Seth Davis: Ben Johnson has done an incredible job with this team. One of the elite coaches in one of the toughest jobs in America.

Donate To GopherHole
Bad Gopher said:
Sliced a different way, I know a number of St. Thomas grads, and when any ask my thoughts on Ben, I always reply by posing a question: would you trade Tauer for Johnson straight up. They all say no, of course; some laugh. We've talked a lot about whether Tauer would be capable of coaching at the high-major level, and that's a fair topic, but what does that say about Johnson?
Click to expand...
Elite!!!
 


bga1 said:
They should not have hired him. We agree on that.

How so?

No doubt about that. 22-55

Talk to Howie about that one. Might is an ok word here if you put the probability at 25% or less

This is the best part about Ben. Not the X's and O's not the recruiting, but the character is good.


Just not for these players. It just doesn't. I don't even think that is arguable. I have never heard anyone say that our offense is a good one. Look at Mike Mitchell, he is a shadow of what he was last year with the loss of Hawkins. The offense is a disaster with this group because the only guy with quickness is Asuma and he doesn't have the ball in his hands- he sits in the corner. So nobody breaks anybody down and since there is no low post to defend all of the defenders shade to the perimeter. That makes finding open looks pretty tough.

They don't play help D. They switch but then mismatches form and they don't help and if it gets into the low post- good night. How many times have you seen the opposing team get a mismatch in the paint against us (this year and in the past) and nobody helps out? We didn't help Fox against Edy last year for heaven's sake.

Good coaches tend to save one. That ten second call could have been avoided and it is a small miracle that it didn't cost us the game.

If we keep him (and I have clearly stated the case for that on this site) I will be rooting for him to prove he can do it. Maybe he can. The odds don't seem good.
Click to expand...
I might win the lottery tomorrow. But I probably won't. Especially since I don't currently have any plans to buy a ticket.
 

Formerswish said:
I agree that this was an incorrect take by Davis. And like many others, I am disappointed and frustrated by the lack of success with Johnsons teams the last 4 years. And I also have to say that getting 7 conference wins this year with this level of talent is quite an accomplishment.
Click to expand...
I actually disagree with this narrative. He put together a bunch of guys who are like 24/25 years old who have been playing college basketball for years and all had some sort of success at the level they played at. I think the whole point in building this roster was to actually have a good team and that the talent isn’t that bad. I think he put this team together to save his job because he thought they would be better than people expected.

They’ve proven that in some of the games they’ve won, which I would say is the most unexpected thing is the winds against Michigan and UCLA, etc. But to me, he’s just proving even more that he’s not the right coach and that he’s not good at it because he couldn’t get any consistency out of these guys and he couldn’t get them to play like this until after halfway through the season.

This leads to the bigger issue that this was a one year deal and it was boom or bust. We’ve busted even with having an all conference player leading the way. So it’s very easy to see that they’re gonna go backwards next season. So he did his best and he tried, but he failed. Now we need to move on with a new coach who knows what he’s doing. First qualification should be that he’s actually been a head coach at a division one level at some point.
 





Holy Man said:
And caught them all on bad days, especially at the line.
Click to expand...
Under stated and under acknowledged by fans of the come back team is that the other team had to contribute with some form of ineptitude! To paraphrase Obama: you didn’t (do this) by yourself.
 




Arealgopherfan said:
A well thought out post from someone with real basketball knowledge. A rarity on this board.
Click to expand...
Yeah, the instant go to that Johnson had no place ever coaching in the Big Ten because of how inexperienced and awful he is, is extremely inauthentic. The guy can clearly coach and he's led the team to win some games we've had no excuse winning under his tenure or under previous ones. He's wildly inconsistent and is mediocre more often than not, but he's shown he can hang as well as anyone else, including some of the top dogs, in the conference. I don't think he's the guy to get us to the next level or raise the profile of the program, but he's shown the capacity to win at the major level against opponents rated better than ours by most metrics. That's the problem I have, I could care less if he's fired or retained, but it would be nice to see more people being honest with themselves instead of doubling down on their bullshit.
 

mngg11 said:
Yeah, the instant go to that Johnson had no place ever coaching in the Big Ten because of how inexperienced and awful he is, is extremely inauthentic. The guy can clearly coach and he's led the team to win some games we've had no excuse winning under his tenure or under previous ones. He's wildly inconsistent and is mediocre more often than not, but he's shown he can hang as well as anyone else, including some of the top dogs, in the conference. I don't think he's the guy to get us to the next level or raise the profile of the program, but he's shown the capacity to win at the major level against opponents rated better than ours by most metrics. That's the problem I have, I could care less if he's fired or retained, but it would be nice to see more people being honest with themselves instead of doubling down on their bullshit.
Click to expand...
Haha.
Doubling down on bullshit?
Hahahahaha


He's 22-54 in B1G play, FFS.
He's the worst coach in Gopher history.
 





