Souhan: With early results in, let's declare Ben Johnson a winning hire for Gophers; I do not miss Richard Pitino pouty face and childish foot stomps

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BleedGopher

BleedGopher

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per Souhan:

I do not miss Richard Pitino's pouty face and childish foot stamps. Johnson has maintained a cool demeanor that undoubtedly has helped his tossed-salad, no-stars team play well situationally and in the clutch.

Johnson hasn't looked overwhelmed. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Johnson's short tenure has been his assuredness. He is 40 and has never been a head coach before. If you didn't know that, there is no way you would have been able to identify him as a first-year head coach. He has excelled strategically and as a public figure.

Ten games into his tenure, Johnson is 9-1 overall, 1-1 in the Big Ten, 5-0 on the road and 2-1 against likely NCAA tournament teams, having beaten Michigan and Mississippi State and lost a competitive game to Michigan State.

Johnson's early success is a reminder of all that can be wonderful about basketball, that teamwork, hustle, situational play and clutch play can elevate a team beyond modest outside expectations.

Talent makes the game far easier, and elevates a program's ceiling, but games can be won with intelligence, composure and shot-making.

www.startribune.com

Souhan: With early results in, let’s declare Ben Johnson a winning hire for the Gophers

Ben Johnson getting the Minnesota men's basketball coaching job last spring made all kinds of sense. Ten games in, Johnson's team is 9-1 and proving believers correct.
www.startribune.com www.startribune.com

Go Gophers!!
 


I agree that there is nothing positive to miss in Pitino's departure but it's still too early to call Ben a winning hire. The coaches have done well so far and deserve a lot of credit for successfully navigating uncharted waters to date but Pitino looked like a promising new coach after his first year too.
 


mnsportsgeek said:
Even when he says nice things he can't help but sound like an idiot and take stupid digs at former coaches.
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A guy who never should have been hired here managed to make perhaps $15 million over a very mediocre 8 year tenure. Considering the guy has led a charmed life, a few digs shouldn't hurt him so much.
 










I'm going to echo JimmyJames here and I consider myself about as a maroon-shaded glasses wearing optimist as you'll find. I'm ecstatic about the Ben Johnson era thus far. But it's been 10 games. Two Big 10 games have been played. There's been minimal injuries (excluding Fox and Ihnen who we knew were out for the season well in advance of the season starting). We're watching a lovable bunch of overachievers, most of whom will be gone next season.

It's ridiculous for professional columnists/sportswriters to declare this an unmitigated success at this point. Memories are that short? Pitino's first squad with a scrappy collection of juco guys, holdovers, and a senior transfer won the NIT and the base's primary concern was if he would leave to succeed his father at Louisville sooner rather than later. Let's see how the season plays out--10 games in, I'm drinking the Kool-Aid--but I'm a Gopher fan and a MN sports fan, and we all should know to keep a cautious eye on the punchbowl.
 

Clueless Souhan. I'm obviously ecstatic at the start, thus far. But a winning hire is not decided after 10 games.

Need to see a few things to consider it a winning hire:

Great recruiting classes
Finish in top 1/3 of big ten for a few years
NCAA tourney births annually
Consistently beat Wisconsin and Iowa, or hell, even split?

Those would be my goals for Gophers hoops
 



like it or not, we live in a time of instant information and instant reaction. the media is competing for clicks and web hits (and even to sell a few copies of the paper version).

it's all about instant analysis, instant reaction, etc. there is no more "let's wait and see what happens."

it's a duel to see who can have the biggest Hot Take and generate the most responses in the comment section.

to be fair, considering that a lot of people were predicting that the Gophers might not win 9 games all season, a 9-1 start is newsworthy. If the Gophers go 4-17 the rest of the season, the narrative will change just as quickly.
 



coolhandgopher said:
I'm going to echo JimmyJames here and I consider myself about as a maroon-shaded glasses wearing optimist as you'll find. I'm ecstatic about the Ben Johnson era thus far. But it's been 10 games. Two Big 10 games have been played. There's been minimal injuries (excluding Fox and Ihnen who we knew were out for the season well in advance of the season starting). We're watching a lovable bunch of overachievers, most of whom will be gone next season.

It's ridiculous for professional columnists/sportswriters to declare this an unmitigated success at this point. Memories are that short? Pitino's first squad with a scrappy collection of juco guys, holdovers, and a senior transfer won the NIT and the base's primary concern was if he would leave to succeed his father at Louisville sooner rather than later. Let's see how the season plays out--10 games in, I'm drinking the Kool-Aid--but I'm a Gopher fan and a MN sports fan, and we all should know to keep a cautious eye on the punchbowl.
Click to expand...
Minnesota - Where we can't have nice sports things...
 


scubacentral said:
Clueless Souhan. I'm obviously ecstatic at the start, thus far. But a winning hire is not decided after 10 games.

Need to see a few things to consider it a winning hire:

Great recruiting classes
Finish in top 1/3 of big ten for a few years
NCAA tourney births annually
Consistently beat Wisconsin and Iowa, or hell, even split?

Those would be my goals for Gophers hoops
Click to expand...
Other than NCAA tourney births, are these goals the same for you for Gophers football?
 

Gopherhole: Strib hates the Gophers! Especially Souhan!! He never writes anything positive about the U!!!

Souhan writes glowing article about Johnson and Gophers...

Gopherhole: Souhan's a hack! He mentioned Pitino! And IT'S too early to call this a success!!
 




thought Johnson was a grad coach with Pitino but I recall must have been when he was an asset. I remember watching Pitino getting in his face during a time out. The TV announcers, at the time, even mentioned it.
 


short ornery norwegian said:
like it or not, we live in a time of instant information and instant reaction. the media is competing for clicks and web hits (and even to sell a few copies of the paper version).

it's all about instant analysis, instant reaction, etc. there is no more "let's wait and see what happens."

it's a duel to see who can have the biggest Hot Take and generate the most responses in the comment section.

to be fair, considering that a lot of people were predicting that the Gophers might not win 9 games all season, a 9-1 start is newsworthy. If the Gophers go 4-17 the rest of the season, the narrative will change just as quickly.
Click to expand...
Oddly enough had someone told me that this squad might finish 13-18 on the season, I would have been AMAZED! I am the definition of optimist but I did NOT even dream of seeing a 9-1 start with this the small in number and stature roster. I am just enjoying the ride and really enjoying some solid basketball (outside of Corpus!).

Ben and the team certainly deserve our appreciation for what they have done thus far but the accolades should wait until March or April. This is coming from one of Ben's biggest supporters!
 

Surprising start but much too early to declare it a winning hire. However, Ben has had the job for over 6 months and I don't recall any blunders. Urban Meyer was on the job less than a week and made headlines hiring a very controversial strength coach who was forced to resign because Urban didn't exhibit the common sense to fire him.
The signs are exciting that Ben is going to do well.
 

PMWinSTP said:
Other than NCAA tourney births, are these goals the same for you for Gophers football?
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I would say that they are for me.

Great recruiting classes- Yes please.
Finish in top 1/3 of big ten for a few years- You betcha. Being in the top 5 in the conference assumes that they are battling for and occasionally winning the West.
NCAA tourney births annually- The equivalent of a bowl game every year.
Consistently beat Wisconsin and Iowa, or hell, even split?- A regular split with Badgers and Hawkeyes would be great in football... the rivalries have been far too one-sided recently.
 

BleedGopher said:
per Souhan:

I do not miss Richard Pitino's pouty face and childish foot stamps. Johnson has maintained a cool demeanor that undoubtedly has helped his tossed-salad, no-stars team play well situationally and in the clutch.
Click to expand...

I'm totally onboard with getting away from yelling, verbal abuse, and excessive anger as just being a normal, accepted part of sports culture, but I really doubt anyone would have cared that much if Pitino were winning more. Do Bo Ryan, Tom Izzo, or Coach K get criticized for this? Yelling at players, coaches, and officials isn't just a Pitino thing. There's probably tons of middle and high school coaches across the country who scream at and berate literal teenagers, because getting absolutely furious at someone for making a mistake or not doing exactly what you tell them to is considered an accepted form of discipline for sports coaches. If Ben Johnson wants to play it cool and give players thoughtful, level-headed criticism in games and practices instead of screaming until he's red in the face, I'm all in favor of that. But if you don't like coaches getting overcome with rage and emotion in games, then there's like 100 other coaches you could criticize in addition to Pitino. If Pitino had won more games, no one would care about his "pouty face and childish foot stamps," same as the rental car gas tank. If you don't care about it when the team is winning, why pretend to care about it when the team is losing? Comes off to me like having an axe to grind instead of coming from a place of objectivity and reason.

I also feel like I remember Tubby getting criticized for not showing enough emotion, sitting on his stool and calmly staring, when he could have been giving an official an earful and making sure that that shitty call doesn't get made again. I even saw at least one person on Twitter saying he'd wished Ben Johnson would have gotten himself a technical after Luke Loewe hit the deck against Michigan State with no call. "Stand up for your players!"

BleedGopher said:
Ten games into his tenure, Johnson is 9-1 overall, 1-1 in the Big Ten, 5-0 on the road and 2-1 against likely NCAA tournament teams, having beaten Michigan and Mississippi State and lost a competitive game to Michigan State.

Johnson's early success is a reminder of all that can be wonderful about basketball, that teamwork, hustle, situational play and clutch play can elevate a team beyond modest outside expectations.

Talent makes the game far easier, and elevates a program's ceiling, but games can be won with intelligence, composure and shot-making.

Go Gophers!!
Click to expand...

This has led me even more to believe that recruiting was overblown as a reason for why Pitino couldn't get over the hump. There's no Marcus Carr or Liam Robbins or Amir Coffey or Jordan Murphy on this team, granted Battle and Willis have both been pretty great. It feels like just kind of having more of a plan on offense, taking care of the ball, and maybe some better shooting too, has gotten us quite a ways so far. We're doing this without locally grown NBA level talent. Small sample size of course, 10 games, most of which are against mid- and low-majors, but this level of recruiting is sustainable. A few upperclassmen, or a stud underclassman, who can average double digit scoring is reproducible, and doesn't necessarily require pulling in a top 50 recruit every year or two. Of course arguably, bringing in local blue chip recruits is why Johnson was hired in the first place, so hopefully he can get us there and maybe we'll really be off to the races.
 


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