GOPHERS HIRING BEN JOHNSON

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read this thinking it was a joke. Clearly it is not. just.... wtf Coyle. Love Ben and think he's great, but if this is the route we are ending up going to hire, man... you're a B10 university. The fact you can't land someone with any tenure track of head coaching success is baffling

I guess it fits in the Whalen mold?
 


WriterGoph said:
I'm going to trust Coyle. I'm surprised, but I don't have anything bad to say about Ben Johnson.

It's just funny that everyone was so scared of guys like Gates who "would leave soon" and now some of those same people are upset that we got an alum with local recruiting connections.
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I don’t have anything bad to say either but this was a very underwhelming hire.
 

forever a gopher said:
If the only thing we are trying to do is bow down to AAU coaches, then I guess we made the right hire. If this is how it works, and coaches/parents are willing to hold their kids hostage unless you hire one of the guys they like, then I'd prefer we hire a guy that can recruit elsewhere and give the AAU people a big middle finger. And I've been one saying we need to sign more local kids.
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Just hire one of them then. They have at least run a program, recruited lots of kids and coached some high level games.
 


NDGopher69420 said:
I hate to break it to you but there is a 0% chance that anything changes with the AAU programs and where they send their kids. Johnson has never been able to land MN kids and most teams he has been associated with have gotten worse.
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Being the head coach vs Richard Pitino’s assistant is a very different situation.
 

Otis said:
If Chet walks in that door with Ben "Dover" Johnson then I am more disgusted at Minnesota selling out for a 1 year rental.
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Could not disagree more. If Chet walks through the door I would believe that would be a sign from above that others would follow. And I would trust this decision 1000 times more.
 


I really like him!! Can recruit. He’s not Musselman but not many coaches are.
 




GopherPoke said:
Underwhelmed to say the least, but won't you guys at least give the guy a year or two before cancelling tix? Honest question.
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Fair question. The sad reality is that there is no reason to hold on to tickets when you can cherry pick games and pay half the price because half the decking crowd is less interested than before. I’ll probably keep and aggressively call it a donation and get some valuable social time.
 





For those that hate this hire perhaps this is Coyle saying to the boosters that didn't want to open the pocketbook that this is what they get so perhaps in the future they will be willing to back the truck up for the right hire and until then we hope this guy doesn't fall flat on his face.
 


TheBarnyard said:
I was not one of them who was scared about Gates leaving soon. Are you insinuating this was me? Please find posts that back your claim?
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No, not you. But there were people saying that they were concerned about Gates for that reason.
 


CentralGopher said:
For those that hate this hire perhaps this is Coyle saying to the boosters that didn't want to open the pocketbook that this is what they get so perhaps in the future they will be willing to back the truck up for the right hire and until then we hope this guy doesn't fall flat on his face.
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Then COYLE isn't doing his job at all.
 

EcgopherFan said:
Could not disagree more. If Chet walks through the door I would believe that would be a sign from above that others would follow. And I would trust this decision 1000 times more.
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Hiring a coach associated with the past eight years of stagnated offense and pathetic defense is just plain embarrassing. I certainly hope Pitino never listened to Ben!
 



millions2spare said:
Low budget program, politically correct...even Joel maturi would have done better than this....Minnesota needs another D1 program to create some competition. This is a joke . Tim miles would have been better...
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_____________ would have been a better choice.
 

What a failure by Coyle. Minnesota needs some boosters who actually open their pocketbooks and Coyle needs to be able to sell them to do so. Until that happens Minnesota will continue to shop in the bargain bin.
 


I suppose a draw is also supposed to be that he is local so he'd never leave on that chance this does work out. But he already left once! I don't even see him as someone who is necessarily dedicated for the long haul.
 


That better be wrong or I will be very disappointed.
 

samloupete said:
I really like him!! Can recruit. He’s not Musselman but not many coaches are.
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This really odd narrative keeps being pushed by the media especially locally and makes zero sense. It's a quality people will blindly believe to support the hire even though it's baseless. What part about him is a good recruiter? He has been a below average lazy recruiter his entire career.
 

WriterGoph said:
Your point is fair, BUT let's remember that after Fleck was hired there were a bunch of haters who said "he is fake. he is too high energy. he will leave soon!"

After Motzko was hired some people said "he is too old. he never delivers in the tournament."
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If PJ hadn't been hired by us, he was going to another power 5 and that is not debatable. He might have actually done better had he waited a year or so and could have gone SEC. That is not a fair comparison.

Ben Johnson is on ONE power 5's radar and that is us. He would likely not be a candidate for most mid major jobs. This is a reach. A huge one. It MIGHT be successful, but as this sits, it does not look good at all.
 


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