Fire Ben Johnson

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BarnBurner said:
And if the BOR and other leadership doesn't support hiring a great new coach AND providing necessary funding, they are out as well. Enough of the garbage that their decisions have brought.
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Why stop there...I say we expel every student that won't go to games.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
Ben wasn’t cheap, he has been making near what Pitino was the entire time.



This is pretty much exactly what happens. Why else weren’t Brian Dutcher and Craig Smith not brought in for interviews?
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Unless you can bring out a list of only Black coaches as who was interviewed, citing 2 other coaches and saying they weren’t interviewed is not evidence of the contrary.

His salary is low in the Big Ten environment (and still a vast overpayment based on what they should have offered him; I shudder thinking of what they would’ve thrown at a more proven commodity thinking they had to based on what they offered Johnson out of the gate) and Pitino was also not in the upper tiers. I am meaning relative to what you would pay a proven winner
 

howeda7 said:
Year 1 it looked like there was a discernible system but the players just weren't good enough most nights. What's the system now? The offense is a joke. The effort on defense is spotty at best. There's no evidence he's a good X's and O's coach. He's been meh as a recruiter with a couple hits (Christie) but not nearly enough to overcome the poor X's and O's.
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His rosters have been poor. I excused the first couple years, saying that things would improve when he wasn't forced to bring in half a team each year. Things were looking like they were on an upward trend and then he lost a bunch of players to the portal/Christie going to the NBA. Different, more established coach with the same NIL limitations? Who knows if things will be a whole lot better. But one thing is for certain....no coach is going to make Minnesota a winning program if the top players on the team are consistently being pulled away by teams with more money to spend.
 

Bad Gopher said:
I would like to have seen this team without the rash of injuries. That would have been a better measurement of where the program is and what to do with it now. I think this was a NIT team without the injuries. Then you can say, hey, we've gone to the NIT twice in a row now, so things are headed in the right direction.
  • That said, is even two straight NITs what you want, even with hope for a better future beyond that? We fired all the previous coaches, and they were doing better than that.
  • In any case, we can do better. If you can do better, you do better. Why settle for less well than you can do? Unless you really don't care. Unless the empty building and apathetic fans are OK. Maybe we've accepted being a basement dweller. Every conference needs a doormat. It's a sports tradition. I've posted here before: if that's the deal, the AD should come out and say that.
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We'll move on and hopefully give a shot to a more established coach. But it's pretty clear that NIL is an issue. We don't fix that issue....then we will probably be bumping up against a low to middling ceiling regardless of who the coach is.
 

upnorthkid said:
Unless you can bring out a list of only Black coaches as who was interviewed, citing 2 other coaches and saying they weren’t interviewed is not evidence of the contrary.

His salary is low in the Big Ten environment (and still a vast overpayment based on what they should have offered him; I shudder thinking of what they would’ve thrown at a more proven commodity thinking they had to based on what they offered Johnson out of the gate) and Pitino was also not in the upper tiers. I am meaning relative to what you would pay a proven winner
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It's clearly DEI! Just look at the women's team coach. Not a white man!
 



bga1 said:
The thing about Texas is that Texas has at any given time almost 400 home grown kids that are playing D1 ball. So kids in HS are playing high level competition and plenty will fall between the cracks.

Minnesota might produce less than 1/10th of that and the kids that are good often times are not playing great competition and don't want to stay home in the tundra. If we have a good program- it all changes. Kids from here will want to play here and stay here.
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The Holmgrens and Suggs types aren't going to be staying here and really don't stay home in any state around the country any more. Hardly any of the best players on the blue bloods are homegrown. Regardless of the next coach, that ain't changing any time soon - and really the state isn't producing that level of talent any more, either.

But the next level down kids are generally going to MN or WI already. You get an MSU, an Iowa St, a Creighton, a Xavier, and an OSU here and there, but they really aren't leaving for the weather. They're leaving for the program. That can definitely change.

Problem is, HS recruiting is less important in this era.
 


