How do you feel about the state of program right now?

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NoelarBear

NoelarBear

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Curious to hear your thoughts right now after the loss to USF.
 



I think the lack of real activity on gopherhole speaks for itself. People have moved into the category of not caring. Clearly the AD and Regency don’t care, or they have some MBA with no real world experience telling them that it is financially smarter to ride this sinking ship for 3 more years (all while executing the program) instead of paying the buyout + a real / competitive coaching salary.

They will win maybe 2-5 B10 games, but who cares. That is trash. Even if they win 8 games, who really cares, that doesn’t get the town excited now that the Twolves are a hot ticket with Ant.
 

The Gopher team we saw tonight would lose by 20 points to the Gopher team we saw in the first 2-3 games.

We are so disorganized on both ends of the floor. Johnson makes zero in-game adjustments and I have zero confidence he can turn this around.

It's really sad how far we've fallen.

Go Gophers!!
 


I'll add, I knew we were in trouble when he didn't make a single coaching change after two of the worst seasons in program history. Even to shake up things, new ideas, etc., he essentially endorsed the work the staff is doing by keeping it intact.

And Coyle didn't mandate a change because "nobody wants to win as much as Ben Johnsonson does."

Go Gophers!!
 



Ben needs an offensive Xs and Os coach. Their sets are awful, spacing sucks, no cuts, no movement. Fundamentals on D are awful. If all else falls, please stay between your man and the basket. The USF coach was coaching circles around Ben, flowing offensive sets, great spacing, and defensive awareness and guess what? He made adjustments!
 



BleedGopher said:
I'll add, I knew we were in trouble when he didn't make a single coaching change after two of the worst seasons in program history. Even to shake up things, new ideas, etc., he essentially endorsed the work the staff is doing by keeping it intact.

And Coyle didn't mandate a change because "nobody wants to win as much as Ben Johnsonson does."

Go Gophers!!
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That's my answer. This is statistically the worst two-plus seasons in program history. Worse yet, conventional thinking in the community, among casual fans, and even here to an extent, seems to be of acceptance and resignation. That's the state of the program.
 

Holy Man said:
Between the in over their heads staff, inadequate talent, and complete alteration of the landscape of college sports, there can be be no lower sense of the program or discouraging sense of the future.
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If you take the current football program and basketball program and look at them together........we are by far the worst group in the entire Big 10

Why us all the time?
 


Holy Man said:
Between the in over their heads staff, inadequate talent, and complete alteration of the landscape of college sports, there can be be no lower sense of the program or discouraging sense of the future.
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Well said! Succinct but comprehensive
 



Gilthorp57 said:
Ben needs an offensive Xs and Os coach. Their sets are awful, spacing sucks, no cuts, no movement. Fundamentals on D are awful. If all else falls, please stay between your man and the basket. The USF coach was coaching circles around Ben, flowing offensive sets, great spacing, and defensive awareness and guess what? He made adjustments!
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Maybe we were watching our future next coach in action. Yeah, I think I'll go with that fantasy for now.
 

Gilthorp57 said:
Ben needs an offensive Xs and Os coach. Their sets are awful, spacing sucks, no cuts, no movement. Fundamentals on D are awful. If all else falls, please stay between your man and the basket. The USF coach was coaching circles around Ben, flowing offensive sets, great spacing, and defensive awareness and guess what? He made adjustments!
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A lot of those flowing offensive sets by UFC were trying to find a shot for most of the shot clock against good Gopher defense then throwing up a clown shot for the score as time ran out.
 

Dakota2 said:
A lot of those flowing offensive sets by UFC were trying to find a shot for most of the shot clock against good Gopher defense then throwing up a clown shot for the score as time ran out.
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USF, obviously.
 

Dakota2 said:
A lot of those flowing offensive sets by UFC were trying to find a shot for most of the shot clock against good Gopher defense then throwing up a clown shot for the score as time ran out.
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Well it worked out very well for them.
 


I will
BleedGopher said:
I'll add, I knew we were in trouble when he didn't make a single coaching change after two of the worst seasons in program history. Even to shake up things, new ideas, etc., he essentially endorsed the work the staff is doing by keeping it intact.

And Coyle didn't mandate a change because "nobody wants to win as much as Ben Johnsonson does."

Go Gophers!!
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say it again.

The Mn administration is the real culprit. Has been for decades. Ben is simply one of those in the history books of rubbish gopher bb.
 


BleedGopher said:
I'll add, I knew we were in trouble when he didn't make a single coaching change after two of the worst seasons in program history. Even to shake up things, new ideas, etc., he essentially endorsed the work the staff is doing by keeping it intact.

And Coyle didn't mandate a change because "nobody wants to win as much as Ben Johnsonson does."

Go Gophers!!
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I foolishly thought this would be enough to change the trajectory of the program. I won't fall for it again! ;)
 

Dakota2 said:
A lot of those flowing offensive sets by UFC were trying to find a shot for most of the shot clock against good Gopher defense then throwing up a clown shot for the score as time ran out.
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After an ass kicking by a wcc team, you're going with sf was lucky?

Did you actually watch?

Stop with the excuses and nonsense.
 

Dakota2 said:
A lot of those flowing offensive sets by UFC were trying to find a shot for most of the shot clock against good Gopher defense then throwing up a clown shot for the score as time ran out.
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Look that is just not true. If you look at the play by play it matches what my eyes saw- 18 of the made shots by them were layups or dunks. They were better than us tonight- by a lot. They ran an offense- we didn't. They pressured us on defense, we never caused them to breathe hard. We stayed alive off of Payne and Garcia until the score got to 53-48. Then the rout was on.

All of their guys look to be able to drive to the hoop and finish. Not ours- worse yet, none of our guards can do it. Christie, our best product is still way too soft and is a year away from that- he's a good jump shooter now. When you think of guards, think of Carr or Nate Mason, heck Dupree McBrayer would be the best driver on this team.

I thought JOJ was going to make a big jump this year- but that kid is lost out there, look for him on a milk carton.
 


BleedGopher said:
I'll add, I knew we were in trouble when he didn't make a single coaching change after two of the worst seasons in program history. Even to shake up things, new ideas, etc., he essentially endorsed the work the staff is doing by keeping it intact.

And Coyle didn't mandate a change because "nobody wants to win as much as Ben Johnsonson does."

Go Gophers!!
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Coyle prefers to not have difficult conversations for breakfast.

You are spot-on. Even if just symbolic, you can’t trot out the same staff after years 1/2. Sends the message this is a country club and poor performance will be rewarded.

The fact that Thorson, a flippin HS coach is his no.2 was baffling from the get-go. CBJ had zero experience and intentionally chose to not surround himself with guys that did have experience.
 
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My opinion is we all know what's happening the Thursday after weakling Wednesday.

This hire was a Minnesota media influenced hire. The media which largely hates Gophers men's sports conveniently laid out a narrative just prior to the coaching hiring process.

My belief is this may have influenced the hiring process by some degree.
As a result, we offered and hired a coach who may have been the least experienced Power 6 head coach to ever land a power 6 head coaching gig.

Provided with ample resources to do his job, and a salary probably hire than what would be appropriate for his experience, Ben was excited to say no to the offer. What we are seeing now is a coach who doesn't have a the basketball network of coaches, former coaches, and assistant coaches to be effective at this level, he is also woefully ill-prepared to deal with transfers due to his lack of having coaching relationships formed at many other Universities.

Having some of those relationships in place would have helped him land potential transfers and improve his coaching staff.

Instead we have what we have, and people are apathetic to it. Interesting to think who we could have landed had we not been so beaten down by the media.

I have no doubt Mark Coyle has his plan for the next 120 days and it involves watching a lot of other coaches.
 

El Amin Fan said:
I've never had less optimism than I do with Ben Johnson. I had more optimism coming out of numerous scandals than I do with Johnson at the helm.

Clean house.
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Pretty much this. It was pretty low when he was hired. And it's been even worse than feared. If they don't make a move after the season it will be very hard to keep caring about the program.
 

forever a gopher said:
Coyle prefers to not have difficult conversations for breakfast.

You are spot-on. Even if just symbolic, you can’t trot out the same staff after years 1/2. Sends the message this is a country club and poor performance will be rewarded.

The fact that Thorson, a flippin HS coach is his no.2 was baffling from the get-go. CBJ had zero experience and intentionally chose to not surround himself with guys that did have experience.
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The team has sucked for 3 years (really the majority of 20 years) but Thorson has coached for nearly 40 years and was the no.2 on NCAA tournament team the year before he came here.
 

Program is in such a horrible state that this has to be the last year of Ben. That’s the only saving grace here. What an irredeemable, unmitigated disaster this has been since day one.
 

BleedGopher said:
The Gopher team we saw tonight would lose by 20 points to the Gopher team we saw in the first 2-3 games.

We are so disorganized on both ends of the floor. Johnson makes zero in-game adjustments and I have zero confidence he can turn this around.

It's really sad how far we've fallen.

Go Gophers!!
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Scary but true. This team looked pretty good from the beginning of the UTSA game to the 12 minute mark of the Missouri game. That epic choke job squashed whatever confidence they were building. But the cold reality is that this team just isn't very good and is very poorly coached.
 

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