Doug Woog Era About to Begin?

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MaxyJR1

MaxyJR1

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Seeing all the buzz in the transfer portal got me thinking we could be headed in the Doug Woog direction of MN kids making up the majority of the roster. It would be pretty cool and probably pretty sustainable if we're getting the elite in-state kids. I'm not endorsing it, but it would be cool to see.

In basketball, in balanced recruiting, you're only getting about 3 kids per year. If you have to go to 4-5 kids then out of state kids have to be in the plan.
 




The whole premised is based upon the idea that kids out of high school actually want to stay near home even though the traditionally best college basketball programs are out of the State. It's like thinking a kid who grew up on a farm wants to remain in farming rather than be a doctor and go to Johns Hopkins to study medicine.
Despite the fantasy that every kid will now come rushing back home via the portal, it seems wise to just find the best players who want to attend UMN on tge basketball team.
I truly don't care where a kid grew up. I just want the team I root for to win.
 


One concern is that high school basketball isn’t as reliable as hockey. A ton of elite hockey players come from Minnesota, especially compared to other places. Basketball has been great lately but is it sustainable? Would be fun to find out.
 

At least two if not three all MN hockey rosters could win a national championship.

Could an all MN basketball team realistically win it all?
 

MennoSota said:
The whole premised is based upon the idea that kids out of high school actually want to stay near home even though the traditionally best college basketball programs are out of the State. It's like thinking a kid who grew up on a farm wants to remain in farming rather than be a doctor and go to Johns Hopkins to study medicine.
Despite the fantasy that every kid will now come rushing back home via the portal, it seems wise to just find the best players who want to attend UMN on tge basketball team.
I truly don't care where a kid grew up. I just want the team I root for to win.
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Well basketball is a common theme here or elsewhere. Farming and studying medicine at John’s Hopkins are not the same thing. I get your analogy but its not great.
 

bonin21 said:
At least two if not three all MN hockey rosters could win a national championship.

Could an all MN basketball team realistically win it all?
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If you could choose the players over the last 5-10 years—yes.
 




bonin21 said:
That's not what I'm asking. I'm talking year in and year out. A hypothetical roster.
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Yes. They could. Year in and year out there are 2-3 P6 level players (lately many many more) and if you got ALL of them, you'd be good/great consistently. The future is bright here. Tons of talent through at least 2024, no reason to expect it to stop. Maybe some "down" years where you only have a couple top 100 players in the country but in the up years you'd get generational talents (Jones', Suggs, Chet, Trent Jr, Vaughn, Travis, etc) would be your stars and supplemented by guys like Garcia (who may be a star), Walton, etc. would be a helluva supporting cast. Davison (yuck), Sims, Reuvers, Crowl, Ish El-Amin, and so many more would be excellent bench players. Coffey, Oturu obviously would have been great with better players too (they were great still)

Now, you won't get every kid but Minnesota could win titles if they did. I really believe that. You'd need a real coach though.
 

Since this is a hypothetical, what would the 20-21 All MN lineup be? Or next year's minus Suggs but plus Holmgren.
 

Theory is one thing, practical reality another. Recruiting has a lot to do with need. It's why Rickey Foggie played for the Gophers and not Nebraska or Oklahoma.

Basketball doesn't have a lot of playing time to dole out like hockey. FIgure only 8 guys play more than 15 minutes probably, with only 6 over 20. So you'd be asking guys to come in and play sparingly in a lot of cases. Bo Ryan seemed to do it at Wisconsin, but in today's world I'm not sure that will get traction.
 




bonin21 said:
Since this is a hypothetical, what would the 20-21 All MN lineup be? Or next year's minus Suggs but plus Holmgren.
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2017 - Sims Reuvers Davison Thompson Wright
2018 - Gach Omersa Kalscheur
2019 - Hurt Wahl Jones Roddy Battle
2020 - Suggs Garcia Dainja Walton

Easy to look back with 20/20 hindsight and find 7-8 guys that would do well at NCAA level. Some players in NBA now so you wouldn't have been able to land everyone listed. Not to mention a coach wouldn't have playing time for them all.
 

bonin21 said:
Since this is a hypothetical, what would the 20-21 All MN lineup be? Or next year's minus Suggs but plus Holmgren.
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Chet, Dainja, Wright, Walton would be a nice start. Not sure if Garcia can play 3. Roddy likely could. Or Wahl but I don’t love him.
 

UpAndUnder43 said:
Chet, Dainja, Wright, Walton would be a nice start. Not sure if Garcia can play 3. Roddy likely could. Or Wahl but I don’t love him.
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Doesn't sound like a contender if you can't even round out a solid starting five
 

UpAndUnder43 said:
Well basketball is a common theme here or elsewhere. Farming and studying medicine at John’s Hopkins are not the same thing. I get your analogy but its not great.
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I never claimed it was great. But, you got my point, which is that just because there is an open portal, it does not mean all kids who grew up in Minnesota are going to come back or want to come back.
 


