GOPHERS HIRING BEN JOHNSON


Pitino did not build relationships with the AAU programs with the best talent.
Build relationship$.

No, but honestly ... what does this actually mean???

It seems like something that is casually thrown out, like it’s as fundamental as having practice.

What does it mean? What are examples of “good” relationship building, vs “bad”?
 

247 rates the class as 2019 - 27th, 2020 - 24th.
Who cares. He doesn't get credit for those classes the head coach does. Was he part of it? Of course, but no assistant coaches get the credit or blame for recruiting rankings, period. It's not his classes. Not his recruits.
 

I’ve been lurking on this board since the Jason Groth era but I haven’t posted in a number of years (I lost my original account). This hire has triggered me to post. I like that he has some MN ties and has had some experience recruiting MN, but beyond that I don’t think I’ve ever been so underwhelmed. Can he coach, how is he at x/os, can he coach defense, can he learn quickly enough on the job as a head coach, can he sell tickets? I’ll say I’m not optimistic but wish him the best.
Welcome back, I've been around since then and there's a few of us still left.
 

He does more than check boxes. Just being familiar with him doesn't make him a bad candidate. All too often, the coaches that don't make a splash at hire end up making a splash in performance. I think you'd rather have experience, yes, but let's let this play out a bit. If Dave Thorson comes as his assistant coach, it becomes very compelling. What if?
 


He does more than check boxes. Just being familiar with him doesn't make him a bad candidate. All too often, the coaches that don't make a splash at hire end up making a splash in performance. I think you'd rather have experience, yes, but let's let this play out a bit. If Dave Thorson comes as his assistant coach, it becomes very compelling. What if?
Is there evidence thorson will leave medveds staff? I have seen it mentioned several times but no reasons as to why
 

I have been trying to wrap my brain around this hire. This is just a bad hire no matter how you look at it.
Johnson is ranked as a top 70 recruiter, which isn't horrible, but his last 2 recruits have been 3 stars. If you take away the credit he gets as the primary recruiter for Oturu and assisting on Amir, he drops outside of the top 100 in recruiting. He has no head coaching experience and really isn't known in the coaching circles for his coaching prowess.
On the outside, it appears that Johnson was brought in solely for his connections in hopes of landing some of the top tier in-state talent, but there is no evidence that he has the ability to coach the kids even if he gets them. I will eventually get on board and back Ben Johnson, but right now I am just not feeling it
 

If he was brought here to recruit, he's more than qualified...

If Coyle was just worried about needing a diversity hire, there were/are many other coaches available that would have been "safer" hires. He could have easily caved in to the Strip crowd and hired Sam Mitchell.

Coyle hired who HE wanted...
I'm amazed at all the Sam Mitchell love. He's an NBA guy through and through. I think that could help, but he is getting a bit long in the tooth, as well, and hasn't even been coaching recently. To think we could have got Musselman is ridiculous. I think Dutch was a real possibility, but seriously, if you haven't been paying attention, Coyle definitely needed to hire a minority. I think Ben Johnson is going to be a thoughtfully good hire!
 

I don’t see Ben getting crapped on. The rage is against Coyle and the U. I like Ben. I don’t think this is a great career move for him.
He’s making 2 mil a year. I’d say it’s a great career move. One stint here and a good investment guy snd he won’t have to work again...
 



Is there evidence thorson will leave medveds staff? I have seen it mentioned several times but no reasons as to why
Know your history on this one.

Reasons:
1. He coached Ben Johnson in high school. He has to have a lot of loyalty to that.
2. He left the Gophers staff under Clem. His lukewarm support for the Gopher program in the last 25 years was a big reason the Gophers started struggling to recruit Minnesota.
3. He can really coach and probably wouldn't mind climbing the ladder again.

I'm not sure, but maybe he wants his own college gig. But, if he is going to be an assistant, being one again at the U and turning it around checks a bunch of boxes for him, as well.
 


He does more than check boxes. Just being familiar with him doesn't make him a bad candidate. All too often, the coaches that don't make a splash at hire end up making a splash in performance. I think you'd rather have experience, yes, but let's let this play out a bit. If Dave Thorson comes as his assistant coach, it becomes very compelling. What if?
I think someone like Medved, Gates or even Smith would have been non-splashy hires that made sense.

In my experience, usually when the signs are obvious that a hire doesn't make sense, the hire doesn't make sense.
 

Know your history on this one.

