Gophers target: Davidson transfer Michael Jones

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WriterGoph said:
"It's a problem if we weren't pursuing him." Isn't that Ben's prerogative? Seems like you're taking your opinion and projecting what you personally feel we need on the roster. Last I checked, Ben and the staff are the only ones who have seen Ihnen's development the past 2 years (for example). Ben also has spent plenty of time watching the incoming freshmen (way more than any of us). He has to make a judgment call on how he fills out the roster. Even if we only pick up one more guard, seems hard to be calling anything a failure in May - unless you are personally attending workouts or know someone on the staff.

"It's a negative if we pursued him and couldn't crack the Top 3." Again, is it?? Based solely on your personal feelings of how our last-place program should be perceived by college kids? Unless you know Michael Jones and what his goals are for his extra year of basketball and grad school, you're projecting your personal opinions on the situation. Last I checked, Northwestern and Stanford are two of the top schools in the nation. Perish the thought a kid might have other goals than just basketball when considering grad school options.
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Love this post. Very possible that he just does not want to go to the U of M.
 

WriterGoph said:
"It's a problem if we weren't pursuing him." Isn't that Ben's prerogative? Seems like you're taking your opinion and projecting what you personally feel we need on the roster. Last I checked, Ben and the staff are the only ones who have seen Ihnen's development the past 2 years (for example). Ben also has spent plenty of time watching the incoming freshmen (way more than any of us). He has to make a judgment call on how he fills out the roster. Even if we only pick up one more guard, seems hard to be calling anything a failure in May - unless you are personally attending workouts or know someone on the staff.

"It's a negative if we pursued him and couldn't crack the Top 3." Again, is it?? Based solely on your personal feelings of how our last-place program should be perceived by college kids? Unless you know Michael Jones and what his goals are for his extra year of basketball and grad school, you're projecting your personal opinions on the situation. Last I checked, Northwestern and Stanford are two of the top schools in the nation. Perish the thought a kid might have other goals than just basketball when considering grad school options.
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100%. Both of those are just my opinion.

If Ben is not interested in him, then my opinion is that is a major problem. In my opinion, we have a clear need for veteran wing depth/minutes. It's absolutely plausible that Ben disagrees with me on that point, however, that would be a pretty big red flag for me. Again, I'm admitting this is my opinion but that's kind of what the point of a message board is. We all give our opinions on things happening with the team. I fully admit that I could have a difference of opinion with Ben and be proven wrong.

As to the second point, yeah, it's my opinion that if we are losing recruits to Northwestern and Alabama it's a bad sign. Again, it's not all about Michael Jones, I get why a player specifically might choose to go elsewhere. However, it's certainly a negative if we couldn't crack Jones' top three.

If we were interested in Jones and couldn't crack his top 3, do you perceive that as a positive? Neutral? My criticism was intentionally light and you even disagree with that. So was it a positive?
 


Bob_Loblaw said:
Sure and I never said it wasn't. I merely called it a "negative". Talk about a harsh criticism. . .
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Did not mean it as a criticism of your post. Was responding only to writergopher and then adding my own opinion.
 

If we lose Jones to another school, I can live with it.....if we don't make the Top 3 of schools contacting him the most, I'm pissed. He's exactly what we are lacking, and he has a connection to the state. I'd want him if he was from Lubbock TX, but the fact he's from here SHOULD give us an advantage. We are contacting guys with worse stats from worse schools. I'm getting nervous.
 


cheeseheadgophfan said:
If we lose Jones to another school, I can live with it.....if we don't make the Top 3 of schools contacting him the most, I'm pissed. He's exactly what we are lacking, and he has a connection to the state. I'd want him if he was from Lubbock TX, but the fact he's from here SHOULD give us an advantage. We are contacting guys with worse stats from worse schools. I'm getting nervous.
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What if Michael said he didn’t want to come here? Then should we still pursue? I just find it hard to believe that we just got out worked. This isn’t Pitino.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
100%. Both of those are just my opinion.

If Ben is not interested in him, then my opinion is that is a major problem. In my opinion, we have a clear need for veteran wing depth/minutes. It's absolutely plausible that Ben disagrees with me on that point, however, that would be a pretty big red flag for me. Again, I'm admitting this is my opinion but that's kind of what the point of a message board is. We all give our opinions on things happening with the team. I fully admit that I could have a difference of opinion with Ben and be proven wrong.

As to the second point, yeah, it's my opinion that if we are losing recruits to Northwestern and Alabama it's a bad sign. Again, it's not all about Michael Jones, I get why a player specifically might choose to go elsewhere. However, it's certainly a negative if we couldn't crack Jones' top three.

If we were interested in Jones and couldn't crack his top 3, do you perceive that as a positive? Neutral? My criticism was intentionally light and you even disagree with that. So was it a positive?
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From this we learn two things:

Anybody can have their own opinions but if the head coach doesn't agree with yours it's a really big red flag.

And, apparently a coach can be successful not getting players just as long as they listed his school on their top three list.

Live and learn.
 

Gopherfan84 said:
What if Michael said he didn’t want to come here? Then should we still pursue? I just find it hard to believe that we just got out worked. This isn’t Pitino.
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OK....maybe i'm over-reacting, but when I hear a recruit say that he's hearing more from Stanford and Northwestern, I'm thinking they are out-working us.
 

cheeseheadgophfan said:
If we lose Jones to another school, I can live with it.....if we don't make the Top 3 of schools contacting him the most, I'm pissed. He's exactly what we are lacking, and he has a connection to the state. I'd want him if he was from Lubbock TX, but the fact he's from here SHOULD give us an advantage. We are contacting guys with worse stats from worse schools. I'm getting nervous.
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Can you imagine a scenario where Jones, a smart and mature young man, tells Ben on an early call, "I respect you coach but Minnesota just does not figure in my plans for grad school."

If that conversation happened would you expect Ben, a mature and savvy young coach, to continue to call and text Jones several times a day to prove how persistent he is and how hard he is working?
 



Dakota2 said:
Can you imagine a scenario where Jones, a smart and mature young man, tells Ben on an early call, "I respect you coach but Minnesota just does not figure in my plans for grad school."

If that conversation happened would you expect Ben, a mature and savvy young coach, to continue to call and text Jones several times a day to prove how persistent he is and how hard he is working?
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Yep.

You think he shouldn't keep trying. If you ask your dream girl to dance once, and she says no, do you give up? I didn't.
 

cheeseheadgophfan said:
OK....maybe i'm over-reacting, but when I hear a recruit say that he's hearing more from Stanford and Northwestern, I'm thinking they are out-working us.
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Nobody is out working him. He' working hard and smart. There is a good reason for every call he makes and for every one he doesn't make.
 

Gopherfan84 said:
What if Michael said he didn’t want to come here? Then should we still pursue? I just find it hard to believe that we just got out worked. This isn’t Pitino.
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Ben is not exactly John Wooden at this point. We don't have a track record other than finishing last.
I like Ben but it is still fair to question his roster choices and recruiting at this point.
 





cheeseheadgophfan said:
Yep.

You think he shouldn't keep trying. If you ask your dream girl to dance once, and she says no, do you give up? I didn't.
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Did your dream girl have a dream to get a graduate degree at Stanford or Northwestern? Might be a problem when you had already decided to take over Dad's auto body repair shop in Turtle Lake.
 


cheeseheadgophfan said:
OK....maybe i'm over-reacting, but when I hear a recruit say that he's hearing more from Stanford and Northwestern, I'm thinking they are out-working us.
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The tweet was without context so it’s fair to read it that way. It’s not the whole story though. Ben and staff were made aware real early that he wasn’t coming home
 

Dakota2 said:
Did your dream girl have a dream to get a graduate degree at Stanford or Northwestern? Might be a problem when you had already decided to take over Dad's auto body repair shop in Turtle Lake.
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By the way, cheese, the above not aimed at anything but a little humor.
 

bga1 said:
Ben is not exactly John Wooden at this point. We don't have a track record other than finishing last.
I like Ben but it is still fair to question his roster choices and recruiting at this point.
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Never said he was. But he is a very hard recruiter. Questioning the roster and recruiting is fine. Assuming he isn’t working or doesn’t know what holes we have and in turn wouldn’t reach out to a perfect fit is a little ridiculous though.
 


Anyone thinking a recruit should automatically be strongly interested in the Gophers just because Ben contacts them needs to take off the maroon-colored glasses.
 

mplarson7 said:
Anyone thinking a recruit should automatically be strongly interested in the Gophers just because Ben contacts them needs to take off the maroon-colored glasses.
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OK....my last post on this topic....I promise! Their were reports that there was mutual interest between the Gophers and Jones. I don't know where all of you got the info that he told Ben he had no interest in the Gophers. My point in all of this was that if there was mutual interest at one point and now he's hearing "most" from 3 other schools, I think that that is very concerning. I'm done LOL
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
100%. Both of those are just my opinion.

If Ben is not interested in him, then my opinion is that is a major problem. In my opinion, we have a clear need for veteran wing depth/minutes. It's absolutely plausible that Ben disagrees with me on that point, however, that would be a pretty big red flag for me. Again, I'm admitting this is my opinion but that's kind of what the point of a message board is. We all give our opinions on things happening with the team. I fully admit that I could have a difference of opinion with Ben and be proven wrong.

As to the second point, yeah, it's my opinion that if we are losing recruits to Northwestern and Alabama it's a bad sign. Again, it's not all about Michael Jones, I get why a player specifically might choose to go elsewhere. However, it's certainly a negative if we couldn't crack Jones' top three.

If we were interested in Jones and couldn't crack his top 3, do you perceive that as a positive? Neutral? My criticism was intentionally light and you even disagree with that. So was it a positive?
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The kid has been in the portal for a while. I'm not concerned what his Top 3 is now when he and Ben talked a month ago. If we weren't of interest him, do we really want him to give us a courtesy listing in his final schools like Tyus Jones did? That's of no interest to me. Also no sense in Ben wasting his energy if they already understand what pages each of them is on. The ship sailed long ago and the only reason we are still talking about Jones is because he is from Minnesota so some of us "feel" like we should have an inside track.

I honestly am not the least bit worried about Jones' lack of interest. As soon as I heard he visited Stanford, I had a feeling he had other goals in mind.
 

cheeseheadgophfan said:
OK....my last post on this topic....I promise! Their were reports that there was mutual interest between the Gophers and Jones. I don't know where all of you got the info that he told Ben he had no interest in the Gophers. My point in all of this was that if there was mutual interest at one point and now he's hearing "most" from 3 other schools, I think that that is very concerning. I'm done LOL
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Can you source those reports? Unless Jones said it, someone was throwing sh*t against the wall during portal time looking for clicks. If there was mutual interest, he would have taken a visit here in April.
 

Lol at those feeling butthurt about BJ not spending time on a kid who sees an opportunity to get a post graduate education at a school like Stanford or Northwestern while playing basketball instead of “coming home”.

This kid has other priorities and so does BJ.
 



cheeseheadgophfan said:
This makes no sense. I'm trying to be as optimistic with this staff as possible. I thought the signing of Garcia and Cooper were a step in the right direction even though i was realistic that Garcia fell into our laps. But, there's no excuse for us not going hard after Jones. I mean, what do we need? A 3 point shooter who plays D. We have a Minnesota kid who's transferring after a successful run at a good basketball school who fits the description and we are being out-worked by Northwestern and Stanford? Makes me sick thinking about it.....
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Outworked? Based on what? Maybe Ben doesn’t see him as a fit. Maybe Ben talked with him and realized what Jones wants isn’t what we have to offer. Maybe Ben didn’t feel like Jones was interested in coming home, knew he wanted to try something different. He and staff know a lot more about this than anyone on Gopherhole.
 


Tucker32 said:
Liebert is making most of this up.
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He said “seem to be interested” to be fair. That’s language that he’s reading tea leaves. I thought he would be an obvious option too. Then he never took a visit and went to other places which Liebert probably should’ve or has now read.
 

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