Coyle's miscalculations as I see them

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short ornery norwegian said:
Coyle hires Fleck - Fans say "A great Hire. What a decisive move by the AD to sign the hottest young coach on the market."

Coyle hires Ben Johnson. Fans say "what a terrible hire. What the Bleep is Coyle thinking?"

Same AD. Same process (no search firm).

If you think Coyle hit a home run with Fleck, why are fans so quick to dismiss his hiring of Johnson?
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After a couple years Fleck will be seen as a terrible hire.
 

Great players help hide the coaching flaws (Xs and Os). Pitino recruited to an average level and therefore all his flaws as a coach were on full display. Great Recruiting requires a good talent evaluator and someone who connects with people. Richard seemed average on both of those also. His recruiting was never going to get better so his time had to come to an end. We don’t know if Ben will be a recruiter of great players yet but the bar is low. Hopefully he brings in an experienced coach or two to his staff to help with the Xs and Os. I trust his ability to evaluate talent better than Pitino’s because he actually played basketball at this level. I’m willing to give him some time before I draw any conclusions on whether this was a good hire or not.
 

GopherGangsta said:
I'm sure friends and family would say great things about me after I was hired for a 2 million dollar job also...It doesn't neccesarily make me qualified....Because he is a completely unproven coach his honeymoon period will be very short...I hope Coyle recognizes that.
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I didn’t know they were family. Here I thought they were guys who played basketball at a university where he was one of the coaches. I’m sure they felt obligated to say something now that they’ve moved on from the university and are playing in the NBA.
 




Some Day...Maybe said:
I didn’t know they were family. Here I thought they were guys who played basketball at a university where he was one of the coaches. I’m sure they felt pressured to say something now that they’re in the NBA.
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Pat Fitzgerald had nothing but glowing praise for Brewster when he was hired and year after year as a coach...That turned out well......Those former players had a personal relationship with Ben and like him, so of course they will praise him....They have no idea if he has what it takes to run a major power 5 conference team because he has never even ran a small program....It means nothing.
 


Angry said:
After a couple years Fleck will be seen as a terrible hire.
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Even if he flopped the rest of the way he brought us success that hasn’t been seen in decades. So, no. Not a fail.
 

It's a gamble. For both Men's and Women's BB Coyle went with high risk (i.e. No college HC experience), high reward (high potential to keep recruits home, not likely to move "onward and upward" with success due to growing up in MN). I hope it pans out, but only time will tell.
 



short ornery norwegian said:
Coyle hires Fleck - Fans say "A great Hire. What a decisive move by the AD to sign the hottest young coach on the market."

Coyle hires Ben Johnson. Fans say "what a terrible hire. What the Bleep is Coyle thinking?"

Same AD. Same process (no search firm).

If you think Coyle hit a home run with Fleck, why are fans so quick to dismiss his hiring of Johnson?
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Exactly. I don't think Coyle necessarily hit a home run. Fleck may pan out and show consistency but he has not done so up to this point. I feel badly for all of the homer fans who suck at the teet like blind, Jim Jones, Kool-Aid worshipping zealots.
 

This hire makes somewhat sense if Coyle got pseudo-assurances that top local high school players would become gophers if johnson was hired. Hopefully that is the case.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
Coyle hires Fleck - Fans say "A great Hire. What a decisive move by the AD to sign the hottest young coach on the market."

Coyle hires Ben Johnson. Fans say "what a terrible hire. What the Bleep is Coyle thinking?"

Same AD. Same process (no search firm).

If you think Coyle hit a home run with Fleck, why are fans so quick to dismiss his hiring of Johnson?
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Because Fleck had been a head coach before?
 




GopherGangsta said:
Selling tickets will be impossible if the first year is a failure....At least with an established coach fans could have bought into it for a couple years.
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If the second year is a success you think people will not show up because the first year was bad?

This may be a failure long term. Short term doesn’t really matter.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
Again - my point is about Coyle.

People are questioning Coyle's judgement when it comes to Johnson.
But they loved Coyle's choice of Fleck.
Same AD. Same process.
Did Coyle suddenly become stupid?

If you thought Coyle was a good AD for hiring Fleck, did he suddenly become a bad AD?

Bottom line - the Gophers finished 13th out of 14 teams in the B1G last year. Could it really get that much worse?

It's not like the Gophers won a B1G title last year, and just hired an unproven coach. The Gophers are coming off a bad year, and hired an unproven coach.

Let's see what happens. If Johnson signs a couple of top in-state recruits, a lot of the people on here bashing the move will be changing their tune.
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Yeah. I mean if Coyle felt like he knows Ben Johnson a little bit and thinks Johnson has equal or greater chance of success as one of the other candidates....he SHOULD hire Johnson.


I honestly don’t think Craig smith or Niko Merced would have much success here. I think how you win at Minnesota is either break the bank for someone proven at the power 6 level OR go with someone who you think has a chance to be great.


Craig Smith in his 7th year coaching. Has 2 NCAA tourney appearances and zero wins. Didn’t we just fire a guy for doing better than that? Maybe smith is the right hire. But if Coyle thinks Johnson is better...he SHOULD hire Johnson.


The thing I like best about Johnson....it is a type of hire that if you feel it’s going poorly quickly you could make a change after 2-3 years and nobody would blame you for moving on quickly for a multitude of reasons
 

Angry said:
After a couple years Fleck will be seen as a terrible hire.
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If by terrible you mean already the best hire of my lifetime even if they go 1-11 the next two years...then yes. Terrible
 

howeda7 said:
Because instead of hiring the head coach of Western Michigan, he just hired the QB coach of Boise State. Doesn't mean it can't work, but their resumes are not the same.
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Yeah. People have every right to question this hire. It’s an odd one.

nobody else I was hearing realistically was an option moved the needle for me much anyways. So I’m not disappointed. I already accepted disappointment a week ago.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
Again - my point is about Coyle.

People are questioning Coyle's judgement when it comes to Johnson.
But they loved Coyle's choice of Fleck.
Same AD. Same process.
Did Coyle suddenly become stupid?

If you thought Coyle was a good AD for hiring Fleck, did he suddenly become a bad AD?

Bottom line - the Gophers finished 13th out of 14 teams in the B1G last year. Could it really get that much worse?

It's not like the Gophers won a B1G title last year, and just hired an unproven coach. The Gophers are coming off a bad year, and hired an unproven coach.

Let's see what happens. If Johnson signs a couple of top in-state recruits, a lot of the people on here bashing the move will be changing their tune.
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Coyle has made two no-brainer hires - Motzko and Fleck - who were clearly the number one choice for those jobs. They would have been the hire made by any, even marginally competent AD. It's hard to give Coyle any credit for the decision making process on them as, like I said, anyone would have hired Motzko or Fleck.

He has also now hired 2 coaches with no head coaching experience and has rolled the dice on both. We'll see how it works out. Whalen has some good recruits coming in the next couple years, but I think fans will be more patient with Whalen and the women's team if it takes time to turn it around.

I don't think men's basketball fans will be as patient.
 


We don't know if Ben can coach, but let's stop with this idea that every Big Ten team has a great coach who can out "X and O" everyone.

When Porter Moser and Nate Oates and Dana Altman coach circles around Brad Underwood, Mark Turgeon, and Fran McCaffery maybe the Big Ten's physical play style isn't as tough as everyone wants to believe.

The rehiring of the big name coaches to places like Indiana where they've been search since Bob Knight left never worked for them.

We need to wait this out a bit before we can jump to conclusions that he won't be a success here.
 

Word said:
Coyle has made two no-brainer hires - Motzko and Fleck - who were clearly the number one choice for those jobs. They would have been the hire made by any, even marginally competent AD. It's hard to give Coyle any credit for the decision making process on them as, like I said, anyone would have hired Motzko or Fleck.

He has also now hired 2 coaches with no head coaching experience and has rolled the dice on both. We'll see how it works out. Whalen has some good recruits coming in the next couple years, but I think fans will be more patient with Whalen and the women's team if it takes time to turn it around.

I don't think men's basketball fans will be as patient.
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Lol

no not anyone would’ve hired Fleck to Minnesota.
Of course anyone who could’ve hired Fleck to MN would’ve. Maturi couldn’t have landed fleck. Teague couldn’t have landed fleck.

you don’t have to give him credit for saying yes to him. You do have to credit him for getting fleck to say yes to Minnesota
 

short ornery norwegian said:
Again - my point is about Coyle.

People are questioning Coyle's judgement when it comes to Johnson.
But they loved Coyle's choice of Fleck.
Same AD. Same process.
Did Coyle suddenly become stupid?

If you thought Coyle was a good AD for hiring Fleck, did he suddenly become a bad AD?

Bottom line - the Gophers finished 13th out of 14 teams in the B1G last year. Could it really get that much worse?

