Caledonia native Eli King in portal from Iowa State

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MNVCGUY said:
Are you hoping Johnson gets him so that he is here for the next coach? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for bringing back a local kid and hoping he develops into a strong player but is Johnson in a position to go after a potential project in the portal knowing he has to win now?

Seems like that may be a tough balancing act in terms of looking to the future but also making sure you do everything possible to win more right away as well. There are enough open spots to potentially do both but gotta think Johnson is going to prioritize guys he thinks will be ready to roll right away over guys that may need more time to develop before they are ready to make an impact.
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I think with the amount of open scholarships we have / should have you can balance immediate win now guys (seniors) along with a mix of projects (king type players).

IMO CBJ still needs to run off both Fox and Ihnen as I don’t believe they will help the team. That would leave a bunch of open scholarships (fox, ihnen, thompson, battle, cooper, henley, evans, samuels, & ramberg).

In that situation, go get some real guards who can give immediate impact. Then give Christie 15 min a game and Carrington/King 5-10 (make him earn those minutes as he didn’t do much and he had no competition last year).
 

Otis said:
Well, a good coach would be able to do both.

Think of it like a race car driver, I have the one I intend to drive and a second one that could be ready if needed.
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Except we have no idea if Eli is "ready if needed". ISU certainly didn't think so...

We have to deal with reality not unicorns and rainbows. We have the coach we have, we are in the spot we are in. We can't recruit based on where we should be or who should be our coach. We either build a team that can win next year first, or we will be dealing with "New Coach Year Zero" after next year and forcing them to use players they may not want.
 

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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I'm simply saying I'd take King over whatever Johnson is likely to grab in the portal because his success in the portal is lower than the likelihood of King becoming a usable player.
 

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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This very board is littered with separating the performance of cbj and the w/l record. Wow.
 

MNVCGUY said:
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.
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So you think Johnson will add 4-5 guys that can help right away, plus play JOJ, Payne, Carrington, Fox, Ihnen, Garcia and Christie? Thats a lot of guys to play.

As I said to someone else: What I should have said is that I'd take King over anyone else Johnson gets from the portal instead of him because there is a higher likelihood (in my mind) that King becomes a usable player than the other option. And thats just based on what BenJo has accomplished (failed?) in the portal
 


Wet_Blanket_Guy said:
I think with the amount of open scholarships we have / should have you can balance immediate win now guys (seniors) along with a mix of projects (king type players).

IMO CBJ still needs to run off both Fox and Ihnen as I don’t believe they will help the team. That would leave a bunch of open scholarships (fox, ihnen, thompson, battle, cooper, henley, evans, samuels, & ramberg).

In that situation, go get some real guards who can give immediate impact. Then give Christie 15 min a game and Carrington/King 5-10 (make him earn those minutes as he didn’t do much and he had no competition last year).
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With the number of open spots we have why would you need to run off Ihnen and Fox, two guys who have been in your system for 2 year?

We are all just guessing here but what if a main reason King transferred is that he wants to play significant minutes right now and not ride the bench developing for a few years? We wouldn't be able to guarantee that role here.
 

UpAndUnder43 said:
So you think Johnson will add 4-5 guys that can help right away, plus play JOJ, Payne, Carrington, Fox, Ihnen, Garcia and Christie? Thats a lot of guys to play.

As I said to someone else: What I should have said is that I'd take King over anyone else Johnson gets from the portal instead of him because there is a higher likelihood (in my mind) that King becomes a usable player than the other option. And thats just based on what BenJo has accomplished (failed?) in the portal
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i mean he has brought in Willis, Lowe, Stephens, Battle, Garcia, Cooper.....its not like all his portal guys have been failures.....so im not really sure how much you can say you are basing that off of what he accomplished in the portal....his best players in his 2 years have come from teh portal
 

MNVCGUY said:
With the number of open spots we have why would you need to run off Ihnen and Fox, two guys who have been in your system for 2 year?

We are all just guessing here but what if a main reason King transferred is that he wants to play significant minutes right now and not ride the bench developing for a few years? We wouldn't be able to guarantee that role here.
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If that’s the case we shouldn’t take, but then he will probably not be a P5 player.

Why run Ihnen and Fox off? Outside of 5 games (two knees ago) in his freshmen year, Ihnen was garbage…most likely to still be garbage. Fox was a player who played D2 and was known for his explosiveness…what happens when you have two knee injuries…?
 

Wet_Blanket_Guy said:
If that’s the case we shouldn’t take, but then he will probably not be a P5 player.

Why run Ihnen and Fox off? Outside of 5 games (two knees ago) in his freshmen year, Ihnen was garbage…most likely to still be garbage. Fox was a player who played D2 and was known for his explosiveness…what happens when you have two knee injuries…?
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i mean if you had 2 players that were for sure better than those 2 already in your hand.....i guess run them off.....but the odds of us filling 7 spots that are better than those 2 are basically slim to none.....

but i will add that those 2 guys should not be slowing Ben down from trying to aquire better players at their positions either.....
 



I will admit I never got the love for Fox...I get he is explosive but beyond that what does he really bring? And won't his one attribute be hurt by his injuries?

I dont want him run off but people always seem to talk him up a bunch and I just dont see it.
 

Wet_Blanket_Guy said:
I think with the amount of open scholarships we have / should have you can balance immediate win now guys (seniors) along with a mix of projects (king type players).

IMO CBJ still needs to run off both Fox and Ihnen as I don’t believe they will help the team. That would leave a bunch of open scholarships (fox, ihnen, thompson, battle, cooper, henley, evans, samuels, & ramberg).

In that situation, go get some real guards who can give immediate impact. Then give Christie 15 min a game and Carrington/King 5-10 (make him earn those minutes as he didn’t do much and he had no competition last year).
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There is zero need to run off Fox or Ihnen. We already have 5 open scholarships and you want to have 7? As it is, Ramberg will almost certainly get one and one of the other walk-ins might too.
 

Dave H said:
I will admit I never got the love for Fox...I get he is explosive but beyond that what does he really bring? And won't his one attribute be hurt by his injuries?

I dont want him run off but people always seem to talk him up a bunch and I just dont see it.
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He’s like a 6’9” 210 lb pf / c who can’t shoot…that’s not a good combo in the big10
 

UpAndUnder43 said:
So you think Johnson will add 4-5 guys that can help right away, plus play JOJ, Payne, Carrington, Fox, Ihnen, Garcia and Christie? Thats a lot of guys to play.

As I said to someone else: What I should have said is that I'd take King over anyone else Johnson gets from the portal instead of him because there is a higher likelihood (in my mind) that King becomes a usable player than the other option. And thats just based on what BenJo has accomplished (failed?) in the portal
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Unless you can see the future and know exactly how this portal period is going to play out I'm not sure how you can say for sure that Johnson won't be able to find anyone better.

Look, if King is willing to come in and ride the bench with no guarantee of any playing time then by all means, spend a scholarship on him and hope he develops into a good player. Don't know the kid but doubt that option would be all that appealing to him since it is essentially exactly what he did this year at Iowa State.
 



howeda7 said:
There is zero need to run off Fox or Ihnen. We already have 5 open scholarships and you want to have 7? As it is, Ramberg will almost certainly get one and one of the other walk-ins might too.
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They are bad B10 players…why do you want to keep them? In all reality we should only keep: carrington (even though I don’t think he is a real B10 player), Christie, JOJ, Payne, Betts, Garcia. Everything else should be portal with a mix of heavy win now (guard heavy) with a mix of backup bigs who can run and spread the floor
 

Wet_Blanket_Guy said:
They are bad B10 players…why do you want to keep them? In all reality we should only keep: carrington (even though I don’t think he is a real B10 player), Christie, JOJ, Payne, Betts, Garcia. Everything else should be portal with a mix of heavy win now (guard heavy) with a mix of backup bigs who can run and spread the floor
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We don't know if they're good or bad. They haven't played in 3 years. But even if they don't pan out there's no point in running them off to give their scholarships to Ramberg and Jackson Purcell and that's what would likely happen. Just fill the 5 you have open. That will be hard enough.
 

BarnBurner said:
This very board is littered with separating the performance of cbj and the w/l record. Wow.
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I'm not sure what you're talking about, Butt Burner. All I ever argued was that Johnson was entitled to a third season because I've seen similarly failed Big Ten coaches this century (Todd Lickliter and Eddie Jordan) get that minimum of time in the job and Johnson inherited the job under worse circumstances than they did. Fairness matters more to me than immediate gratification.

But you did get an apparent putz to like your post so I guess you accomplished something.
 

howeda7 said:
We don't know if they're good or bad. They haven't played in 3 years. But even if they don't pan out there's no point in running them off to give their scholarships to Ramberg and Jackson Purcell and that's what would likely happen. Just fill the 5 you have open. That will be hard enough.
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We know Ihnen is bad.
 


Gophs24 said:
i mean if you had 2 players that were for sure better than those 2 already in your hand.....i guess run them off.....but the odds of us filling 7 spots that are better than those 2 are basically slim to none.....

but i will add that those 2 guys should not be slowing Ben down from trying to aquire better players at their positions either.....
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Counting on anything from Ihnen and Fox is dangerous but yeah, unless have a better option and need that scholarship to bring them in you don't try to run either of them off. Filling 5 scholarships will be hard enough.
 

Wet_Blanket_Guy said:
We know Ihnen is bad.
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The only reason Ihnen would be bad is if he is not healthy. Nobody in the program has more potential. I don't recall your thoughts on Henley but Henley had the most potential of the freshmen...neither played consistent in their time with the Gophers but they both have a huge upside.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Counting on anything from Ihnen and Fox is dangerous but yeah, unless have a better option and need that scholarship to bring them in you don't try to run either of them off. Filling 5 scholarships will be hard enough.
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excatly
 

MNVCGUY said:
Counting on anything from Ihnen and Fox is dangerous but yeah, unless have a better option and need that scholarship to bring them in you don't try to run either of them off. Filling 5 scholarships will be hard enough.
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Remember, to get better we need to fill those scholarships with players as good (and hopefully better) as the three starters who left. Replacing them with like ability gets us to 2 wins. Then the 4th and 5th guys are hopefully significantly better and we'd hopefully be a bit better.
Without the three starters it is starting over pretty much and you gotta get the right guys who fit and can play together too. Not just 5 guys. Tough task....especially with expectations year 3 has to be our best but the only way that happens is to hit a home run on 5 new guys??? Not good odds.
And you have zero guards unless you count Carrington who isn't what I'd call a building block.
Yes, Christie will help and he's new so that's an unknown.
You need 3 good guards...one we should be able to do? Right? Now, convince the other two how it'll all fit together and work and add Cooper, Battle top 50 kinda talent from the portal without much NIL $ to get to even neighborhood. Tough sell to join up with guys leaving from two last place finishes..
 

cjbfbp said:
I'm not sure what you're talking about, Butt Burner. All I ever argued was that Johnson was entitled to a third season because I've seen similarly failed Big Ten coaches this century (Todd Lickliter and Eddie Jordan) get that minimum of time in the job and Johnson inherited the job under worse circumstances than they did. Fairness matters more to me than immediate gratification.

But you did get an apparent putz to like your post so I guess you accomplished something.
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If you cant see the obvious......there are 10's of posts, perhaps hundreds that fly in the face of your idiotic assertion. Continue your delusion.

And btw - Johnson isn't entitled to anything.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Unless you can see the future and know exactly how this portal period is going to play out I'm not sure how you can say for sure that Johnson won't be able to find anyone better.

Look, if King is willing to come in and ride the bench with no guarantee of any playing time then by all means, spend a scholarship on him and hope he develops into a good player. Don't know the kid but doubt that option would be all that appealing to him since it is essentially exactly what he did this year at Iowa State.
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He will find a player better than King. He won’t find 5.
 

Gophs24 said:
i mean he has brought in Willis, Lowe, Stephens, Battle, Garcia, Cooper.....its not like all his portal guys have been failures.....so im not really sure how much you can say you are basing that off of what he accomplished in the portal....his best players in his 2 years have come from teh portal
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Correct. But he doesn’t need 1 guy better than King. He’d need 5. So with all those—find the opposites. Ogelele, Samuels, etc. that’s what people are missing.
 

BarnBurner said:
If you cant see the obvious......there are 10's of posts, perhaps hundreds that fly in the face of your idiotic assertion. Continue your delusion.
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That's hilarious! Do I behave like a person who is concerned about whether his views fit in with the crowd?
 

UpAndUnder43 said:
So you think Johnson will add 4-5 guys that can help right away, plus play JOJ, Payne, Carrington, Fox, Ihnen, Garcia and Christie? Thats a lot of guys to play.

As I said to someone else: What I should have said is that I'd take King over anyone else Johnson gets from the portal instead of him because there is a higher likelihood (in my mind) that King becomes a usable player than the other option. And thats just based on what BenJo has accomplished (failed?) in the portal
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I agree to a point, but it's hard to fairly evaluate the guys from the portal when they are playing with freshmen. Cooper likely would look a lot better next year with another offseason with the freshmen. Doubt any replacement turns the ball over less than he did. Battle I believe is easier to replace as I just didn't find him the most athletic.

I look at Penn State and the number of upper classmen they had on the court. That's why they were successful. Men playing boys. Heard Wally Szczerbiak say the other day that he was 210 his freshmen year and was 230 sophomore year. These freshmen should be completely different next year. I don't know what adding another kid the same age (King) does to help when you have Asura coming and can bridge the gap with guys who have played a lot of college basketball in the portal.

Every time I post on the basketball team I just feel it's a bit of a waste and Coyle will be hiring someone new next year.
 




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