GOPHERS HIRING BEN JOHNSON

[JimmyJamesMD]

A lot of local coaches and players hated Richard Pitinio, the guy was a monster douche.

I never had that impression of pitino. Lazy? Yes. Douchebags? No.

Richard probably didnt kiss enough AAU and high school butt while he was here. I'm sure Ben knows how to properly kiss ass

 

[ethomasp31]

No matter how anyone tries to spin this it’s a horrible hire.

We have no idea if this is a bad hire or good hire yet....and I would say the same thing if we had hired Smith, Medved, Gates or Musselmen. If people want to give up their season tickets....fine....they are easy enough to get now anyways.

 

[howeda7]

You know something is disappointing when Minnesota sports fans are in shock-level disappointment mode.

It takes so much to shock us. I'm shocked. This is a Maturi hire.

 

[howeda7]

One thing that could make me feel better about this is they can somehow convince Tim Miles to the lead assistant. I highly doubt he would take it though.

 

[Holy Man]

She landed a 5 star recruit. Get back to me when men’s basketball or football does

Fair enough. I’m not calling the Whalen hire a bust. I’m calling it the jury still out. Big difference.

 

[goldengophers]

If your Ben you don't turn down this job offer but what a difficult situation he is walking into, he almost has to hit recruiting homeruns out of the gate.

 

[Tommy Flanagan]

Unbelievable...There are at least 30 to 40 assistants that are more qualified to be a high major head coach...but at least he's one of us!

 

[PhiloVance]

First in the many hirings from the Richard Pitino coaching tree

Remember one game Pitino yelled at Ben to the point the players felt bad for him. Not sure he is a Pitino disciple.

 

[scools12]

We have no idea if this is a bad hire or good hire yet....and I would say the same thing if we had hired Smith, Medved, Gates or Musselmen. If people want to give up their season tickets....fine....they are easy enough to get now anyways.

It’s a bad hire.

 

[NDGopher69420]

One thing that could make me feel better about this is they can somehow convince Tim Miles to the lead assistant. I highly doubt he would take it though.

Miles would go work for a guy who he essentially told to move on after their 1 year together? There's a better chance a meteor ends all of mankind in the next 5 seconds than Miles works for Ben Johnson.

 

[bga1]

Dumbest post ever. Coaches and their famiilies are smarter than thinking Mpls is half burned down, or that there will be months of riots, or that George Floyd is on trial. U of Washington, Louisville, and on and on will never be able to recruit or find a coach given the protests of the past year based on your thinking.

No, it's not a dumb post. Minneapolis has bottomed out in terms of reputation. It's a city campus. If the trial doesn't go the way the city wants it to, the city will burn for weeks.

 

[Gopher_In_NYC]

How is that the hire? Obviously best of luck to him and I hope he succeeds, but seemed like there were much better options available.

His works cheap!

 

[Tucker32]

No, it's not a dumb post. Minneapolis has bottomed out in terms of reputation. It's a city campus. If the trial doesn't go the way the city wants it to, the city will burn for weeks.

Wow, when is the last time you have been to the city? It's not half-burned down. And, unless you live under a rock you realize that. Most new coaches are a little more enlightened.

 

[GopherBlood777]

I really hope this hire isn't the level of reach only equivalent to the Vikings selecting Christian Ponder in the first round...

 

[GopherOhana]

That “one of us” guy chose to play for northwestern.

 

[BarnBurner]

According to Flugar, Gates declined an interview.

So MN still cant hire top coaches after more than two decades.....

 

[Holy Man]

Why does everyone need to be compared to someone? He is not Howard. He is not Whalen. He is not Pitino. He is not Brewster. He is not Fleck. I am not remotely sure how some of these comparisons are even being made.

Given Ben's limited discernable history from a fan's perspective, Coyle should be fully prepared to sell his choice for head coach. Otherwise based on fan reaction, he has put him in a tough spot out of the gate.

Coyle is not a salesman. He’s established that multiple times.

 

[#2Gopher]

I support this hire. Personally I believe he will have much more to offer. An assistant coach does not make the final decisions but rather the head coach does. Therefore you can't blame everything that took place at Xavier on Johnson.

I've had very poor bosses. Does that make me a bad "assistant" as I had a bad boss that wasn't doing his/her job? Of course not. However it did have a reflection on me unfortunately putting me in a poor light. I was supposed to support my lousy boss.

I know that some people won't like this hire due to the color of his skin. There were be those who disagree with me as they don't want to be labeled as racist even though they know they are.

Also we cannot judge Johnson on recruiting in his first year. Did Whalen get the Hopkins girl? Johnson is going to do good in my opinion.

 

[UpAndUnder43]

Fair enough. I’m not calling the Whalen hire a bust. I’m calling it the jury still out. Big difference.