Reasons:
1. He coached Ben Johnson in high school. He has to have a lot of loyalty to that.
2. He left the Gophers staff under Clem. His lukewarm support for the Gopher program in the last 25 years was a big reason the Gophers started struggling to recruit Minnesota.
3. He can really coach and probably wouldn't mind climbing the ladder again.

I'm not sure, but maybe he wants his own college gig. But, if he is going to be an assistant, being one again at the U and turning it around checks a bunch of boxes for him, as well.
Alright so pure speculation then?
 



Thank you for proving my point!

Dean Smith was a coach in the Army. I know that might sound strange but it was pretty high level basketball 60 years ago. You know, cause Dean Smith was hired 60 Fing years ago.
Roy Williams was a top assistant for one of the nations top programs for 10 seasons. He was also hired 33 years ago.
Jim Boehim was hired 45 F'ing years ago. He was also an assistant AT Syracuse where their coach left for another job. He was promoted from within.
John Thompson was hired 49 F'ing years ago. He was a prominent HS coach in DC for years and a former NBA player.
Tom Izzo - Again, you are (i hope intentionally) not differentiating the difference of promoting a long time assistant to HC. He was an assistant coach at Michigan State for 12 years prior to becoming a HC. He coached for another legend at Michigan State.
Mark Few - Great coach. He was a strong assistant for a successful coach. Gonzaga was a slightly good mid-major job when he took it (the kind of job that would have made sense for Ben Johnson).
Juwan Howard - Huge name recognition and a 6 year NBA assistant.
Phil Jackson - You're wrong
Steve Kerr - He was an NBA General Manager before becoming a coach. LOL.
Tubby Smith- Yeah, he had a great career. I'm not sure what your point is here. By the way, Tubby went from an assistant coach, to a coach of a mid-major (Tulsa), to a coach of P6 type program (Georgia), to a blue blood (Kentucky). You know. . . the expected trajectory of a successful coaching career.

I don't care if you're over the resume talk. It's THE issue with Ben Johnson. He doesn't have the resume you would look for. What an idiotic comment. You're over people talking about the qualifications (resume) of the person who was hired. LOL.

Look at how you had to squint to try to find examples to prove your point. People who were GMs in the NBA, longtime assistants at their school, and people you were flat-out wrong about.

I have no idea if Ben Johnson will be good or not. I am genuinely stoked to hear that people like him. But make no mistake, that excitement is DESPITE THE FACT that he doesn't have the requisite resume. The resume isn't the only thing that matters.
I think Dean Smith was in the Air Force and not the Army....I'm not sure what kind of team he was the coach for there as there is no reference for it. The point about Tubby is that he had the resume you wanted....even though it was almost 40 Fing years ago. How did that work out??? The point of the whole post no one this board has any idea if Ben Johnson will be successful or not. They have no idea if Craig Smith would have been successful here or not.....they have no idea if Niko Medved would be successful here or not....they have no idea if Gates would be successful here or not.

Beyond that...they weren't in the interview process. They have no idea what conversations have taken place. They have no idea what former players have or haven't said....and yet they are experts on who the Gophers should have hired as their head coach....and are acting like little babies that the U didn't hire who they wanted to be hired.
 

Who cares. He doesn't get credit for those classes the head coach does. Was he part of it? Of course, but no assistant coaches get the credit or blame for recruiting rankings, period. It's not his classes. Not his recruits.

Plenty of posters in this thread have been saying Xavier had terrible recruiting classes since Ben Johnson went there. . We now know they don't know what the hell the were talking about.

Ben Johnson's basketball addiction helped land him a coaching job at Xavier University

It’s a Thursday morning in late August 2018, and the television hanging on the wall of Ben Johnson’s office inside Xavier University’s Cintas Center is displaying a grainy, unfocused basketball game. It's Game 4 of the 2000 NBA Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Indiana Pacers. When asked about it, Johnson matter-of-factly replies, “You never know when you’re gonna see something.”

Ben Johnson, the second assistant coach that Xavier head coach Travis Steele hired to his staff, is a basketball addict. It’s an addiction without downside. Dave Thorson laughs when he hears that Johnson was watching an 18-year-old basketball game. Thorson, who's now an assistant coach at Colorado State, coached Johnson at DeLaSalle High School in Minneapolis.

"He's always been such a student of the game," Thorson told The Enquirer. "He was a great player but he wasn't a guy that had NBA athletic talent, he was a great player because he understood the game and he understood what needed to be done in certain situations. I think that's made him an even better coach. "Ironically, I told his dad when he was a senior in high school, I said, 'Someday, I'll probably work for Ben.' It wouldn't shock me at all if that happened."

High school was where Johnson realized that someday he wanted to get into coaching. He who played college basketball at the University of Minnesota. "There were a couple other things I explored but then I was given an opportunity with a guy named Brian Gregory, who recruited me out of high school and was the coach at Dayton."

Xavier head coach Travis Steele said putting a coaching staff together is a lot like fitting together the pieces of a puzzle. So, after Steele hired Jonas Hayes, his focus turned to the next piece. "The first conversation I had with Ben was right after I met with Jonas," said Steele. "I was in the airport ... that was the first time I'd talked to Ben.

My brother was the head coach at Illinois so he knew Ben really well and so did his assistant coaches." Steele's brother, John Groce, advised him to take a look at Ben. "I said, 'That's a good one, that's a good name.' In the back of my mind, I'm thinking, 'He's from Minneapolis, played at Minnesota, has been coaching at Minnesota the last five years. Probably not likely, I don't know if I'll be able to get him, but it's worth a shot.'

"I got him on the phone and I thought we really hit it off right away, we kind of think the same way and I could tell his personality was a little different than Jonas' – in a good way – he's a little bit more calculated. "You could tell right away he's got a basketball mind, which I was excited about."

Steele talked to college coaches, high school coaches, AAU coaches, and he even reached out to former Xavier standout JP Macura, who's from Minnesota. "JP said, 'Man, he's really good,' JP's mom and dad both loved him," Steele said. "He's another guy, he's been coaching a long time and I've never heard a bad word about him."

On top of that, Johnson has recruited a lot of the Midwest, which complements Hayes' recruiting foothold in the Southeast. Steele and Johnson connected so well over the phone, Steele said, "I never interviewed him in person. We have a lot of mutual friends and they all said he would be a home run."

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/sp...im-coaching-job-xavier-university/1097156002/
 

I have been trying to wrap my brain around this hire. This is just a bad hire no matter how you look at it.
Johnson is ranked as a top 70 recruiter, which isn't horrible, but his last 2 recruits have been 3 stars. If you take away the credit he gets as the primary recruiter for Oturu and assisting on Amir, he drops outside of the top 100 in recruiting. He has no head coaching experience and really isn't known in the coaching circles for his coaching prowess.
On the outside, it appears that Johnson was brought in solely for his connections in hopes of landing some of the top tier in-state talent, but there is no evidence that he has the ability to coach the kids even if he gets them. I will eventually get on board and back Ben Johnson, but right now I am just not feeling it
This is where I'm at. I wanna get on board and I'm gonna try and force myself into it but it's a disappointing hire, it just is.

Medved was my baseline hire and he would have taken the job, no question. Smith was a fantastic candidate, sure not a home run, but extremely solid, he would have taken the job as I have heard from a poster I trust.

It's just a bad hire. To take this amount of risk when you have candidates like Medved and Smith, whom I feel very confident saying would have taken the job, is just a bad move. It does hurt as part of the fanbase here.
 

Seen a lot of these reasons along with recruiting ability and local connections as why people like this hire.

Funny thing about that is not one thing I have read about the Johnson hire mentions his coaching ability. I guess you would think coaching ability might be a consideration when hiring a coach. Based on AD Coyle’s basketball hires coaching ability is not a requirement.
Former players have said he could coach and the Xavier head coach raves about his coaching ability. I read some accounts from Xavier fans that were pissed they lost him. Said he really improved their guards.
 

Coyle went postal and recoiled with a high risk high reward (if he proves us wrong and can coach) replacement for Richard Pitino. I had a gut reaction that he was going to pull a surprise way out of left field.

He hung on to Pitino too long. He should have fired him two years ago.

He's under intense financial, political correctness, and recruiting pressures. The larder must be pretty empty necessitating the shut down three men's program. Hopefully, Coyle is astute enough to provide a higher budget for hiring experienced assistants. Someone like Dave Thorson with head coaching experience. His former HS coach can act as a mentor.

Let's hope the stars are aligned somehow, and that he proved us all wrong. The thing is, this hire may work. It's a question of whether dumb luck, or he really has recruiting/coaching ability.

I was thinking the surprise is more in the likes of Nico Medved who IS a head coach. Ben Johnson may surprise us soon enough. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt.
 
