How to measure success

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Spaulding!No! said:
No wins til 2027! Embarrassing losses are fully expected!
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Yeah it's not easy to win when you're doing a ground-up rebuild and your best recruits aren't even on the team yet.
 

In any year of gopher basketball i consider any of the following to be an unmitigated trainwreck: failing to qualify for at least NIT, failing to reach Thursday in the BTT (either by winning on weakling Wednesday or finishing above the bottom for an avoiding wednesday), or winning less than 6 B1G games (a bar that got easier to clear when the schedule moved to 20). I would consider 4 or less B1G wins to be a fireable offense (especially if it happened in back to back years). I don't think we are that bad, but from what I've seen, I'm worried that while we will clear the "fireable offense" bar, we might be in danger of remaining in trainwreck territory.
 


“In at least 7 of the 14 be within 2 possessions (6 points) at some point in the last 16 minutes of the game. If you do this, you played a competitive game, IMO. So far we are 0/6 doing this our losses. That is not acceptable.”

This is possibly the saddest and most damning sentence in the history of this site. To be within 2 possessions in the final SIXTEEN minutes is the lowest bar imaginable. “Sure, we lost by 19 but at the first media timeout of the second half it was only 45-40!!!” And to achieve such “success” only half the time? Woooooof.
 

MNJay said:
What??

Almost none of the posts on here understand that we are on a rebuild.
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Yes, we do.

We all get it. It’s why we are comparing the program with other programs on rebuilds. It’s why no one is talking about making the tournament or contending. If we weren’t on a rebuild, a good season would be the tournament. Right now, we’d be ecstatic with 6 big 10 wins.

Our expectations are REALLY low. It’s just that, so far, we aren’t even meeting those expectations.
 


MNJay said:
Haskins was 2-16 & 4-14 with his first players as freshmen & sophomores. But they made the Sweet-16 as juniors.

Next year Ben will have sophomores. I'm giving him until the year-after-next.
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So you’d bring him back even if he only won 4 games in the Big 10 next year?

Ben’s first class would be juniors. His first hs recruit already left the program.
 

bleedsmaroonandgold said:
In any year of gopher basketball i consider any of the following to be an unmitigated trainwreck: failing to qualify for at least NIT, failing to reach Thursday in the BTT (either by winning on weakling Wednesday or finishing above the bottom for an avoiding wednesday), or winning less than 6 B1G games (a bar that got easier to clear when the schedule moved to 20). I would consider 4 or less B1G wins to be a fireable offense (especially if it happened in back to back years). I don't think we are that bad, but from what I've seen, I'm worried that while we will clear the "fireable offense" bar, we might be in danger of remaining in trainwreck territory.
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But what you ignore is that Ben's first recruits are freshmen, and they're getting a lot of minutes already. And we have even better recruits in the next class.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
Yes, we do.

We all get it. It’s why we are comparing the program with other programs on rebuilds. It’s why no one is talking about making the tournament or contending. If we weren’t on a rebuild, a good season would be the tournament. Right now, we’d be ecstatic with 6 big 10 wins.

Our expectations are REALLY low. It’s just that, so far, we aren’t even meeting those expectations.
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No, you don't.

Almost nobody is talking about a rebuild. Almost nobody is talking about our freshmen or our recruits.

Almost everybody is complaining that were losing right now. For instance, the guy I just quoted says it's a trainwreck...he analyzes everything about the current results with ZERO mention of our freshmen or recruits. And almost every post by others is like that too.
 
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MNJay said:
No, you don't.

Almost nobody is talking about a rebuild. Almost nobody is talking about our freshmen or our recruits.

Almost everybody is complaining that were losing right now. For instance, the guy I just quoted says it's a trainwreck...he analyzes everything about the current results with ZERO mention of our freshmen or recruits. And almost every post by others is like that too.
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If i didn't think this were rebuild, then my expectations would be that we make the NCAA tournament this year. My bar is lower because it is a rebuild, but it is still based on wins and losses, as it always will be.
 



howeda7 said:
Since we've been told by some we can't care about wins this year, and this is at least somewhat true, how do we measure progress for this team? The "eye test" is too vague/subjective.

