Gophers target: Davidson transfer Michael Jones

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.
Folks I know close to Jones made it seem it was his choice and not Ben’s. They would’ve love to have him, but he didn’t share the same feelings. Mainly all non basketball reasons are guiding his decision making for his next destination.
 

We have 9 scholarship players I expect for us to add another guard but as far as wings go, we have 2 freshmen that will be possibly in the rotation as wings & flexible players like Jamison & Ihnen. We can add one more wing but if we add one that will eat up majority of the minutes I can’t imagine the freshmen being happy about very limited playing time when that may have been there biggest draw to committing here
We have 10 Scholarship Players: Cooper, Carrington, Battle, Ihnen, Henley, Fox, Thompson, Ola-Joseph, Gracia and Payne. We need a back up PG and a SG. It would be nice to have 2 SGs.
 

Folks I know close to Jones made it seem it was his choice and not Ben’s. They would’ve love to have him, but he didn’t share the same feelings. Mainly all non basketball reasons are guiding his decision making for his next destination.

I absolutely believe that. I can't think of a reason why our coaches wouldn't want Michael Jones. I wanted Jones but I did have a hunch about him that I stated here shortly after he entered the portal:

"Jones went to a hoity-toity private school so it's possible that he might prefer to go someplace like Vanderbilt, Stanford, or Northwestern."

As it turns out, it's Stanford, Northwestern, and Alabama but I'm assuming, as someone else posted, that the Alabama placement may be due to prior contacts with their coach.
 




Ben has done a very good job of bringing in some nice freshman and transfers to build up this team.

Now you have some people going ape shit on assumptions about what Ben must have done wrong to “lose out” on a local transfer that most likely will choose Stanford or Northwestern.

Relax!

Imagine if you were a decent college BB player with absolutely no shot of making it as a professional and no desire to grind it out in Europe. You are looking for a graduate school that will allow you to play BB, but your primary objective is to further your career outside of basketball. Schools like Sanford or NW are offering you automatic admissions into their graduate school and will pay your tuition! Basketball is not everything.
 

I know this because I know Johnson's ethic, commitment to excellence, and appreciation for the opportunity to be head coach at Minnesota.
I've heard from coaches of kids they are recruiting that there is a huge difference from the previous coaching staff. I kind of think Johnson feels comfortable with Carrington and Henley getting quality minutes this year
 

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
If there was initially mutual interest, it does not mean that once the cards were all laid down that there was a mutual fit.
 

I absolutely believe that. I can't think of a reason why our coaches wouldn't want Michael Jones. I wanted Jones but I did have a hunch about him that I stated here shortly after he entered the portal:

"Jones went to a hoity-toity private school so it's possible that he might prefer to go someplace like Vanderbilt, Stanford, or Northwestern."

As it turns out, it's Stanford, Northwestern, and Alabama but I'm assuming, as someone else posted, that the Alabama placement may be due to prior contacts with their coach.
Can’t blame a kid for choosing Stanford, one of the best known academic schools in the country. Hoitti toitti or not.
 






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