Gabe in Portal

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UpAndUnder43 said:
What has shown those guys would be here? Johnson got 1 of them to commit to a school he was coaching. that one guy entered the transfer portal with his as the newly named head coach. I drink a lot but I’m currently sober so maybe I’m missing something not being in a good head space.
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I played golf last Friday with a guy whose son was a very good athlete and played high school basketball with one of the players in this state most of wished we would have gotten to stay home and play for the Gophers. I asked him on the way to the 18th tee what happened with that player and Pitino, as I knew he was pretty good friends with that family. He told me that, "Pitino never recruited him. He offered but didn't act like he wanted him." If I had only heard something like once, I might blow it off.

I'm a school teacher and a coach (for a different sport), and because of that, I have some connections to high school basketball coaches. Some who have and do coach some very successful programs in the state with some top high school players in Minnesota. Comments like the one above I've heard several times the last 7 or 8 years. I know nothing about AAU basketball, and I don't have connections there. But I KNOW Pitino should have done a lot better with recruiting Minnesota kids. If he had, there is no doubt in my mind that he would still be the coach.

Now you and others can complain about the hiring of Ben Johnson for the next two weeks like you have the last week and a half, or you can relax, have a drink, and let it play out. Let's see who we get as our assistant coaches. Let's see who we get to stay and commit in the transfer portal. We've been in the last four places in the B1G 3 of the last 4 years. I think the future is much brighter with Ben Johnson as coach than it was the last 8 years. I also think that next year will be much better than the previous 2 seasons.
 

ethomasp31 said:
I played golf last Friday with a guy whose son was a very good athlete and played high school basketball with one of the players in this state most of wished we would have gotten to stay home and play for the Gophers. I asked him on the way to the 18th tee what happened with that player and Pitino, as I knew he was pretty good friends with that family. He told me that, "Pitino never recruited him. He offered but didn't act like he wanted him." If I had only heard something like once, I might blow it off.

I'm a school teacher and a coach (for a different sport), and because of that, I have some connections to high school basketball coaches. Some who have and do coach some very successful programs in the state with some top high school players in Minnesota. Comments like the one above I've heard several times the last 7 or 8 years. I know nothing about AAU basketball, and I don't have connections there. But I KNOW Pitino should have done a lot better with recruiting Minnesota kids. If he had, there is no doubt in my mind that he would still be the coach.

Now you and others can complain about the hiring of Ben Johnson for the next two weeks like you have the last week and a half, or you can relax, have a drink, and let it play out. Let's see who we get as our assistant coaches. Let's see who we get to stay and commit in the transfer portal. We've been in the last four places in the B1G 3 of the last 4 years. I think the future is much brighter with Ben Johnson as coach than it was the last 8 years. I also think that next year will be much better than the previous 2 seasons.
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Getting some better players in state may have helped Pitino, but he had talent to win. Builtbadgers has stated multiple times he felt we have had the talent to win the conference, but our coach sucked. I don't think it will matter which players we get if our coach still sucks. Hopefully ben is just as good at coaching as he is currently perceived to be at recruiting, if he's not, I can't see us being much better. He will need a team of Suggs to purely out talent teams in the big 10, not gonna happen.
 

ethomasp31 said:
I asked him on the way to the 18th tee what happened with that player and Pitino, as I knew he was pretty good friends with that family. He told me that, "Pitino never recruited him. He offered but didn't act like he wanted him." If I had only heard something like once, I might blow it off.
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I‘ve had some connections in our state as well as Wisconsin. Heard about this more than once. Pitino never worked to hard on the big names. One guy said it was almost as if Pitino thought his name was enough to get them.
 

alchemy2u said:
This is total BS. How can you expect any high schools recruit to buy into the program if the current marquee plays doesn’t buy it?
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Really? They totally can buy in and just realize that maybe that player doesn't, or that the coach has defined a role for the player they don't like. I love Gabe, but he's not a player that you build your program around. No college player is because they are only there for a limited time. Guess what, recruits get that.
 

alchemy2u said:
Ben and Gabe had to have had time to discuss his future on the team. I assume that Ben told him that he would be upgrading the spot and that Gabe may not be getting as much playing time.

We all love Gabe, but he has been given the keys to the team for years. His shooting slump has added more pressure, but not anymore than at any other B1G school. We can not compete for a B1G title with a starting guard at that level of performance. Not to attack Gabe, but that spot needs more. If he feels he can’t step up then Ben needs to find someone who can.
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There is a 0% chance that this happened. Ben was hired because of his relationships with MN high school coaches and his ability to recruit because of that. Pushing Gabe out would piss off the exact coaches that Johnson needs to have a good relationship with. Just absolutely no chance at all that Ben pushed him out. Gabe is also one of the best defenders in the Big Ten. Would make no sense for so many reasons.
 