TNGophfan said:
I think one thing leads to another. I'm not totally defeatist like you are. Sounds like you just want to throw your hands in the air and give up.
Hire the right coach and let him recruit the right players for his system (there are plenty of good players out there that won't cost $ millions). You then become more competitive which brings more fans and wins which leads to more donations. See PJ and football or Cignetti at Indiana.
Are we in an optimal situation? No. But any coach worth his salt could make something out of this. We are a BIG 10 school, not North Texas. Right now, we're not even St. Thomas.
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The "Woe is us, why even try?" mentality of some is too strong. If we can be competent in football and women's basketball, we can do it in men's basketball. That doesn't mean winning B1G titles, but being competitive and making the NCAA's half the time is very attainable for a competent coach.
 




howeda7 said:
Maybe. He's only 55. But he can get a higher profile gig than MN if he wants one.
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He quit at age 55, fewer than 5 years removed from winning a national championship, because he reportedly detests the new world of college sports with NIL and the portal. Neither of those factors are changing anytime soon, so there’s little chance of him wanting to return, especially to a program and school where basketball hasn’t been a priority for 25 years.

That said, Ben needs to go, now. I’m not a believer in Coyle’s ability to identify, attract and hire someone not only of competence (a low bar indeed), but of excellence. But he’s the guy making the call, so we need to hope he finally gets this right.
 
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Bad Gopher said:
That's an interesting name, but I put the chances of that at 0.0% He burned out and retired just like his dad before him. He's done.
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howeda7 said:
Maybe. He's only 55. But he can get a higher profile gig than MN if he wants one.
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I wouldn't be surprised to see him take a D3 gig or even a high school. Basketball is still pretty honest at those levels.

Agreed on the burnout and I don't think he wants any more of what the high level D1 looks like right now.
 

WindyCityGopher said:
He quit at age 55, fewer than 5 years removed from winning a national championship, because he reportedly detests the new world of college sports with NIL and the portal. Neither of those factors are changing anytime soon, so there’s little chance of him wanting to return, especially to a program and school where basketball hasn’t been a priority for 25 years.

That said, Ben needs to go, now. I’m not a believer in Coyle’s ability to identify, attract and hire someone not only of competence (a low bar indeed), but of excellence. But he’s the guy making the call, so we need to hope he finally gets this right.
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I'm not disputing that. But if you're Coyle you at least have to make that phone call near the top of the list.

I don't think we need to re-hash Ben's hiring. Whatever the factors were don't matter now. He whiffed on Ben and Lindsay. He hit on PJ, probably on Dawn P and the volleyball coach.
 



I'll just say I think Ben is a super nice guy, it may have worked ten years ago but Coyle needed to see when waivers were being handed out like candy and law suits were being filed that NIL and the transfer portal were going to go the way that they did. You can't lose and reload your entire roster year in and year out and expect to have success without an adequate warchest. Ben was hired to recruit the state, keep guys home, he's had mixed results at best, but the landscape of the sport changed literally the week after he was hired, he had some nice portal wins but there's always a glaring issue(s) with his teams that is easy to expose. I don't hate his rotations or X's and O's though I think Thordon does more of that judging by watching their sideline in games, but his roster management is all time bad and the record reflects it. I think Coyle thought he was the smartest man in the room and that he would find greatness where no one could see it when he made this decision and well he whiffed royally.
 


The Gopher Basketball show on KFAN is so ridiculously sad. Everyone knows Johnson is a dead man walking. There is more energy and enthusiasm at a wake.

Johnson droning on and on in that sleep-inducing monotone about "leadership"...awful.

Just fire him already and stop this charade.
 

USAF said:
The Gopher Basketball show on KFAN is so ridiculously sad. Everyone knows Johnson is a dead man walking. There is more energy and enthusiasm at a wake.

Johnson droning on and on in that sleep-inducing monotone about "leadership"...awful.

Just fire him already and stop this charade.
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It is possible you overheard the common man show.
 


USAF said:
The Gopher Basketball show on KFAN is so ridiculously sad. Everyone knows Johnson is a dead man walking. There is more energy and enthusiasm at a wake.

Johnson droning on and on in that sleep-inducing monotone about "leadership"...awful.

Just fire him already and stop this charade.
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Was his intro Dead man walking?
 

USAF said:
The Gopher Basketball show on KFAN is so ridiculously sad. Everyone knows Johnson is a dead man walking. There is more energy and enthusiasm at a wake.

Johnson droning on and on in that sleep-inducing monotone about "leadership"...awful.

Just fire him already and stop this charade.
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He's not pumped up to take out their wrath on Farleigh Dickinson?
 








Drake's beaten 3 P5 schools with their 1st year HC with a roster of former D2 players. Can our 4th year HC accomplish that this season? The excitement is palpable.
 

Gophers7633 said:
Drake's beaten 3 P5 schools with their 1st year HC with a roster of former D2 players. Can our 4th year HC accomplish that this season? The excitement is palpable.
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Drake played 7 guys. 3 guys went the full 45 MIN (including OT)

See if they can keep it up all year.
 


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