GOPHERS HIRING BEN JOHNSON

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Very surprising hire. Ben was a very good local recruiter for us, but does he have what it takes to manage a Big Ten program? High risk hire by Coyle.
 

gopher7 said:
This feels a lot like the Brewster hire.
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I'll just throw this in here... on paper, that Brewster hire wasn't a bad hire. That dude could (and still can, for that matter) recruit his ass off. Problem was, he couldn't figure out how to hire the right assistant coaches to make it work.

If what people are throwing around about the AAU stuff... if it proves out that Ben is the new coach... maybe it could be a good hire. He's still gonna need the right assistants, though.
 


Go Gophs said:
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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My point is there are always some fans that have a problem with EVERY hire. We still have Fleck haters on the football board
 

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!
 





NDGopher69420 said:
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.
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It flat out doesn't matter. I can't believe the athletic director doesn't understand what it takes to win here. It's never going to be outrecruiting teams in the Big Ten. We are not a destination for top recruits. To win here, you have to play harder, smarter, and better than the other teams. That's coaching, not recruiting.

Trying to win recruiting battles against huge universities with twice the money, better facilities, better winning traditions, better climates, and probably willing to bend the rules is TOUGH, for anyone.
 










How many coaches turned us down to get to this selection?

It's going to come out. This is going to be embarrassing.

Either we were turned down by double digits to get here.

Or worse, he was in our top 5?

I feel like Harry Potter after he finds out he has to die. I mean, F me!
 

upnorthkid said:
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?
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Much higher risk than Whalen. Revenue issues and Lindsey has a place in our local history that Ben simply doesn’t.
 




Surprising this is announced so soon after at least rumored interviews still to take place with Medved/Smith. Like most, assuming money had a lot to do with this decision. If he does not perform once fans are allowed back into games, I am guessing his contract will be friendly to removal at that point. I am hoping Coyle made this move because Johnson has the inside track on some top prospects, but we will get to see his plan soon as spring recruiting will be firing up shortly. Extremely underwhelming hire right now on the heels of 8 years of Pitino.
 

Otis said:
How many coaches turned us down to get to this selection?

It's going to come out. This is going to be embarrassing.
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That’s my question. Maybe we’re too quick to dog-pile on Coyle because literally everyone else with head coaching experience not named Richard Pitino didn’t want this job.
 

mnsportsgeek said:
Very surprising hire. Ben was a very good local recruiter for us, but does he have what it takes to manage a Big Ten program? High risk hire by Coyle.
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Disagree. I don’t see any evidence at all that he was an effective local recruiter. I was all in on his hire as an assistant for that reason and it never materialized.
 



This is a terrible hire. It's not that it's Ben's fault and I'll support him. However, the process is obviously broken if you hire someone with Ben's resume at this point in his career. So even if it works out, it was luck.

That said, he's supposedly loved around the various AAU circles and he's coached with some good ones.
 

When I heard they were interviewing Jacobson I knew one of two things was happening: A. Coyle already knew who the next coach was before Pitino was fired. B. We don't have much money.

I'm pretty sure it's both. That said, I actually don't hate it. I think recruiting is the key to turning this program elite, and there aren't many with a better track record doing that here than Johnson, especially with local kids.
 



It makes sense. This reduces the risk of a blue blood swooping in and hiring our coach in a couple years. Coyle playing a game of 3-D chess!
 

we are the lower tier of the B1G for a reason.....hires like this....this is not a destination city so we should be happy with mediocrity...
 

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