For non-Weakling Wednesday games (14 of the 18 remaining B1G games), I will look for the following:

-In at least 7 of the 14 be within 2 possessions (6 points) at some point in the last 16 minutes of the game. If you do this, you played a competitive game, IMO. So far we are 0/6 doing this our losses. That is not acceptable.

-In at least 4 of the above games, be within one possession (3 points) at some point in the last 5 minutes of the game. This makes it a true coin flip.

-Win at least one of these games.

For the Weakling Wednesday games: (Nebraska x 2, Northwestern, Penn State)

-Meet the first criteria on all 4

-Meet the second criteria on 3/4

-Win at least one of these games.

Overall:

Go at least 10-10 in making games competitive. Currently 0-2. Last year's team went ~12-8 in hitting this mark.

Go at least 7-13 in making games a coin flip. Last year's team went ~8-12 in hitting this mark.

Win at least 2 B1G games.
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MNJay said:
No, you don't.

Almost nobody is talking about a rebuild. Almost nobody is talking about our freshmen or our recruits.

Almost everybody is complaining that we’re losing right now. For instance, the guy I just quoted says it's a trainwreck...he analyzes everything about the current results with ZERO mention of our freshmen or recruits. And almost every post by others is like that too.
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I think what you fail to grasp is that while you keep preaching ..freshmen, guys come lack at our freshmen…they are playing!
-our freshmen are ok, but not world changing
-on a top 6 b10 team, I think Payne may get under 8 min a game and Carrington may not crack the floor (think about the guy at Purdue *from Wayzata)
-JOJ has an athletic / good body but basketball wise needs lots of improvement
-yes they are getting valuable experience, but flash forward two years, if these guys were Jrs they would be bench guys behind star freshmen at most B10 schools (a JOJ type is easily replaceable and 29% 3point shooters grow on trees)
 

UpAndUnder43 said:
“In at least 7 of the 14 be within 2 possessions (6 points) at some point in the last 16 minutes of the game. If you do this, you played a competitive game, IMO. So far we are 0/6 doing this our losses. That is not acceptable.”

This is possibly the saddest and most damning sentence in the history of this site. To be within 2 possessions in the final SIXTEEN minutes is the lowest bar imaginable. “Sure, we lost by 19 but at the first media timeout of the second half it was only 45-40!!!” And to achieve such “success” only half the time? Woooooof.
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:clap::clap::clap::clap::clap:
 

like most of you, my focus is success on the court. Maybe the U has a different definition of success?

school, expense in millions, revenue in millions for basketball

expense and revenues are from sportico.com

MINN 6/12
OSU 9/15
ILL. 9/13
MICH. 7/11
MSU. 9.6/13.6
Wisconsin. 6.6/10
PU 6.6/9
PSU. 7/8.5
IND 11.4/11.4
IOWA 7/6
MD 7/5.5
NE 10/5
Rutgers 8/0.6

sportico does do a breakdown on the expense and revenue numbers. seems clear some schools put some of their revenue in the "non sport specific" revenue bucket

if these numbers are close to accurate, would there be any incentive for the U to make any changes in the next few years?
 

GopherOhana said:
like most of you, my focus is success on the court. Maybe the U has a different definition of success?

school, expense in millions, revenue in millions for basketball

expense and revenues are from sportico.com

MINN 6/12
OSU 9/15
ILL. 9/13
MICH. 7/11
MSU. 9.6/13.6
Wisconsin. 6.6/10
PU 6.6/9
PSU. 7/8.5
IND 11.4/11.4
IOWA 7/6
MD 7/5.5
NE 10/5
Rutgers 8/0.6

sportico does do a breakdown on the expense and revenue numbers. seems clear some schools put some of their revenue in the "non sport specific" revenue bucket

if these numbers are close to accurate, would there be any incentive for the U to make any changes in the next few years?
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Is Rutgers supposed to be 6M or .6 as currently shown?