WriterGoph said:
We hired Johnson to keep FUTURE RECRUITS at home. You're talking about players on our team who already have years of bias/experience built up. Maybe they weren't happy with their role or the team's arc. You think a coach is gonna come in within a week or two and change years of what has happened to them as individuals? Any wise 20ish kid is going to take the opportunity to see what's out there.

Your logic is VERY flawed. You don't hire a new coach to salvage the existing team. You hire a new coach to BUILD A BETTER PROGRAM (which is by no means a two-week or single spring process).
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That being the case, Gabe should transfer and Gopher fans should be happy.
 

Keyser Söze said:
There is a 0% chance that this happened. Ben was hired because of his relationships with MN high school coaches and his ability to recruit because of that. Pushing Gabe out would piss off the exact coaches that Johnson needs to have a good relationship with. Just absolutely no chance at all that Ben pushed him out. Gabe is also one of the best defenders in the Big Ten. Would make no sense for so many reasons.
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Maybe not, however the optics of this move - given what you have said - are very, very poor.
 

Ozzy&Ray said:
Really? They totally can buy in and just realize that maybe that player doesn't, or that the coach has defined a role for the player they don't like. I love Gabe, but he's not a player that you build your program around. No college player is because they are only there for a limited time. Guess what, recruits get that.
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He may not be a player you build a program around but he is one you build a culture around. Especially if an essential part of that culture is keeping key in state guys at home. None of us knows what happened or whether he will return but the look right now is is pretty bad.
 



Word said:
At least the next 2 years will be pretty ugly.
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If Ben doesn't get a great class this year, and the next two years are ugly, you aren't bringing in good players (Minnesotan or not) to a complete dumpster fire. No quality player is coming to the U to get hammered by 30 pts night in and night out. I assumed that Ben was going to be able to hold the core of the team together for next year and then just plug a few holes, but this is getting pretty bad. The more guys that go to the portal the more likely it is the rest will. There might not be a single person left on this roster, we are becoming Nebraska very quickly. Gabe was the last person I would have suspected would look to transfer.
 

Holy Man said:
He may not be a player you build a program around but he is one you build a culture around. Especially if an essential part of that culture is keeping key in state guys at home. None of us knows what happened or whether he will return but the look right now is is pretty bad.
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I like Gabe. I think he adds to the culture. I also don't know what the coach told him about how he sees him fitting - he may or may not like that. It's the way things are now. It's not that bad, and the look isn't bad to the people it matters to. Recruits get it, and are hearing more information than anyone here. The look is only bad to the people who want to know who the assistant coaches are, and what the roster is, now.
 


ethomasp31 said:
I played golf last Friday with a guy whose son was a very good athlete and played high school basketball with one of the players in this state most of wished we would have gotten to stay home and play for the Gophers. I asked him on the way to the 18th tee what happened with that player and Pitino, as I knew he was pretty good friends with that family. He told me that, "Pitino never recruited him. He offered but didn't act like he wanted him." If I had only heard something like once, I might blow it off.

I'm a school teacher and a coach (for a different sport), and because of that, I have some connections to high school basketball coaches. Some who have and do coach some very successful programs in the state with some top high school players in Minnesota. Comments like the one above I've heard several times the last 7 or 8 years. I know nothing about AAU basketball, and I don't have connections there. But I KNOW Pitino should have done a lot better with recruiting Minnesota kids. If he had, there is no doubt in my mind that he would still be the coach.

Now you and others can complain about the hiring of Ben Johnson for the next two weeks like you have the last week and a half, or you can relax, have a drink, and let it play out. Let's see who we get as our assistant coaches. Let's see who we get to stay and commit in the transfer portal. We've been in the last four places in the B1G 3 of the last 4 years. I think the future is much brighter with Ben Johnson as coach than it was the last 8 years. I also think that next year will be much better than the previous 2 seasons.
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You didn’t answer my question. You wrote like 1500 words and didn’t answer me. I can wax poetic for paragraphs as well but I try to address the question I am replying to.
I don’t think Johnson will be bad here. I have maintained he wasn’t the right hire. I hope I’m wrong. Would love to see a winning team. Its why I have tickets and donate to the program. So far he hasn’t done anything. We don’t even have coaches to hire unless he is waiting for all these coaches from the Final 4 teams that want to come here?
 



GopherBlood666 said:
Getting some better players in state may have helped Pitino, but he had talent to win. Builtbadgers has stated multiple times he felt we have had the talent to win the conference, but our coach sucked. I don't think it will matter which players we get if our coach still sucks. Hopefully ben is just as good at coaching as he is currently perceived to be at recruiting, if he's not, I can't see us being much better. He will need a team of Suggs to purely out talent teams in the big 10, not gonna happen.
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People who think we had the talent to win the conference last year don’t really know much about basketball. Because we didn’t have close to the depth necessary to be a conference winner.
 


Some guy said:
People who think we had the talent to win the conference last year don’t really know much about basketball. Because we didn’t have close to the depth necessary to be a conference winner.
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Built badgers disagreed with you
 

I have a weird feeling we're gonna get mostly curveballs for assistants and one solid one.
 

I have zero issues if he leaves. He's a bench player at best at any other big ten school. I will be shocked if he ends up at a P6 school.
 

I am surprised about this one. If he doesn't want to come back, well, we don't want you. Never want someone around that is going to mope, not work hard, and be a cancer in the locker-room. I'm hoping he'll come around and perhaps a fresh start is under a new coach. Need to get the assistants here to show who he'll be working with.
 

howeda7 said:
Meh. They could have pressed etc. at any point. He was trying to get the game over without any more incidents. There are a lot of things to criticize Pitino for, that game isn't one of them. They were blowing them out 5 on 5.
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You are correct. They were trying to just end the game and get out of there. Some in the crowd were very unruly, just ask Richard Coffey.
 


leib0039 said:
My CONCERN is that we basically hired Johnson to keep kids like Gabe home and happy.
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Nope, definitely not kids like Gabe... can't even be certain that Johnson wants Gabe back.

Keeping kids home...? Maybe Holmgren (that ship has most likely sailed) or Holloman or King, sure. Quite a bit of it is also a reaction to not being able to get Suggs, Garcia, the Jones brothers etc. etc. in the past.
 


I do not have any inside info. All I know, no matter what: Gabe entering the portal 10 days , two weeks after Ben is hired is a really, really bad look for Ben and the Gophers.
If a guy can’t see that...do you really want him in your culture? Can you trust anything he echoes the coach saying as something he really agrees with?
 

Let’s be real, the transfer portal is like recruiting all over and similar to guys getting evaluated for the NBA draft. They get their ego stroked, get blunt advice and in the end make the best decision for them on and off the court. No reason to not take the opportunity unless you think you won’t get a scholarship somewhere.
 

I can see it, wants to see if he can be a 3 and D player for a random sweet 16 contender somewhere. Doesn't want to play his last year on a rebuilding team. His teammates will have to be really good and he's going to have to shoot better to be starting for anyone p6. I think he should come back and be one of the key pieces in the starting lineup for Minnesota. I am surprised, I thought he would be the last one to transfer outside of Both Gach. Now I can't help but think we'll see Liam really soon in the portal
 

Holy Man said:
He may not be a player you build a program around but he is one you build a culture around. Especially if an essential part of that culture is keeping key in state guys at home. None of us knows what happened or whether he will return but the look right now is is pretty bad.
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Probably as simple as he wants a better opportunity to play in the tournament next year and not be part of a rebuild. The flip side is that his shooting numbers have been bad and he might lose PT depending on where he transfers.

I am also of the opinion that he has to leave now that his name is in the portal. Door should not be open to a return.
 

MaxyJR1 said:
Let’s be real, the transfer portal is like recruiting all over and similar to guys getting evaluated for the NBA draft. They get their ego stroked, get blunt advice and in the end make the best decision for them on and off the court. No reason to not take the opportunity unless you think you won’t get a scholarship somewhere.
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If this is what it is, why wouldn’t everyone enter the portal? If that’s what happens this will be chaos.
 

freshtrout said:
You are correct. They were trying to just end the game and get out of there. Some in the crowd were very unruly, just ask Richard Coffey.
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Pitino never recovered from the bad voo doo. Just like Monson never recovered from Illinois 2002.

Not sure what Tubby's was...I guess Royce need some jeans at MOA and being low on funds...and/or Al Nolen's foot.
 

Not that it probably matters, but was there ever an explanation of how Gabe broke his right hand and when did it actually happen? I wonder if he wasn’t injured much earlier than when he actually went down. I hope he stays.
 

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