It's not like the Gophers won a B1G title last year, and just hired an unproven coach. The Gophers are coming off a bad year, and hired an unproven coach.

Let's see what happens. If Johnson signs a couple of top in-state recruits, a lot of the people on here bashing the move will be changing their tune.
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I think this was the safe choice. Former player. Check. Former assistant here. Check. Ties to in state recruits. Check. Ethnicity. Check.

Check enough boxes and this is a hire Coyle can't get fired for. Go out on a limb on someone he believes is better but doesn't check those boxes, then if they lose for three seasons we get a new AD AND a new basketball coach.

IMO being a former gopher player and assistant should be a mark against you not for you. Coaching here has been so bad for so long, that just means they wasted 4+ years learning at the foot of someone who couldn't win half their big ten games. It's frustrating seeing former Purdue players and Indiana players scattered around and having success. Assuming we can get a former player/assistant to do the same ignores the fact that they didn't have a Knight/Keady quality coach to learn under. Maybe we should have been looking for a former Wisconsin player assistant that played under Ryan with Minnesota ties, should be plenty of those.
 


Some guy said:
Lol

no not anyone would’ve hired Fleck to Minnesota.
Of course anyone who could’ve hired Fleck to MN would’ve. Maturi couldn’t have landed fleck. Teague couldn’t have landed fleck.

you don’t have to give him credit for saying yes to him. You do have to credit him for getting fleck to say yes to Minnesota
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I give credit more to the BOR and president for finally allowing the AD to make those kinds of hires and offer up the money. I don't think Maturi or Teague worked under the same circumstances.
 

LakerFan said:
I think this was the safe choice. Former player. Check. Former assistant here. Check. Ties to in state recruits. Check. Ethnicity. Check.

Check enough boxes and this is a hire Coyle can't get fired for. Go out on a limb on someone he believes is better but doesn't check those boxes, then if they lose for three seasons we get a new AD AND a new basketball coach.

IMO being a former gopher player and assistant should be a mark against you not for you. Coaching here has been so bad for so long, that just means they wasted 4+ years learning at the foot of someone who couldn't win half their big ten games. It's frustrating seeing former Purdue players and Indiana players scattered around and having success. Assuming we can get a former player/assistant to do the same ignores the fact that they didn't have a Knight/Keady quality coach to learn under. Maybe we should have been looking for a former Wisconsin player assistant that played under Ryan with Minnesota ties, should be plenty of those.
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I mean he played for Monson and Mark few learned from Monson
 

dpodoll68 said:
I hope this is poorly executed sarcasm.
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Obviously he has a better resume than Pitino.
But I am not sarcastic when I said Craig smith does nothing for me.
Not super happy with this hire, but wouldn’t be any happier with Craig smith.

For a casual fan of college basketball (me) no one seriously considered a realistic possibility did much for me.


A bunch of guys who did a solid job at the 8-11th best conference in the country seemed to be the candidates.
 

dpodoll68 said:
I hope this is poorly executed sarcasm.
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I think he was serious.

Put me in the camp that doesn't understand the overwhelming support for Craig Smith.
Seems like a great guy with a sense of humor and a good coach, but nothing there so far that says "WE NEED THIS GUY AS COACH".

To be fair, Ben Johnson doesn't seem to fit that criteria either, but that decision has been made.
 

Word said:
I give credit more to the BOR and president for finally allowing the AD to make those kinds of hires and offer up the money. I don't think Maturi or Teague worked under the same circumstances.
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Okay. You go ahead and don’t credit the AD for landing the most high profile coach the university has hired since the 70s or maybe earlier. Credit the board of regents and Eric Kaler
 

Some guy said:
Obviously he has a better resume than Pitino.
But I am not sarcastic when I said Craig smith does nothing for me.
Not super happy with this hire, but wouldn’t be any happier with Craig smith.

For a casual fan of college basketball (me) no one seriously considered a realistic possibility did much for me.


A bunch of guys who did a solid job at the 8-11th best conference in the country seemed to be the candidates.
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Yeh, and the MWC has shown to be the only conference weaker in the NCAA's than the Big Ten has performed.

Not only did they all lose, no game went to the wire even.
 

Some guy said:
Craig Smith in his 7th year coaching. Has 2 NCAA tourney appearances and zero wins. Didn’t we just fire a guy for doing better than that?
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This is such a ridiculous comparison it's tough to know how to respond. Maybe start by comparing their respective conference winning % and take it from there.
 
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