GOPHERS HIRING BEN JOHNSON

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GopherBlood666 said:
Pitino sr openly said he did not like IW as a player. When Pitino sr got to iona, iw left shortly thereafter. You said richard listened to his dad more than his assistants. I pointed out a situation where that clearly wasn't true. Johnson did not recruit iw, young did. Anything else to add?
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To be fair, Sr. started trashing him after he was a Gopher. My guess is he was doing it with the blessing of Richard. I don't think we know what his opinion of him in HS was.
 

Some guy said:
Even if it is 2.5, that’s a 20% difference. I guess you don’t see 20% as significant
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Not really, no. Certainly not as something to consider at the time of hiring. It's ridiculous.
 
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Some guy said:
I’m not saying that’s why they hired him.
I am saying he is going to be easier to fire though. That’s me. That’s not Coyle
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Literally no one with a brain ever considered the cost of the buyout a few years down the road. It's meaningless. The only thing his salary currently means is he was wildly overpaid for what it would've taken to get him + it shows we could've gotten an actual proven coach with a good track record.
 

howeda7 said:
Not really, no. Certainly not as something consider at the time of hiring. It's ridiculous.
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I never said they considered it. I consider it.
It’s why I would rather have Johnson than Smith.

I’d rather have neither, but alas I don’t have the funds to donate the millions needed to reel in a big time coach.
 

NDGopher69420 said:
Literally no one with a brain ever considered the cost of the buyout a few years down the road. It's meaningless. The only thing his salary currently means is he was wildly overpaid for what it would've taken to get him + it shows we could've gotten an actual proven coach with a good track record.
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I never said they considered it.
It’s why I prefer Johnson to smith.
 


Some guy said:
I never said they considered it. I consider it.
It’s why I would rather have Johnson than Smith.

I’d rather have neither, but alas I don’t have the funds to donate the millions needed to reel in a big time coach.
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Minnesota has a 120+ million dollar athletic budget and you think 500k is meaningful? Somehow your take on this gets dumber each time you post.
 

Some guy said:
I never said they considered it. I consider it.
It’s why I would rather have Johnson than Smith.

I’d rather have neither, but alas I don’t have the funds to donate the millions needed to reel in a big time coach.
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Then your logic is very strange. I get considering a buyout if it's Shaka and the buyout is $8 million and you think it's too big a risk. We're talking about $500K 3 years from now being a tipping point for you who you prefer. It's bizarre.

Quite frankly, they probably could have gotten Smith for exactly what they're paying Ben, which doesn't sit well with me at all.
 

NDGopher69420 said:
Minnesota has a 120+ million dollar athletic budget and you think 500k is meaningful? Somehow your take on this gets dumber each time you post.
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What number is meaningful? Because clearly we weren’t targeting coaches that were in the 4+ range

If 500k doesn’t mean anything why does 2 million? 2 million is just 4 meaningless 500k installments
 

howeda7 said:
Then your logic is very strange. I get considering a buyout if it's Shaka and the buyout is $8 million and you think it's too big a risk. We're talking about $500K 3 years from now being a tipping point for you who you prefer. It's bizarre.
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I prefer neither
 



Flipper1a said:
When we hired Pitino we were upset we didn't get Shaka....

Shaka 109-86 at Texas
Pitino 141-123 at MN

Were they the 2 best for the job (hind sight 20/20)?
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I wanted Shaka 8 years ago and I would have been wrong then.
 






mplarson7 said:
I don't have to convince you of anything. I was listing possible events that would make me more impressed with the hire.
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But then that event would be impossible, and I will assume it is very the very reason I speculated, until proven otherwise.
 

howeda7 said:
For purposes of this (very stupid) discussion, neither isn't an option. You're saying you prefer Ben over an experienced coach with a proven track record because he might save you $500K 3 years from now. OK then.
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15 years as an assistant isn't chop liver. There is experience there. HC Experience can be rectified by bench coaches. Pitino had an experienced bench coach here his first year. Ben is 40 years old....Pitino was 30 when took this job I believe.

There might be a whole lot of "what not to do" experience actually.
 


Flipper1a said:
15 years as an assistant isn't chop liver. There is experience there.
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Nope. The buck doesn't stop with you. And you're not the main reason that the recruit came there, no matter what their dad says.
 


I just don't think Coyle is that big of a moron.

I'm going with that his hands were tied on this decision. This might have Gable's name all over it behind closed doors, but we'll never know. And/or maybe even Walz. Would like to think he has more important things to do ... but ...
 

I am starting to feel a little more excitement and I really hope it works out as Johnson seems like a good guy.

But it is hard to compare this to other Gopher hires, even in other sports. Usually we have several threads going about whether we like or don't like the style that we are going to be seeing. We can't even do that. We have no idea. Some are trying to say Coyle did great with Fleck, so we can expect the same, but with Fleck we immediately knew what we were going to see from a simple examination of Western Michigan football games. All we have to go on for Johnson is the style of play at his stops as an assistant. But his longest stint was here under the the coach we just fired.

Point being, I am all for getting behind him and let's face we all will, but this is huge roll of the dice for Coyle and the confusion and doubt from the fanbase are more than justified.
 


I am still not a fan of the hire, but obviously hope Johnson succeeds. One good thing I was thinking of is that we will get a good picture of if he can recruit Minnesota well for the class of 22. He is too late for the class of 21 obviously, and the class is very thin. However, a lot of talent is coming in the 22 class and it’s a deep class. He will have a full year to recruit. He needs to show he can get a couple. If not, we should get a quick answer as to whether he can recruit Minnesota or not, which is the main reason being brought up for him getting hired.
 
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There aren’t many “destination” jobs and this isn’t one of them. Tubby was hired because of his name and he was looking for a place to land. Didn’t work that well. Richard was hired for his name and youth. Didn’t work that well. Johnson was hired because Coyle was always going to hire a black coach and some of the more established black coaches may have taken a pass. Nothing wrong with that. Johnson was also specifically hired to recruit Minnesota. Makes sense.
 

jamiche said:
Johnson was hired because Coyle was always going to hire a black coach and some of the more established black coaches may have taken a pass. Nothing wrong with that. Johnson was also specifically hired to recruit Minnesota. Makes sense.
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If that's how Gable tied Coyle's hands, then I wish they had the balls to come out and say it. They know they'd hear screams of terror and spitting fury from the anti-BLM crowd of alumni and public as well.

Ugh.

So many better places to push for justice. But the moment is what it is.
 

MplsGopher said:
I just don't think Coyle is that big of a moron.

I'm going with that his hands were tied on this decision. This might have Gable's name all over it behind closed doors, but we'll never know. And/or maybe even Walz. Would like to think he has more important things to do ... but ...
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I agree. I believe there was very little possibility that Coyle was going to hire a white coach given the U's head coach diversity ranking at the bottom of the Big 10. The expectations on him from his boss at the U and the local minority community (basketball and otherwise) were undoubtedly too much for him to go any other way than what he did. That being said, I also believe Ben Johnson could turn out to be the U's best BB coaching hire in maybe forever. We'll see and I for one am looking forward to watching how it will all play out.
 
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jamiche said:
There aren’t many “destination” jobs and this isn’t one of them. Tubby was hired because of his name and he was looking for a place to land. Didn’t work that well. Richard was hired for his name and youth. Didn’t work that well. Johnson was hired because Coyle was always going to hire a black coach and some of the more established black coaches may have taken a pass. Nothing wrong with that. Johnson was also specifically hired to recruit Minnesota. Makes sense.
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I actually agree with you here. MN is a tough job. I would guess a large percentage of 17-18 year old kids outside of the Midwest believe Minnesota is in Canada. I think even if Jay Wright was coaching here we’d probably crack the top 4 once every 5 years.
 

Go4Broke said:
That being said I also believe Ben Johnson could turn out to be the U's best BB coaching hire in maybe forever.
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I'd like to believe all kinds of wonderful, fanciful things, as well.

Life has beaten my brow well down for daring to do that in the past ...
 

Angry said:
I actually agree with you here. MN is a tough job. I would guess a large percentage of 17-18 year old kids outside of the Midwest believe Minnesota is in Canada. I think even if Jay Wright was coaching here we’d probably crack the top 4 once every 5 years.
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This fundamental issue is like this:
- kids want to leave the place they grew up
- the farther away you are from the recruit, on average it does have a (perhaps small-ish, again on average) negative bias to being able to land them.

TC is or is becoming a great DI bball talent center. But we're relative far away from the next center (probably Chicago) and even farther and farther away from other centers.


The above two factors can be overcome: if you're a winning program. But if that were true, then we wouldn't have that problem in the first place.

I don't believe you can overcome those factors with only opportunity, ie to play in the Big Ten and/or to make it a winning place when it currently isn't, unless you're reaching down for a kid who has most non-P5 interest.


We're thus at the same natural disadvantage as Nebraska, though they have even less local talent.
 

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