This isn't going as planned

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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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so weird that the B1G does so bad in the tourney
 

formerlybis said:
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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Beilein recognized that defense was a weakness and hired a young coach who had moved up from high school coach to assistant at Illinois State before moving up to Michigan. Luke Yaklich made a huge positive impact on Michigan's defense 2017-19.
 





MennoSota said:
It's clear that Mark, the snake, Coyle is working to eliminate men's basketball from the budget. With the age of student athletes making money off sponsorship it's clear that UMN cannot compete and cannot succeed. The Regents should begin the demolition of Williams Arena as well as Huntington Bank Stadium. They will then replace these sites with a Black Lives Matter Art Park that will attract millions to the area and fill up the coffers as UMN becomes the reigning champion in protest art competitions. Minnesota will reign supreme as the Comrade Center of North America and will switch its colors from Maroon to communist Red.
Go Gophers!
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Any additional “sports insight” u care to share with the board?
 









Wally said:
The only real question is, why does he watch sports?



I think you meant New York is very scary....if you're tiny...
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What’s that little pizza place called that’s across from msg (more than one I know). It has one of the best slices according to Slice Harvester. Damn good slice. I always snag one. Can’t remember the name at the moment
 






Some guy said:
I don’t think I agree with the assessment the big ten does bad in the tourney. A TON of sweet 16 teams.

in the last 25 years 8 different programs in final 4


just one national title. But that doesn’t mean you did bad in the tourney.
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Do you really think that was the reason the thread was bumped? To discuss how the Big Ten does in the tourney? Really?
 


fan of Ray Williams said:
Do you really think that was the reason the thread was bumped? To discuss how the Big Ten does in the tourney? Really?
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No idea why it was bumped I haven’t read the whole thread. Based on your response I’m going to guess no
 

ethomasp31 said:
I have no idea how old you are or how long you have been a fan....but we haven't watched Ben Johnson coach a game yet and already we have some fans in here predicting a historically bad Gopher team. Growing up in Minnesota, my favorite sports teams were the Vikings, Twins and the Gopher basketball team. My first Gophers basketball game was in 76 against Indiana. Mychal Thompson wore bells on his shoes and I thought it was the coolest thing. We lost that game, but I was pretty hooked. Back then most of the games seemed like they were on Saturdays and Mondays and I remember checking the Minneapolis Star every day to see the updated Big 10 Standings. I can almost still smell the newsprint.

In Dutcher's last year I was a freshmen in college (Luther). We hired Clem Haskins and it was pretty much a total rebuild. I think his first two seasons we won 4 or 5 conference games total. At Luther we watched a lot of college basketball. In those years Iowa and Illinois were loaded....and at the beginning of Haskins tenure with the Gophers we were bad.

In Haskin's third year, ons of my friends invited my over to watch the Gopher game before we went downtown Decorah. I asked why he wanted to watch the Gophers so badly as it was early in the season, and he told me that they were actually looking pretty good. You know what....they were pretty good. My friend and I drove up during that winter to watch the Gophers play and the Barn was rocking. We sat under a staircase with our backs against the hockey arena. Our seats were definitely obstructed. My friend and I still go to high school basketball games in southern Minnesota quite often to this day.

The Gophers did turn out to be pretty good that year. They made it to the Sweet 16, losing to Duke in Christian Laettner's freshmen year. The next year they lost in the Elite Eight to Georgia Tech. A few years after that Haskins took them to the Final 4.

Now I don't know if Ben Johnson will be nearly as successful as Clem Haskins was....but the point is neither does anyone else on this message board. For four months the same people have been whining and complaining about the coaching hire. They have already declared Johnson a failed coach before we have even watched a game. I think the point that some of us are making is why can't we wait and see how the team plays? Why can't we wait and see how the 2022 and 2023 recruiting classes look?
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Bump
 


Some guy said:
No idea why it was bumped I haven’t read the whole thread. Based on your response I’m going to guess no
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Its a thread whining about the players leaving and the lack of talent coming in.
 




I wanna hear more from EG #9.

If I recall correctly, the compliments were minimal after we beat Miss St.

After the MSU loss, he said there was no respect in cutting a lead from 19 to 6 - even against a conference contender.

So what say he after we won at Crisler for the first time in 10 years against a Michigan team that is nearly certainly a tourney team and likely a Top 6 conference team?
 

Just listened to the Ben with Barreiro interview, he's not a flash and sizzle guy like the extroverted Fleck but is very good at articulating his vision and breaking down the in-game tactics. As Ben recruits a higher caliber of HS/transfer player I hope he keeps an eye to system fit because he clearly has put an impressive puzzle together with the players he brought in.
 
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