How did Coyle let this happen?

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MNVCGUY said:
Lack of patience is an issue as is cherry picking the places where it comes together quickly while ignoring the ones where it doesn't as comparisons. The transfer portal has made people even more impatient as well.

That said, next year will be a make or break year for Johnson. If the team really struggles again he could be in trouble. Hopefully the freshman are getting enough valuable experience this year that they can hit the ground running next year and that combined with getting some injured guys back and the new guys coming in will be enough to get the team back to having more success.
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Define lack of patience.
 



Formerswish said:
This is all due to coaching? After coaching young people for 30 years, I've found that when you're coaching them every day for long periods of time, you gain a really good idea of what they can do and what they can't. If you don't have that information, it's a lot harder to tease out what's poor coaching and what's a player's inability to grasp something.

This team has shown a great deal of improvement the last 2 games, and that certainly doesn't mean they're a great team, but I'd be very surprised if they're not a much better team by the end of the year. I realize that's your opinion, which you're free to have, and my opinion is that Johnson did a very good job of coaching a team with extremely limited talent last year. This year's problems are mostly on inconsistent play from their veterans (Battle, Garcia, Cooper), and inconsistent play from his freshmen. It will get better, and I don't believe this is all on the coach, although that's an easy place to put the blame. End of next year, let's see where we're at.
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I hope you are right and respect your opinion as a coach. I will gladly eat my words if they show real improvement the rest of the season.

I expected inconsistent play from the freshman. What concerns me more is the inconsistent play from the veterans Battle, Garcia and Cooper that you acknowledged. If they are unable to grasp the offense that Ben is teaching at this point in the season, then there is a real problem.

At some point, it all has to go back to the head coach, who not only teaches the players, but at this level, constructs the roster. I.e. if the biggest issue is guard play, Ben should have anticipated that and recruited better/more transfer guards. I generally like Cooper but he's not a penetrator, and Samuels certainly isn't. I think Henley has shown flashes, but he's out of control a lot which is why he doesn't get many minutes. Carrington - just haven't seen much. A legitimate big 10 team shouldn't be counting on two transfers and freshman to run the team to this extent.

I agree with you that Ben did a good job coaching limited talent last year. That's why this year is so disappointing. I did not expect this kind of regression with objectively better overall talent and size on the roster.
 

ekeg0002 said:
I hope you are right and respect your opinion as a coach. I will gladly eat my words if they show real improvement the rest of the season.

I expected inconsistent play from the freshman. What concerns me more is the inconsistent play from the veterans Battle, Garcia and Cooper that you acknowledged. If they are unable to grasp the offense that Ben is teaching at this point in the season, then there is a real problem.

At some point, it all has to go back to the head coach, who not only teaches the players, but at this level, constructs the roster. I.e. if the biggest issue is guard play, Ben should have anticipated that and recruited better/more transfer guards. I generally like Cooper but he's not a penetrator, and Samuels certainly isn't. I think Henley has shown flashes, but he's out of control a lot which is why he doesn't get many minutes. Carrington - just haven't seen much. A legitimate big 10 team shouldn't be counting on two transfers and freshman to run the team to this extent.

I agree with you that Ben did a good job coaching limited talent last year. That's why this year is so disappointing. I did not expect this kind of regression with objectively better overall talent and size on the roster.
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I think it makes sense that you're concerned that the "veterans" aren't as effective as we had anticipated. Battle got a slow start on the season, but he doesn't seem as able to create space for his shot and overall has played poorly. Garcia is a solid Big 10 player but doesn't seem to have improved greatly over the past 3 years. He just isn't the caliber of player that many thought he would be. And Cooper does have limitations in terms of defense, quickness, and his ability to get by people and create shots for others. I wish the guy would shoot a bit more so Battle and Garcia don't have to shoulder the load as much.

I don't know if this is as much grasping the offense as executing and playing well. If Battle can't put the ball on the floor and get by guys to drive more (like he did more last season), and if the other two don't raise the level of their games, it's going to be tough. It doesn't help anyone when you have non- outside shooters in the game to spread the floor (Payne, JOJ, and Henley so far). I still like what Johnson is doing coaching-wise, and I still think this team will get better. And I think that if this team does improve a decent amount by year's end, most people will feel OK about going into next season with the new talent coming in. And a quick point guard in the portal and another shooter wouldn't hurt either.
 


