Monson Gets Some Credit

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jamiche

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As everyone on the board knows, I was a huge critic of Dan Monson's coaching skills. However, ALL of the key guys today were Monson recruits:

Nolen
Johnson
Hoffarber
Busch


Other players contributed and Tubby has the squad playing serious defense but, when Monson reads the box score, he will feel pretty good.

For those of us who remember when it was good, this is a lot of fun.

Someone in an earlier thread said the the goofs would win 3-4 out of 10 against Louisville. I disagree. This win was not a fluke. The goofs win 6-7 out of 10. Louisville is better individually than as a team. The goofs are better as a team than individually.
 

The difference with Tubby is that he recruits quality players in higher numbers (and with size) and he develops them better than Monson would have, in my opinion.

Seeing Iverson and Sampson as freshman control the inside defense is awesome. Just imagine as they get more experience and strength.
 

jamiche said:
As everyone on the board knows, I was a huge critic of Dan Monson's coaching skills. However, ALL of the key guys today were Monson recruits:

Nolen
Johnson
Hoffarber
Busch


Other players contributed and Tubby has the squad playing serious defense but, when Monson reads the box score, he will feel pretty good.

For those of us who remember when it was good, this is a lot of fun.

Someone in an earlier thread said the the goofs would win 3-4 out of 10 against Louisville. I disagree. This win was not a fluke. The goofs win 6-7 out of 10. Louisville is better individually than as a team. The goofs are better as a team than individually.
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And deservedly so. They are good players, particularly Nolen and Hoffarber. 2 very good recruits in 2007 class.
 


Agreed. The problem with Monson was that he simply didn't seem to get the best out of his players. Tubby, meanwhile, seems to be able to do that. That's why Monson will probably go down as an average/good coach, while Tubby will go down as one of the great ones.
 


True enough. Though Nolen and Hoffarber stayed through the coaching change even though they didn't have to. So they were pretty obviously wanting to be Gophers no matter who the coach was.
 

Not sure Monson had the respect of the players. I remember a game when Richert was playing that they focused on getting him the ball at the end of the half. They were up maybe five or six at halftime. I think he made six or seven in a row. I think Richert touched the ball four times in the second half and they lost by 10 or 12. Somehow I did not think it had anything to do with the coaching. It looked like the players were deliberately keeping the ball away from Richert.
 

That has everything to do with coaching. If a player gets frozen out that means the coach has lost control of the team.
 

Busch??!

Sorry, Jammer. Monson doesn't get credit for him as he was a walk on and not warmly welcomed either. Busch himself gets full credit.
Recruiting was not the big issue for Monson. Game day coaching was the issue and i for one must say that it was amazing to see a team out there with a PLAN.
 




Monson was a below-average recruiter. Sure, he landed Humphreys and Rickert, but outside of that, he rarely out-recruited another BCS conference school for a player. Of course, it is hard to give him credit for McKenzie, Coleman, Boone, Williams, Busch, etc., who either didn't choose Monson the first time around or who Monson didn't offer the first time around.

Molinari was the guy who uncovered Damian. Molinari had to talk Monson into offering Damian.

As Moonlight mentioned, Monson was a poor gameday coach, but I think even worse was Monson as a practice coach. He did a terrible job of teaching the game and preparing a team for a game, IMO.
 

Monson get no credit for Busch... He gave him absolutely zero thought out of HS even though he was Mr. Basketball. He didn't even ask him to walk on. When Busch came back, Monson let him, but made him no promises of playing time. Busch earned everything he's gotten himself. Busch can thank Tubby for not just ignoring him when he came into the picture. The same could be said about the other Monson recruits. Tubby could have shunned them and focused on getting his own guys into his own system but instead he invested time and developed each an every one of them into players in a way Monson would have never been able to. I guess Monson gets credit for getting players (minus Busch) to come to the U, but that's it. All the guys still on the team made the jump AFTER tubby got here.

(Wow reading what I just wrote I coming dangerously close to FoT territory, I guess he is THAT good.)
 

If we're going to hand out credits, we should also acknowledge that Clem helped sell Tubby on moving to Minnesota.

Bygones.
 



I'm not suggesting that these players would have been as successful under Monson. Just that, intentionally or otherwise, he left something for Tubby to work with.
 

credit where credit is due

I think Monson was a below average coacha at this level and he had us stuck in neutral. That said, he and his staff where responsible for landing Blake, Al, DJ and Westbrook. It doesn't matter if it was Monson, Molinari, etc...its Monson's staff. Tubby owes a lot to his current staff for is recruiting as well.

That said, Monson's recruiting had been pretty bad before the current group and his coaching was below average. Now we have a guy who can coach players up and who can recruit well ever year and not rely on diamonds in the rough every year..which can kill you if thats your only trick.
 

Monson gets all the credit in the world for scouting Al Nolen very early and offering him and getting a commitment long before anybody knew who he was, after that it gets shaky. Remember it took them a long, long time to offer Blake and for most of the summer they we're trying to talk him into walking on the first year. They we're very lucky that the Hoffarbers are huge Gopher fans and all it took was an offer to get him here. They didn't get Cole that year but it wasn't for a lack of effort but they also messed up big time with Jon Leuer, who wanted to be a Gopher but was so turned off by the Minnesota coaches and the way he was recruited that by the time they came around and offered him, he wanted nothing to do with Minnesota and now is turning into a star at Wisconsin. Molinari gets well deserved credit for Damien, but takes all the heat for messing up on Leuer.
 

JohnnyGopher said:
Monson gets all the credit in the world for scouting Al Nolen very early and offering him and getting a commitment long before anybody knew who he was, after that it gets shaky. Remember it took them a long, long time to offer Blake and for most of the summer they we're trying to talk him into walking on the first year. They we're very lucky that the Hoffarbers are huge Gopher fans and all it took was an offer to get him here. They didn't get Cole that year but it wasn't for a lack of effort but they also messed up big time with Jon Leuer, who wanted to be a Gopher but was so turned off by the Minnesota coaches and the way he was recruited that by the time they came around and offered him, he wanted nothing to do with Minnesota and now is turning into a star at Wisconsin. Molinari gets well deserved credit for Damien, but takes all the heat for messing up on Leuer.
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A star? What has JL done to receive such accolades from The Johnny G?
 

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