Guess the Ws record for BJs first year.

Donate To GopherHole

Its been 21 seasons since a B1G school went winless in the conference season. That was Northwestern at 0-16 in '99-20 with Ben Johnson as their leading scorer.

Since then, the Gophers worst seasons were 2-16 (with Ben Johnson on the coaching staff) and 3-13 twice (one with Ben Johnson in the starting lineup).

I'm glad Thorson is on the staff, so I'll be optimistic and predict they WILL NOT be the worst team in B1G history:

6-25 overall, 2-18 in conference.
 

Mikie S said:
Its been 21 seasons since a B1G school went winless in the conference season. That was Northwestern at 0-16 in '99-20 with Ben Johnson as their leading scorer.

Since then, the Gophers worst seasons were 2-16 (with Ben Johnson on the coaching staff) and 3-13 twice (one with Ben Johnson in the starting lineup).

I'm glad Thorson is on the staff, so I'll be optimistic and predict they WILL NOT be the worst team in B1G history:

6-25 overall, 2-18 in conference.
Click to expand...
I tend to agree with this. Win one of the two we have at home against the other dogs.

Squeak one out against one other team somewhere. 2-18

I thought maybe 10-21, 2-18....but they’re making the non conference schedule harder than I anticipated
 

Mikie S said:
Its been 21 seasons since a B1G school went winless in the conference season. That was Northwestern at 0-16 in '99-20 with Ben Johnson as their leading scorer.

Since then, the Gophers worst seasons were 2-16 (with Ben Johnson on the coaching staff) and 3-13 twice (one with Ben Johnson in the starting lineup).

I'm glad Thorson is on the staff, so I'll be optimistic and predict they WILL NOT be the worst team in B1G history:

6-25 overall, 2-18 in conference.
Click to expand...
Our coach holds this record??? Sonofa...
 

Mikie S said:
Its been 21 seasons since a B1G school went winless in the conference season. That was Northwestern at 0-16 in '99-20 with Ben Johnson as their leading scorer.

Since then, the Gophers worst seasons were 2-16 (with Ben Johnson on the coaching staff) and 3-13 twice (one with Ben Johnson in the starting lineup).

I'm glad Thorson is on the staff, so I'll be optimistic and predict they WILL NOT be the worst team in B1G history:

6-25 overall, 2-18 in conference
Click to expand...

Clearly Ben Johnson has the pedigree of a winner in the NCAA...clearly....
 


The bottom will be deeper and more painful than most are anticipating. This is close to a death penalty case.

5-26 overall, 1-19 Big Ten
 



6-25, 1-19 in the B1G.

Lose OOC to: Miss State, the 2 MTE games, B1G/ACC challenge game, Gavitt Games game(if we get one). Beat UMKC, win the rest against SWAC/MEAC teams. Beat PSU in conference.
 




Mikie S said:
Its been 21 seasons since a B1G school went winless in the conference season. That was Northwestern at 0-16 in '99-20 with Ben Johnson as their leading scorer.

Since then, the Gophers worst seasons were 2-16 (with Ben Johnson on the coaching staff) and 3-13 twice (one with Ben Johnson in the starting lineup).

I'm glad Thorson is on the staff, so I'll be optimistic and predict they WILL NOT be the worst team in B1G history:

6-25 overall, 2-18 in conference.
Click to expand...
Mikie... “sobering” is a very kind politically correct description of reading Ben’s resume.
That and all the other questions that have surfaced make it very difficult to predict Ben has somehow all of a sudden become an elite leader who can recruit people to follow him for any length of time and achieve great things.
Success leaves footprints.
 

60's Guy said:
Mikie... “sobering” is a very kind politically correct description of reading Ben’s resume.
That and all the other questions that have surfaced make it very difficult to predict Ben has somehow all of a sudden become an elite leader who can recruit people to follow him for any length of time and achieve great things.
Success leaves footprints.
Click to expand...
His playing days says he is a loser.
 

I would accept a 2 win Big Ten season if Ben Johnson creates a style of play where I could see a leadership vision and culture being created. This would mean all we need is with more talent to win. If his players get out-hustled and Ben is constantly outcoached, than people will be shouting this as a political hire and it will do more harm to the University and the program. I really hope and pray Ben has a great vision and leadership style.
 



