I think a lot of fans don’t all get that Ben chose to fill this year out quickly so he could put maximum effort into 2022 and 2023. He’s working to build something. He didn’t go on all in on this season. He chose character and fits over talent. I think long term it’s the right choice.
Abstracting the discussion to mid-majors = mid-majors thus they are the same is silly. If you look at the rosters, Utah's is better than Minnesota's. If you look at where both started and where they ended up, Utah got better, Minnesota got worse. You are the one who can't keep it straight.
I think you are half right. I think he started out looking for fit. (I don't want to say "character" because that implies that last year's group was a bad bunch and we don't know that.) Just a guess--but I think he was looking for outside shooting, ball movement and defense. Then he was overtaken by events and injuries. He probably lost 2-3 guys from last year's team that he wanted to keep and thought he would keep. The injuries to Ihnen and Fox are killers. I think it took him longer to complete his staff than he anticipated. Offering minutes to guys in the transfer portal hasn't been enough. At this point, he's scrambling for bodies. I think he's putting max effort into 21-22 and 22-23 because he knows if 21-22 is too far under water it will have a long carry over effect.
So this is part of the master plan. OK. Duly noted.
Utah's roster got better? You better tell their fanbase that because they disagree wholeheartedly.
So this is where I get confused. Why is punting this year a pre-req to being good in the future? I agree, Utah isnt some wrecking ball of a team that is going to he final four, but if my options are go 6-24 or 14-16 I choose the later. I understand at the end of the day neither team is likely making the tourney but I just continue to be baffled by the people who are almost happy that we might be the worst P5 team in the country.
Jamiches post summed it up well. Ran into a couple injuries and I’m sure when he took the job he thought he was keeping Gabe and Johnson too. Garcia was a pipe dream but showed interest. The plan was to find a bunch of one year guys for this year and hit 2022 hard and build 2023 relationships. He will also be able to hit the portal way harder and be more selective next year. Whether it works or not we don’t know but I do think it was the right strategy.
I don’t think he planned on fully punting at first. Fox injury, not landing one of the bigs (Thompson, Rebraca, Manley, Mitchell, John, more im sure), and not keeping 1-2 of Gabe, Johnson, And Gach wasn’t in his plans. I’m not going to pretend that 2021 went like he hoped, but I do think at the same point he gave it as much time as he was going to and switched over to making up for time on 2022 and starting 2023 recruiting. Honestly a team of Willis, Lowe, Battle, Fox, and one of those bigs is a nice 5. It just didn’t happen in many ways. The cure to making this job successful for him will not be next year. It will be recruiting strong 2022 and 2023 classes imo.
I take your second sentence as excuses, and a huge miscalculation in his plan. lieb nailed it above.
I’ll try this one more time for you as I didn’t explain it clearly obviously. Ben always had 2022 and 2023 on his mind as his top priorities when he was hired. Being an assistant at Xavier, he had to start relationships with many of the MN kids since Xavier wasn’t recruiting them. Being this was the priority, Ben’s plan seemed to be that he wanted to fill 2021 with as many 1 year guys as he could and hopefully keep Gabe, Both, Ihnen, Johnson, plus Treyton Thompson. He would only take a multi year transfer if it was a high level one(Garcia (probably a 1 year, but had eligibility), Battle, and Fox for example). He got two in Battle and Fox who had multiple offers to go to many P5 schools. In Fox’s case he had almost his choice of any school depending on what role he wanted to play.
I cant def buy most of this. Stocker thinks I am a troll I guess, certainly not going for that, I just think there are some in denial and that everything has gone perfectly to plan! As you state, he made some missteps and compound that with injuries and you have a disaster setting up for this year. If anyone thinks his ideal plan included punting this year completely I think that is not correct. We started off VERY strong with Battle/Fox/Lowe, things just have gone decidedly south since then.
Cue Spaulding!No! to refute this take..
Do phone calls/visits with marginal prospects take less time than the player we really wanted? I don't buy this excuse.
Where did I say that? I’m saying they chose to value guys who fit and are of high character this year vs if they are talented. Doesn’t mean the high character kids lack talent, but it does shrink the field that you can pick from.
Well....we can certainly hope that none of our new guys ends up on the police blotter this year.