Said it before, how can you not recruit a couple decent guards?
 

Wet_Blanket_Guy said:
That feels like Team Coffey damage control. If your a team with that pick in the late half of the second round, and you actually wanted Amir, why wouldn’t you have choosing him versus letting him go somewhere else… either way, it worked out for him and I hope he plays as long as he wants.
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Probably is but the flip side of that is after the first 40ish picks it's more beneficial to take a player out of Europe and stashing them for a few years. Can't do that with American players. With that being said plenty of Americans go late in the second round too.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
Garcia did not redshirt though. This is year 3 of eligibility, he just gets 5 years of eligibility if he chooses to, or 6 if he redshirted. Everyone else post 2020 still only gets 4 years of eligibility, or 5 years of if they redshirt, just like it was prior to 2020.

So while Garcia is listed as a Sophomore currently, because 2020 'did not count', this is still his 3rd year playing. If you're making an apples to apples comparison, he's a JR compared to those who didn't play in 2020. When Treyton Thompson, Ola-Joseph, Carrington, Payne, and Henley are in their 3rd year playing, they will all be JRs and not SOs.
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Its wild that I just read through this thread to see that this was such a topic of discussion.

If people want to use the Gophers as being young to defend Ben. Go ahead. But Dawson Garcia should not be used in that conversation.

The guy is not just in his 3rd year of college basketball. Hes at his 3rd damn school. Hes played in THREE power 6 leagues. Basically the poster child of experience.

Heck, Ill go one step further. That first team he left. Currently has just Tyler Kolek with more career minutes playing college basketball.

Im stunned this went on as long as it did.
 

Dupreefor3 said:
Probably is but the flip side of that is after the first 40ish picks it's more beneficial to take a player out of Europe and stashing them for a few years. Can't do that with American players. With that being said plenty of Americans go late in the second round too.
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This is a good and accurate counterpoint
 



MUgopher32 said:
Its wild that I just read through this thread to see that this was such a topic of discussion.

If people want to use the Gophers as being young to defend Ben. Go ahead. But Dawson Garcia should not be used in that conversation.

The guy is not just in his 3rd year of college basketball. Hes at his 3rd damn school. Hes played in THREE power 6 leagues. Basically the poster child of experience.

Heck, Ill go one step further. That first team he left. Currently has just Tyler Kolek with more career minutes playing college basketball.

Im stunned this went on as long as it did.
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I would say that just because a player has experience doesn't mean he's getting better each year. I can't speak for Cooper, but Garcia doesn't seem to have improved at all since his freshman season at Marquette, and Battle has been a far inferior player to the guy we watched last year.

That ISN'T all on the coach. I'll defend Johnson as someone who can both coach and recruit, and when he has the right talent on the floor, that will show. (I know, it's all on him that he hasn't brought in the talent, etc.) Building a good team can sometimes be rapid, and sometimes it takes time to develop. This is taking some time to develop-take a deep breath and watch this team develop over time.
 

The problem is clearly AD Coyle. He hired basically two unproven head coaches for the men's and women's programs. He should have hired top name coaches with winning resumes and relationships with top AAU programs to bring in real talent (vs. local MN recruits). Many have said his hands were tied for various reasons on both hires. If that is true, who is making the coach decision? Why even have an AD then? save $1M annually on his salary and use that money to pay players NLI money to come here.
 

Formerswish said:
I would say that just because a player has experience doesn't mean he's getting better each year. I can't speak for Cooper, but Garcia doesn't seem to have improved at all since his freshman season at Marquette, and Battle has been a far inferior player to the guy we watched last year.

That ISN'T all on the coach. I'll defend Johnson as someone who can both coach and recruit, and when he has the right talent on the floor, that will show. (I know, it's all on him that he hasn't brought in the talent, etc.) Building a good team can sometimes be rapid, and sometimes it takes time to develop. This is taking some time to develop-take a deep breath and watch this team develop over time.
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CBJ for what he has shown will need a lot of talent, the likes of Jordan, Pippen, Harper, Rodman, Longley

There is talent on the roster today, they are drastically underperforming.
 