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I'm surprised a forum filled with Minnesotans took this long for the "It could always be worse" method of coping.
Guess what slick, let’s be straight, overwhelming odds it was going to be a black coach that was hired, and I think that’s a good thing.
 


Montana St: no thank you

Northern Illinois: no thank you

Minnesota: you check some important boxes even though you have no head coaching experience. Right this way sir.
Maybe they said “no thank you” after he told them he wanted $2 million? /s
 

Know your history on this one.

Reasons:
1. He coached Ben Johnson in high school. He has to have a lot of loyalty to that.
2. He left the Gophers staff under Clem. His lukewarm support for the Gopher program in the last 25 years was a big reason the Gophers started struggling to recruit Minnesota.
3. He can really coach and probably wouldn't mind climbing the ladder again.

I'm not sure, but maybe he wants his own college gig. But, if he is going to be an assistant, being one again at the U and turning it around checks a bunch of boxes for him, as well.
Or he could stick with Medved a coach who ha a proven he can get the job done enough to move up in the ranks. Thorsen May come but it would be a big gamble on his part to hitch his wagon to a first time head coach in a league filled with proven winners. I’m guessing there isn’t a single big ten coach worried about the hire of Ben Johnson
 

Highly unlikely....More like 6-8 wins the next couple years and toilet bowls....We had are best season ever a couple years ago and still played in the outback bowl.
You’re just a miserable soul.
 

Why oh why doesn't the brass in the athletic department listen to Gopherhole. Don't they know that everyone here is basically Red Auerbach reincarnated!?
The U has done such a fantastic job with their athletics department. We have been the butt of Big Ten jokes now in sports that matter for nearly 3 decades
 

Former players have said he could coach and the Xavier head coach raves about his coaching ability. I read some accounts from Xavier fans that were pissed they lost him. Said he really improved their guards.
Right they're sad they lost a decent assistant...i was too when he left for xavier but i wouldn't have given him the keys to the head coaching gig.

Doubt any xavier fans would either
 

I have been trying to wrap my brain around this hire. This is just a bad hire no matter how you look at it.
Johnson is ranked as a top 70 recruiter, which isn't horrible, but his last 2 recruits have been 3 stars. If you take away the credit he gets as the primary recruiter for Oturu and assisting on Amir, he drops outside of the top 100 in recruiting. He has no head coaching experience and really isn't known in the coaching circles for his coaching prowess.
On the outside, it appears that Johnson was brought in solely for his connections in hopes of landing some of the top tier in-state talent, but there is no evidence that he has the ability to coach the kids even if he gets them. I will eventually get on board and back Ben Johnson, but right now I am just not feeling it
You can't just "take away" Oturu and Coffey and do recruiting rankings, the real world doesn't work that. way. They've both been vocal today about how big a hire this is for Minnesota. Richard Coffey flat out said Ben is the only reason Amir was a Gopher. Johnson was also responsible for Murphy and Gabe Kalscheur. That stuff matters.

Pitino's downfall was the inability to consistently connect and build relationships with local high school and AAU programs. That's one of Ben Johnson's biggest strengths.

His biggest challenge is clear: He's never been a head coach, and now you have to take the talent you can recruit and develop it. Consecutive top 30 classes can't be ignored, regardless of how they panned out.

It sounds like the first 2 commits are likely to be Parker Fox and Jamison Battle. Dawson Garcia is rumored to be leaving Marquette, and there's steam that he's coming home. There's even whispers with Race Thompson.

How about we give him 2 years to see what he can do before throwing him out to the trash? This board is absurd today. I'm one of the very few who thinks this can really work.
 


We gave Pitino 8 years with a similar resume a chance..it failed...How long will the fan base wait this time, 3-4 years?....Many a season ticket holder will not....At least a splashy hire would have put people in seats the next two years....That is the only way you generate future revenue.
Let me guess. You were on the Les Miles bandwagon for Football? Winning solves revenue issues. A splashy name is a band aid.
 

As Ken Kesey once said “ Now, you're either on the bus or off the bus.” I’m on the bus. It’s not even a tough call.
I'll get on, but I'm not driving.
 

I've seen him interviewed, and that's one of my concerns, too: laid back guy.
Yeah, Nate Oates is a real Firecracker of an interview too. Not comparing him to Oates, my point being at one point Oates was in his first job and I’m sure the laid back card was played. Lots of laid back coaches have had tons of success.
 




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