***OFFICIAL MINNESOTA VS PENN STATE BTT 1ST ROUND IN-GAME THREAD!!!***

Donate To GopherHole


If Ben Johnson is as big of a disaster as some of you seem to think, he'll be gone in 3 or 4 years.

but, on the bright side, you'll get to piss and moan before and after every game and make life miserable for the posters who still want to root for the team to win.

I'm not happy, but I am not giving up on Johnson after one year.

Next season, Johnson will have his first full HS recruiting class, and will have more time to (hopefully) bring in reinforcements from the portal.

for the returning players, Battle is a proven commodity.

I don't know what to think about Thompson or Thiam. If they are back next year, we'll see.
I am interested to see what Fox and Ihnen can do.

If the Gophs are back in the same spot next year - 14th in the Conf and losing on Wednesday, then I will certainly reassess my opinion.
 





If none of our bench players even wanted to come in, then that shows they aren't competitive and ready to to go to Battle. I double someone like Payne or Carrington would say nah coach I'm comfy here. Maybe our whole bench isn't confident in themselves because they know their coach doesn't really trust them. We rallied with TT playing against Iowa, and playing 40 minutes against Rutgers resulting in a W. I thought Ramberg's hand healed? Put him in for 3 minutes, switch to a zone and see if that slows Penn State down with TT. Come on
 

short ornery norwegian said:
If Ben Johnson is as big of a disaster as some of you seem to think, he'll be gone in 3 or 4 years.

but, on the bright side, you'll get to piss and moan before and after every game and make life miserable for the posters who still want to root for the team to win.

I'm not happy, but I am not giving up on Johnson after one year.

Next season, Johnson will have his first full HS recruiting class, and will have more time to (hopefully) bring in reinforcements from the portal.

for the returning players, Battle is a proven commodity.

I don't know what to think about Thompson or Thiam. If they are back next year, we'll see.
I am interested to see what Fox and Ihnen can do.

If the Gophs are back in the same spot next year - 14th in the Conf and losing on Wednesday, then I will certainly reassess my opinion.
Click to expand...
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: if you shell out this kind of money for season tickets, and you've been waiting for a contending team and a deep tournament run as long as we have, and you're NOT pissing and moaning, what's wrong with you? Maybe you want us all to be force-sedated and institutionalized so that seldom is heard a discouraging word.
 

Spottedmuskie said:
If none of our bench players even wanted to come in, then that shows they aren't competitive and ready to to go to Battle. I double someone like Payne or Carrington would say nah coach I'm comfy here. Maybe our whole bench isn't confident in themselves because they know their coach doesn't really trust them. We rallied with TT playing against Iowa, and playing 40 minutes against Rutgers resulting in a W. I thought Ramberg's hand healed? Put him in for 3 minutes, switch to a zone and see if that slows Penn State down with TT. Come on
Click to expand...
The only substitution BJ made is with a player who just had a migrane head ache and then he threw his bench players under the bus so it give him the excuse as to why he didn't substitute more. If in fact the bench said "I'm not ready for prime time" (which I doubt) then as a coach I'd have to assess what have I failed to do to get them ready or tell the under graduates to look for somewhere else to play.
 



Spottedmuskie said:
If none of our bench players even wanted to come in, then that shows they aren't competitive and ready to to go to Battle. I double someone like Payne or Carrington would say nah coach I'm comfy here. Maybe our whole bench isn't confident in themselves because they know their coach doesn't really trust them. We rallied with TT playing against Iowa, and playing 40 minutes against Rutgers resulting in a W. I thought Ramberg's hand healed? Put him in for 3 minutes, switch to a zone and see if that slows Penn State down with TT. Come on
Click to expand...
They tried the zone a couple times in the first half and Penn St got baseline layup or a open 3 in the corner so that may have been a reason Thompson didn’t play. As for Daniels I think it’s clear Ben trusted him less as the season progressed
 

short ornery norwegian said:
If Ben Johnson is as big of a disaster as some of you seem to think, he'll be gone in 3 or 4 years.

but, on the bright side, you'll get to piss and moan before and after every game and make life miserable for the posters who still want to root for the team to win.

I'm not happy, but I am not giving up on Johnson after one year.

Next season, Johnson will have his first full HS recruiting class, and will have more time to (hopefully) bring in reinforcements from the portal.

for the returning players, Battle is a proven commodity.

I don't know what to think about Thompson or Thiam. If they are back next year, we'll see.
I am interested to see what Fox and Ihnen can do.

If the Gophs are back in the same spot next year - 14th in the Conf and losing on Wednesday, then I will certainly reassess my opinion.
Click to expand...
Fleck only made a little progress in his 2nd year. Then we know what happened in his 3rd year.

So hopefully BJ will made at least a little bit of progress next year.
 

Gophers_4life said:
Fleck only made a little progress in his 2nd year. Then we know what happened in his 3rd year.

So hopefully BJ will made at least a little bit of progress next year.
Click to expand...
One big difference. Fleck had some talent to work with that could complete. I’m not seeing the same with Ben.
 

Holy Man said:
One big difference. Fleck had some talent to work with that could complete. I’m not seeing the same with Ben.
Click to expand...
Ben hasn’t even had a full offseason yet. The incoming recruits look solid and they need to target 3 or 4 transfers, not 9 or 10 like last year.
 



SanDiegoGopherFan said:
Someone start a thread about what grade you would give this season
Click to expand...
The starters A for effort; the bench for refusing to play in the tournament an F; the coach who failed to prepare his bench players and then threw them under the bus F-.
 


Apologies if this was already posted or known, but I see in the STrib:

Gophers third-leading scorer E.J. Stephens was sidelined by a migraine. Sean Sutherlin replaced Stephens in the starting lineup, but that took away their top player off the bench.

"Going down with a migraine literally an hour before the game you feel for him," Johnson said of Stephens. "He was super locked in all week. He didn't want it to end as far as the season."

Johnson had the shortest rotation among all high major programs in the regular season, but Stephens playing one minute was the fewest the bench had played all year. Logging those heavy minutes finally seemed to wear down the Gophers down the stretch.
 

I mean c'mon.....a little perspective. EJ is good for about 10 points per game. If he plays, I think we win. Are we having this bitchfest today if we win with 6 guys playing??????
 


leib0039 said:
I'm trying to not let this big me but I can't. First off, respect to the 5 guys playing, they laid it out there tonight. However, essentially 0 subs in am entire game is embarrassing and shocking. During the game we were compared to a high school team and IUPUI who is the single worst team in D1 and a few weeks ago had tryouts for students. That is unacceptable. Spare me the injury talk. I'm not saying the bench should have played 20 min each, but come on. When you literally can't play anyone the coach 100% needs to take some responsibility. And the bench players, wow, I don't even know what to say about them. If a guy like TT doesn't stand up and say DAMN IT COACH GIVE ME A SHOT then I'm not sure I would have interest in keeping him. And if any of them begged to go in and Ben didn't trust them for even 1 minute then our program is in utter chaos. Again, respect the 5 guys, but I'm disgusted with this game. If you think Ben should face 0 criticism from this specific game, im not sure what to tell you.
Click to expand...
The future is in utter chaos because Daniels, Ogele, and Thiam didn't play? How? They are not part of the future. Thompson is a legitimate wonder. I would like to hear Ben's explanation of not spelling Curry a little with TT.
 

howeda7 said:
Agreed. I'm not interested in going around on this again, but will be very surprised if at least one of Thiam/TT don't transfer and now I'd put $ on both. Potentially 6 scholarships to fill on the portal. Not ideal.
Click to expand...
It's ideal to replace Thiam with a better player. TT is not leaving.
 

PhiloVance said:
Saw some players on the bench mapping out where they're going to play next year. Got a feeling BJ will be looking for some more players to replace those that transfering out.
Click to expand...
Duke, Arizona, Gonzaga ... their choices are endless.
 

cjbfbp said:
As one of the Big Ten Network guys just said: "Just wearing down a team. That's all they did."

How many times have we seen that? Better do some things differently next year, Ben. Pitino was a slow learner. Hopefully you are a quicker one.
Click to expand...
Kind of like you in a race with Rashod Bateman. He keeps beating you. So when are you going to learn to run faster?
 

cheeseheadgophfan said:
I mean c'mon.....a little perspective. EJ is good for about 10 points per game. If he plays, I think we win. Are we having this bitchfest today if we win with 6 guys playing??????
Click to expand...
And even without EJ and playing everyone all game, we had plenty of chance to win in the closing minutes. Just couldn't shoot. Willis, Battle, and Loewe had several good three looks between them and came up mostly dry.

The game could have been won with good shooting (37% from the floor; 26% from three; and Willis' inexplicable inability to hit two free throws in a row).

Had we heated up and hit some shots all the weeping nellies here would be posting here about how lucky Johnson was to win when he couldn't even develop a bench.
 


You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom