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

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howeda7 said:
There's not much evidence he was a good assistant actually.
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AGREED!!! Not sure how he good have been. Look at who he mentored under. After doing that one doesn't need to look any further to say what a sheet hire this was.
 

Off-GridTNgopher said:
So many excuses.... Today's college athletics are now different... The days of building a team over years is done with.. for some reason the university doesn't care or understand..... However based upon the coaching we've seen; it's quite possible all the nil $$ in the world wouldn't save Ben... He simply can not coach....
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Exactly. Any perspective new coach should be asking about NIL and the strategies to move it forward in a hurry. Any hiring AD should be asking about the changing landscape and how the new coach will navigate and thrive in the new environment.
 

Off-GridTNgopher said:
So many excuses.... Today's college athletics are now different... The days of building a team over years is done with.. for some reason the university doesn't care or understand..... However based upon the coaching we've seen; it's quite possible all the nil $$ in the world wouldn't save Ben... He simply can not coach....
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Again, the University of Minnesota is the equivalent of Boston College in the ACC. It's in a market that has other places to spend a buck. It's a higher ed organization that doesn't care about its athletic programs. It has alumni who, for the vast majority, don't care about sports. If you want a fan base that cares, then you need to go somewhere outside of UMN.
In fact, I would argue that St Thomas fan base is deeper and more invested in the Tommies than the UMN fan base.
 

golfing18now said:
I don't disagree with everything you have posted here, but I disagree with the sentiment that we must have "Minnesota ties". Penn State was the biggest doormat in the conference but made the right hire. Yes, he left for greener pastures. But the level of success he had in two years likely led to a better hire in Rhoads. We have a sustained track record of firing coaches here, not coaches leaving. Quit worrying about hiring a guy that has Minnesota ties. Find a basketball coach and worry about having too much success later. The snowball isn't going downhill anymore. It's already at the bottom. Recruits see that. The fan base sees that. Future coaches can see that. This was an overreach, plain and simple. A high school diploma from Minnesota won't change the trajectory.
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I agree with this. Ask yourself, where we happier worrying about PJF possibly leaving or going 5-7? I will GLADLY take losing a coach because they outperformed this job and went on to bigger and better than muddling through the bottom of the pack with a coach no one else wants. I'd bet PSU bball fans are happier today than they were during the middle of the Pat Chambers era.
 


Is there a point that could possibly come where former BB alum, i.e. McHale, Thompson, etc. step in and say enough is enough. Would they have the influence over some of the regents and such to put forth an effort on their own to say this is our recommendation?

It must kill those guys to see where this program has gone since their glory days.
 

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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The lack of adjustments, especially in game is most disheartening so far this season. That falls upon the head coach.

We finally have a more complete and balanced team, but we are incapable of making strategic adjustments on the fly.

USF was well coached and they utilized their player’s skill sets very well.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Big Ten season is going to be very interesting. It is clear that this team is more talented then the past few years but they also have some very clear weaknesses and at times look completely lost out there. Some of that could be a function of all the new faces playing together for the first time and some of it could definitely be the coaching as well.

Like you I don't think a move gets made mid season, but if at the end of the Big Ten season we are still languishing in last place I don't see how a coaching change isn't made after the season. Where it will get tricky is if the team shows some improvement during the conference season to the point where a case could be made either way for keeping or firing Johnson at the end of the season.
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Hard to see a realistic case being made for retention, but anything can happen.
 




Holy Man said:
Hard to see a realistic case being made for retention, but anything can happen.
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My guess is they need to at least flirt with .500 in conference play for there to be any sort of case made for Johnson to be brought back. But it is really tough to know where the bar is at in terms of performance expectations for this season.

You can see the makings of a decent basketball team in this group but the Missouri collapse and late game struggles against San Francisco show that there is still a long ways to go as well.
 

howeda7 said:
Gopher basketball is sadly irrelevant to 95% of Minnesota sports fans now. Only the diehards are left and many of them are close to giving up. I can't bring myself to care about regular season NBA games or I'd probably be there too.
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I'd argue a lot of the diehards have left as well, not trying to pick at your comment because I completely agree, but GH is a small subset of the diehards and alot of them even on here are done (myself included)
 

LesBolstad said:
The men's team is a disaster but they have some solid young talent and a new competent coach could turn the program around very quickly
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Talent wise, I disagree. They have 3 players that would play on a competent B1G team, Garcia, Payne, and Christie, who has B1G talent but is learning and will struggle as a freshman.

The rest of the players are mid major or lower talent wise. Garcia will be gone after this season, and hopefully whoever the new coach is can keep Payne/Christie.

But even if he can't, I have a lot of faith that an experienced coach can go out into the portal and find 6 players better than our current top 6 players, which will make them more competitive.
 

As everybody knows, I supported the hire. I thought Johnson had enough of a track record as a good assistant, enough drive and enough local ties that he would out recruit Pitino every day of the week. I thought his HC inexperience would be bolstered by bringing in Thorson. I have remained largely supportive of giving him time to turn the program around from the disastrous start of his tenure.

I missed most of the game last night due to a previous engagement. I turned it on at the under eight time out and the gophers were down by six or seven at the Chase Center in front of no more than 2K people. Payne was at the line. He missed the FT and that was the highlight of the next 3-4 minutes. I turned the game off. Without going into unnecessary details, the team is a mess.

Coyle needs to dismiss Johnson. Whether it happens in season or in March, doesn't much matter. At some point Coyle also needs to go due to his failure to bring in the necessary NIL resources in a rapidly changing environment. Nice guy, well organized. Doesn't raise money. The U needs to find tens of millions in NIL money if it wants to field competitive teams in the major sports and hundreds of millions for a new basketball arena. The Barn was still iconic twenty years ago. Today it's just a dump.
 



FinnGopher said:
In fact, I would argue that St Thomas fan base is deeper and more invested in the Tommies than the UMN fan base.
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Not sure about deeper, but I have zero doubt St. Thomas as an institution is more invested in "Playing to Win" than the U of M. That's pretty much why UST got booted out of the MIAC.

In the end, best thing that ever happened to St. Thomas. Very intrigued to see how their D1 journey progresses over the years.
 

The hundreds of millions for a new arena is easy.

Starting next year they’ll be bringing in $80M a year from the Big Ten. That’s easy justification for couple hundred mill in bonds paid back over 30 years or whatever.


The impossible part, the part that you’re making up out of thin air, is that effort can make people donate significant NIL money. Not a thing.
 

Wet_Blanket_Guy said:
It's too early to claim Plitzuweit a huge win. We are 7ish games into her first year. Motzko is good, but I think many people would have been good as the hockey program was a sleeping giant that needed to get out from under Lucia's run.

*but on Plitzuweit, the one game I watched, was much crisper than any of the Whalen games I ever watched...so there is that.
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I have played, coached and refereed for almost 40 years. I can spot a real coach. Plitzuweit is one.
 

kix4kix said:
I'd argue a lot of the diehards have left as well, not trying to pick at your comment because I completely agree, but GH is a small subset of the diehards and alot of them even on here are done (myself included)
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True.
 

MplsGopher said:
The hundreds of millions for a new arena is easy.

Starting next year they’ll be bringing in $80M a year from the Big Ten. That’s easy justification for couple hundred mill in bonds paid back over 30 years or whatever.


The impossible part, the part that you’re making up out of thin air, is that effort can make people donate significant NIL money. Not a thing.
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It's not entirely effort, but fund raising and networking is a skill. A very important skill for a modern power 5 athletic director.

Gopher basketball ranked in the top 25 in the nation in attendance every year from 1990 to 2003 and again four out of five years between 2009 and 2013. It has a fan base to raise $$ from, even if it's driven many of them away. It's not some impossible gig.
 

Crowdsourcing NIL doesn’t work. It was a nice pipe dream.

You need sugar daddies. That’s the only way it works.

Gophers have none


And even if crowdsourcing was the way, how can you fault Coyle for that??
 

howeda7 said:
It's not entirely effort, but fund raising and networking is a skill. A very important skill for a modern power 5 athletic director.

Gopher basketball ranked in the top 25 in the nation in attendance every year from 1990 to 2003 and again four out of five years between 2009 and 2013. It has a fan base to raise $$ from, even if it's driven many of them away. It's not some impossible gig.
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Uphill climb, but not impossible.
 

The right coach like muss (who is my top choice) will have energy and optimism from day one.. that in turn will bring some nil... When the fan base has absolutely zero reason to be optimistic or support this program there will be 0 nil given.... Just the way it is.... Fucking win and everything will solved.....
 

To be clear, I’m not saying Gopher bball is an impossible gig. Clearly did not say that.

I did say and stand behind that Gopher bball/football will not bring in significant, needle-moving amounts of NIL.

Not going to happen, not a thing. Can’t squeeze blood from a turnip.
 

CBJ as a coach is like a walk-on player at a B10 school. The player was noticed at the previous level and serves a role at the next level but is not expected to do well compared to others. As an X's and O's coach he's much better than Pitino, but he doesn't have the acumen to coach in the b10 regardless of the cost and that's the same as Pitino. CBJ and MC (Coyle) both need to be shown the door and NOT get the prize L Whalen received (a contract to work in the athletic department).
 

Program is near bottom. Probably 5-6 BIG 10 wins at most. Back in the day my dad had a Gopher offer for Football and chose to go to NDSU. He didn't really elaborate why except for he said when you get older you will find out that Minnesota and Minnesotans bitch and complain when they win , and bitch and complain when they lose.

Winning requires a mindset, one in which the U of M says they want but won't put forth what we//they need to get it. It is sad because with the correct hire, I believe that money will come, and support for a winning program will happen.
 

Off-GridTNgopher said:
Asuma aside, Ben has missed on every top MN recruit.. so if that's what was said... These MN h.s. and local movers and shakers point blank lied to em
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This is all total speculation at this point, but these secretive fuckers have forced us to speculate about what's behind the ruination of this program. It does feel that Coyle was at least encouraged to hire alumni or local products with local connections, but even if that's the case, we don't know how strong a factor that was. If I had to guess, I'd say Brian had a spreadsheet matrix of various factors, and that was one of them. Total guesswork on my part, but I'll be danged if there isn't a spreadsheet in here somewhere. :p
 

golfing18now said:
I don't disagree with everything you have posted here, but I disagree with the sentiment that we must have "Minnesota ties". Penn State was the biggest doormat in the conference but made the right hire. Yes, he left for greener pastures. But the level of success he had in two years likely led to a better hire in Rhoads. We have a sustained track record of firing coaches here, not coaches leaving. Quit worrying about hiring a guy that has Minnesota ties. Find a basketball coach and worry about having too much success later. The snowball isn't going downhill anymore. It's already at the bottom. Recruits see that. The fan base sees that. Future coaches can see that. This was an overreach, plain and simple. A high school diploma from Minnesota won't change the trajectory.
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Agree that being a native isn't particularly relevant to a high reward (with high risk) job like this one. Good coaches come from where you find them.

The Penn State situation is interesting. They never seemed to care that much about basketball. They hired Shrewsberry, a coach who had many years as an assistant at various levels but only a brief and unsuccessful head coaching record at an NAIA school. They didn't pay him much more money than the U paid Johnson. He was a surprisingly quick success but then left for a more high-profile program. At that point, I think the PSU athletic department decided that they'd like to try to continue success in basketball and paid real money to get an established coach with a track record. Will the U of M do the same? At this point, I'd guess 50%/50% at best.

By the way, this factoid isn't particularly relevant to your point but PSU did hire a native son when they hired Mike Rhoads. He grew up in the anthracite coal region, one of the grubbier areas of that state. His father was a state senator and school principal before that.
 

howeda7 said:
NIL $ is an issue for ascending to the top two or three spots in the B1G and competing for titles year in year out. We're not asking for that. We're asking for basic competence, to not be one of the worst teams in Power 6, and to make the NCAA tournament maybe half the time. The bar is low and we continue to somehow hit our face on it.
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We have numerous wealthy and successful alumni in a major metropolitan area. Not like this is easy or anything, but a robust NIL apparatus is certainly possible at Minnesota.
 


Holy Man said:
My guess is that the vast majority of us who still care are tied in to the game itself and not just our team. Not many fans are like that. I don’t give a rip about the NFL but I follow the Vikings. I like the institution of college basketball so it keeps me connected to the Gophers. I don’t think I am alone. We’re a tiny minority and that doesn’t pay the bill or put pressure on for better performance.
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Clem came in at a low point in the program: only separated from a conference championship by four years, but the public was disgusted by the Madison scandal and was staying away from Williams Arena. I know; I was there; it was bad. Clem had charisma, and his teams were hard nosed and likable, and it was the toughest ticket in town before you knew it. This thing could turn around, but it takes the right person, and it has to be someone about 15 times more interesting and charismatic as Johnson.
 

RockChalk said:
Is there a point that could possibly come where former BB alum, i.e. McHale, Thompson, etc. step in and say enough is enough. Would they have the influence over some of the regents and such to put forth an effort on their own to say this is our recommendation?

It must kill those guys to see where this program has gone since their glory days.
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What gives you any indication that either of those guys give an ounce about the program? They are rarely around it. Heck, Paul Molitor, Greg Olson, Richard Coffey, even Big Will Humphries are around the program MUCH more than McHale or Thompson. They left the program 45 years ago and outside of a few tweets from Bells Thompson and a once-in-a-decade appearance from McHale, they aren't around at all.

Go Gophers!!
 

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