Is This Ben's Best Ever July Roster?

Is This Ben's Best Ever July Roster?

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Ewert86PC said:
It doesn't matter what the quality of talent is. Based on the last two years, Ben runs a 7 to 9 person rotation in games. He grants playing time to those he deems worthy, which alienates, disheartens and demotivates players 10 through 12. We saw it with Carrington, Payne and even Christie. The closer they got to the bottom of the playing time list, the more dissatisfied they were.

Welcome to the new NCAA MBB World.
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Huh....Payne and Christie? Playing time was 100% not an issue for them at all.
 

Gold Vision said:
How could this be a better roster? We didn’t sign anyone as good as Hawkins, Christie or Payne.

Outside of Garcia, we have a team full of role players. They lack the high end talent.
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This is hindsight bias, unless of course in July of last year you were expecting Hawkins to lead the country in assists and for Christie to be a 1 & done type player.

On paper this years team is better right now than that team was at this point last year, which is the spirit of the question. Now they have to prove it in the hardwood.
 
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CoffeyTime said:
This is hindsight bias, unless of course in July of last year you were expecting Hawkins to lead the country in assists and for Christie to be a 1 & done type player.

On paper this years team is better than that team at this point last year, which is the spirit of the question. Now they have to prove it in the hardwood.
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I completely disagree. Christie flashed all year long as a HS senior, most thought he could contribute right away. We also had three promising Sophomores in Payne, JOJ, and Carrington along with a newly healthy Ihnen and Fox.

Hawkins and Mitchell were nice additions, but I was much higher on our prospects of competing last year than I am this year.
 

Gold Vision said:
I completely disagree. Christie flashed all year long as a HS senior, most thought he could contribute right away. We also had three promising Sophomores in Payne, JOJ, and Carrington along with a newly healthy Ihnen and Fox.

Hawkins and Mitchell were nice additions, but I was much higher on our prospects of competing last year than I am this year.
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There is no doubt that we had higher end players coming into last year- on paper. The hope this year is that depth, defense and physicality overcomes the losses.
 

Gold Vision said:
I completely disagree. Christie flashed all year long as a HS senior, most thought he could contribute right away. We also had three promising Sophomores in Payne, JOJ, and Carrington along with a newly healthy Ihnen and Fox.

Hawkins and Mitchell were nice additions, but I was much higher on our prospects of competing last year than I am this year.
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Three promising Sophomores, one promising Freshman and two returning disabled
vs.
Eleven proven seniors and juniors, one promising Freshman and no returning disabled.
I'll take number two pleeze....
 


CoffeyTime said:
This is hindsight bias, unless of course in July of last year you were expecting Hawkins to lead the country in assists and for Christie to be a 1 & done type player.

On paper this years team is better than that team at this point last year, which is the spirit of the question. Now they have to prove it in the hardwood.
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To be fair to Gold, last summer I thought we had a chance to be pretty high end. I felt like Payne was going to be like year 2 Oturu, and I had higher expectations for Carrington, JOJ and Ihnen than their actual performance. Payne was very good but didn't develop offensively and the other guys disappointed. On the other hand I didn't imagine Hawkins would be that good. Christie was about as I expected, maybe a little better.
 


Starters:
Lu'Cye Patterson: 5th year (turns 23 in December)
Mike Mitchell: 4th year (unable to find age, probably 21 or 22)
Femi Odukale: 5th year (turns 24 in January)
Dawson Garcia: 5th year (turns 23 in September)
Frank Mitchell: 4th year (turns 23 in January?)

Bench:
Tyler Cochran: 6th year (turns 23 in season)
Parker Fox: 8th year (unable to find age, probably 26?)
Brennan Rigsby: 4th year
Trey Edmonds: 4th year
Caleb Williams: 5th year
Kadyn Betts: 3rd year
Isaac Asuma: 1st year
Grayson Grove: 1st year

I'm not positive on Frank Mitchell's age (he may have done a year of HS prep school), or on Mike Mitchell.

Ben is going all in on "old wins", to a pretty crazy amount that is only really possible with the free COVID year. I have to imagine we are going to hear about this all year from the announcers. Cue all the PhD jokes.

I'm really curious to see if this gives up a leg up on any more talented teams.
 

Gold Vision said:
I completely disagree. Christie flashed all year long as a HS senior, most thought he could contribute right away. We also had three promising Sophomores in Payne, JOJ, and Carrington along with a newly healthy Ihnen and Fox.

Hawkins and Mitchell were nice additions, but I was much higher on our prospects of competing last year than I am this year.
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Asuma is rated about the same as Christie was coming out of high school. Everyone knew Christie would be a good player eventually but nobody was on here last July talking about him before an NBA draft pick after 1 year.

I hear you on Payne and JOJ, they had high expectations going into last year but I think it’s a stretch to say that about the other 3.

Hawkins was an extremely undersized, turnover prone PG coming from Howard. It obviously worked but come on that was a desperation take late in the off-season cause we needed an extra ball handler.
 



Gold Vision said:
How could this be a better roster? We didn’t sign anyone as good as Hawkins, Christie or Payne.

Outside of Garcia, we have a team full of role players. They lack the high end talent.
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And yet Ihnen was a starter to begin the year last year. Ihnen was one of the worst Gophers in recent history that actually played and was here for more than 2-3 years. There is no one even close to as bad in our top 9 as him. I would say last years best 5 is better than this years best 5. But Bench wise it is not even close

Assuming that Patterson, Mitchell, Femi, Garcia, Mitchell are starters. (But beauty is very interchangale)

Cocharan>Carrington
Rigsby=JOJ
1 more year healthy fox > last years fox
Asuma>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Ihnen
Betts=Betts
Edmonds>>>>>Wilson
Williams>>>> Keinys
 

bga1 said:
To be fair to Gold, last summer I thought we had a chance to be pretty high end. I felt like Payne was going to be like year 2 Oturu, and I had higher expectations for Carrington, JOJ and Ihnen than their actual performance. Payne was very good but didn't develop offensively and the other guys disappointed. On the other hand I didn't imagine Hawkins would be that good. Christie was about as I expected, maybe a little better.
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Idk that we will ever have another player who had a sophomore season like Oturu, he was a very special collegiate player.
 

Ben knows this is a make our break year so he has assembled a very deep and experienced team in the hopes they can gel quickly and win early. Will be interesting to see if it works. If it doesn't the new coach won't have to worry about retaining guys since most of the roster is done after this year anyway. :)
 

Gold Vision said:
How could this be a better roster? We didn’t sign anyone as good as Hawkins, Christie or Payne.

Outside of Garcia, we have a team full of role players. They lack the high end talent.
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We have no idea if we signed anyone as good as Hawkins, Christie or Payne.

Last July we had no idea how good Hawkins and Christie were. Our point guard will be different this year, different style-less flashy, different abilities but they could be more effective overall.
Defense one possibility.

Christie was a lot of potential but his production last year I'm confident will be matched or surpassed by somebody in the new group.

Payne also had the potential label. Had a hard time getting in the starting lineup and staying on the court. Again, not potential but one year of production we have guys on the roster who could certainly put up better numbers.

Caleb Williams scored 40 points against the Gophers. Will he get to play? That is my question.
If he does, he has shown he can score 40 or 50 in a game. Do I expect him to average 20? No,
but if gets to play every game in November and December I'll bet he has 20 at least once. That's one guy nobody thinks will see the floor. All these guys properly coached (given minutes) will be junk yard dog hungry to earn more playing time given a chance.
 
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Deepest and most intriguing roster, complete with no glaring weaknesses. Most pressure imo will be on FMitchell as the 5 to provide post presence, dish out, and rebound. Not having seen a lot of the new guys play many games--

Garcia (5th yr) obvious starter will be back at natural 4 stretch position
MMitchell (4th yr) intense with explosive shooting capability
Patterson (5th yr) improved body, natural 2, another shooter
FMitchell (3rd yr?) elite rebounder, can score trash baskets 10+/gm
Odukale (5th yr) hopefully rim-seeker, slashing guy that defends

Rigsby (3rd yr) athletic 1-2 guard that provides MN's 4th shooter
Fox (8th yr!) trusts knees, more physicality and energetic leadership
Cochran (5th yr) bone bruising defender, rebounder, scores a dozen
CWilliams (5th yr) another scoring option off bench as 6th shooter
Edmonds (4th yr) rebounding big, gets to line but shoots poorly
Betts (2nd yr?) physical attributes and skill to be breakout player
Asuma (1st yr) never seen him, highly rated, hope he's good

Lincoln Meister (UMD, 4th yr) 6'9" big, blocks shots, shoots ok close
Grayson Grove 6'9"(1st yr) healthy after foot issues, looking to develop
Eric Reader 6'9" (1st yr) walk-on with potential shooting/defending
Jackson Purcell (2nd yr) at 6'5" guard, a nice player to develop

The discussion and worry has been about MN scoring potential, but if Garcia plays a full season without injury, and Mitchell rebounds like he can, MN should be fine with this projection of pts./game--Anything over 75pts/game with improved defense. Any of the top 5 guys listed can go off for more.

