Do you want Ben back for a fourth year?

Do you want Ben back for a fourth year?

  • Yes, Ben deserves to return next season for Year 4.

    Votes: 129 59.4%

  • No, we need a new coach for next season.

    Votes: 88 40.6%
  • Total voters
    217
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Since Jerry Stackhouse was brought up, he is one of the many examples of you know if you have a coach or not within the first 3 years.

His first two years were terrible, he showed improvement in year 3, which was slightly better than Ben's year 3 and made the NIT. Year 4 was his best, but still only made the NIT. Then he had another disaster in year 5.

You don't need 4 or 5 years to know if you have a good basketball coach. The good basketball coaches always have success within the first 2-3 years. And with today's transfer portal, that has been shortened to 1-2 years.

Ben isn't it, and the longer he is around, the deeper the hole is going to get.
 

If you can't win at Vanderbilt that must mean you're a bad coach.
 

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GopherWeatherGuy said:
Since Jerry Stackhouse was brought up, he is one of the many examples of you know if you have a coach or not within the first 3 years.

His first two years were terrible, he showed improvement in year 3, which was slightly better than Ben's year 3 and made the NIT. Year 4 was his best, but still only made the NIT. Then he had another disaster in year 5.

You don't need 4 or 5 years to know if you have a good basketball coach. The good basketball coaches always have success within the first 2-3 years. And with today's transfer portal, that has been shortened to 1-2 years.

Ben isn't it, and the longer he is around, the deeper the hole is going to get.
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Not a great take. A skill like "coaching ability" can be developed over time.

What you are really trying to say is that we should have hired a coach that had already honed his coaching skills to a high level suitable for a P6 program with high aspirations.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
Since Jerry Stackhouse was brought up, he is one of the many examples of you know if you have a coach or not within the first 3 years.

His first two years were terrible, he showed improvement in year 3, which was slightly better than Ben's year 3 and made the NIT. Year 4 was his best, but still only made the NIT. Then he had another disaster in year 5.

You don't need 4 or 5 years to know if you have a good basketball coach. The good basketball coaches always have success within the first 2-3 years. And with today's transfer portal, that has been shortened to 1-2 years.

Ben isn't it, and the longer he is around, the deeper the hole is going to get.
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That's what builtbadgers always posted here, too. These days, if you haven't had some eye-popping success in your first three years, it's not going to get much better long term. That was his criticism of Pitino, and he compared him to his touchstones, Bennett, Bennett, and Ryan. Clem's third team made the NCAAs and advanced to the round of 16.
 


CPTMidnight said:
Not a great take. A skill like "coaching ability" can be developed over time.

What you are really trying to say is that we should have hired a coach that had already honed his coaching skills to a high level suitable for a P6 program with high aspirations.
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Lower level employees aren't suddenly promoted to CEO of companies and allowed to learn on the job. Basketball is no different. It's a recipe for failure either way.
 

MNVCGUY said:
There is something to this concept even if fans don't want to hear it. When you hire a first time head coach you have to expect there is going to be a learning curve that a much more experienced coach isn't going to have.
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Well, I hope he now has enough experience to realize that he needs a longer list of more reliable reserves than he has managed to assemble in any of his three seasons. After Pitino exited here, he was asked what he wished he had done differently. He answered: "Have a bench." To his credit, he did try in the offseason before his final year here to do that and I thought he finally had but a combination of things made that an illusion. I didn't like Pitino but I have to admit that he was cursed here to some degree.

Unlike Pitino before his last season, I don't think Ben has ever tried hard enough to recruit the number of reasonable quality players in the offseason that he really needs. He always stops while he is one or two capable players short and fills in the rest of the roster with players who are either substandard, not ready (I still think that accelerating Betts' matriculation was a disgraceful stunt), or walkons.
 
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bga1 said:
I hate to say it but I believe we have overestimated our own talent.

Payne- who I like has no offensive game outside of 2 feet. He needs to be able to develop range from 10 feet. I think he will but he's far from a star yet.
Garcia- a really, really good offensive player, is not physical, is not good defensively and does not see his teammates very well. He is who he is.
Christie- who is going to be a terrific player- is young, not strong, has a marginal handle and is at best an average defender at this point. Next year he will be better at all of these.
Hawkins- another guy I just love to watch- is 5-9 and a defensive mismatch for an opposing 6-2 PG. He is not a threat to drive and score.
Mitchell- gritty kid who is a good solid player but alongside Hawkins- a very small backcourt.
Fox- amazing kid, fantastic hustle, but can't shoot
Carrington- limited on offense but a nice defensive player
Ihnen- just too soft, even though he has talent.
JOJ- athletic as can be, can shoot, doesn't know where to be on the floor it seems

Bottom line: We just don't have any high end two way players. We made a whole lot more out of what we started with than Michigan State who is coached by a HOF coach.

We need to:
1. keep the core (at least players one through 5 above)
2. add a couple good rotation transfers ( big and a wing)
3. Hope Asuma is really good (I think he is)
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The improvement Payne showed at the FT line throughout the year really should excite everyone as teams just can't foul him anymore. Hopefully he can transform his outside game in the same way during the off season. In spite of his inability to shoot outside of 2 ft, he was still able to get get by people with the dribble and get to the rim, which is impressive since every defender knew he wasn't going to shoot from outside.
 

GFBfan said:
The improvement Payne showed at the FT line throughout the year really should excite everyone as teams just can't foul him anymore. Hopefully he can transform his outside game in the same way during the off season. In spite of his inability to shoot outside of 2 ft, he was still able to get get by people with the dribble and get to the rim, which is impressive since every defender knew he wasn't going to shoot from outside.
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Payne needed that improvement down the stretch just to finish at 46.6%, which is 2% lower than he shot last year. I'm not sure how that should excite everyone about his ability to shoot. He ended last season by going 5-5 from the line against Maryland too.
 


GFBfan said:
The improvement Payne showed at the FT line throughout the year really should excite everyone as teams just can't foul him anymore. Hopefully he can transform his outside game in the same way during the off season. In spite of his inability to shoot outside of 2 ft, he was still able to get get by people with the dribble and get to the rim, which is impressive since every defender knew he wasn't going to shoot from outside.
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Payne certainly had his moments this year but his stats weren't dramatically different than his freshman year. They really need him to improve offensively to be a bigger threat and stop using him on the hard hedge on defense. Daniel Oturu made a huge jump during his sophomore year. Payne -- not so much. He is a big key for the overall success of this team.
 



GopherWeatherGuy said:
Payne needed that improvement down the stretch just to finish at 46.6%, which is 2% lower than he shot last year. I'm not sure how that should excite everyone about his ability to shoot. He ended last season by going 5-5 from the line against Maryland too.
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Payne went 24-35 over his final 8 games - 69%. His form has looked decent over the course of the season but the shots were not falling for him. He clearly figured something out and has become pretty good from the line.

So I for one am excited to see how he continues to develop since free throw shooting was one of his major weaknesses and it looks like he has maybe figured out a way to eliminate that problem.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Payne went 24-35 over his final 8 games - 69%. His form has looked decent over the course of the season but the shots were not falling for him. He clearly figured something out and has become pretty good from the line.

So I for one am excited to see how he continues to develop since free throw shooting was one of his major weaknesses and it looks like he has maybe figured out a way to eliminate that problem.
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Thanks for taking a deeper dive; his form was noticeably better in the last quarter of the season and the data 📊 supports what 👀

How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

Practice, practice, practice!
 

golfing18now said:
Payne certainly had his moments this year but his stats weren't dramatically different than his freshman year. They really need him to improve offensively to be a bigger threat and stop using him on the hard hedge on defense. Daniel Oturu made a huge jump during his sophomore year. Payne -- not so much. He is a big key for the overall success of this team.
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Dan Oturu as a sophmore was better than Garcia as a redshirt Junior. Not sure Payne will ever get to that level, I just hope he continues to be a better version of himself next season. He should be starting from day 1 and also average 10 and 10. If healthy, there is no reason he shouldn't at least put up those averages.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Payne went 24-35 over his final 8 games - 69%. His form has looked decent over the course of the season but the shots were not falling for him. He clearly figured something out and has become pretty good from the line.

So I for one am excited to see how he continues to develop since free throw shooting was one of his major weaknesses and it looks like he has maybe figured out a way to eliminate that problem.
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Yeah, it's funny, our free throw shooting against MSU wasn't that great except for Payne. I think his physical ailments must have been aggravating him a little more than we realized at the end of the year as he didn't seem to have quite the power and lift at the end of the season that he had earlier in the season.
 


The Ben Backers with a five vote lead as the weekend kicks off.
 






Johnnyboy18 said:
If he was going to get fired he'd be fired already.
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Probably but as you noted with Rutgers two late transfers last year, timelines are flexible and rarely are things 100% certainty in my experience.
 

Nobody seriously thinks he is going to be fired, do they?
 


I want to hear more about Eric Musselman’s erratic behavior. 🤔
 


Not many here would be surprised if Coyle moved on from Ben within the next 3 weeks. Ben’s nice and the athletes appear to stay out of trouble.
 

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