People should go watch Juwan Howard's introductory presser as it's pretty similar to Ben's. He's not laying out his specific philosophy, he's not listing off assistants he's considering or a timeline for when his staff will be announced....pressers like these are meant to be a celebration more than anything. Coaches lay out traits they look for in players, the type of program they want to lead, recruiting in state talent, what the opportunity means to them and so on.
I thought he had good answers to the questions. Really thought the references to Izzo and Painter were good and I'm glad those are two guys he looks up to. Something I think we've lacked is a sense of pride in representing the program and the state. It's kinda in our DNA to roll our eyes at that type of thing, being a "Michigan Man", "The Brotherhood" Duke has, the "Spartan Dawgs" at Michigan State that are still involved with the current team, you know what you're getting when you watch Villanova basketball, we have no choice but to see how invested the likes of Kaminsky and Dekker still are in the Badger program. When it goes beyond personal success, that's when you can really have something special. We lack identity and hopefully Ben can give us that.
Is Ben the one to unlock the potential here? We'll have to see. As someone born and raised in Minneapolis, I would love to see it be him.