I think the core of the team can definitely be Minnesota kids. They may not be all stars, but the Gopher program does not necessarily need "stars." the Gopher program need kids who work hard, buy into the system, and do what the coaches want them to do - kids who are hungry and will take advantage of an opportunity.

those kids form the backbone of the team. then, you round out the roster by going out of state to fill any needs. One year you might need help at G - another year it might be a big man. if the roster is really close, maybe a grad transfer to make the team better at a key area.

That approach can work - IF Johnson can sell kids on the idea of staying home and making MN basketball something to be proud of, and sell fans on the idea of supporting a hard-working team that features local kids.
 

bonin21 said:
Doesn't sound like a contender if you can't even round out a solid starting five
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LOL. I mean I don't know every single high school kid out of MN in the past 4 years, I apologize?

Go Wright, Walton, Battle, Dain and Chet. That team beats most gopher teams. Your bench would be full of really good players. I'm subtracting dudes who went pro early or will likely not be on in college next year like Daniel, Hurt, Suggs, etc.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
I think the core of the team can definitely be Minnesota kids. They may not be all stars, but the Gopher program does not necessarily need "stars." the Gopher program need kids who work hard, buy into the system, and do what the coaches want them to do - kids who are hungry and will take advantage of an opportunity.

those kids form the backbone of the team. then, you round out the roster by going out of state to fill any needs. One year you might need help at G - another year it might be a big man. if the roster is really close, maybe a grad transfer to make the team better at a key area.

That approach can work - IF Johnson can sell kids on the idea of staying home and making MN basketball something to be proud of, and sell fans on the idea of supporting a hard-working team that features local kids.
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The thing is, we already had a group of MN kids that fit this bill (Coffey, Oturu, Gabe, Jarvis, Hurt) on one team. That was a pretty solid base, but we were left with a coach that couldn't coach. I'm glad everyone really likes Johnson as a person, but he still needs to prove he can coach. If focus too heavily in-state, the chances are far greater we could miss out on a better fit from out of state. Good place to start, will need to expand the recruiting radius as time goes on and certainly for more than just filling spots.
 

Ope3 said:
Doug Woog got fired with an All Minnesota roster, just sayin'.
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Yeah, I won't be surprised to see more of a Minnesota flavor on the roster under Johnson but I don't see him trying to go with an ALL Minnesota roster or anything like that.

I think you can build a successful program in basketball with a strong Minnesota core, but you are still most likely going to need to go out and get some out of state guys to get to a championship level.

That said, there is a lot of really good basketball talent in this state so if Johnson can find a way to get the best of the best in-state guys to start staying home you never know....
 

MNVCGUY said:
Yeah, I won't be surprised to see more of a Minnesota flavor on the roster under Johnson but I don't see him trying to go with an ALL Minnesota roster or anything like that.

I think you can build a successful program in basketball with a strong Minnesota core, but you are still most likely going to need to go out and get some out of state guys to get to a championship level.

That said, there is a lot of really good basketball talent in this state so if Johnson can find a way to get the best of the best in-state guys to start staying home you never know.
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Totally agree with this. ++++
 

Ope3 said:
Doug Woog got fired with an All Minnesota roster, just sayin'.
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I believe "The Wooger" retired, if I'm not mistaken. Doesn't mean he wasn't offered the opportunity to retire over getting fired.
 


GopherBlood666 said:
That was a pretty solid base, but we were left with a coach that couldn't coach. I'm glad everyone really likes Johnson as a person, but he still needs to prove he can coach.
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OK, so he needs to prove he can coach. I kinda think he will be a step up, at a minimum, to the last coach. If he recruits better and coaches better than the last one it is grounds for some level of excitement even if we didn't get a big name in to make us all feel safe.
 

CPTMidnight said:
OK, so he needs to prove he can coach. I kinda think he will be a step up, at a minimum, to the last coach. If he recruits better and coaches better than the last one it is grounds for some level of excitement even if we didn't get a big name in to make us all feel safe.
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If Johnson succeeds, it will actually provide more enjoyment than if we had brought in someone we had high expectations for. Coyle was working that reverse psychology angle the whole time!
 

If this is the basketball version of the Woog years I’m done. Coach needs the best players from MN. But not all players. This is where his strength for talent evaluation comes into play.

I would hope that we still bring in the Mason/Murphy’s of the world as well. But we can obviously use more of the solid MN guys.
 

UpAndUnder43 said:
One concern is that high school basketball isn’t as reliable as hockey. A ton of elite hockey players come from Minnesota, especially compared to other places. Basketball has been great lately but is it sustainable? Would be fun to find out.
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Need to even pump the brakes there. We are led to believe that Johnson's reputation locally and within the AAU ranks might help keep some kids here....and that was a reason for his hiring. But let's see how that works out in the next couple of recruiting cycles. Let's see how much better he does with in-state kids....and whether or not he can land one of those top 25/50 kids that has recently gone elsewhere.
 

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