Garcia 18
MMitchell 12
Patterson 10
FMitchell 10
Odukale 10
Rigsby 6
Fox 5
Cochran 12
Edmonds 2
rest of bench 2
 

SplitDecision said:
The discussion and worry has been about MN scoring potential, but if Garcia plays a full season without injury, and Mitchell rebounds like he can, MN should be fine with this projection of pts./game--Anything over 75pts/game with improved defense. Any of the top 5 guys listed can go off for more.

Garcia 18
MMitchell 12
Patterson 10
FMitchell 10
Odukale 10
Rigsby 6
Fox 5
Cochran 12
Edmonds 2
rest of bench 2
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Looks pretty accurate. My worry was that we don’t have a true 2nd option, but with the Cochran addition we seem to have a nice collection of guys who might not be good enough to be a #2, but are overqualified 3rd and 4th options and a much deeper bench than in previous years.
 


SplitDecision said:
Deepest and most intriguing roster, complete with no glaring weaknesses. Most pressure imo will be on FMitchell as the 5 to provide post presence, dish out, and rebound. Not having seen a lot of the new guys play many games--

Garcia (5th yr) obvious starter will be back at natural 4 stretch position
MMitchell (4th yr) intense with explosive shooting capability
Patterson (5th yr) improved body, natural 2, another shooter
FMitchell (3rd yr?) elite rebounder, can score trash baskets 10+/gm
Odukale (5th yr) hopefully rim-seeker, slashing guy that defends

Rigsby (3rd yr) athletic 1-2 guard that provides MN's 4th shooter
Fox (8th yr!) trusts knees, more physicality and energetic leadership
Cochran (5th yr) bone bruising defender, rebounder, scores a dozen
CWilliams (5th yr) another scoring option off bench as 6th shooter
Edmonds (4th yr) rebounding big, gets to line but shoots poorly
Betts (2nd yr?) physical attributes and skill to be breakout player
Asuma (1st yr) never seen him, highly rated, hope he's good

Lincoln Meister (UMD, 4th yr) 6'9" big, blocks shots, shoots ok close
Grayson Grove 6'9"(1st yr) healthy after foot issues, looking to develop
Eric Reader 6'9" (1st yr) walk-on with potential shooting/defending
Jackson Purcell (2nd yr) at 6'5" guard, a nice player to develop

The discussion and worry has been about MN scoring potential, but if Garcia plays a full season without injury, and Mitchell rebounds like he can, MN should be fine with this projection of pts./game--Anything over 75pts/game with improved defense. Any of the top 5 guys listed can go off for more.

Garcia 18
MMitchell 12
Patterson 10
FMitchell 10
Odukale 10
Rigsby 6
Fox 5
Cochran 12
Edmonds 2
rest of bench 2
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87 points per game seems... ambitious. Subtract 1 from everybody 👍
 

MNVCGUY said:
Ben knows this is a make our break year so he has assembled a very deep and experienced team in the hopes they can gel quickly and win early. Will be interesting to see if it works. If it doesn't the new coach won't have to worry about retaining guys since most of the roster is done after this year anyway. :)
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This is true. We can thank Ben for the blank slate next year.
 


Ski-U-Ham said:
87 points per game seems... ambitious. Subtract 1 from everybody 👍
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Yea, 100% true. I just estimated what Garcia is likely to do, took normal expectations from the known commodities, and downgraded the contribution from the unknown coming from lesser conferences. Most glaring adaptation: Not expecting Caleb Williams (21pts/game DIII) to contribute nearly as much. A healthy Parker Fox averaged 19.9pts/gm at NSU compared to a healthy Fox at MN 5.1pts/gm last season. With decreased playing time in a tougher conference, the past production likely will drop from the D1 transfers. Point is that we have guys that can shoot and score. '24-'25 less dribbling, more movement, passing/ball reversal, and defensive pressure! Nobody should be tired.
 



I’ll take quality transfers over quantity any day. You’re only as good as your top 5-6 players, and Ben has consistently shown he only plays around 7-8 players. You can’t tell me at this time that the prospects of our top 5-6 are better than they were last year.

All these covid seniors that were the 2nd-3rd option on their low-major teams aren’t going to make significant leaps in efficiency while playing fewer minutes just because you want to go 10 deep. These are known commodities at this point in their careers. Despite having 7 transfers, Gophers portal class ranks 79th in the country and 14th in the B1G. With the hit we took to our starting 5, that’s just not going to cut it.
 


Gold Vision said:
I’ll take quality transfers over quantity any day. You’re only as good as your top 5-6 players, and Ben has consistently shown he only plays around 7-8 players. You can’t tell me at this time that the prospects of our top 5-6 are better than they were last year.

All these covid seniors that were the 2nd-3rd option on their low-major teams aren’t going to make significant leaps in efficiency while playing fewer minutes just because you want to go 10 deep. These are known commodities at this point in their careers. Despite having 7 transfers, Gophers portal class ranks 79th in the country and 14th in the B1G. With the hit we took to our starting 5, that’s just not going to cut it.
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The incoming players ceilings are not as high, their potential is not as great but their present ability and experience will produce a better team than the potential of what last years group did. The departed sophomores might be as good in a couple years as the present seniors...they might not.

We have pieces to be better...they are accomplished...they are what they are. We aren't looking at how good they'll be in three years...the carrot to just wait for a time that never comes in this era is over.

Everybody says old wins in college basketball. They are men playing against boys. Physically stronger, mentally tougher. They know how to play off ball defense, they have the mindset and strength to play physical. They know how to bang. They are not going to look overwhelmed and lost.
Leading scorer...Garcia 17.6
Mitchell was 3rd leading scorer at 10.2
Fox 7th leading at 5
You telling me 9 seniors and a junior all with big time experience can't replace
11.3, 10, 9.5, 7.5, 4 and 3 ppg?

I am counting on Ben to coach completely differently...without that we'll be the same or worse.
 
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When the Gophers played Illinois in the slugfeat I wondered how Illinois could have so many good seniors, upperclassmen. It is a good problem to have.
 

Gold Vision said:
Despite having 7 transfers, Gophers portal class ranks 79th in the country and 14th in the B1G. With the hit we took to our starting 5, that’s just not going to cut it.
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Oh...geeze...I guess that settles it. Well, that's better than last season when their transfer class was rated #91 by 247.

I'm amazed how some people swear by rankings put together by a bunch of hacks with websites who basically copy each others' homework.
 


TwistingMyMelon said:
Oh...geeze...I guess that settles it. Well, that's better than last season when their transfer class was rated #91 by 247.

I'm amazed how some people swear by rankings put together by a bunch of hacks with websites who basically copy each others' homework.
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I have coached for 65 years.
Many times the year AFTER a very talented class graduated, the UN-TALENTED leftovers played MUCH BETTER the following year and won the championship that the talented class couldn't win.
MATURITY, INTELLIGENCE AND EXPERIENCE trumps raw talent many, many,many times. Almost every coach I talk to has experienced many similar outcomes. It happens over and over until none of us should be surprised by it.
 

Gold Vision said:
I’ll take quality transfers over quantity any day. You’re only as good as your top 5-6 players, and Ben has consistently shown he only plays around 7-8 players. You can’t tell me at this time that the prospects of our top 5-6 are better than they were last year.

All these covid seniors that were the 2nd-3rd option on their low-major teams aren’t going to make significant leaps in efficiency while playing fewer minutes just because you want to go 10 deep. These are known commodities at this point in their careers. Despite having 7 transfers, Gophers portal class ranks 79th in the country and 14th in the B1G. With the hit we took to our starting 5, that’s just not going to cut it.
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Disagree to a extent i like how this group skill sets fit together bettercthan in the past and something tells me Mitchell will be a improvement iver Payne and Asuma has the "potential to be a significant upgrade over Hawkins due to he also i is a true pg is bigger and stronger than Hawkins and just as quick ( I think Hawkins saw the writing on the wall when he saw Asuma work out on his recruiting visit and sawxhim in our state tournament. Asuma has the "potential" to be all big ten freshmen and a big difference maker we have not had someone like him on our roster for years and now we 2 in Patterson and Asuma!
 

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