This isn't going as planned

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cjbfbp said:
I think Pohto put up similar numbers at Sunrise. With some of these national preps you have to adjust your thinking a bit. It's sort of like playing on an all star team. La Lumiere had a higher ranked class of 22 center with many offers on the roster and another center who was listed at 7'3" so Thompson likely didn't get the playing time that he might have somewhere else. Having said that, I don't disagree with your general assessment that he's far from an ideal player to be a starting center in the Big Ten at this point of his career. Johnson did single him out as one of the better players in summer workouts so hopefully that means something beyond just words designed to build his confidence.

I do think Johnson messed up a bit when it came to his recruiting strategy for big men. Perhaps because his targeted guards came pretty quickly, he might have been overconfident about filing in the rest of his roster. He should have followed a similar strategy for big men that he followed for guards (getting productive or players with potential for further improvement from mid-majors) or a strategy of getting backups with potential instead of waiting for Manley or Steffon Mitchell. Neither of those players was likely to come here if they had a pro opportunity or even a better collegiate opportunity. I have been watching big men for months on the transfer portal and I've seen multiple players with potential go to lesser programs. Now the pickings really are pretty slim.
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To be fair he recruited Theo John, Race Thompson, and Rebraca along with other bigs. He just missed on them. I'm still mind-boggled to see what offers Manley and Mitchell will get overseas as I thought the market was dry this year still. Either way that part obviously didn't go as they or many thought.
 

bga1 said:
Pohto was supposed to be a good shooter and passer. He didn't fit? I don't care what your style of play. It's the Big Ten and you better have a few bangers or you will get eaten up. Right now they are projected to be 14th. Would Freeman and Pohto make them 15th? Personally, I liked how Freeman was coming along as a defender and with this staff perhaps being a better teaching staff than Pitino's, maybe there would have been a nice little leap??
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You don't give multiple years to a guy who doesn't fit. If they thought Pohto was a fit, they would've certainly offered him. Especially in today's day in age when you get fired in 4 years if you do bad and you can utilize the transfer portal. Ben chose culture over filling the roster which he has even said in interviews.
 

bga1 said:
I am talking about a rough start for the new staff. To say anything otherwise is spin. All of this can be taken care of with an outstanding recruiting class this fall. But for now, the information we have is not good.

It is obvious that the staff is working hard and has offers out to a lot of players so that is one positive I see right now. Perhaps you have some inside info on how things are shaping up with this team. Do you think they will be better than most here think (really bad)?
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No I have no inside information on how the team will be next year. I do think saying they are going to be the worst team in Gopher history or even worst than last year is a bit premature however.

Gophers teams are kind of hard to predict the last 20 years. Monson projected worst team turned out to be an NCAA tournament team for example. I'll skip over the projected best teams collapses.
 

cjbfbp said:
I think Pohto put up similar numbers at Sunrise. With some of these national preps you have to adjust your thinking a bit. It's sort of like playing on an all star team. La Lumiere had a higher ranked class of 22 center with many offers on the roster and another center who was listed at 7'3" so Thompson likely didn't get the playing time that he might have somewhere else. Having said that, I don't disagree with your general assessment that he's far from an ideal player to be a starting center in the Big Ten at this point of his career. Johnson did single him out as one of the better players in summer workouts so hopefully that means something beyond just words designed to build his confidence.

I do think Johnson messed up a bit when it came to his recruiting strategy for big men. Perhaps because his targeted guards came pretty quickly, he might have been overconfident about filing in the rest of his roster. He should have followed a similar strategy for big men that he followed for guards (getting productive or players with potential for further improvement from mid-majors) or a strategy of getting backups with potential instead of waiting for Manley or Steffon Mitchell. Neither of those players was likely to come here if they had a pro opportunity or even a better collegiate opportunity. I have been watching big men for months on the transfer portal and I've seen multiple players with potential go to lesser programs. Now the pickings really are pretty slim.
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Great point on the prep schools and the numbers. You also want to pay attention to their guards. Treyton would've averaged over 20 ppg in Alexandria, but he got some better development playing against high level players at La Lumiere. Hopefully it will allow him to come in and give 5-10 minutes next year at a minimum.
 

xxxdog said:
Looking at the several new recruit replacements for the Gophers, they also lacked interest by major schools in recruitment....As far as assuming these new players have "Big Ten" ability, it is highly questionable without actually seeing them play against that level of competition......
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Reading posts like this reminds me of how so many people stick to simple rules and assumptions in their thinking regardless of an abundance of easily available empirical evidence refuting those rules and assumptions.

Do I think that power conference schools recruit better players than mid-major schools? On the whole, yes, but there is a fairly high miss rate.

Here are some players of this program who were recruited to a Power Conference team as freshmen: Michael Hurt, Bakary, Gaston, Jarvis Omersa, Josh Martin. None of these players were good enough to play at this level. Josh Martin played for two mid-major teams after transferring and was a below average player for them. Other players like Tre' Williams could play at this level but not particularly well (in the end, I don't think he'll do that well at Oregon State).

Here are some players recruited by the Gophers as mid-major transfers: Joey King, Malik Smith, Reggie Lynch, Akeem Springs, Liam Robbins, Brandon Johnson, Brock Stull, and Alihan Demir. Only Stull was a bust. Alihan was very marginal but he was still better than the players who would have played more in his absence (Hurt, Omersa). The rest ranged from adequate to very good. I would also say that some of these players were better than other players not mentioned previously who recruited here as freshman (for example: Gabe, McBrayer, Washington, and Mashburn).

Coaches understand that there are many mid-major players who would be better than some current power conference players even if that thought isn't registering with fans like you. We certainly are not the only power conference team in the country who has recruited productive mid-major transfers this offseason.
 


alchemy2u said:
Just go back and reread the threads. There was only about 3-4 players that even had a chance of staying. If none of them are fully bought into the new system, then they are better off to going somewhere else. Just because you think a specific recruit is a need doesn’t mean that Ben feels the same way.
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So even if you're right and Ben was only considering 3-4 players from last year's team to stay, then he missed on all except one. I'm not complaining about any specific player, but the percentage is really poor. Of course some are going to leave. Not being able to sell the vision to all except Ihnen is a bad start, I don't know why that's so hard to admit. There are many other first year coaches that retained former talent, EVEN WHILE instilling a new culture and system...amazing!

If you recruit exceptional transfers, its much easier to overlook the mass exodus. I'm not down on the guys Ben has coming in for this season, but outside of Fox they were not widely recruited and there isn't much size. Is that intentional too... for culture reasons?
 

cjbfbp said:
Reading posts like this reminds me of how so many people stick to simple rules and assumptions in their thinking regardless of an abundance of easily available empirical evidence refuting those rules and assumptions.

Do I think that power conference schools recruit better players than mid-major schools? On the whole, yes, but there is a fairly high miss rate.

Here are some players of this program who were recruited to a Power Conference team as freshmen: Michael Hurt, Bakary, Gaston, Jarvis Omersa, Josh Martin. None of these players were good enough to play at this level. Josh Martin played for two mid-major teams after transferring and was a below average player for them. Other players like Tre' Williams could play at this level but not particularly well (in the end, I don't think he'll do that well at Oregon State).

Here are some players recruited by the Gophers as mid-major transfers: Joey King, Malik Smith, Reggie Lynch, Akeem Springs, Liam Robbins, Brandon Johnson, Brock Stull, and Alihan Demir. Only Stull was a bust. Alihan was very marginal but he was still better than the players who would have played more in his absence (Hurt, Omersa). The rest ranged from adequate to very good. I would also say that some of these players were better than other players not mentioned previously who recruited here as freshman (for example: Gabe, McBrayer, Washington, and Mashburn).

Coaches understand that there are many mid-major players who would be better than some current power conference players even if that thought isn't registering with fans like you. We certainly are not the only power conference team in the country who has recruited productive mid-major transfers this offseason.
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Let's go back to that list of Pitino mid major transfers. A lot of good solid players there. Other than Lynch and Robbins, all complimentary guys. Even Lynch and Robbins are not stars, but both real good players. You can recruit guys like this but you a couple that are a notch up for them to play with. I hope we surprise and I like a number of the mid major guys we got. The team lacks Big Ten size and a Big Ten level point guard. They will have to play GREAT defense to compete. I hope they do.
 

ekeg0002 said:
So even if you're right and Ben was only considering 3-4 players from last year's team to stay, then he missed on all except one. I'm not complaining about any specific player, but the percentage is really poor. Of course some are going to leave. Not being able to sell the vision to all except Ihnen is a bad start, I don't know why that's so hard to admit. There are many other first year coaches that retained former talent, EVEN WHILE instilling a new culture and system...amazing!

If you recruit exceptional transfers, its much easier to overlook the mass exodus. I'm not down on the guys Ben has coming in for this season, but outside of Fox they were not widely recruited and there isn't much size. Is that intentional too... for culture reasons?
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Yes- this is correct! And why can't a good coaching staff work on the weak points of some of these guys and make them better (Freeman, Gabe, Mitchell and others) both in terms of team play and individually?
 

bga1 said:
Let's go back to that list of Pitino mid major transfers. A lot of good solid players there. Other than Lynch and Robbins, all complimentary guys. Even Lynch and Robbins are not stars, but both real good players. You can recruit guys like this but you a couple that are a notch up for them to play with. I hope we surprise and I like a number of the mid major guys we got. The team lacks Big Ten size and a Big Ten level point guard. They will have to play GREAT defense to compete. I hope they do.
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I think you are essentially correct in everything you've said although I would say that Lynch was a major impact player on defense (even at this level).

I don't expect this team to be good (very likely to be one of the bottom four in the conference) but it could be better than the total train wreck some people think is inevitable. Yes, there don't appear to be any stars but a couple will emerge as leaders. Generally, I'm a guy who prefers a quality true point guard in the starting lineup but I've seen teams fail with one and teams succeed without one (for example, Fran McCaffrey hasn't had a true starting point guard for about four or five years now). Size is a problem but there is still time to make some improvement anyway to that situation.
 



ekeg0002 said:
So even if you're right and Ben was only considering 3-4 players from last year's team to stay, then he missed on all except one. I'm not complaining about any specific player, but the percentage is really poor. Of course some are going to leave. Not being able to sell the vision to all except Ihnen is a bad start, I don't know why that's so hard to admit. There are many other first year coaches that retained former talent, EVEN WHILE instilling a new culture and system...amazing!

If you recruit exceptional transfers, its much easier to overlook the mass exodus. I'm not down on the guys Ben has coming in for this season, but outside of Fox they were not widely recruited and there isn't much size. Is that intentional too... for culture reasons?
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I agree with what you are saying in principal but I think the free transfer rule has to be taken into account. Look how many players are in the transfer portal this year, the numbers are off the charts. We are not the only school that has seen a mass exodus like this associated with a coaching change but this is not going to be the norm going forward. This is just a really odd year with the transfer portal and the wild west feel to all of it.

In the end it is what it is. This wasn't going to be a great team in 21-22 even if the whole roster had stuck around. Better than what we are most likely looking at.....maybe.....but still a back half of the conference team.

So the malcontents leave, you bring in a bunch of guys that want to be here, and you focus on the future. Sucks for the short term but hopefully works out in the long run.
 

manderson1984 said:
To be fair he recruited Theo John, Race Thompson, and Rebraca along with other bigs. He just missed on them. I'm still mind-boggled to see what offers Manley and Mitchell will get overseas as I thought the market was dry this year still. Either way that part obviously didn't go as they or many thought.
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Yes, but I think Theo John and Race Thompson were never coming to a program like this in its current state. These were big time recruits who were also short-termers. They weren't going to waste their last year with a program in a total rebuild that would give them less exposure than they would get elsewhere.

I think Ben's apparent strategy for recruiting his initial players was the right one: offer productive mid-major players (and one junior college player) with the opportunity to play in a bigger and more competitive conference with more television exposure. He should have stuck to that strategy in recruiting all of his front court players. He pursued that strategy with Rebraca and, although he didn't get him, he came very close (between us and Iowa). That should have been an indication that he had to aim no higher than Rebraca (and probably a little lower) when it came to recruiting bigs. Right now, there are very few available transfer bigs who are even remotely close to Rebraca. There were a couple of remaining junior college bigs who might have helped but even they are gone now.
 

manderson1984 said:
You don't give multiple years to a guy who doesn't fit. If they thought Pohto was a fit, they would've certainly offered him. Especially in today's day in age when you get fired in 4 years if you do bad and you can utilize the transfer portal. Ben chose culture over filling the roster which he has even said in interviews.
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I sure wish there was a concrete definition of the new "culture" Ben is instilling. Hard nosed defense, gritty, and the like dont count.
 

manderson1984 said:
Yeah the Pohto and Freeman love is crazy especially since they don't fit the style of play. If either were good enough, Ben would've recruited them hard instead of ignoring them and letting them leave.
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So, a 6'10" solid framed guy that can rebound DOES not fit the style of play? When is rebounding not included in any style of play? He was a pretty fair defender, as well. (Freeman)

What is the style of play, anyway? I thought I read right here it has not been defined as of yet. Care to fill us in?
 



BarnBurner said:
I sure wish there was a concrete definition of the new "culture" Ben is instilling. Hard nosed defense, gritty, and the like dont count.
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Every single committed player that has interviewed as mentioned it. You can choose to not count those, but gritty is part of it from his end.
 

BarnBurner said:
So, a 6'10" solid framed guy that can rebound DOES not fit the style of play? When is rebounding not included in any style of play? He was a pretty fair defender, as well. (Freeman)

What is the style of play, anyway? I thought I read right here it has not been defined as of yet. Care to fill us in?
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He can rebound?
 

BarnBurner said:
So, a 6'10" solid framed guy that can rebound DOES not fit the style of play? When is rebounding not included in any style of play? He was a pretty fair defender, as well. (Freeman)

What is the style of play, anyway? I thought I read right here it has not been defined as of yet. Care to fill us in?
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With whom Ben is recruiting he wants 5s who are more cerebral and better passers than Freeman. We will play slower and move the ball a lot more. That’s obvious by the roster construction. You and I disagree on Freeman being average on D. Especially guarding ball screens on the perimeter.
 

So even if you're right and Ben was only considering 3-4 players from last year's team to stay, then he missed on all except one. I'm not complaining about any specific player, but the percentage is really poor. Of course some are going to leave. Not being able to sell the vision to all except Ihnen is a bad start, I don't know why that's so hard to admit. There are many other first year coaches that retained former talent, EVEN WHILE instilling a new culture and system...amazing!
ekeg0002 said:
If you recruit exceptional transfers, its much easier to overlook the mass exodus. I'm not down on the guys Ben has coming in for this season, but outside of Fox they were not widely recruited and there isn't much size. Is that intentional too... for culture reasons?
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He didn’t miss on Liam or Gabe - they were gone no matter what. Ihnen stayed. The only possible miss was Johnson and he was not recruited hard by our staff to stay given how he wants to play (perimeter) versus how Ben sees him playing. There is no one else the staff tried to keep.
 

manderson1984 said:
Every single committed player that has interviewed as mentioned it. You can choose to not count those, but gritty is part of it from his end.
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If being gritty is part of it, it is included in the culture of nearly every single coach on the planet.

OK, guarding ball screens was not Freemans strength. Might even be poor at it. I will assess the rebounding of this team during the season, as will others.
 


manderson1984 said:
With whom Ben is recruiting he wants 5s who are more cerebral and better passers than Freeman. We will play slower and move the ball a lot more. That’s obvious by the roster construction. You and I disagree on Freeman being average on D. Especially guarding ball screens on the perimeter.
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So, what is the style of play? You obviously know, so care to share?
 



We can debate how good Freeman was, whether he fit Ben’s plans or not and I think there are fair points on both sides.. However, the reality is we have Curry as our likely starting center right now who was planning on retiring from the sport. In my opinion that means this position was completely mismanaged. Even if this is a rebuilding year it seems inexcusable that we couldn’t find someone big bodied who wanted big ten starting minutes and instead are left with a giant hole at the position. This is high level D1 basketball and the expectation should be to put out as competitive of a roster as possible every year.
 

Johnnyboy18 said:
He can rebound?
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His minutes were very minimal but he did average 9 per 40 played. Not bad. With better coaching and more minutes... who knows? On the current team, Ihnen is a rebounder in space because he is so athletic and Battle appears to be able in that area as well. Yes, I think Freeman could have been a very good rebounder here.
 

No question that opinions can vary on a player's ability. It's very tricky to watch a player who is getting limited minutes, generally in games that have already been decided, and based on that, extrapolate how that player would perform if given more minutes in higher-leverage situations.

don't forget, when the subs are in, they are generally playing against the other team's subs. Assuming Freeman was going to play a larger role, his minutes would have been against the other team's top players. you have to figure that into the equation.

let's just say I do not share the same opinion on Freeman as a player.
 

Northeastgopher said:
We can debate how good Freeman was, whether he fit Ben’s plans or not and I think there are fair points on both sides.. However, the reality is we have Curry as our likely starting center right now who was planning on retiring from the sport. In my opinion that means this position was completely mismanaged. Even if this is a rebuilding year it seems inexcusable that we couldn’t find someone big bodied who wanted big ten starting minutes and instead are left with a giant hole at the position. This is high level D1 basketball and the expectation should be to put out as competitive of a roster as possible every year.
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What's with the obsession with the center position on GH? More than half the teams in the Big Ten started two forwards and didn't start a true center. Ohio State, Wisconsin, Maryland, MSU, Indiana, Penn State, Nebraska, and even Minnesota after Robbins went out.
 

BarnBurner said:
So, what is the style of play? You obviously know, so care to share?
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Offensively the all will move a lot more. I’m guessing their will be a lot of movement off the ball. Guessing their will be plenty of ball screens. We will be playing a slower pace offensively this year for sure.

Defensively we will play man, most like gap coverage. Goal will be to dictate pace. With this group I could see a lot of switching.

Look at our recruiting: Guys like Carrington over Aligbe tell stories. Shooting will be valued more than athleticism. Payne over Lee or Hurlburt show they want gritty and tough over length and potential. Look at the other bigger lead ball guys they just offered. Shows they are good with multiple ball handlers.

There will be no shortcuts with Johnson or Thorson on staff. This staff will not be the used car salesman type. They will build relationships and be closer to Matt Painter vs Pitino. They will develop a style and culture that will be noticeable. You’ll see kids that you will think: That’s a MN type of kid vs just grabbing talent. They will fail doing it this way vs adapting and trying to take shortcuts.
 

cjbfbp said:
Do I think that power conference schools recruit better players than mid-major schools? On the whole, yes, but there is a fairly high miss rate.
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Just go drill down on this point a bit more. What you're saying is true, however, the misses don't really tell the story either. Most seasons, the P5/P6 schools win about 75-80% of their non-conference games and the mid-majors win about 40% of their non-conference games and low majors win fewer.

That said, you do have a point that a known productive low/mid major player will likely be able to contribute (at a minimum) at the higher levels.
 

BarnBurner said:
If being gritty is part of it, it is included in the culture of nearly every single coach on the planet.

OK, guarding ball screens was not Freemans strength. Might even be poor at it. I will assess the rebounding of this team during the season, as will others.
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I get that everyone says it, but then why are some programs better at it than others? Certain people live and breath it. Just watch the type of recruits we have. We will see if they can actually do it
 

short ornery norwegian said:
No question that opinions can vary on a player's ability. It's very tricky to watch a player who is getting limited minutes, generally in games that have already been decided, and based on that, extrapolate how that player would perform if given more minutes in higher-leverage situations.

don't forget, when the subs are in, they are generally playing against the other team's subs. Assuming Freeman was going to play a larger role, his minutes would have been against the other team's top players. you have to figure that into the equation.

let's just say I do not share the same opinion on Freeman as a player.
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Versus what we have...he'd be a welcome addition. We do have Charlie Daniels though...forgot about him. 1 rebound per 5 minutes Perhaps he's on a par with Freeman not sure. He ain't a shooter this much we know. Got more minutes but wasn't on the bench behind Robbins or Oturu either...

SEASON​
TEAM​
G​
MIN​
FG​
FGA​
FG%​
FG3​
FG3A​
FG3%​
FT​
FTA​
FT%​
PTS​
AVG​
CAREER SHOOTING STATS
2019-20​
SF Austin​
29​
408​
46​
84​
54.8​
1​
1​
100​
48​
23​
47.9​
116​
4​
2020-21​
SF Austin​
21​
303​
41​
71​
57.7​
0​
1​
0​
35​
15​
42.9​
97​
4.6​
SEASON​
TEAM​
G​
MIN​
REB​
RAVG​
A​
AAVG​
STL​
SAVG​
BLK​
BAVG​
TO​
MORE STATS
2019-20​
SF Austin​
29​
408​
79​
2.7​
14​
0.5​
14​
0.5​
19​
0.7​
37​
2020-21​
SF Austin​
21​
303​
74​
3.5​
17​
0.8​
11​
0.5​
12​
0.6​
31​
 

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