Dave H said:
Re-read your post...you are talking about the U "building their case". The same U that can barely market themselves out of a paper bag when they have teams that are decent and fans that care is somehow building a case with a media who could care less trying to keep a coach none of the fans want or will pay to go see? And they are apparently so good at it that all the media is eating it up and helping them with their "case". (to believe that is to believe the stupid things Doogie tweets because that is all this stuff is)

You cant have it both ways, either the U is completely inept and so disorganized they can't run an Athletic Department (likely) or they are super genius level shmoozers who would rather lose money as long as they can curry influence with the local media that is dying and a national media that ignores them.

I see this crap all the time all over the place...people who are too invested and way too close to a decision who twist themselves into knots trying to prove that every horse they see is a zebra even though it is just a horse. The U isn't making a case for anything, the media is for their own selfish reasons that aren't even that hard to understand. And when the Gophers are eliminated from the BTT and everyone is ignoring them again the U will almost assuredly fire Johnson and the worry and anxiety will flip to some other version of all of us trying to vent our anxieties and frustrations. (the U will be cheap, the U wont interview the people Seth Davis likes, the media is pushing their guy, Coyle is a moron...etc)
Click to expand...
I think about how many Gopher fans traveled to USC and UCLA for the football games and wonder how well they traveled. Then I read this and just laughed out loud. Dave, I love your stuff but this one got a real guttural laugh.
 

mngg11 said:
That's the problem I have, I could care less if he's fired or retained, but it would be nice to see more people being honest with themselves instead of doubling down on their bullshit.
Click to expand...

Honesty and nuance aren't high valued qualities in environments where attitude and partisanship reign.
 

howeda7 said:
What talent do you expect him to obtain for next year and what does he have to do to earn year 6?
Click to expand...
Can't answer that, I do know that things can change quickly. He may be fired. I also do not hold my hopes high for the next coach to come in and turn thing around right away. And if Johnson was around next year, a winning record in the conference would seem to be a reasonable threshold.
 

WilliamsArenaGuy said:
I actually disagree with this narrative. He put together a bunch of guys who are like 24/25 years old who have been playing college basketball for years and all had some sort of success at the level they played at. I think the whole point in building this roster was to actually have a good team and that the talent isn’t that bad. I think he put this team together to save his job because he thought they would be better than people expected.

They’ve proven that in some of the games they’ve won, which I would say is the most unexpected thing is the winds against Michigan and UCLA, etc. But to me, he’s just proving even more that he’s not the right coach and that he’s not good at it because he couldn’t get any consistency out of these guys and he couldn’t get them to play like this until after halfway through the season.

This leads to the bigger issue that this was a one year deal and it was boom or bust. We’ve busted even with having an all conference player leading the way. So it’s very easy to see that they’re gonna go backwards next season. So he did his best and he tried, but he failed. Now we need to move on with a new coach who knows what he’s doing. First qualification should be that he’s actually been a head coach at a division one level at some point.
Click to expand...
OK, you can disagree with the narrative. And every pre-season Big Ten poll done by anyone had the Gophers picked dead last in the conference-which was with the 24-25 year old players you mentioned. Perhaps you knew something that all those folks who researched the teams didn't know?
 


Formerswish said:
OK, you can disagree with the narrative. And every pre-season Big Ten poll done by anyone had the Gophers picked dead last in the conference-which was with the 24-25 year old players you mentioned. Perhaps you knew something that all those folks who researched the teams didn't know?
Click to expand...
It's year 4 for Ben.

The fact that we were unanimously picked to finish last in the league is his doing, and the result is not some badge of honor that we've cleared an extremely low bar.
 


mngg11 said:
Yeah, the instant go to that Johnson had no place ever coaching in the Big Ten because of how inexperienced and awful he is, is extremely inauthentic. The guy can clearly coach and he's led the team to win some games we've had no excuse winning under his tenure or under previous ones. He's wildly inconsistent and is mediocre more often than not, but he's shown he can hang as well as anyone else, including some of the top dogs, in the conference. I don't think he's the guy to get us to the next level or raise the profile of the program, but he's shown the capacity to win at the major level against opponents rated better than ours by most metrics. That's the problem I have, I could care less if he's fired or retained, but it would be nice to see more people being honest with themselves instead of doubling down on their bullshit.
Click to expand...
I guess it comes down to how you define "he can clearly coach". If the bar was that you expected him to go 0-20 than I guess it's impressive. Sure he "won some games" and even beat a couple ranked teams. Maybe that proves he can clearly coach to you and proves to Seth Davis that he's one of the elite coaches in all of college basketball.

To most of the rest of us, 22-54 and 7-13 in year 4 doesn't prove he can clearly coach. Because you could have hired anyone else off the list of reasonable candidates in 2021 and they almost certainly would have done far better than this.
 

Formerswish said:
OK, you can disagree with the narrative. And every pre-season Big Ten poll done by anyone had the Gophers picked dead last in the conference-which was with the 24-25 year old players you mentioned. Perhaps you knew something that all those folks who researched the teams didn't know?
Click to expand...
Relax. No one knew that they were. Hence, low projections. But they had Garcia and a bunch of veterans. Pretty sure you can see what Ben was attempting to do. Are you arguing that because the team HE put together was picked to finish last and won a few games that he is now a good coach?

The point is either way he failed.
 

howeda7 said:
I guess it comes down to how you define "he can clearly coach". If the bar was that you expected him to go 0-20 than I guess it's impressive. Sure he "won some games" and even beat a couple ranked teams. Maybe that proves he can clearly coach to you and proves to Seth Davis that he's one of the elite coaches in all of college basketball.

To most of the rest of us, 22-54 and 7-13 in year 4 doesn't prove he can clearly coach. Because you could have hired anyone else off the list of reasonable candidates in 2021 and they almost certainly would have done far better than this.
Click to expand...
A few of you keep going back to win/loss records, which I give zero shits about. I'm directing my commentary towards posters who say he's totally incompentent and in over his head, which is bullshit. He'd have zero conference wins to this point if that were the case. He's managed some quality wins at the major college level to this point, indicating a degree of competence beyond terrible. I don't get what some of you can't understand about that. Are you afraid that if you acknowledge that, it torpedoes the entire narrative you've so meticulously hammered on every day for the past four years and will instantly wave the "Ben Johnson will be here next year because I admitted he might be a little better than fucking awful" wand?

Just because social media and 24 hour news networks have brainwashed society to believe you have to be on all of one side or all of another doesn't mean it's right or has to be that way. This board is a microcosm of how busted our society has become. A lot of hardline, unintentionally or willfully ignorant people unable to even consider thinking outside of their box because they're so committed to it that the idea of them being wrong will make irrelevant this online persona they've created.

It's easy to say: Johnson isn't good. Johnson is inconsistent. Johnson shouldn't be retained. But, Johnson has shown he can coach a team of purported scrubs and beat ranked teams with them and get road wins that would be totally out of the question if he was actually unqualified to be a major conference coach.

Or don't, I don't care. I'm just here to watch the goalposts move or see the same "he's got the worst record ever as a bball coach" whenever people's narratives are qualitatively disproven.
 


TwistingMyMelon said:
Honesty and nuance aren't high valued qualities in environments where attitude and partisanship reign.
Click to expand...
We're living in a world where ignorance, stupidity, and edginess are being promoted and encouraged at breakneck speed at the expense of our traditional values. Everyone is running to the fringes and I feel like a lunatic for trying to stay somewhere near the middle.
 


ShushPush said:
I think about how many Gopher fans traveled to USC and UCLA for the football games and wonder how well they traveled. Then I read this and just laughed out loud. Dave, I love your stuff but this one got a real guttural laugh.
Click to expand...
I was at the UCLA game...
 


I was shocked to see all 3 of the top assistant coaches for the Gophers retweeted this Seth Davis tweet. That seems to be in incredibly poor taste to retweet saying the job that is paying your salary is one of the toughest in the country. Minnesota/Mark Coyle gave these guys the biggest checks of their lives AND retained them after 3 years despite a worse B1G record than Todd Lickliter had. Hopefully that means they know they are already gone.

I find it very encouraging that despite a number of local media members following the same talking points, the overwhelming majority of fans responding to their takes are strongly disagreeing with them.
 

EG#9 said:
I was shocked to see all 3 of the top assistant coaches for the Gophers retweeted this Seth Davis tweet. That seems to be in incredibly poor taste to retweet saying the job that is paying your salary is one of the toughest in the country. Minnesota/Mark Coyle gave these guys the biggest checks of their lives AND retained them after 3 years despite a worse B1G record than Todd Lickliter had. Hopefully that means they know they are already gone.

I find it very encouraging that despite a number of local media members following the same talking points, the overwhelming majority of fans responding to their takes are strongly disagreeing with them.
Click to expand...
You have to be right. They wouldn’t be wading into that if they were assured they were returning next year. For the benefit of the doubt we can assume they did to support their boss doing a great job. But I see this as evidence they see the writing on the wall.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom