament team over, lets say, some kids from low major schools or Payne's brothers from UWRF (or wherever he is) or many of the other "gets" from the BenJo era so far. At least King (and anyone like him Ben could target) have shown the potential as a high schooler to be a productive P6 player.

Do I think King is all-B1G? No. But I think he'd be better than at least 1 of, if not multiple of, the guys Ben will fill out his roster with (assuming he fills out a roster this year--we know he doesnt like doing that). If it came down to Ramberg or King--you'd be happy with Ramberg? Not a chance.
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Let's try to remember the likely choice here: it's not between Eli King and another walk-on. Also, we don't even know if Eli King wants come here.

When you're recruiting from the transfer portal, normally the choice is based on what those players have done in college (of course, they also have to be willing to come here). The history of college basketball is loaded with players who looked great in high school but were mediocre or worse in college.

Also try to remember that not all of the players recruited by this coach were the caliber of Charlie Daniels, Danny Ogele, and Taurus Samuels. One certainly can argue that Johnson has made more recruiting mistakes than most successful coaches but I would imagine that even John Calipari has made more than a few in his career.
 

cjbfbp said:
Let's try to remember the likely choice here: it's not between Eli King and another walk-on. Also, we don't even know if Eli King wants come here.

When you're recruiting from the transfer portal, normally the choice is based on what those players have done in college (of course, they also have to be willing to come here). The history of college basketball is loaded with players who looked great in high school but were mediocre or worse in college.

Also try to remember that not all of the players recruited by this coach were the caliber of Charlie Daniels, Danny Ogele, and Taurus Samuels. One certainly can argue that Johnson has made more recruiting mistakes than most successful coaches but I would imagine that even John Calipari has made more than a few in his career.
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Calipari’s floor is several floors higher than Ben’s penthouse!
 

cjbfbp said:
That's easy for you to say. You're not a coach coming off two losing seasons. What coach in that position wouldn't choose maximizing short-term success over potential longer-term program development?
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MNVCGUY said:
So someone should force Johnson to take King even if it does nothing to improve the team for 23-24 and therefore might lead to him getting fired at the end of the year?

Trying to follow the train of thought....
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Points taken, and I don't want to be insensitive to Johnson. The whole thing is confusing to me when I try to get my arms around the situation in totality. As others have noted, King was rated higher than any of last year's freshman class coming out of high school. So if I have this straight, we needed to go young last year, which was a seismic shift to building a longer-term foundation after building the entire roster the previous year from transfer upperclassmen. But now, because the coach's job is in trouble, we seismic shift back to entirely upperclassman transfers and reject an arguably better prospect than any of last year's youthful recruits, again just because of the coach's job status? Call me skeptical that this schizophrenic and job-security-fear-based approach to recruiting from one year to the next isn't going to end up being the solution to Ben's continued employment that he or you thinks it will.
 

Otis said:
No word from Ben.

Makes you wonder what his priority targets are.

King would be a good backup to a veteran transfer pg. Maybe like Ihnen playing the 2, he thinks Carrington can run the point or Christie.
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The priority is likely players that can shoot the ball and you know, play. Sorry but nothing about this kid screams he should be a Gopher except that he is from Minnesota.
 

cjbfbp said:
Uh...that's not the choice the coach had. Assuming you have some integrity, try honest characterizations instead of propaganda. Samuels was a recruiting flub but he was recruited with the intention of being a backup for one year and Eli King was committed already. At least Samuels wasn't a long-term mistake.

If the coaching staff is recruiting guards other than Eli King at the moment, that is a defensible choice. Right now Johnson has to have the George Allen philosophy: "The future is now!"
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Ben's job is literally to recruit guys who can play at this level. Samuels is definitely a long term mistake because we now have ZERO guard depth and we gave a scholarship to a guy who shot less than 30% from the field and 60% from the free-throw line. Those are the type of mistakes that put Ben on the hot seat he is in right now.

I don't care about CBJ's job. I care about building a program. We keep getting 5th year grad transfers who do nothing to build a team or a future. We're not good enough to keep taking 5th year guys. I'd rather take a chance on a guy with 3 years of eligibility left than a 5th year transfer. Ben isn't going to maintain any level of success by simply getting 5th year guys every year.
 



I saw King play a little in HS, and I know people in SE MN who saw him play a lot. My impression is that he scored a lot of points on drives to the basket, using his athleticism to beat players to the hoop. But, when you go to D1, you're playing against people who are just as quick as you - or quicker, and you don't have that same physical advantage. that is a big adjustment.

I am Not saying that King can't adjust to the college game - but I am suggesting that he might have a bigger adjustment, based on his HS playing style and level of competition. so it might take him more time than a player with a different style or level of competition.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
I saw King play a little in HS, and I know people in SE MN who saw him play a lot. My impression is that he scored a lot of points on drives to the basket, using his athleticism to beat players to the hoop. But, when you go to D1, you're playing against people who are just as quick as you - or quicker, and you don't have that same physical advantage. that is a big adjustment.
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Thanks for that observation. I observed that phenomena when Evan Turner went to the NBA. He was a great ball handler and had enough athleticism that he could slice his way through defenders in the Big Ten like a hot knife through butter on the way to the hoop. I thought he would be a really good NBA player but he was a big disappointment for a #2 pick. He was still a really good ball handler in the NBA but the finishing part against much bigger, better, and more athletic players was a different matter and he wasn't a good enough outside shooter to make up for that.
 

Gophs24 said:
you gotta remember that there is a lot of fascination on this board with MN recruits.
and Ben Johnson was hired to get this type of prospect from MN.
so yes at the time because he was from MN a lot of people were dissapointed that Ben couldnt get him on board......if he was from Nebraska nobody would have put up a fight for him back then and you wouldnt be making this post today either....

And its just overall a bad comparison to bring up the NAIA guy....he has averaged over 22 PPG and hauled in oiver 10 RPG in his 4 years there and has played in 119 games......have Eli king go down to that level for 3 years and prove what he can do....the NAIA guy isnt a high end transfer target at the D1 level but im positive he could help a team next year
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Huh? If Eli King was from Nebraska nobody would have put up a fight for him??? High 3 star (some sites 4 star) top 150ish POINT GUARD from a regional state and we shouldn't put up a fight for him. Insane.

And if a non-Minnesota PG with the same pedigree, who backed up a very good PG on an NCAA tournament P5 school enters the portal, hell yes we should look at him.

It's like most on here don't believe that a kid can improve over the course of 4 years. If he doesn't start/play big minutes as a freshman, he's garbage??? Think Eric Harris. Think Dusty Rychart. Think Damian Johnson. Hell, think AROB. Those are just quick examples off the top of my head and only Dusty is from Minnesota. Sooooo freaking short-sighted are some on this board.

I've got no connection to Eli King whatsoever, but not putting a call into him is a disgrace with 5 open scholarships.
 



short ornery norwegian said:
I saw King play a little in HS, and I know people in SE MN who saw him play a lot. My impression is that he scored a lot of points on drives to the basket, using his athleticism to beat players to the hoop. But, when you go to D1, you're playing against people who are just as quick as you - or quicker, and you don't have that same physical advantage. that is a big adjustment.

I am Not saying that King can't adjust to the college game - but I am suggesting that he might have a bigger adjustment, based on his HS playing style and level of competition. so it might take him more time than a player with a different style or level of competition.
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We have absolutely no quickness at the guard position. None. Talon Cooper is/was a nice piece, but i'm betting his game was never quickness or athleticism, even in high school.
 

GopherLaundry2013 said:
Ben's job is literally to recruit guys who can play at this level. Samuels is definitely a long term mistake because we now have ZERO guard depth and we gave a scholarship to a guy who shot less than 30% from the field and 60% from the free-throw line. Those are the type of mistakes that put Ben on the hot seat he is in right now.

I don't care about CBJ's job. I care about building a program. We keep getting 5th year grad transfers who do nothing to build a team or a future. We're not good enough to keep taking 5th year guys. I'd rather take a chance on a guy with 3 years of eligibility left than a 5th year transfer. Ben isn't going to maintain any level of success by simply getting 5th year guys every year.
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Let's try to remember something. Coaches are entitled to recruit the players they want provided those players are willing to commit to them. They bear the benefits or consequences of those decisions. If Johnson is successful in his choices this off season, then he likely lives for at least an additional year. If he isn't, then he quite possibly won't.

You can't separate the performance of a team from the coach's job prospects. No one does that on this board and you can't expect a coach to do that.
 


We really have no info about why he's transferring from Iowa State....outside of the fact that he played little this year. But King was also a true freshman on an NCAA Tournament team with a number of experienced guards......so his lack of playing time shouldn't be used as a determination of his ability.

With the newly opening scholarships....and the lack of depth at guard.....seems like he'd be an obvious player for Johnson to try and bring in. Still have openings for guys with more experience.....and since King was from Minnesota.....there's potential that Coach Johnson could have an inside track and get a quick flip out of him.....allowing for more time to recruit other players.
 



cjbfbp said:
Let's try to remember something. Coaches are entitled to recruit the players they want provided those players are willing to commit to them. They bear the benefits or consequences of those decisions. If Johnson is successful in his choices this off season, then he likely lives for at least an additional year. If he isn't, then he quite possibly won't.

You can't separate the performance of a team from the coach's job prospects. No one does that on this board and you can't expect a coach to do that.
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True, but if I’m the coach on the hot seat and I can sign Janet Nelson Jr for one year and I have four more scholarships remaining, I’d probably want to bring in a developmental PG behind him to keep this panic mode from occurring every year!

Cause it’s a lot harder to get the guys with multiple years of eligibility left who also are seasoned.
 


stocker08 said:
We really have no info about why he's transferring from Iowa State....outside of the fact that he played little this year. But King was also a true freshman on an NCAA Tournament team with a number of experienced guards......so his lack of playing time shouldn't be used as a determination of his ability.

With the newly opening scholarships....and the lack of depth at guard.....seems like he'd be an obvious player for Johnson to try and bring in. Still have openings for guys with more experience.....and since King was from Minnesota.....there's potential that Coach Johnson could have an inside track and get a quick flip out of him.....allowing for more time to recruit other players.
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Didn’t Iowa State sign a stud PG recruit?
 

UpAndUnder43 said:
I think my expectations for what Ben will accomplish in the portal are so low that I'd be happy with a former top-150ish recruit who struggled for playing time at a top 25ish school. Especially knowing quite a bit about his game as I've seen him play many times.

I'd take a cast off from a P6 top-25 tournament team over, lets say, some kids from low major schools or Payne's brothers from UWRF (or wherever he is) or many of the other "gets" from the BenJo era so far. At least King (and anyone like him Ben could target) have shown the potential as a high schooler to be a productive P6 player.

Do I think King is all-B1G? No. But I think he'd be better than at least 1 of, if not multiple of, the guys Ben will fill out his roster with (assuming he fills out a roster this year--we know he doesnt like doing that). If it came down to Ramberg or King--you'd be happy with Ramberg? Not a chance.
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To your very last part....who in their right mind would take Ramberg over King if that was a direct choice? Of course King wins out in that scenario.

To the rest, I guess it all boils down to who actually ends up being realistically available to us. Given that we are in the early part of the portal period I would hope Johnson has his sights set on bringing in guys he knows will help us right away.

To be clear, I have no issue with the team bringing him in, I'm all for guys coming back home.....I just don't necessarily think it is some huge sin if they don't target him either based on what he has done so far and what the team currently needs.

I go back to the comment I made before.....if he wasn't from Minnesota and Ben brought him in he would get blasted for it.
 



Bad Gopher said:
Points taken, and I don't want to be insensitive to Johnson. The whole thing is confusing to me when I try to get my arms around the situation in totality. As others have noted, King was rated higher than any of last year's freshman class coming out of high school. So if I have this straight, we needed to go young last year, which was a seismic shift to building a longer-term foundation after building the entire roster the previous year from transfer upperclassmen. But now, because the coach's job is in trouble, we seismic shift back to entirely upperclassman transfers and reject an arguably better prospect than any of last year's youthful recruits, again just because of the coach's job status? Call me skeptical that this schizophrenic and job-security-fear-based approach to recruiting from one year to the next isn't going to end up being the solution to Ben's continued employment that he or you thinks it will.
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I don't think there is any sort of seismic shift involved. But if Ben's job is actually on the line based on what happens in year 3 then it is only natural that his top priority right now is going to be filling the open spots with guys that can come in and help right away.

Maybe they don't feel like King's game is a good fit for what they want to do. Or maybe they did reach out already and he said he wasn't interested. Or maybe they reached out 5 minutes after Dad gave his interview where he said they hadn't.....reality is that none of us knows.

If they bring him in to try and stash him for the future, great....but I sincerely hope they find some guards that are ready to play right away. Not sure if King fits that bill.
 


Bad Gopher said:
But now, because the coach's job is in trouble, we seismic shift back to entirely upperclassman transfers and reject an arguably better prospect than any of last year's youthful recruits
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In fairness, all of those "lesser" prospects showed something as freshmen. One of them showed a hell of a lot, another showed enough to project himself as a long-term starter anyway, and the other two had typical years for green freshmen but showed improvement as the year progressed.

Eli King played only 30 minutes over 9 games. I wouldn't say that occurred primarily because he was injured as those games were spread throughout the season. He and a walk-on named Conrad Hawley were always the last players to enter a game.

Recently, we've heard about ongoing discussions between Johnson and two guards (one point and one 2 guard). Those two have just completed their Soph years so they're not being recruited as one-year rentals. We'll see if he can close the deal.
 


cjbfbp said:
In fairness, all of those "lesser" prospects showed something as freshmen. One of them showed a hell of a lot, another showed enough to project himself as a long-term starter anyway, and the other two had typical years for green freshmen but showed improvement as the year progressed.

Eli King played only 30 minutes over 9 games. I wouldn't say that occurred primarily because he was injured as those games were spread throughout the season. He and a walk-on named Conrad Hawley were always the last players to enter a game.

Recently, we've heard about ongoing discussions between Johnson and two guards (one point and one 2 guard). Those two have just completed their Soph years so they're not being recruited as one-year rentals. We'll see if he can close the deal.
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I'm assuming one is Mike Mitchell jr who Doogie says Ben is very high on. So I watched some highlights of him and he appears to be a very good shooter. But, damn I get some serious Talon Cooper vibes watching him in terms of quickness and D. But as i said earlier, beggars can't be choosers. I just seriously hope we add quickness/athleticism to the PG position.
 


cheeseheadgophfan said:
I'm assuming one is Mike Mitchell jr who Doogie says Ben is very high on. So I watched some highlights of him and he appears to be a very good shooter. But, damn I get some serious Talon Cooper vibes watching him in terms of quickness and D. But as i said earlier, beggars can't be choosers. I just seriously hope we add quickness/athleticism to the PG position.
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Well, let's hope he's a little quicker and more fluid that Cooper but if he can shoot better than Cooper, that's at least some improvement. He's a much better free throw shooter than Cooper was so that's a big help at the end of halves.
 

Tucker32 said:
If he wasn’t from MN we wouldn’t be talking about him. He isn’t a good shooter or great ball handler. He doesn’t add a ton of value. ISU was good this year, not great. They had good guards, not great. He still didn’t get any time, and with spots open next year he’s still leaving. This screams the staff has told him he isn’t going to see time.

ISU is not Kansas. They are a good program, but not one we should be dying to get castoffs from. King is simply not a real good player.
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I would use one of our 5 open scholarships on a player who was a 150-100 level recruit who didn't play much and played behind 4 pretty good and experienced (except 1) guard.
 

Otis said:
True, but if I’m the coach on the hot seat and I can sign Janet Nelson Jr for one year and I have four more scholarships remaining, I’d probably want to bring in a developmental PG behind him to keep this panic mode from occurring every year!

Cause it’s a lot harder to get the guys with multiple years of eligibility left who also are seasoned.
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I think you mean Jameer Nelson Jr. I doubt he would be interested in coming here. He's also transferred once without sitting out. He'll probably be cleared but that does add some uncertainty that I might not want to deal with if I were Johnson. Johnson has had more than his share of inactive players these past two seasons.
 

There’s also news today that the NCAA is getting stricter about granting waivers to players transferring a second (or more) time. That may make underclassmen, like King, be more cautious about heading to a program where the coach is in danger of being relieved. OTOH, I don’t see the NCAA being able to enforce their desired rules without legal challenges, and they’ll cave.
 

MNVCGUY said:
So we have thread after thread talking about how Ben should get fired and if 23-24 isn't a much better year he should be fired....but apparently he should also spend a scholarship on a kid from Minnesota who didn't do much of anything as a freshman at ISU and is in now in the portal.

Ask yourself this, if Ben signs another portal guard with a matching profile to King's but a different home state would anyone be happy with that player?

I guarantee he would be blasted for it.
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Exactly. If he was the last of the 5 scholarships and we had better players joining him I could maybe see the argument but other than that this feels like desperation. We are not in a position to deal with projects because if next year isn't significantly better we are in for another rebuild.
 

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