Jamison Battle to enter the Transfer Portal

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Dakota2 said:
The optics are he decided a long time ago to leave and try to make some money. Garcia plays his position. Staying another year and playing like he has kills any chance for foreign money.
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What is your over/under on wins?
 


MNVCGUY said:
Bummer but not surprising given the senior day walk and other rumors associated with him leaving. He had his ups and downs here but those shots he hit late in the Nebraska game were awesome.

Hopefully he finds a good fit somewhere.
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I’ll miss his made shots. 🥲
 

CentralGopher said:
Then why did he say he expected everyone back? If he’s being honest then he knows there’s a real chance one of those guys says see ya.
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This is Ben in the Strib on Battle and Cooper before the BIG tournament.

"Despite eligibility remaining, Minnesota Gophers head coach Ben Johnson made it clear Sunday night that Jamison Battle and Ta'lon Cooper will likely move on from the program after the season.

Minnesota, 8-21 overall and 2-17 in the Big Ten, faces Nebraska on Wednesday in the opening round of the Big Ten men's basketball tournament in Chicago. The Gophers need to win the conference tournament or their season will be over – and Battle and Cooper will be looking for opportunities elsewhere."

There is enough to be disappointed about the season without making up shit about what Johnson said or didn't say. The other thing people are making up shit about is that there was no improvement this year as a team or individually. Admittedly, there was a very, very low floor established; but there was some growth. The question still is whether Johnson has dug too deep a hole to get out of. The players leaving are no surprise, but it's the drip, drip, drip that gets one down. Hoping to get on GH and see a positive thread headline pretty soon.
 

USAF said:
Not to mention if Will Fucking Ramberg is still eating a scholarship next year that's reason enough, in and of itself, to can Johnson
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Accept what you can and cannot control. You can foam and froth at the mouth all you want, but the fact remains you have zero say in what happens to the coach. That is a fact.

We all want so damn badly the same thing - for this program to be good. Human beings do not deal with uncertainty very well, especially when they do not have any direct control over the outcome. We are, by nature, nervous twits. Coping skills range from maniacal fatalism to apathy to blissful ignorance and everything in between.

Do I enjoy this position we are in? Absolutely not. I cut my teeth during the 96-97 season, which never officially happened according to the NCAA. Seeing The Barn and the program in this state of affairs is depressing. It sucks donkey balls. But for the foreseeable future, Johnson will remain the coach. So I choose to try to look at the positives and hope for the best. Does that mean I'm a CBJ apologist or see all puppies and rainbows? Not even close. This year was a shitshow (and that is being generous). I personally feel he is in way over his head. However, getting mired down in all the what if's and catastrophizing the future that hasn't happened yet sucks even worse than the season they just had, and I just choose not to do it. It doesn't serve me at all. On my hierarchy of life needs, a successful basketball team remains firmly in the "nice to have" bucket. I won't die if they don't win. I can find other things to do with my time. It will either improve or heads are going to roll. That much I know. Too much money at stake for it to fester long-term.
 


I don't understand the posters here that are downplaying the departures of starting players on this team. We lose 3 starters off a 2 win team and this is good? He would have still had a couple scholarships to play with to try to recruit over the talent already on the team. To get four/five B1G caliber players in the portal where this team is currently? yikes
 

DarthGopher said:
It will either improve or heads are going to roll. That much I know. Too much money at stake for it to fester long-term.
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It’s been in steady decline from a not very high peak for a decade and heads rolled at least twice with no improvement. Perhaps the wrong heads rolled? Maybe an administrator outside athletic department needs to roll if the money is so important. I’m not sure anyone with authority to do so cares. That’s a problem.
 

Mulligan said:
This is Ben in the Strib on Battle and Cooper before the BIG tournament.

"Despite eligibility remaining, Minnesota Gophers head coach Ben Johnson made it clear Sunday night that Jamison Battle and Ta'lon Cooper will likely move on from the program after the season.

Minnesota, 8-21 overall and 2-17 in the Big Ten, faces Nebraska on Wednesday in the opening round of the Big Ten men's basketball tournament in Chicago. The Gophers need to win the conference tournament or their season will be over – and Battle and Cooper will be looking for opportunities elsewhere."

There is enough to be disappointed about the season without making up shit about what Johnson said or didn't say. The other thing people are making up shit about is that there was no improvement this year as a team or individually. Admittedly, there was a very, very low floor established; but there was some growth. The question still is whether Johnson has dug too deep a hole to get out of. The players leaving are no surprise, but it's the drip, drip, drip that gets one down. Hoping to get on GH and see a positive thread headline pretty soon.
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Thank you for shedding some honesty on a false narrative.

People, as I’ve posited many times before, are more attracted to the negative than the positive. There are people on here who will innocently post incorrect information (rarely will they acknowledge their faux pas - that requires a dose of humility), people who are malicious and do so because they want to bring people down to their level (they’ll never apologize) and then there’s Spaulding ( he’s a unique oddity, so it doesn’t matter) he says wild azz crap because he’s lonely and needs attention, in essence Sgt. Schultz, a harmless troll 🧌 who knows nothing.
 




bga1 said:
This is the fact we should get adjusted to. As a Gopher fan, I am all in on pulling for him to have a great offseason, an excellent fall signing and a surprising 23-24 season. In March of 2024 we will deal with a new set of facts.
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I'd dare say this looks an awful lot like maturity and perspective. Is it intentional? :)
 

golfing18now said:
I don't understand the posters here that are downplaying the departures of starting players on this team. We lose 3 starters off a 2 win team and this is good? He would have still had a couple scholarships to play with to try to recruit over the talent already on the team. To get four/five B1G caliber players in the portal where this team is currently? yikes
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The Henley loss hurt. Cooper and Battle while 2 of our best 4 players this year, were not fits at their positions in the Big Ten. That was obvious. I wish we would have keep them as rotation players but it is understandable that they wouldn't want that. Hoping to keep all 5 off of a 2 win team is also puzzling. The challenge is for Ben to replace them with better fits and upgrade the speed of this team. If he can't he's toast.

I have no doubt about this- the team of Payne, Garcia, JOJ, Carrington and Christie with Fox, Ihnen and Betts with a year of development is better than the team we started this year with. That's a 5-6 win team. There is a glaring need for a couple of guards that can handle and shoot in order to get to 8 plus wins.
 

howeda7 said:
For everyone one of those examples, there's 20 where the coach was canned after year 3 or 4 because things were exactly what they seemed.

Northwestern had never made the NCAA tournament when the hired Chris Collins. Never. That is not a comparable situation.
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B1G record in the five seasons after the magical 10-8 year : 6-12; 4-16; 3-17; 6-13; 7-13. Numerous transfers out. By rights, gone. But here he is.
 





Gopher_In_NYC said:
Thank you for shedding some honesty on a false narrative.

People, as I’ve posited many times before, are more attracted to the negative than the positive. There are people on here who will innocently post incorrect information (rarely will they acknowledge their faux pas - that requires a dose of humility), people who are malicious and do so because they want to bring people down to their level (they’ll never apologize) and then there’s Spaulding ( he’s a unique oddity, so it doesn’t matter) he says wild azz crap because he’s lonely and needs attention, in essence Sgt. Schultz, a harmless troll 🧌 who knows nothing.
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Spaulding, honestly, makes me laugh more times than not. The posts are usually short and often stir shit up or have some kind of warped sense of humor embedded in them. He's an infotainer. :)
 

60's Guy said:
Nobody will agree with me...so there is no need to read this until some time in the future.
We had two conference wins, 3 starters and our top recruit have chosen not to be part of the program. That means we need to recruit 4 guys at least as good as the departed to be in the win two games range.
But we got Fox Ihnen and Christie so they could help us...but we truly don't know if they will....but okay...recruit just 4 guys as good as three starters and we are somewhat optimistic it could be a little better.
Recruit 3 more for a total of 7 new guys better than we had and we should be 500 good, right?
I hope it happens
I don't agree with anybody here about Battle. He was our best player. I do believe some coach some where will see that and put him in positions to succeed and hide his weaknesses. Battle was really poorly coached this past season. 100% he should leave. Tell me as an opponent game planning who you were worried about from the Gopher team offensively this year? Top 2:
1. For me is Battle. Clearly best shooter. Never got looks he excels at...floundered and embarrassed himself. That's coaching....the positions he was put in to and the mistakes he was allowed to repeat over and over...that's coaching. Did we pay any attention to what he excelled at last year? Bet somebody else did.
2. Payne on the block. But just like I don't have to worry about Battle...I don't have to worry about Payne either because he is at top of the circle.
The chances Ben can start over three years in a row and do better the third time? Be nice but success leaves clues.
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Battle got the same looks he had last year and missed most of them. He will certainly do better on a team with more offensive options so that he is not the subject of game planning by opposing coaches. Good luck to him. Hope coaching staff can develop an elbow jumper for Payne. If not, it suggests our coaching staff is not up to the task.
 

I'm not much for Twiiter. Does Ben have a cute gif he posts every time someone bails?
 



Roland Brooks said:
I will miss him striking a pose down 20 after nailing a three with 3 minutes left in the game.. dude was bad this year…
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I agree. He really struggled, and it seemed like for whatever reason, he shied away from driving to the hoop or taking it inside when he had ample opportunity to do so, instead preferring to stay outside and jack up (far, far, FAR too often) wayward threes.

I don't know whether that's a coaching thing or a Jamison thing, but he only had 32 (!!!) FT attempts this season after having 79 last season, and that's just sad for our best FT shooter. This was just an odd and quite poor year for Jamison.

I do appreciate his time here and wish him well . Good luck, man.
 

bga1 said:
Ok. I think Payne and Garcia are going to be terrific next year. It's just my opinion. I don't have a crystal ball.
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Agree. They were both damn impressive this year, so yeah. I'm also very excited to see Joshua Ola-Joseph with a full year's experience under his belt. He was really starting to put it together there towards the end. And Carrington, we've just got to keep on hoping. His pedigree suggests that this is a Big Ten quality player. He's just gotta get there.
 

Block M said:
B1G record in the five seasons after the magical 10-8 year : 6-12; 4-16; 3-17; 6-13; 7-13. Numerous transfers out. By rights, gone. But here he is.
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Northwestern also gave Bill Carmody 13 years before firing him. He never made the NCAA's. They finished .500 in the B1G once. Is Northwestern basketball of this century really our new standard?
 
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DarthGopher said:
Accept what you can and cannot control. You can foam and froth at the mouth all you want, but the fact remains you have zero say in what happens to the coach. That is a fact.

We all want so damn badly the same thing - for this program to be good. Human beings do not deal with uncertainty very well, especially when they do not have any direct control over the outcome. We are, by nature, nervous twits. Coping skills range from maniacal fatalism to apathy to blissful ignorance and everything in between.

Do I enjoy this position we are in? Absolutely not. I cut my teeth during the 96-97 season, which never officially happened according to the NCAA. Seeing The Barn and the program in this state of affairs is depressing. It sucks donkey balls. But for the foreseeable future, Johnson will remain the coach. So I choose to try to look at the positives and hope for the best. Does that mean I'm a CBJ apologist or see all puppies and rainbows? Not even close. This year was a shitshow (and that is being generous). I personally feel he is in way over his head. However, getting mired down in all the what if's and catastrophizing the future that hasn't happened yet sucks even worse than the season they just had, and I just choose not to do it. It doesn't serve me at all. On my hierarchy of life needs, a successful basketball team remains firmly in the "nice to have" bucket. I won't die if they don't win. I can find other things to do with my time. It will either improve or heads are going to roll. That much I know. Too much money at stake for it to fester long-term.
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Blah blah blah.

Feel free to be happy with a shit product.

I'm going to bitch about it. Paying patrons are chosing not to be paying patrons.

It's a lost cause with Johnson. Try again.
 



FWIW, in his new article on the Strib, Marcus writes that both Battle and Cooper are exploring professional opportunities and also entering the transfer portal.

Sounds as if, just like Cooper, Battle is giving himself the opportunity to explore all avenues.
 

WriterGoph said:
FWIW, in his new article on the Strib, Marcus writes that both Battle and Cooper are exploring professional opportunities and also entering the transfer portal.

Sounds as if, just like Cooper, Battle is giving himself the opportunity to explore all avenues.
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Neither Battle or Cooper have any - 0 chance of making the NBA and most likely the G league. If they want to go to somewhere in Europe that would be a big accomplishment for anyone and that’s prolly where they will go
 

BATTLE: Okay, I am a kid who just graduated college after multiple schools during a pandemic. I went back home not knowing at the time how the pandemic would play out. It was an opportunity to play against better competition, move back home, and be a part of my home state University. Little did I know I would experience a coaching change, lots of injured teammates, and ultimately, low performing expectations.

Ultimately, I earned my degree and the option to either transfer to another school without sitting out or to play professionally overseas. Both are still realistic options.

I told my coach I was done at the U and likely going pro which is why I walked on graduation day. However, I am exploring my options. I can play college ball and be paid or go overseas and be paid, just weighing my options. At the U, no one paid me. We do not have the support from alumni to pay for such things. I was here two years and saw virtually nothing despite being a top player. You can blame CBJ for the issues, but it's systemic. This University will never succeed in College BBALL without a serious investment.
 

SonoranGopher1 said:
Neither Battle or Cooper have any - 0 chance of making the NBA and most likely the G league. If they want to go to somewhere in Europe that would be a big accomplishment for anyone and that’s prolly where they will go
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Obviously. The other important thing to note is some guys can make more through NIL than the G League now.
 


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