ROCK BOTTOM HAS BEEN ACHIEVED

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Welcome Holereader! Ben played on the big ten team that holds the record for consecutive big ten losses!
 









“Rock bottom” could have described the 1986 home Minnesota vs OSU game. The Madison sex incident had occurred a few days earlier. Jim Dutcher had resigned. The University forfeited the game at Northwestern. Amazingly, the attendance was around 14,000. The crowd was energized from the opening-tip and that version of the “Iron Five” upset the Buckeyes. The loss was humiliating for OSU and their coach Eldon Miller was fired at the end of the year. Four years later a revitalized Gopher basketball team and program played Eldon Miller’s Northern Iowa in a round of 32 in Richmond. Both teams were outstanding with Willie Burton scoring 35: two great stories of rising from “rock bottom.”
 




RogueGopher said:
I'd like to see how the team looks with everyone healthy.
They have been very good defensively, holding opponents under 60 a game. Adding TC will improve the defense even more.
Sometimes you have a bad week shooting the ball.

Still a lot of season left, see where it goes. Why give up after 4 games?
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I mean at this point the only real option is to let it play out for the remainder of the season. You can make a move now but that is unlikely to change anything.

It seems highly unlikely that they are going to win enough to save Johnson's job but nothing is really gained by firing him now (other than making some posters happy) so may as well see what happens over the remainder of the season. Maybe they shock us and have a great year.....most likely they don't and Johnson gets fired when it ends.

I am curious to see what Cochran brings to the table once he is healthy.

In regards to the people that have already given up.....they gave up long before this season started....
 


RogueGopher said:
I'd like to see how the team looks with everyone healthy.
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For 4 years now it seems that the "healthy" crutch is used. I think for the most part no team goes through the year unscathed when it comes to injuries.

One of the sales managers I have had during my professional career is a college BB women's HOF inductee player. She used to tell us, "excuses are for losers".

Can we stop with the BS excuses and just start calling a spade a spade. If the guy can turn the program around after 3 piss poor years, GREAT. If he can't after 4 piss poor years then you move on.
 



RogueGopher said:
I'd like to see how the team looks with everyone healthy.
They have been very good defensively, holding opponents under 60 a game. Adding TC will improve the defense even more.
Sometimes you have a bad week shooting the ball.

Still a lot of season left, see where it goes. Why give up after 4 games?
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You should not be this drunk so early in the morning...

It isn't like we were playing Big Ten teams or even P4 teams. You are touting performances against friggin Yale and The Southwest Texas State Bobcats. I get you want to look at things through rose colored glasses but come on you really think the defense is going to look this "good" against teams with top level talent? Honestly I am not sure I trust this squad to beat any Big Ten team.
 

MNVCGUY said:
In regards to the people that have already given up.....they gave up long before this season started....
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I think that is a little unfair. It is one thing if the team is playing even a modicum of competent basketball or if they were struggling with top end teams...then yeah your last line would be true. I almost scored as many points as they did in the first half against Yale and I am a slow Middle Aged White Guy who can't dribble or shoot. It is completely valid for fans (even those of us that hope for the best) to basically throw up hands when you can't even beat an Ivy League School easily, a few days after losing to North Texas a few days after you barely beat friggin Omaha...all at home.

Look we are all resigned to the fact that we won't make a move for quite some time...but not everyone who is frustrated and pretty much quit are the ones who did so before the season. The team has done zero for anyone who is in wait and see mode to latch onto and think "hey we might have something here". I mean if that murderers row can basically make us look silly in our own barn what the heck are the Big Ten squads going to do to us?

There is nothing wrong with calling a spade a spade...and right now this team is arguably the worst in the major conferences. I think people are justified in pretty much giving up.
 
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Dave H said:
I think that is a little unfair. It is one thing if the team is playing even a modicum of competent basketball or if they were struggling with top end teams...then yeah your last line would be true. I almost scored as many points as they did in the first half against Yale and I am a slow Middle Aged White Guy who can't dribble or shoot. It is completely valid for fans (even those of us that hope for the best) to basically throw up hands when you can't even beat an Ivy League School, a few days after losing to North Texas a few days after you barely beat friggin Omaha...all at home.

Look we are all resigned to the fact that we won't make a move for quite some time...but not everyone who is frustrated and pretty much quit are the ones who did so before the season. The team has done zero for anyone who is in wait and see mode to latch onto and think "hey we might have something here". I mean if that murderers row can basically make us look silly in our own barn what the heck are the Big Ten squads going to do to us?

There is nothing wrong with calling a spade a spade...and right now this team is arguably the worst in the major conferences. I think people are justified in pretty much giving up.
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Don't disagree with anything you said....that last line was more targeted at the group of posters we have here that keep pretending like there is a Ben Johnson fan club or some BS like that. If you are not sure who they are just see who blasts me after this post and you will know who they are :)

Totally get any and all frustration with the state of the basketball program. Whatever positive gains were made last year (and there were some) were all wiped away when the roster exploded and basically everyone left.

It is looking more and more likely that this will be a wasted season and if that ends up being the case then they absolutely would have been better served to get a jump on things by firing Johnson after last season once it became clear he was going to have to rebuild the roster again.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Don't disagree with anything you said....that last line was more targeted at the group of posters we have here that keep pretending like there is a Ben Johnson fan club or some BS like that. If you are not sure who they are just see who blasts me after this post and you will know who they are :)

Totally get any and all frustration with the state of the basketball program. Whatever positive gains were made last year (and there were some) were all wiped away when the roster exploded and basically everyone left.