Agreed. I’m not 100% sold. But the stakes are lower and financially that move has paid off so far.

 

[SanDiegoGopherFan]

Whalen was a profitable hire. Tickets sold her first year paid for her first two seasons as head coach. She invigorated that fan base. I have been to 6 games with Whalen as the head coach. In my previous 30 years of life I attended 0 womens basketball games.

Yeah but she was a pretty damn good player and played in the WNBA. What did Johnson do as a player? Bobby Jackson or even Amir Coffey would have been more of an impact

 

[ethomasp31]

Kfan saying aau circles wanted Ben and now it's on them if they send their kids to Minnesota. We need to chase Dawson Garcia now and try to reel back in Mashburn and/or Carr. One last run at Chet, maybe get Hercy Miller. I'm optimistic with the hire

honestly I don't want Carr back.....

It’s freaking Pitino 2.0! But at least Richard had a year as a head coach under his belt and he was soon exposed to be a vastly unqualified Big Ten head coach.This smacks of Teague’s desperation hire when nobody wanted the job. I can’t take any more of the bottom-feeding shit. Act like a damn Big Ten school and stop with the crony hires!

It's 100x better than Pitino....sorry

 

[MplsGopher]

It's not that they are broke. They could easily pay three or four million a year. Right now politics on campus make it very difficult for Coyle to open up the bank account for a new coach.

Students are pissed they are being charged full tuition for this year's classes. Several sports were just cut because of budget reasons. There's an increased focus on how much men's coaches (especially the white ones) compared to women's coaches and the athlete's themselves. And no one in St Paul particularly wants them to give someone millions right now either.

If Coyle brought some guy in for $4 million a year he would be facing the same backlash here on the academic side.

Silly, but probably not wrong, reasons.

But students at U Utah are just fine paying full price with no in-person experience? Silly

Ben will presumably be cheap, and easy to ditch in 2 or 3 years if he is obviously struggling.

That is a fair point, and hope Coyle has the sack to play this marker. He wouldn't fire Pitino when he should have.

 

[WindyCityGopher]

Coyle didn't come here to finish .500. Well, we'll be looking up at that number for even more years because of his decision.

 

[MplsGopher]

I try to have the mindset of not overreacting and letting people have a chance. Go get 'em coach!

I mean, can it get much worse? We were 13th seed out of 14 this year. People seem to think we are on the cusp of being a perennial sweet 16 team.

Good luck Coach Johnson!

Spoken like a man with infinite patience, and plenty of time left in the tank.

 

[NDGopher69420]

I support this hire. Personally I believe he will have much more to offer. An assistant coach does not make the final decisions but rather the head coach does. Therefore you can't blame everything that took place at Xavier on Johnson.

I've had very poor bosses. Does that make me a bad "assistant" as I had a bad boss that wasn't doing his/her job? Of course not. However it did have a reflection on me unfortunately putting me in a poor light. I was supposed to support my lousy boss.

I know that some people won't like this hire due to the color of his skin. There were be those who disagree with me as they don't want to be labeled as racist even though they know they are.

Also we cannot judge Johnson on recruiting in his first year. Did Whalen get the Hopkins girl? Johnson is going to do good in my opinion.

People won't like the hire because the color of his skin? And if you don't like him you're a racist? Get out of here with that bullshit. I've read some stupid posts but this one takes the cake.

People don't like the hire because he does not have anywhere close to the resume that should be expected of someone being hired to a head coaching job in the Big Ten.

 

[nitramnaed]

A lot of local coaches and players hated Richard Pitinio, the guy was a monster douche.

Wow! That's not the scuttlebutt that I've heard about Richard. I know there was talk that he never got close enough to the local coaches, but I always heard he was a standup guy.

 

[MplsGopher]

Richard probably didnt kiss enough AAU and high school butt while he was here. I'm sure Ben knows how to properly kiss ass

Kiss the ring, or properly "pay" tribute?

 

[Spottedmuskie]

A lot of local coaches and players hated Richard Pitinio, the guy was a monster douche.

This is what I have heard a lot and witnessed myself first hand. I don't know why so many people deny this. He got Amir, Jarvis, Gabe, and Oturu. Look at how many left, it wasn't because Pitino was a nice guy.

 

[Holy Man]

This is really, really disappointing but maybe he gets traction locally and hires GREAT assistants.
If this is true then I will be a Ben Johnson fan going forward and pulling hard for him to do the unexpected!

I like your optimism. I don’t share it.

 

[fair]

I'm shocked at the amount of people who are already convinced that Ben will be a failure. You have every right to criticize Coyle and wonder what happened with the other big names- I'm scratching my head right along with you. But can we at least give the man a chance to prove himself?