I actually think we will win 4-6 games in conference. It's likely unsubstantiated optimism but we have a lot of guards with experience. They might not have experience in the Big 10, but they've played a lot of basketball. If you couple that with a few games where our guards just get hot, I think we will a couple more than most people do.

When we aren't hitting shots though, we will be uniquely bad.
 


gophernut1 said:
I would accept a 2 win Big Ten season if Ben Johnson creates a style of play where I could see a leadership vision and culture being created. This would mean all we need is with more talent to win. If his players get out-hustled and Ben is constantly outcoached, than people will be shouting this as a political hire and it will do more harm to the University and the program. I really hope and pray Ben has a great vision and leadership style.
Click to expand...
That makes some sense except for two thoughts... 1. A lot of the guys leading the way in his first season are going to be gone after the one year. 2. Can he then recruit the better talent needed?
So far he has not demonstrated he can even get one arguably more talented starting player than any other Big Ten teams have. Let alone a roster's worth.

If we assume all coaches can get their guys to play hard....which is largely true...degrees of difference...then the biggest difference is talent followed by your ability to coach.
He can have the hardest working guys in every game and lose them all.

We can see how well we compete. What kind of adjustments we make at halftime. If anything happens after timeouts. How engaged the guys are, Are we a team? All that and 50 other clues if someone can coach. But it has to start with recruiting. No matter how well you can coach, in the Big Ten you gotta have players. Ben is an unknown but I feel pretty confident he's not going to out coach most other coaches we face. His chances of out recruiting them are greater than out coaching them imo. That's where he has to start getting people's attention to be successful..
gophernut1 said:
I would accept a 2 win Big Ten season if Ben Johnson creates a style of play where I could see a leadership vision and culture being created. This would mean all we need is with more talent to win. If his players get out-hustled and Ben is constantly outcoached, than people will be shouting this as a political hire and it will do more harm to the University and the program. I really hope and pray Ben has a great vision and leadership style.
Click to expand...
 

idagopher said:
with each new signee my expectations sink a bit, don't know if they have reached bottom yet
Click to expand...
Just know that we will know if Ben can ID talent. Now if he loses and says it’s the barn or crowd well then he is trash.
 

While I appreciate many wanting guys who "play hard and the right way", I just want studs. I'm sure Joey King and Miles Tarver played harder than Humphries, ill take Humphries every day of the week, because this just in TALENT WINS. And that's why we are going to be really really bad for a few years. There is very little talent on this team. Again I appreciate the idea, scrappy guys who play defense, but 10 of those guys with no ability won't get you very far. I hope Johnson is a long term guy here but yah this "right guys" motto won't go very far if we are 6-24 every year
 

0....

I don't see how they can win a game....even against Macalester they would be 5 point underdogs.
 

I've been lurking a bit, but thought I'd chip in here that I think the model you're looking for is maybe Rutgers. They went for a couple years with Pikiell laying the foundation of a solid, tenacious D without high-end talent - or many wins. But you could see what they were trying to do, and still, even with average to mediocre-ish (offensive) talent by B1G standards, they started winning. We'll see how sustainable they are because there were some key players leaving from that team, but they do now have a brand/identity of playing super-hard with good defense.

I think Johnson is probably more likely thinking along these lines than thinking he's going to be able to out-talent other teams in the long run. An upgrade in talent is ultimately necessary, but let's see how this goes.
 

leib0039 said:
While I appreciate many wanting guys who "play hard and the right way", I just want studs. I'm sure Joey King and Miles Tarver played harder than Humphries, ill take Humphries every day of the week, because this just in TALENT WINS. And that's why we are going to be really really bad for a few years. There is very little talent on this team. Again I appreciate the idea, scrappy guys who play defense, but 10 of those guys with no ability won't get you very far. I hope Johnson is a long term guy here but yah this "right guys" motto won't go very far if we are 6-24 every year
Click to expand...
Talent might win but Humphries didn't. 3-13 conference record, tied for worst in the conference. Our "no talent roster" can't do much worse than that. Literally.
 




If we get 10 total wins this season, Ben should be up for National Coach of the Year with this roster.
 


All of these predictions seem fair. 8-11 wins. 4 or so big ten wins
 




You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom