Jack Wilson commits

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Dakota2 said:
Emergency minutes backing up Payne will happen from the first non-con game in November and every game until April. There is no game in Payne's career where he will play 40 minutes, nor should anyone want that even if he was never whistled for a foul.

Payne might average 25 minutes. The other 15 minutes are emergency because we had no one besides Payne to defend at post. Fox will get a good shot and we'll see how he holds up.

It is foolish to play Garcia at 5. He's not strong enough to defend, plus all smart coaches will go right at him to foul him out.

If Wilson can give us 5-10 minutes a night, his job is to play tough D, push opposing center away from hoop, get some rebounds, and hammer anyone coming into his zone. He will have 5 fouls to give, the harder the better.
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He is the Ryan Reaves of our basketball team. Once he came to the Wild, the amount of extracurricular crap on Kaprizov came to a screeching halt. Sometimes he scores goals, especially if playing on TNT!

He is definitely not going to be pushed around in the paint or down on the block, even by someone like Edey. As long as he is not a statue out there, he can absolutely establish a no fly zone around the basket.
 

He never sees the damn floor and if he is seeing the floor the paint won't be dominated by him... Never was ever in his college basketball career
DarthGopher said:
He is the Ryan Reaves of our basketball team. Once he came to the Wild, the amount of extracurricular crap on Kaprizov came to a screeching halt. Sometimes he scores goals, especially if playing on TNT!

He is definitely not going to be pushed around in the paint or down on the block, even by someone like Edey. As long as he is not a statue out there, he can absolutely establish a no fly zone around the basket.
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MNVCGUY said:
Maybe....but still going to trust their opinion of players over those of a bunch of people sitting behind keyboards. If Johnson is wrong and the team fails again it will all work itself and those of you desperate to see him fired will get your wish.
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Desperate for winning bb, not for firing a coach. Can't quite differentiate the two, so carry on.
 

beavergopher said:
He sucked at Oregon State. I’m glad we hired this top-notch recruiter. It sure helps make up for his coaching failures.
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The chances of Johnson being able to recruit high quality guards and also a high quality "5" were almost nonexistent. Is it possible that he and his staff have spent most of their time seeking quality guards and feel like their best chance to improve the team is to focus most of their energy on guards in the portal? They got a guy who can possibly play a minor role as a backup center. I don't think they were going to do much better than that.

If they can get at least one more quality guard this team is going to have some depth and talent for the first time since Johnson has been here. Not top of the Big Ten talent yet, but a big improvement over the past 2 years, and that needs to happen. Let's try to keep things in perspective here folks, we were never going to get Hunter Dickinson. Take a deep breath.
 


GopherTheJugular said:
Don't forget that with that much mass, he could have trouble getting his feet set and end up with blocking fouls instead of taking charges. We need his fouls to come in the paint, right?


I think peoples' heads would explode if it turned out WSU brought in a transfer center from the portal and asked this guy to leave.
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If a player is on a football scholarship, which he was, they count against football and not any secondary sport. So he was never filling spot they have available to fill. He was just filling a need they had.

One question that comes to mind is how many gopher football players were all state in basketball?One who is coming next year is Shikenjanski and he is a flipping point guard. (position of need). There are others who were bigs. I know Fleck probably would not let them play basketball over all the winter development work they do.. But one of my funnest times as a UM basketball fan was when Winfield was added to the Gopher roster part way into non-conference season to be a practice player. Played 20 games that year (7.4 ppg and 5.4 rebounds) and then played 26 games the next year with 10.5 ppg and 6/1 rebounds - and by the way was 71% FT shooter. Led them to first gopher Big Ten basketball championship in 53 years and was drafted by Atlanta Hawks in 5th round.

Anyway, no particular point other than Wilson is an athlete, he was out of basketball for a few years and may be better after having last year working on his game again, seems to have great demaeanor and personality. Wants to be a strength coach.

Mau be a side sory that adds a little interest and may make some subtle contributions. Or not subtle. No one thought that Winfield would go from intemurals to seeing the floo in a Big Ten game.
 


bga1 said:
LOL! Dumbest post in history. Howie is negative. Every game where we fall behind he declares over. It’s been a negative two years. I don’t know if Ben is a good coach or a bad one but either way I trust his judgement on basketball players far more than any poster here.
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Zzz. "Every game". I tongue in cheek tried to reverse jinx them like 3 times 5 years ago and a few people can't get over it. The last couple years they haven't had any leads to blow.

I don't claim to be an evaluator of talent. Anyone can look at this guys stats and history and see it's a pretty huge reach at this stage in the portal. It's the end product that matters and Ben can still pull off a miracle but let's not pretend this is some great sign and all is well. Mitchell was a positive sign. This is not.
 

Off-GridTNgopher said:
Payne had like 3 really solid games last year... He has a ton of growth to do before he's this elite player y'all think he is...
Can't shoot free throws
Please don't ask him to shoot from further than 5' away from the rim
Foul prone as a mofo......

Yes he has huge upside .. but he's got aways to go before he reaches that
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His free throw shooting actually improved a lot over the course of the season.
 




SelectionSunday said:
Pretty safe bet that if Zach Edey returns, Purdue game(s) is where Big Jack will see his most significant minutes.
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Which will save me from going absolutely insane when Ben decides to use Ola-Joseph on him. Perhaps the most outlandish coaching move I can recall. Yeah, let’s put a guy on Edey about a foot smaller than him. That ought to really give him problems.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
If that's the case, why not choose what's behind door #2? Door #2 being some underrecruited FR.
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I think that is the route Ben takes next season. Wilson is a one year rental. Next year (2024-2025) Payen will be a junior. Bringing in a raw freshman to back him up will be a good move there. But, I don't disagree that bringing that freshman in this year is a good idea. Seems like that ship has sailed.
 




Big Dawg said:
I think that is the route Ben takes next season. Wilson is a one year rental. Next year (2024-2025) Payen will be a junior. Bringing in a raw freshman to back him up will be a good move there. But, I don't disagree that bringing that freshman in this year is a good idea. Seems like that ship has sailed.
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If there is a 4th year for cbj
 





MonikerSchmoniker45 said:
Wouldn't we rather have a one year guy who we know can hold his ground physically over a questionable freshman that could potentially waste a scholarship for 4 years?
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Agree but I don’t like the Wilson pick up. How is an improvement from Treyton Thompson? I would haven’t taken a freshman unless they were a high super high potential guy, but I wouldn’t give a basketball scholarship to an OL.
 

GopherPlaya said:
Agree but I don’t like the Wilson pick up. How is an improvement from Treyton Thompson? I would haven’t taken a freshman unless they were a high super high potential guy, but I wouldn’t give a basketball scholarship to an OL.
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Chemistry? The kid is a weight room guy and wants to be a strength and conditioning guy. Maybe he gets his teammates pumped up? From a pure stats standpoint, this is an odd one. I have a feeling that the coaches see this as an X factor recruit.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
I'm shocked that the posters who don't like Ben Johnson are the most upset with this signing.

Look - maybe this season will turn out to be a disaster. Maybe Wilson can't play. Maybe Johnson will not sign any more players, or will sign two guards who can't play.

Maybe a giant meteor will head towards the Earth and some oil-well drillers will have to fly up on the space shuttle to set off a nuke and save the world.

But, we don't know any of that for sure until or unless it happens.

Ben Johnson is coaching for his job. he has to know that. Until he is fired, he has the right to make his own choices, and he will live with the consequences of his decisions. As do we all.

And 1 more thing: Let's say for the sake of argument that the Gophers show a lot of improvement next year. I will be happy. Because I am rooting for the program. I am not rooting against the Coach.
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Amen and a Hallelujah
 




In general, I would argue a team that relies on getting almost anything from the 12th or 13th scholarships on a team has likely already gone off the rails due to injury/suspension/whatever. How you use those scholarships probably can vary. Giving to a walk-on? Giving to a practice player like this? Or giving to a project freshman? So in theory does this really change the trajectory of this team? Probably not.

But the problem with this logic for this team is we have so many question marks in our theoretical top ten. Will Betts/Christie be able to contribute? Will Ihnen/Fox realistically be able to provide much given the severity of their injuries two consecutive years? Will Payne/Carrington/JOJ make serious jumps in year two? What if you have an injury to Payne, Mitchell, or Garcia?

It just seems like this roster has so many question marks that the four portal scholarships remain vitally important to even striving for mediocrity.
 

golfing18now said:
In general, I would argue a team that relies on getting almost anything from the 12th or 13th scholarships on a team has likely already gone off the rails due to injury/suspension/whatever. How you use those scholarships probably can vary. Giving to a walk-on? Giving to a practice player like this? Or giving to a project freshman? So in theory does this really change the trajectory of this team? Probably not.

But the problem with this logic for this team is we have so many question marks in our theoretical top ten. Will Betts/Christie be able to contribute? Will Ihnen/Fox realistically be able to provide much given the severity of their injuries two consecutive years? Will Payne/Carrington/JOJ make serious jumps in year two? What if you have an injury to Payne, Mitchell, or Garcia?

It just seems like this roster has so many question marks that the four portal scholarships remain vitally important to even striving for mediocrity.
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This. I tripped over the mention of Garcia getting injured, thinking there’s reasonable depth at the 4, but you’re right because a) he’s also needed for backing up the 5 (despite the assertions by some that he can’t do that), and b) he’s the most consistent and dependable scoring threat.

While all teams have questions, and most are one key injury away from trouble, MN is on a particularly shaky foundation. They don’t need everything to go right, but they can’t withstand much wrong in order to succeed (however that’s defined).
 

GopherPlaya said:
Agree but I don’t like the Wilson pick up. How is an improvement from Treyton Thompson? I would haven’t taken a freshman unless they were a high super high potential guy, but I wouldn’t give a basketball scholarship to an OL.
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He's an improvement over TT because he is a center where we need a backup. TT is a perimeter floater who guards the official scorer.
 

I don’t see a problem with using a scholarship on a guy like Wilson for one season as long as they bring in a couple more solid guys that will be in the mix for guard/wing minutes. Many posters have commented that it would be better to use the spot on a project freshman. The problem in todays game is that most kids that fit that description don’t think that they are projects. They think they should be starting or at least playing heavy minutes and if they are not are most likely going to transfer. Obviously doesn’t apply to every kid but it sure is a challenging environment to try a build a successful program at a place that’s been down for a long time and is trying to play catch-up with NIL.
 

GopherPlaya said:
Nothing & this guy stats indicates he will be worse
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I don't think offensive stats had anything to do with this signing. I believe the major issue is/was, that TT trying to defend in the post was pretty much a hot knife cutting though warm butter. In other words, zero resistance. Everybody knows he can't defend a post at a B-10 level at all.

We don't really know if Wilson will be able to defend the post either. But apparently the coaches believe that in certain situations, for a short periods of time, he will be more like a cold knife through cold butter in terms of post defense. Possibly SOME resistance as opposed to the ZERO resistance we were getting with the other guy. Guess we will just have to wait until the specific 2-3 minnute match-ups he was brought in for actually happen to see if it's an improvement or not.
 


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