It is looking more and more likely that this will be a wasted season and if that ends up being the case then they absolutely would have been better served to get a jump on things by firing Johnson after last season once it became clear he was going to have to rebuild the roster again.
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The best thing for this year is for Coyle to cut Ben now, with the extra cash as a "thanks for trying," appoint Thorson, the defensive guru) as interim coach (like was done with Monson) and then start scouring the world for our next head coach. Have our next coach ready to go by April 5th and let them build a competitive team.
 

FinnGopher said:
The best thing for this year is for Coyle to cut Ben now, with the extra cash as a "thanks for trying," appoint Thorson, the defensive guru) as interim coach (like was done with Monson) and then start scouring the world for our next head coach. Have our next coach ready to go by April 5th and let them build a competitive team.
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As long as it doesn't appear that the team has quit on Johnson I still think the best course is just to ride it out to see what happens while making preparations to be ready to move fast once it becomes clear there is no chance Johnson is going to be the coach here going forward.

I know some will contend we are already at that point and they may well be right but there is still a lot of season left.

Assuming the goal is to bring in a sitting head coach to replace Johnson as opposed to an assistant or unknown then firing Johnson now really doesn't give you much of a leg up because you wouldn't be able to talk to those coaches in season anyway.
 

MNVCGUY said:
As long as it doesn't appear that the team has quit on Johnson I still think the best course is just to ride it out to see what happens while making preparations to be ready to move fast once it becomes clear there is no chance Johnson is going to be the coach here going forward.

I know some will contend we are already at that point and they may well be right but there is still a lot of season left.

Assuming the goal is to bring in a sitting head coach to replace Johnson as opposed to an assistant or unknown then firing Johnson now really doesn't give you much of a leg up because you wouldn't be able to talk to those coaches in season anyway.
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Ride it out and see what happens. 😂🤣😂🤣🤣

Mnvcguy has been consistent since cbj was hired, I will give him that.
 

bga1 said:
I see your view. That said- Musselman never coached in college again. Dutcher never coached in college again. Clem never coached in college again. Monson moved down a level after he did great at Gonzaga. Tubby retired. Pitino moved down a level. So other than Mussy coaching the in the ABA and then the TWolves no one had their career enhanced coming here either. It has not been a coach friendly atmosphere here.
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Without really digging in, seems likely most schools are this way. I'm sure there are exceptions that have stumbled into multiple good coaches in a row, but I'd bet most middle-lower pack P5 schools have a similar ish track record. I don't very many P5 schools have consistently had coaches go on to bigger and better over the long haul.
 

howeda7 said:
If you had watched the 1st half yesterday, you wouldn't retain your optimism. It's literally the worst offense I've ever seen played by anyone older than 7th grade. And it wasn't just because they couldn't make shots. They had no flow. No idea. No clue. That's coaching.

The only reason they weren't down by 20 at half time is because North Texas couldn't make a shot either and we played OK defense. But this offense is just awful. All you have to do is stop Garcia and they're done. They will likely lose at least 2 more non-conference games and struggle to win any B1G games. I'd put the over/under win total at 11.5 and that's probably optimistic.
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Kinda reminds me of Ryan Saunders' t-wolves coaching...
 


MNVCGUY said:
Don't disagree with anything you said....that last line was more targeted at the group of posters we have here that keep pretending like there is a Ben Johnson fan club or some BS like that. If you are not sure who they are just see who blasts me after this post and you will know who they are :)
Click to expand...

Totally get any and all frustration with the state of the basketball program. Whatever positive gains were made last year (and there were some) were all wiped away when the roster exploded and basically everyone left.
Click to expand...

It is looking more and more likely that this will be a wasted season and if that ends up being the case then they absolutely would have been better served to get a jump on things by firing Johnson after last season once it became clear he was going to have to rebuild the roster again.
Click to expand...
As long as it doesn't appear that the team has quit on Johnson I still think the best course is just to ride it out to see what happens while making preparations to be ready to move fast once it becomes clear there is no chance Johnson is going to be the coach here going forward.

I know some will contend we are already at that point and they may well be right but there is still a lot of season left.

Assuming the goal is to bring in a sitting head coach to replace Johnson as opposed to an assistant or unknown then firing Johnson now really doesn't give you much of a leg up because you wouldn't be able to talk to those coaches in season anyway.
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I don't know why you keep advocating to keep him. You are so busted now! :p:p:p:ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
 


DarthGopher said:
I don't know why you keep advocating to keep him. You are so busted now! :p:p:p:ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
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I mean if they fire him I have to take down all my posters and give up my spot as fan club president.

Cracks me up how to some posters if you aren't constantly posting "fire the coach right now" it somehow means you think the program is in great shape and that Johnson should be the coach forever no matter how many games he wins.

I should stop being lazy and just put the rest of them on ignore with Burner.
 

MNVCGUY said:
I mean if they fire him I have to take down all my posters and give up my spot as fan club president.

Cracks me up how to some posters if you aren't constantly posting "fire the coach right now" it somehow means you think the program is in great shape and that Johnson should be the coach forever no matter how many games he wins.

I should stop being lazy and just put the rest of them on ignore with Burner.
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The situation sucks. Anybody with a pulse can see that. I personally don't think it improves enough at any point this year to warrant 1 day more past the last game played. I would have pulled the plug after the exodus, but, I don't possess such authority. Regardless, he is the coach right now and will be for the season. I have no ability to alter the course that is already in motion. Accepting the brutal reality of the situation and trying to make do with the highly probable shitshow forthcoming is not the same as advocating he stays, which is literally the same damn thing you have been saying. :cool:

When is the next fan club meeting? :LOL:
 


In GH history the title of this thread might be considered our "Dewey Defeats Truman" headline depending on how the season plays out. I bought into the "He'll be able to recruit the local talent" reason for the hire, but that ain't happening. Hell, with the exception of Garcia, the local guys have been the most eager to bail.
 



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