This isn't going as planned

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builtbadgers said:
Especially when after 8 years your not even at 37 %
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Indeed. I'm surprised, even a little disgusted, that some posters here (albeit a minority) are either second guessing or even complaining about the firing of Pitino in the wake of current developments. Pitino had to go - end of story! Retaining him further would have said a number of things about the program, none of which are good. Bad coaching hires happen all the time throughout most college basketball programs but keeping one of those for up to 10 years or more with $20 million or more in total compensation is simply unacceptable.
 

builtbadgers said:
Especially when after 8 years your not even at 37 %
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I've seen this talking point from you and it is inarguable. However, how do you square this with the fact that Ben was on RP's staff for the majority of those 8 years? None of RP's record falls on Ben?
 

formerlybis said:
I've seen this talking point from you and it is inarguable. However, how do you square this with the fact that Ben was on RP's staff for the majority of those 8 years? None of RP's record falls on Ben?
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To answer the last part, yep, none of RPs W/L record fall on Ben. The head coach is the one tied to W/L record across all sports, not the assistants.
 



Spaulding!No! said:
It’s odd how quiet Barreiro and Reusse and tc media in general are as the u bball program melts down. Maybe Coyle is smarter than we think.
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I've heard Barreiro make a few references to Men's hoops. One day I heard him say that the Gophers might not win a game in the B1G.

I think it has more to do with just how low Gopher Hoops has fallen in relation to other sports. if you listen to talk radio, watch TV, read newspapers, etc, the main topics these days are "Vikings prepare for season," "Twins stink," "Buxton contract?", "Wild off-season moves," "Wolves trade talk/ownership," and maybe a little Gopher FB talk. Gopher Hoops has dropped really low in the pecking order - which is reflected in the attendance at games in recent seasons.

in fact, if the Gophers do have a really bad season, that will probably draw more attention than if they were just having another so-so season.
 

MNVCGUY said:
To answer the last part, yep, none of RPs W/L record fall on Ben. The head coach is the one tied to W/L record across all sports, not the assistants.
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Correct, if you wanted to play that game you could argue that Ben lead to a bunch of his wins because he was the lead recruiter on Murphy, Coffey, and Oturo. The right response seems to be that he gets credit for neither.
 

MNVCGUY said:
To answer the last part, yep, none of RPs W/L record fall on Ben. The head coach is the one tied to W/L record across all sports, not the assistants.
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Of course. What I was implying is that Ben isn't exactly a clean break from the Pitino era. Ben both a) bears at least a portion of the responsibility for the performance of the program, and b) owes a major part of his coaching development to that era and staff. He's part of the Pitino tree.
 

formerlybis said:
Of course. What I was implying is that Ben isn't exactly a clean break from the Pitino era. Ben both a) bears at least a portion of the responsibility for the performance of the program, and b) owes a major part of his coaching development to that era and staff. He's part of the Pitino tree.
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He separated himself from Pitino.
 





Spaulding!No! said:
It’s odd how quiet Barreiro and Reusse and tc media in general are as the u bball program melts down. Maybe Coyle is smarter than we think.
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Maybe it's just too easy now and feels like kicking a horse that's already down.
 





Spaulding!No! said:
The new strib piece Ben admits it hasn’t gone as planned. Oh.
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Ragnor said:
Please share the full quote.
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If it's the piece by fuller "Ben Johnson trying to balance search for players this season..." He talks about having to reevaluate just because of numbers is the quote. "you've got to have depth so you can practice 5 on 5"

Well, Pitino had to deal with injuries and some gave him a pass and some didn't. in the end he got fired for his record.

So sorry Ben, I get it, but at the end of the day is about Wins.

Edit: Fuller also mentions how they are still waiting for their first 22 commit. I find it interesting he felt the need to mention that. Like many on here have mentioned, it is still early in the recruiting period, but to Marcus it was note worthy enough to add it to the piece. Again, just odd he included that.
 

Ragnor said:
Please share the full quote.
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Here are the three quotes in the article:
First quote: "We had to reevaluate just because of numbers," Johnson said Tuesday. "You've got to have depth so you can practice and go 5-on-5."
On Isaiah: "Since I got the job, he did everything right," Johnson said. "He had worked hard to elevate his game and taken great steps in leadership. He was feeling the most confident he ever felt … He's still a huge part of what we're doing. He's going to be around. But I told our guys we have got to be mentally tough and focus on the guys who are ready to roll."
On Recruiting: "When you walk in the gym now it's different," Johnson said. "I kind of see things through a different lens now, but it's all fun. I've enjoyed it. We've been able to get on the road. We were away for a year, so it's good to see these guys live and face to face."

None say what Spaulding claims...shocking.
 

GFBfan said:
Here are the three quotes in the article:
First quote: "We had to reevaluate just because of numbers," Johnson said Tuesday. "You've got to have depth so you can practice and go 5-on-5."
On Isaiah: "Since I got the job, he did everything right," Johnson said. "He had worked hard to elevate his game and taken great steps in leadership. He was feeling the most confident he ever felt … He's still a huge part of what we're doing. He's going to be around. But I told our guys we have got to be mentally tough and focus on the guys who are ready to roll."
On Recruiting: "When you walk in the gym now it's different," Johnson said. "I kind of see things through a different lens now, but it's all fun. I've enjoyed it. We've been able to get on the road. We were away for a year, so it's good to see these guys live and face to face."

None say what Spaulding claims...shocking.
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None?
 

formerlybis said:
Of course. What I was implying is that Ben isn't exactly a clean break from the Pitino era. Ben both a) bears at least a portion of the responsibility for the performance of the program, and b) owes a major part of his coaching development to that era and staff. He's part of the Pitino tree.
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Sure there is a connection to Pitino but not in any way that should follow Ben as he embarks on his head coaching career. Just a footnote from his past as an assistant.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Sure there is a connection to Pitino but not in any way that should follow Ben as he embarks on his head coaching career. Just a footnote from his past as an assistant.
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The Pitino part of his resume isn't much worse than the rest of it though....
 

SanDiegoGopherFan said:
If it's the piece by fuller "Ben Johnson trying to balance search for players this season..." He talks about having to reevaluate just because of numbers is the quote. "you've got to have depth so you can practice 5 on 5"

Well, Pitino had to deal with injuries and some gave him a pass and some didn't. in the end he got fired for his record.

So sorry Ben, I get it, but at the end of the day is about Wins.

Edit: Fuller also mentions how they are still waiting for their first 22 commit. I find it interesting he felt the need to mention that. Like many on here have mentioned, it is still early in the recruiting period, but to Marcus it was note worthy enough to add it to the piece. Again, just odd he included that.
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This can be said about Tubby as well. Can you imagine how Tubby's resume would have looked if Al Nolan never got injured. If Mbakwe didn't get hurt, etc.

For me, with any of our coaches, I will forgive some injuries but if you have a large enough sample (say 8 years), eventually your resume is what your resume is.

If I hired an employee and he/she was late on the first day but they said "the roads were terrible" and it was snowing outside, I would definitely cut that person some slack. If after 8 years, they were failing to perform and one of the reasons was tardiness, I wouldn't look into those excuses. After 8 years, you are what you are.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
This can be said about Tubby as well. Can you imagine how Tubby's resume would have looked if Al Nolan never got injured. If Mbakwe didn't get hurt, etc.

For me, with any of our coaches, I will forgive some injuries but if you have a large enough sample (say 8 years), eventually your resume is what your resume is.

If I hired an employee and he/she was late on the first day but they said "the roads were terrible" and it was snowing outside, I would definitely cut that person some slack. If after 8 years, they were failing to perform and one of the reasons was tardiness, I wouldn't look into those excuses. After 8 years, you are what you are.
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I don't think Ben makes what your average employee makes. Also probably different responsibilities.

My point was that coaches can't control injuries, they can control how they coach their players and how they try to develop them.

RPs biggest fault was he didn't develop his bench. haha, in fact when he was interviewed by some media member in NM and was asked what he would have done differently at MN, his answer was "develop a bench"

So I'm not suggest Ben should be disciplined right now for not having a full healthy squad, rather he can't use injuries as an excuse (unless he gets down to like 6 healthy players or something silly like that). His worth as a coach will be tested when the fans see how he develops his healthy players who might not be as good on paper as the injured ones.
 

SanDiegoGopherFan said:
I don't think Ben makes what your average employee makes. Also probably different responsibilities.

My point was that coaches can't control injuries, they can control how they coach their players and how they try to develop them.

RPs biggest fault was he didn't develop his bench. haha, in fact when he was interviewed by some media member in NM and was asked what he would have done differently at MN, his answer was "develop a bench"

So I'm not suggest Ben should be disciplined right now for not having a full healthy squad, rather he can't use injuries as an excuse (unless he gets down to like 6 healthy players or something silly like that). His worth as a coach will be tested when the fans see how he develops his healthy players who might not be as good on paper as the injured ones.
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Count on Ben having excuses.
 

Spaulding!No! said:
Count on Ben having excuses.
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I do not think Ben will make excuses.All teams have injuries, the best coaches feel for the player but do not bring up injuries as excuses. Colleges and communities each have problems, coaches work to over come them, not making excuses. The worst ones say they are not making excuses and then in the very next sentence make them anyway. Ben and Thorson are not whiners and are modeling the right programs.
 

SanDiegoGopherFan said:
I don't think Ben makes what your average employee makes. Also probably different responsibilities.

My point was that coaches can't control injuries, they can control how they coach their players and how they try to develop them.

RPs biggest fault was he didn't develop his bench. haha, in fact when he was interviewed by some media member in NM and was asked what he would have done differently at MN, his answer was "develop a bench"

So I'm not suggest Ben should be disciplined right now for not having a full healthy squad, rather he can't use injuries as an excuse (unless he gets down to like 6 healthy players or something silly like that). His worth as a coach will be tested when the fans see how he develops his healthy players who might not be as good on paper as the injured ones.
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I don't really see what the difference in salaries has to do with anything, the point I failed at making was spotting a pattern compared to a one-off event.

It's like if a coach has a player get into serious trouble and is kicked off the team, I would cut them some slack. It's hard to put your career in the hands of a bunch of 18-20 year olds and I realize things happen. However, if there is a pattern, I do not cut the coach any slack.

My point is that a really small size (Ben's tenure) can't really be compared against a much larger sample size (RPs). It is prone to aberrations. We'll see if these injuries and lack of depth are an aberration.

I think RP thought his biggest fault was a lack of a bench and it was one of his large faults. I think his biggest fault is that his system wasn't conducive to winning basketball. It relied way too much on hero ball from star players (Carr, Coffey), we dribbled too much, we confused shooting lots of threes with a "modern offense" and never played defense. I think bench guys are the ones that really struggle in bad systems. They need that sort of niche to fill. That's just my two cents on Pitino.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
we confused shooting lots of threes with a "modern offense" and never played defense.
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FYI, the last 5 Gophers' kenpom year-end defensive ratings were (out of roughly 350 teams:

2020-21: 56
2019-20: 41
2018-19: 48
2017-18: 152
2016-17: 22

With the one aberration, those are not bad numbers. The problem comes when you find out that 56th in the country gets you 12th in the B1G. It's just a phenomenally good defensive league.

But all in all, the narrative that they didn't defend is overstated.

For the record, looking at offense, those same ranks were 76, 30, 52, 104, and 77 - slightly worse than the defense.
 

formerlybis said:
FYI, the last 5 Gophers' kenpom year-end defensive ratings were (out of roughly 350 teams:

2020-21: 56
2019-20: 41
2018-19: 48
2017-18: 152
2016-17: 22

With the one aberration, those are not bad numbers. The problem comes when you find out that 56th in the country gets you 12th in the B1G. It's just a phenomenally good defensive league.

But all in all, the narrative that they didn't defend is overstated.

For the record, looking at offense, those same ranks were 76, 30, 52, 104, and 77 - slightly worse than the defense.
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Good post. I've always felt that Pitino's teams were worse offensively than they were defensively. Typically, their defense suffered after they would get worn down and fall behind by a significant margin because they couldn't score enough to keep up.
 

formerlybis said:
FYI, the last 5 Gophers' kenpom year-end defensive ratings were (out of roughly 350 teams:

2020-21: 56
2019-20: 41
2018-19: 48
2017-18: 152
2016-17: 22

With the one aberration, those are not bad numbers. The problem comes when you find out that 56th in the country gets you 12th in the B1G. It's just a phenomenally good defensive league.

But all in all, the narrative that they didn't defend is overstated.

For the record, looking at offense, those same ranks were 76, 30, 52, 104, and 77 - slightly worse than the defense.
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I love KenPom, but you’re right the better comparison is how rank in their conference.
 


manderson1984 said:
I love KenPom, but you’re right the better comparison is how rank in their conference.
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Those 5 years (going backwards from last year), MN was 12th, 11th, 11th, 13th, and 2nd for defense.

FWIW,
-Iowa was 13th, 12th, 14th, 14th, and 14th.
-Michigan was #1 in the league three of those 5 years - all were top 4 in the country. But, the other two years they were bottom half of the league (the other #1s were Rutgers and Wisconsin).
-Purdue is the most consistently good defense, never being lower than #34 nationally. MSU and Wisconsin are pretty consistently good, too, with a couple of top 10 in the country finishes each.
 
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