I’d also like to know how the % of basketball revenues as a whole of all athletic department revenues (clearly football is the lions share). These two sports drive the new B10 TV arrangement, which will be bringing in roughly $100m to each school (annually).
 



GopherOhana said:
like most of you, my focus is success on the court. Maybe the U has a different definition of success?

school, expense in millions, revenue in millions for basketball

expense and revenues are from sportico.com

MINN 6/12
OSU 9/15
ILL. 9/13
MICH. 7/11
MSU. 9.6/13.6
Wisconsin. 6.6/10
PU 6.6/9
PSU. 7/8.5
IND 11.4/11.4
IOWA 7/6
MD 7/5.5
NE 10/5
Rutgers 8/0.6

sportico does do a breakdown on the expense and revenue numbers. seems clear some schools put some of their revenue in the "non sport specific" revenue bucket

if these numbers are close to accurate, would there be any incentive for the U to make any changes in the next few years?
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I don't know what Wisconsin ticket prices are but I have no idea how Wisconsin that sells out every game, would have lower revenue than us when we are selling 8k-9k tickets per game. I would also assume that Wisconsin merch is more popular than ours.
 

Johnnyboy18 said:
If a player believes in the vision the coach is selling I don't think players will look back to a 3 year record and really care. He can get the same caliber player as he is now. Some coaches are just good recruiters.
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100% fact, look no further than Calipari, I think as an actual coach he is worthless, with the amount of talent he has recruited he should have 3-5 titles, he has 1. That said the man recruits like crazy. But in that same way, some coaches.....can't coach. That is my concern, me personally, I have no seen anything from Ben thus far that screams good coach. Clearly W/L are bad but there isnt a guy I can point to that just was this unreal turnaround or improved talent. Battle has regressed, TT has done nothing, team still can't make a FT, can't run a good offensive set, don't rebound well.
 

leib0039 said:
100% fact, look no further than Calipari, I think as an actual coach he is worthless, with the amount of talent he has recruited he should have 3-5 titles, he has 1. That said the man recruits like crazy. But in that same way, some coaches.....can't coach. That is my concern, me personally, I have no seen anything from Ben thus far that screams good coach. Clearly W/L are bad but there isnt a guy I can point to that just was this unreal turnaround or improved talent. Battle has regressed, TT has done nothing, team still can't make a FT, can't run a good offensive set, don't rebound well.
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I don’t think Calipari’s main goal is national titles. I think his main goal is getting guys drafted, which is why he’s had such an abundance of players drafted and 1-and-done players. They don’t go to Coach Cal to win a title, they go there as he gives them the best chance to make it to the next level, which is their end goal, not a ncaa title.
 

leib0039 said:
100% fact, look no further than Calipari, I think as an actual coach he is worthless, with the amount of talent he has recruited he should have 3-5 titles, he has 1. That said the man recruits like crazy. But in that same way, some coaches.....can't coach. That is my concern, me personally, I have no seen anything from Ben thus far that screams good coach. Clearly W/L are bad but there isnt a guy I can point to that just was this unreal turnaround or improved talent. Battle has regressed, TT has done nothing, team still can't make a FT, can't run a good offensive set, don't rebound well.
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Agree on the offense being bad. Not on the other 4 points. Free throws have been much improved since the early games outside of the outlier last game. Been much better at rebounding in recent games too. Too early to be making calls on development either way when there's only 2 players returning.
 

Find an identity. On defense on offense, I don't really care. Just try and be better at one end of the court. We are, at this point, terrible at both.

We've had almost 2 full weeks off in preparation for the game tonight. My hope is that we look somewhat competent, and keep it within like 10.

As for the rest of the season, we've been such an embarrassment, thus far, just not getting embarrassed, is a good place to start. Looking at the analytics, the B1G is the worst its been since 2017-2018. I'd like to think we can manage one win in there somewhere, but the bottom of the league, isn't bad, it's just the top isn't what its been. If our best shot is Nebraska at home, that's not a great chance. I predicted in the other thread zero B1G wins, but hopefully we're more competitive, and look competent. I'll take for not getting blown out at this point.
 

leib0039 said:
100% fact, look no further than Calipari, I think as an actual coach he is worthless, with the amount of talent he has recruited he should have 3-5 titles, he has 1. That said the man recruits like crazy. But in that same way, some coaches.....can't coach. That is my concern, me personally, I have no seen anything from Ben thus far that screams good coach. Clearly W/L are bad but there isnt a guy I can point to that just was this unreal turnaround or improved talent. Battle has regressed, TT has done nothing, team still can't make a FT, can't run a good offensive set, don't rebound well.
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The roster is almost entirely new, kind of hard to point to any of them as having a turn around or being improved. Battle started the year with foot surgery and missing the first half of the NC schedule, don't you think that is the reason for his game not being improved and NOT the coaching he's been getting? Let's see what happens with him the rest of the year.
FT shooting is a skill and having the right guy shooting them also helps. Don't know what coaching has to do with that.
They run some good offensive sets, but are not good at making shots. As others have posted, they get good looks after time outs when they "draw up" plays in the huddle. I also believe some of their offensive struggles have to do with the FR, being tentative and having to learn on the floor with extended minutes. As the FR grow more comfortable in what they are doing I think this will improve the offense.
I'll agree with you on the rebounding. They don't rebound well and get out of position and lack some toughness/effort to grab more rebounds which can be coached into them.
The BIG season starts tonight, they got an almost two week break to work on things. Lets see what happens tonight and going forward for the rest of the season.
 

Going 0fer in The big ten season will place the gophs at 28 straight big ten in season losses. So close to taking the futility title from NW.
 

Johnnyboy18 said:
Agree on the offense being bad. Not on the other 4 points. Free throws have been much improved since the early games outside of the outlier last game. Been much better at rebounding in recent games too. Too early to be making calls on development either way when there's only 2 players returning.
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I like numbers (some I know don't ha).

Last 4 games we are 47/70 (67%) on FT's, on the year that would put us like 288th in the country. I guess technically you are correct, "improved", but I dont think being 288th should be a proud moment. I would say our outlier game is the 14/17 against MSU, you take that out the last 3 are are 33/53 62%, so yah.

On the year we are 258th in total rebound %, over the last 3 we are 130th. On the surface that looks great, but again that is playing 2 of the worst teams in all of D1 who mostly played guys under 6'6". I am willing to bet after the next 3 games (WI/NEB/OSU) we are far closer to the bottom of D1 than the top.

On development, I think you are right in that we have really only had 2 guys extended time. I would say it is hard to argue that either has gotten better. TT clearly by all accounts is worthless and shown 0 progress. Battle is in his 4th year of college ball, this year he has his lowest numbers in: FG%, 3pt%, rebounds per game, and blocks. The rebuttal will be "well he was hurt" and that is fair, but also noted is that we have played some of the worst teams in D1 in the games he has played, do we think he turns it around in a big way against superior competition? On the freshman, I would agree 12 games is a bit too small of a sample size, but some have said JOJ/Carrington are progressing nicely, I do not disagree, but then you also have to say Henley and Payne have regressed.
 

forever a gopher said:
But there is a wide gulf between needing to make the tourney and having literally zero expectations as some on this board have.
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I'll confess to having virtually "0" expectations for this team this season. I don't have that perspective because I find that optimal or even appropriate. I have that perspective so I can watch this team through the rest of the season while keeping the anger and disgust at low levels.

If I start seeing things within the next calendar year that raise my expectations, then I'll increase my mental and emotional investments. But, if we're currently in the second year of another failed coaching experiment, I'm not going the spend the next two years being riled up and/or obsessed about it. Been there. Done that.
 

MNJay said:
No, you don't.

Almost nobody is talking about a rebuild. Almost nobody is talking about our freshmen or our recruits.

Almost everybody is complaining that were losing right now. For instance, the guy I just quoted says it's a trainwreck...he analyzes everything about the current results with ZERO mention of our freshmen or recruits. And almost every post by others is like that too.
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Ok. Find me a poster that is blaming Ben for not making the tournament this year?

If the entire basketball fandom is saying a coach can do a decent job without making the tournament, they have accepted the fact it's a rebuild. Teams who are doing better than us play freshman and also recruit people.

Rebuilds can also be a trainwreck. I think in your world if a team is on a rebuild, you absolutely ignore everything that is happening on the court. If you look at last year, people were pretty high on Ben Johnson around here and we were a really bad basketball team.

So again, people aren't confused that it's a rebuild. We are all painfully aware. However, some of us just have different expectations during that rebuild.
 


I'd still like to think we can win some games and avoid playing on Wednesday of the BTT. Once they signed Garcia, that was the floor of my expectations, and why would I back off on that now?

That said, we are where we are: destined to be statistical underdogs in every game we play, likely to win 2 or 3 by statistical variance. Within that framework, what would I like to see happen?
  • Improve defensively: having more of a clue and expending improved effort, especially on the perimeter
  • Improve free throw shooting. There's no reason why a proficient jump shooter like Cooper, for example, can't be better at the line. We're probably talking about mechanics and mental focus and approach, which are correctable.
  • Generally improve throughout the season. Every team should, and so should we.
  • When it comes to wins, out-perform the statistical expectation: win 3 or more conference games.
 

GoodasGold said:
I’m attending the game at the Barn on Saturday. Plan to have a Good time! 🍺
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This is true and something I really miss from not having season tickets (moved away).

When I was attending every game, I hated when they lost but it was still a lot of fun. You miss that when you're only watching on TV.

Watching hoops in the barn on a Saturday while munching on popcorn is fun.
 

Play hard on defense for a whole game. About as basic a request as one can have yet it doesn't happen. Show our Freshmen can be better than other teams Freshmen. Mnjay can't debate these requests. And he needs to understand other people can have different opinions and not be wrong. Lastly, why did you bring the AD into this conversation? This is fully on BJ.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
Ok. Find me a poster that is blaming Ben for not making the tournament this year?

If the entire basketball fandom is saying a coach can do a decent job without making the tournament, they have accepted the fact it's a rebuild. Teams who are doing better than us play freshman and also recruit people.

Rebuilds can also be a trainwreck. I think in your world if a team is on a rebuild, you absolutely ignore everything that is happening on the court. If you look at last year, people were pretty high on Ben Johnson around here and we were a really bad basketball team.

So again, people aren't confused that it's a rebuild. We are all painfully aware. However, some of us just have different expectations during that rebuild.
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No, this rebuild attempt can NOT be called a trainwreck already. That contradicts the definition. The negativity level on this board shows that guys are not accepting that this is a rebuild. Plus most of the analysis is about 'did we win or not'.

My focus is almost entirely on our freshmen and our recruits.
 

Remember when Spaulding was banned?

Good times!

And as for how to measure success, scoreboard baby!

I’m about as patient as Bill Musselman. Win now all the time.
 

MNJay said:
No, this rebuild attempt can NOT be called a trainwreck already. That contradicts the definition. The negativity level on this board shows that guys are not accepting that this is a rebuild. Plus most of the analysis is about 'did we win or not'.

My focus is almost entirely on our freshmen and our recruits.
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At some point you’re going to have to admit our freshmen are average / to slightly better than average at best. If rebuild is the way, you are going to need better than average to above average. Maybe Evans and Christie can provide that, Evans has a real shot if he adds some weight and can be a real defensive anchor. Christie seems to cancel out Carrington and will most likely relegate him to a reserve role.

Payne: could be a good big10 player but due to some issues can’t log real minutes on a potentially awe full gopher team

Carrington: average shooter (under 30% 3pt shooter and his good games were against weaker competition. Most likely would see limited run on a real Big10 or P5 roster

JOJ: good physical body but massive flaws to his game. I would argue in most P5 schools he is a redshirt player or a limited minute player as a freshmen (lots of focus on working those mistakes out of his system)

Henley: don’t think he was recruited by any other b10 school, and based on play so far, there was reason for this. He should’ve redshirted. Regardless, he would not be receiving minutes if he was on any other roster within the B10 (and lately he has been getting very few minutes for us)
 

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