Formerswish said:
I would say that just because a player has experience doesn't mean he's getting better each year. I can't speak for Cooper, but Garcia doesn't seem to have improved at all since his freshman season at Marquette, and Battle has been a far inferior player to the guy we watched last year.

That ISN'T all on the coach. I'll defend Johnson as someone who can both coach and recruit, and when he has the right talent on the floor, that will show. (I know, it's all on him that he hasn't brought in the talent, etc.) Building a good team can sometimes be rapid, and sometimes it takes time to develop. This is taking some time to develop-take a deep breath and watch this team develop over time.
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Forsure. Not evenone improves and definitely not at the same rate. But the discussion was all about using Garcia in the "youth" excuse of the team because hes got a technical underclassman lable due to the extra years.

In reality hes got a lot of college experience. And youre right he hasnt really improved. Kinda just stayed the same. Can do the same things well to have big games. Has the exact same limitations.

Battle I think just needs to be surrounded by better so he can get better looks.
 



MUgopher32 said:
Forsure. Not evenone improves and definitely not at the same rate. But the discussion was all about using Garcia in the "youth" excuse of the team because hes got a technical underclassman lable due to the extra years.

In reality hes got a lot of college experience. And youre right he hasnt really improved. Kinda just stayed the same. Can do the same things well to have big games. Has the exact same limitations.

Battle I think just needs to be surrounded by better so he can get better looks.
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Got it, I "snuck in" w/o checking all previous posts. Garcia has plenty of experience, and he's pretty good at a few things but not great at any of them. And you're right, Battle needs better talent around him, and that means a guard who can penetrate and kick out to him, as well as more shooters to space the floor better. Right now he has neither, but that doesn't mean he can't try putting it on the floor more and be less one-dimensional.
 

Wet_Blanket_Guy said:
CBJ for what he has shown will need a lot of talent, the likes of Jordan, Pippen, Harper, Rodman, Longley

There is talent on the roster today, they are drastically underperforming.
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I would say that right now the quality of players he has right now is near or at the bottom of the Big Ten. And that is figuring in that there are not a lot of Big Ten teams playing 4 freshman pretty big minutes (freshman usually not displaying their full talent their first year) and the 3 highly regarded "veterans" he has brought in - Garcia, Battle, and Cooper, have not performed as well as we thought they would. They all have pretty big limitations.

There is some talent on the roster, yes. And this team will play better by the end of the year, largely because the freshmen will become more comfortable. I know it's not easy to be patient with all the losing that's happened around here. Let's give the guy a bit of time.
 

MUgopher32 said:
Its wild that I just read through this thread to see that this was such a topic of discussion.

If people want to use the Gophers as being young to defend Ben. Go ahead. But Dawson Garcia should not be used in that conversation.

The guy is not just in his 3rd year of college basketball. Hes at his 3rd damn school. Hes played in THREE power 6 leagues. Basically the poster child of experience.

Heck, Ill go one step further. That first team he left. Currently has just Tyler Kolek with more career minutes playing college basketball.

Im stunned this went on as long as it did.
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Well, stocker insists otherwise.
 

Formerswish said:
Got it, I "snuck in" w/o checking all previous posts. Garcia has plenty of experience, and he's pretty good at a few things but not great at any of them. And you're right, Battle needs better talent around him, and that means a guard who can penetrate and kick out to him, as well as more shooters to space the floor better. Right now he has neither, but that doesn't mean he can't try putting it on the floor more and be less one-dimensional.
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Battle does not seem to work to make the other players on the team better. He is just hunting his own shot and taking whatever he can get- forced or not. He is the only guy in the top six scorers who is below 1 point per shot. Garcia is at about 1.3 pts/shot, Cooper the same, Payne at about 1.7/shot, Ola Joseph about 1.4 pts/shot. He has shot 13 free throws- which is abysmal for a high usage guy like him. He has been a major disappointment this year so far.
 

Bunyan said:
The problem is clearly AD Coyle. He hired basically two unproven head coaches for the men's and women's programs. He should have hired top name coaches with winning resumes and relationships with top AAU programs to bring in real talent (vs. local MN recruits). Many have said his hands were tied for various reasons on both hires. If that is true, who is making the coach decision? Why even have an AD then? save $1M annually on his salary and use that money to pay players NLI money to come here.
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I've blasted Coyle on a lot of counts, but I kind of give him a pass.

I do not believe Ben's hiring was his choice. I know he'll be the fall guy for it, but this really felt like a mandate.

As far as Whalen, I think she's a bit different than Ben. They had equally as empty resumes, but Whalen is a legend in women's basketball and the state of Minnesota. I'm not saying it was a good choice, I'm just saying it was a completely different kind of choice. I don't think there really is comparison in men's basketball to the Whalen hire, but it'd be like if Dwayne Wade was hired to coach Marquette. That's not to give Coyle a pass on Whalen, just saying it was a different kind of hiring.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
I've blasted Coyle on a lot of counts, but I kind of give him a pass.

I do not believe Ben's hiring was his choice. I know he'll be the fall guy for it, but this really felt like a mandate.

As far as Whalen, I think she's a bit different than Ben. They had equally as empty resumes, but Whalen is a legend in women's basketball and the state of Minnesota. I'm not saying it was a good choice, I'm just saying it was a completely different kind of choice. I don't think there really is comparison in men's basketball to the Whalen hire, but it'd be like if Dwayne Wade was hired to coach Marquette. That's not to give Coyle a pass on Whalen, just saying it was a different kind of hiring.
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So you're a conspiracy theorist and think race played a major part in the choice? Common Bob, get out of the closet on this and let out your inner race card. You know what you really want to say.
 

MUgopher32 said:
Its wild that I just read through this thread to see that this was such a topic of discussion.

If people want to use the Gophers as being young to defend Ben. Go ahead. But Dawson Garcia should not be used in that conversation.

The guy is not just in his 3rd year of college basketball. Hes at his 3rd damn school. Hes played in THREE power 6 leagues. Basically the poster child of experience.

Heck, Ill go one step further. That first team he left. Currently has just Tyler Kolek with more career minutes playing college basketball.

Im stunned this went on as long as it did.
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When people are saying the Gophers are young....most are referring to the fact that four of our top seven rotation guys are true freshman. And while Garcia isn't necessarily young....he'd only played a year and a half prior to this year. I wouldn't call that a whole lot of experience. Garcia is one player that I think has been playing a whole lot better than he was at the beginning of the season.
 



Bob_Loblaw said:
I've blasted Coyle on a lot of counts, but I kind of give him a pass.

I do not believe Ben's hiring was his choice. I know he'll be the fall guy for it, but this really felt like a mandate.

As far as Whalen, I think she's a bit different than Ben. They had equally as empty resumes, but Whalen is a legend in women's basketball and the state of Minnesota. I'm not saying it was a good choice, I'm just saying it was a completely different kind of choice. I don't think there really is comparison in men's basketball to the Whalen hire, but it'd be like if Dwayne Wade was hired to coach Marquette. That's not to give Coyle a pass on Whalen, just saying it was a different kind of hiring.
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I would give Coyle a pass as well. I think most people would say Fleck was a good hire, and the lifeblood of every program is recruiting. It appears to me that so far both Whalen (one of the best recruiting classes in the country last year, with a highly regarded 6' 5 center transferring back next year) and Johnson (this year's freshmen, and next year two 4 stars including the #1 recruit from Illinois, and a top 5 center in the country) seem to be doing quite well.

It may not create any national championships soon, but it sure looks better than the recruiting I've seen around here lately. Everybody wants it to be great right now. This is the foundation for better programs. Is there something I'm missing?
 

Wet_Blanket_Guy said:
CBJ for what he has shown will need a lot of talent, the likes of Jordan, Pippen, Harper, Rodman, Longley

There is talent on the roster today, they are drastically underperforming.
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There's talent, but I wouldn't call it a lot of talent. Fair to say we shouldn't be a shoe in bottom of the big ten but this was also team that was looking at an NIT birth as best case scenario in the pre season. Pieces just don't fit together, which is on the staff as biggest part of any college hoops job is roster management, very few programs have a system where you can get away with inferior talent, we are not one of those teams. Most programs need to have high end talent to have high end results. This is a team of average at best to mediocre talent that is having terrible results. We don't have enough guards to allow battle and Garcia to play together our point guards to slow and not quick enough on defense our Freshman all have nice intangibles and have had moments of brilliance and also moments of frustratingly youthful mistakes. For this team to win Battle, Garcia and Cooper have to consistently lead the charge and we really haven't had a game where all theee put it together at once.
 

Formerswish said:
I would give Coyle a pass as well. I think most people would say Fleck was a good hire, and the lifeblood of every program is recruiting. It appears to me that so far both Whalen (one of the best recruiting classes in the country last year, with a highly regarded 6' 5 center transferring back next year) and Johnson (this year's freshmen, and next year two 4 stars including the #1 recruit from Illinois, and a top 5 center in the country) seem to be doing quite well.

It may not create any national championships soon, but it sure looks better than the recruiting I've seen around here lately. Everybody wants it to be great right now. This is the foundation for better programs. Is there something I'm missing?
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keep in mind that this class(2022) on paper was graded worse than Pitinos last 3 classes he signed in 2018, 2019, & 2020.(according to 247) a lot of people just liked it more because it had 3 players from MN in it.
 

Gophs24 said:
keep in mind that this class(2022) on paper was graded worse than Pitinos last 3 classes he signed in 2018, 2019, & 2020.(according to 247) a lot of people just liked it more because it had 3 players from MN in it.
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Also, the 2022 class grading might be somewhat skewed because of Covid. Regardless, need to get some W’s
 

Gophs24 said:
keep in mind that this class(2022) on paper was graded worse than Pitinos last 3 classes he signed in 2018, 2019, & 2020.(according to 247) a lot of people just liked it more because it had 3 players from MN in it.
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The 2018 class was better perhaps with Oturu and Kalscheur, but the other ones? Take a look at how those players turned out, not even close.
 

Formerswish said:
The 2018 class was better perhaps with Oturu and Kalscheur, but the other ones? Take a look at how those players turned out, not even close.
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lol of course in hind site.....i said on paper. which thats all we can go on with the 2022 class. 1/2 a season in is way too early to judge.
 
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Gophs24 said:
keep in mind that this class(2022) on paper was graded worse than Pitinos last 3 classes he signed in 2018, 2019, & 2020.(according to 247) a lot of people just liked it more because it had 3 players from MN in it.
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Little misleading. 2019 had high marks because of it's quantity. 2022 I do see a lot of parallels between 2022 and 2018. Think Mashburn and Mitchell were borderline four stars as well in 2020. Carrington was a Mr Basketball in a pretty deep class, Payne probably wins that award if he plays a full season. JOJ wound up being the most productive player on a D1 MN roster that had a starting five of division one commits. Henley to me is the wild card in all of this. Also with covid he 2022 class lost a lot of AAU time to the pandemic, so a lot of guys IMO slipped through the cracks. Essigren on Wisconsin is an example of that. We had him here on an unofficial on the visit Carrington committed, guessing that wasn't accident either
 

Dupreefor3 said:
Little misleading. 2019 had high marks because of it's quantity. 2022 I do see a lot of parallels between 2022 and 2018. Think Mashburn and Mitchell were borderline four stars as well in 2020. Carrington was a Mr Basketball in a pretty deep class, Payne probably wins that award if he plays a full season. JOJ wound up being the most productive player on a D1 MN roster that had a starting five of division one commits. Henley to me is the wild card in all of this. Also with covid he 2022 class lost a lot of AAU time to the pandemic, so a lot of guys IMO slipped through the cracks. Essigren on Wisconsin is an example of that. We had him here on an unofficial on the visit Carrington committed, guessing that wasn't accident either
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I mean it’s not that misleading. It’s not like that 2022 class was heads and shoulders better than anything pitino brought in at the end. They could all be considered in the same ball park of each other.

At the end of the day let’s hope Ben can get more out of his high end recruiting then Whalen has.
 

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