This roster is not bad

[Dave H]

Other than Garcia, this roster is full of developmental type players. Said that, Garcia needs to improve his strength and be a stronger rim protector/boards as he takes on some mature BIG's. We all know that Payne has shown the most but has lots of work to do to become a top BIG 5. These two have to have lead the way and play like all BIG performers. If not, Ben will have another bottom of the BIG squad.

The rest of the team? Who knows who will earn the starting roles and major PT. Everyone knows we need PG's that can compete in the BIG. I believe there is enough potential to make this bunch competitive. If that potential transfers to the floor, then I can see a mid conference finish.

IMO, considering all the negatives surrounding the program, Ben has done a very good job of recruiting; Christie, (Evans) and Asuma are all valued recruits. Garcia ended up in MN by default or maybe he really wanted to play for Ben. Payton and Battle were very good additions.

Those who want Ben gone now need to think this through. What established HC would come here considering the Gophers meager NIL status and huge uphill struggle plus put the time in to get the program competitive? And consider the approach the MN Admin took with the past two hires. Or we take a flyer on another bargain basement newbie?

I was totally surprised when Ben was named our HC but that is what he is. Ben has many positives and yes, areas where he must improve which sometimes drives me up a wall. But I fully support his efforts as our HC.

I see so because you think the school is some place no one would want to coach at we should just assume whatever this season is is now our new normal and embrace it? That is what this posty sounds like.

Ben is the coach so he has my support. This roster doesn't give me much hope though he will do well enough to prove my doubts wrong and that means a coaching search is mere months away whether you like it or not.

I get that people are putting on the maroon colored glasses and pretending this offseason hasn't been a disaster and that is fine. When the season comes I will do the same thing and pray they surprise us all. But you guys dont get to have it both ways. When some of us were concerned about the roster all you were saying (not you specifically but people like bga and MNVC) was how we would get better in the portal. Then the early portal targets went elsewhere and when some of us were posting concerns (and by that I dont mean the people who were jumping off cliffs in anger or going off on huge rants about Ben) that now we are going after players that seem like minor upgrades at best we were told they have skills and they will help fill out a roster that badly needs it and they will come here because we have the minutes and we are a Big Ten School. Now none of them came and we are supposed to believe that the roster as constructed, the one all of you were telling us Ben would make better than it was (and none of you were pretending it was good enough even 2 weeks ago) is now good enough to make a little noise? Based on what? 2 guys who havent played in two years suddenly playing a full season? Freshmen playing above their level? Massive jumps from players based on...reasons? There is drinking the kool aid and there is outright denial and you guys are grasping at straws that dont exist.

Believe me I hope I am wrong, but there is no way any of you thought this roster was good enough before our latest two targets said no. We need only go back to the portal thread and see that for ourselves. I am all for going into full on cope mode to try and survive what will like be a very ugly Big Ten season (Non-Con could be good maybe...hopefully) but lets not pretend that this right now doesn't look extremely bad. No one, and I mean no one, that is in the Big Ten is looking at this roster and thinking "damn I don't want to play those guys!" and you all know it. Now maybe they will surprise, maybe total will be greater than the sum of its parts and I will come back and eat all of the crow. (GLADLY!) Maybe this is one of those situations where the coach just needed the perfect roster to implement his plan. If so awesome it will be an epic moment and Ben will keep his job and the Gophers will be better for all of it. But lets not pretend any of you would bet your mortgage the Gophers will any better than they were last year.

 

[golfing18now]

I am one of the old guys. Yes- I want to see something NOW! That said- I don't want to see us go into another 3 year abyss by making another change (that's what will happen- guys will leave and we are in start over mode again). If Ben doesn't get at least 7-8 wins- then that's it- he should be fired in my view. Until then he is going to need every ounce of fan support he can get and I am tired of thinking about the downside- at least for this summer!

Beyond the obvious need for dramatic improvement from Payne/Carrington/JOJ in year two and healthy years for Garcia and Mitchell (very precarious if one of them goes down), this team still needs to improve dramatically in three areas. Each of which admittedly I'm not very optimistic.

1. Defense. We haven't seen anything resembling a top flight defense in these two years. I'm not talking about a butt slap counter or somebody flailing out of bounds after a loose ball. Citing those things as meaningful is a loser's mentality. Every team does that. Shut somebody down every once in a while. You don't need the best talent to be the best defense. See Rutgers.

2. Bench. Right now we have more question marks on our bench than likely every team but one or two in our conference. We have no idea if Ihnen/Fox/Betts/Christie/Wilson can provide meaningful minutes. We have seen what a short bench has done to this team, particularly in year one. Any foul trouble or injuries and yikes. At least two of these guys will need to surprise and be viable options.

3. Overall must be better than the sum of its parts. Ben Johnson hasn't proven to me that he has the chops to outcoach his contemporaries in this league. We won't often out-talent teams but can we out-coach them? This was my main concern with the hire in the first place and remains so.

I appreciate your optimism. No reason to wallow in misery all summer long. I won't. But it's hard to see our way out of the Weakling Wednesday box for me at the moment.

 

[Dave H]

Great post. You are thinking beyond the moment, which most posters here refuse to do. I thought we shouldn't have hired Ben and I said so. However, I agree with you on the recruiting. It has been pretty decent considering the situation. People here are not considering that hiring a new coach in this free agency world means another 3 year meltdown- unless you can get a really high end guy.

Some will say that Otz did it at Iowa State- but their fan base and program were not in near as bad of shape as ours was. The atmosphere there and the student support is a really nice selling point for them. Ours was a major dig out job and we hired a rookie to do it.

You are basically saying you are willing to stick it out with a bad coach in the midst of a 3 year (that likely will turn into a 6 if we keep him that long) meltdown of historic proportions to avoid a possible 3 year meltdown with a new coach that isn't even guaranteed?

I am not a fan of coaching carousels which was one of the reasons I actually defended the BJ hire after it happened but you dont keep an overmatched and out of his depth coach around just because you are scared of the unknown.

 

[Dave H]

Yep, summer is when fans are supposed to have hope....but we have some in here that are so beaten down they can't even allow for the possibility that anything good could happen.

No offense, because we agree more often than we don't, but you are just the counterpoint to that negativity and that is no better. Objective optimism isn't going to make anything better. After every bit of bad news you and a few others keep saying "there is a lot of unknowns and there is still more players to try and get and if we can just get [insert position or player here] then maybe we can hit the ground running!" and so on. Then we don't, the negative people repeat themselves and so do you.

Then there are some of us just looking for any sort of ray of light. We aren't overtly negative, we just know the team as is is totally flawed and we have a coach who is so green he has no idea what to with it. We are willing to hear about how some guard from some school none of us has ever heard of might be a missing piece (even if we doubt it) and because of our NIL weakness or whatever other mitigating factor you all say is holding us back that is the best we can do...but when those players dont even come in we arent just gonna hold hands and sing kumbaya around the fire and pretend this roster is good enough. This roster is a coach killer. You can tell because even the people desperately trying to find a way it is better than it shows are stretched thin for their spin.

Its ok to admit the truth. No one is going to accuse you of not being a true fan because you say a roster lacking in talent is lacking in talent. There is a lot of copium going around and I have been around too long to not call a spade a spade. This sounds just like the same rhetoric we heard at the end of the Brewster regime. (he will improve as a coach, who will want to come here into this awful situation, the roster is better than we think!!1!1)

Be objective, take off your fandom hat and just analyze the roster as is. How many wins (again objectively) would you guess this team gets in the Big Ten? Who would you pick them to be higher than in the standings on the last day of the season?

We all want the Gophers to be great. (even the most negative annoying people here) Some of us just don't move the goalposts to make things better on our hearts and souls. I will do that come the season, but for now I am stuck in realism mode.

 

[bga1]

You are basically saying you are willing to stick it out with a bad coach in the midst of a 3 year (that likely will turn into a 6 if we keep him that long) meltdown of historic proportions to avoid a possible 3 year meltdown with a new coach that isn't even guaranteed?

I am not a fan of coaching carousels which was one of the reasons I actually defended the BJ hire after it happened but you dont keep an overmatched and out of his depth coach around just because you are scared of the unknown.

No. If you read what I said- he has to be fired if he doesn’t make significant progress this year.

 

[Mulligan]

How are you certain that will happen because that's what happened with Ben? If we hire a competent coach, odds are we'll be better in year 1 of that tenure, than what we will be this upcoming season. It's never been easier to turn it around quickly. There's been numerous examples of it in the last 3/4 years.

You can't be certain, but I would say the odds are with bga1 rather than with you. Money is the first thing that comes to mind. Buyout cost, needed salary to attract a difference maker, you're already shelling out for a fired BB coach, and, of course, there's NIL. Then there is Williams Arena. The Barn is loved by many of us, but I'd guess it has cost the U more recruits than it has attracted. And, like it or not, there is the politics and the culture. You are directly competing against 2 professional teams that play at the same time that you do; and you have a Viking team that sucks an awful lot of the attention up all year around.

Minnesotans, in general, love the U and support it. But there is simply not the passion to do whatever it takes. GH is an anomaly where the fervent go, but it's not reflective of the state as a whole. No amount of arguing and gnashing of teeth and snarky comments about Johnson on GH is going to change that.

I've been a Gopher fan since the early 1960's and would love nothing better than to see this thing get turned around, but I also know the odds.

 

[Crappie]

Would feel better with one more proven ball handler in the mix but agree that fully healthy this roster has some potential.

Lots of unknowns heading into the season so impossible to know what the end result will be. Will probably need almost everything to break right in order to see any sort of significant improvement (Mitchell being an upgrade over Cooper, the sophomores continuing their development, Fox/Ihnen healthy and in the mix, and the wildcards of Betts/Christie able to contribute as well). That is a lot to ask but contrary to what some around here want to believe it isn't impossible.

Unlikely, just not impossible.

 

[RockChalk]

All about injuries now whether we are competitive or stink it up. We need our depth as depth and not starters.

I would disagree that injuries causing the Gopher to be uncompetitive will be the sole contributing factor. We still need a coach who can coach players to make them better.

 

[formerlybis]

No. If you read what I said- he has to be fired if he doesn’t make significant progress this year.

Perhaps the worst thing that could happen is a 12th place, 6-14 finish. That puts the program in limbo-land. Worse than that, it's obvious what should happen. Better than that is kinda obvious, too.

 

[howeda7]

Yes, this is a bad roster. For me it's pretty simple. This team was God awful last year and currently the roster is worse than it was at the end of last year. That equals a bad roster and does not inspire hope.

Sure IF Payne is an all B1G and player AND Garcia is an all B1G player AND Christie is B1G freshman of the year AND Mitchell is 2014 Deandre Matheiu than this team could sniff a tournament bid. But all or even 3 of those things happening is unlikely.

 

[RockChalk]

Without good coaching, potential in a roster is meaningless.

I dont feel Ive seen good coaching the last 2 seasons.

100%

I'm not sure Ben could take the worst NBA team and make it a middle of the pack big 10 team.

 

[Some guy]

For me it's pretty simple. This team was God awful last year and currently the roster is worse than it was at the end of last year. That does not inspire hope.

Sure IF Payne is an all B1G and player AND Garcia is an all B1G player AND Christie is B1G freshman of the year AND Mitchell is 2014 Deandre Matheiu than this team could sniff a tournament bid. But all or even 3 of those things happening is unlikely.

There is greater chance that none of those 3 things happening than 2 or 3 of those 3 things happening.

 

[Gophers_4life]

Mitchell...... Hoping for an upgrade to Cooper in terms of running the office and getting up court with pace

 

[bga1]

 

[bga1]

Yes, this is a bad roster. For me it's pretty simple. This team was God awful last year and currently the roster is worse than it was at the end of last year. That equals a bad roster and does not inspire hope.

Sure IF Payne is an all B1G and player AND Garcia is an all B1G player AND Christie is B1G freshman of the year AND Mitchell is 2014 Deandre Matheiu than this team could sniff a tournament bid. But all or even 3 of those things happening is unlikely.

Do you read your own posts? If we ended up with Payne and Garcia both all big ten and Christie is all Big Ten frosh and Mitchell is DeAndre Mathieu we'd be top 4 in the conference- no doubt. But I am not stipulating that anything close to that happens.

 

[howeda7]

Do you read your own posts? If we ended up with Payne and Garcia both all big ten and Christie is all Big Ten frosh and Mitchell is DeAndre Mathieu we'd be top 4 in the conference- no doubt. But I am not stipulating that anything close to that happens.

It's a bad roster on paper. If all you're stipulating is that if several players outperform expectations it won't be, then sure. But every bad team ever clings to this hope.

You said you expect Payne and Garcia to be in mix for all B1G. That's certainly possible but it's not likely.

 

[Crappie]

There is greater chance that none of those 3 things happening than 2 or 3 of those 3 things happening.

Negative, negative, negative......

 

[bga1]

It's a bad roster on paper. If all you're stipulating is that if several players outperform expectations it won't be, then sure. But every bad team ever clings to this hope.

You said you expect Payne and Garcia to be in mix for all B1G. That's certainly possible but it's not likely.

Well- since Garcia was already all Big Ten third team this year- I think it is likely. I also think Payne is logically on that track. That said it is the guard play that has to take the leap. From positions 1-3 this past year it just wasn't very good. Each player had their moments but as a group the play was way too weak. We got a little bit better guard play the last few weeks as Henley got better and we won a couple of games because of it.

 

[Tucker32]

This thread seems like such a strange thing to be talking about at this point in the year. Those of you who want Ben fired, it's not going to happen prior to the coming year. What's the point in debating that? I have struggled with a lot of Ben's first two years, but as a fan I would love to see the team do really well this year. If it does, great, there is hope. If it doesn't, then Ben probably won't be here. At this point all you can do is let it play out.

Debate Williams Arena if you want (which when you know recruits they don't dislike and many really like - they are much more concerned about practice facilities where they spend the majority of their time, which they love) or NIL, but talking about if Ben should be fired now - I don't get it.

 

[bga1]

Perhaps the worst thing that could happen is a 12th place, 6-14 finish. That puts the program in limbo-land. Worse than that, it's obvious what should happen. Better than that is kinda obvious, too.

I think you have to fire at 6 wins. Six wins probably means that the second half of the season offered no hope for an NCAA bid. This next season he has to have people believing that we have a sniff at it and that the talent is coming together. Really, this is by far the best shape his roster has been in coming into the year assuming everyone is healthy this fall.

His first year, I looked at the roster and wasn't sure he could win 5 games including the non conference games. This roster is far better than that one. This past year looked much better than the previous until Fox and Ihnen went down.

 

[bga1]

This thread seems like such a strange thing to be talking about at this point in the year. Those of you who want Ben fired, it's not going to happen prior to the coming year. What's the point in debating that? I have struggled with a lot of Ben's first two years, but as a fan I would love to see the team do really well this year. If it does, great, there is hope. If it doesn't, then Ben probably won't be here. At this point all you can do is let it play out.

Debate Williams Arena if you want (which when you know recruits they don't dislike and many really like - they are much more concerned about practice facilities where they spend the majority of their time, which they love) or NIL, but talking about if Ben should be fired now - I don't get it.

Everyone thinks that the coach is a panacea. So at the first sign of trouble they think- we'll start winning if we fire the coach. If Ben wins 6 games or less- you gotta fire him. If he wins more than that (7 is a close call) then you have to consider that everyone is going to the portal and you are starting over again hoping to pay players more than the competition to come here to play for the third coach in 4 years. What makes ANYONE think that we are going to grab a home run coach? I don't believe that one for a second.

There is another data point that will tell us whether Ben remains if the result next year is borderline....
the fall signings. If he gets a good class to add to Asuma, that also aids his cause.

 

[Crappie]

This thread seems like such a strange thing to be talking about at this point in the year. Those of you who want Ben fired, it's not going to happen prior to the coming year. What's the point in debating that? I have struggled with a lot of Ben's first two years, but as a fan I would love to see the team do really well this year. If it does, great, there is hope. If it doesn't, then Ben probably won't be here. At this point all you can do is let it play out.

Debate Williams Arena if you want (which when you know recruits they don't dislike and many really like - they are much more concerned about practice facilities where they spend the majority of their time, which they love) or NIL, but talking about if Ben should be fired now - I don't get it.

That's the thing - very, very few are calling for a firing now or prior to the end of next season. It's just not happening much at all.

Debating the roster - fair game. Debating the coaching the past two season - fair game.

The strange thing to me is banking/thinking on freshmen and II and Fox to really contribute a lot. Could it happen? Of course. Would love to see II play well, and for Fox to be healthy and ready to roll.

There is still talk of II playing the 2 - effectively. I could certainly be waaaaaay off, i just dont see it.

 

[jovs]

Even with ihnen and Fox out for the year I didn't think they were that far off last year. Garcia was injured early and wasn't at full strength until midway through the year. Battle and Carrington were injured a good part of B1G season. Even with all that they were competitive the last few weeks of the season.

I think Carrington and Payne make big jumps next year. Hopefully Mitchell can come in and shine at PG. If Ihnen can come back and play the 3 the lineup is not half bad. They really need at least one more guard though. Injuries will kill any chances.

 

[CentralGopher]

You can hope in one hand and poop in the other and see which one fills up first. As incredibly thin as this roster is right now if someone gets hurt it could get ugly quick. I certainly wouldn’t be one to say let’s give Ben another year to see what the next year looks like with a healthy roster because it is on him to recruit adequate depth.

 

[Bayfieldgopher]

How are you certain that will happen because that's what happened with Ben? If we hire a competent coach, odds are we'll be better in year 1 of that tenure, than what we will be this upcoming season. It's never been easier to turn it around quickly. There's been numerous examples of it in the last 3/4 years.

I would love to see a poll of "competent coach(s)" who rank the BIG teams in order from top to bottom where they would go to be the HC.

Curious where you would rank the Gophers.

Curious as to what others think as well..

 

[MNVCGUY]

Be objective, take off your fandom hat and just analyze the roster as is. How many wins (again objectively) would you guess this team gets in the Big Ten? Who would you pick them to be higher than in the standings on the last day of the season?

We all want the Gophers to be great. (even the most negative annoying people here) Some of us just don't move the goalposts to make things better on our hearts and souls. I will do that come the season, but for now I am stuck in realism mode.

I have no clue how many games the Gophers are going to win in the Big Ten this year, because I haven't seen our final roster, the final roster of any of the other teams in the conference and most importantly I haven't seen any of these teams on the court in 23-24. I don't make preseason predictions because I know that I don't have the foggiest idea how it all going to play out. If I did I would be living in Vegas and making a fortune in gambling.

We 100% may suck again....and if we do we will almost certainly be looking for a new head coach. But I refuse to write the team off before they even play a single game.

The term reality keeps getting tossed around. The reality is that none of us have ever seen Mitchell, Fox, Christie, Betts, and Wilson play a single minute for the Gophers and it has been 2 years since Ihnen was in a game. So while it is easy to assume all will suck the simple fact of the matter is that none of us knows what those players are going to bring to the table in 23-24.

 

[howeda7]

This thread seems like such a strange thing to be talking about at this point in the year. Those of you who want Ben fired, it's not going to happen prior to the coming year. What's the point in debating that? I have struggled with a lot of Ben's first two years, but as a fan I would love to see the team do really well this year. If it does, great, there is hope. If it doesn't, then Ben probably won't be here. At this point all you can do is let it play out.

Debate Williams Arena if you want (which when you know recruits they don't dislike and many really like - they are much more concerned about practice facilities where they spend the majority of their time, which they love) or NIL, but talking about if Ben should be fired now - I don't get it.

No one is saying he should be fired now. He should have been fired in March but that ship has sailed. That doesn't mean we all have to smoke a pile of hopium and try to convince ourselves this roster is fine. They desperately needed a starting 2 guard and a backup PG from the portal to have a chance to be decent and so far have totally whiffed on both.

The portal recruiting period has been a failure so far and that's the main reason folks like Beeg argued to give him another year. Now we're down to claiming it's pretty good as is if your squint really hard and ignore the rust.

 

[GopherTheJugular]

You can't be certain, but I would say the odds are with bga1 rather than with you. Money is the first thing that comes to mind. Buyout cost, needed salary to attract a difference maker, you're already shelling out for a fired BB coach, and, of course, there's NIL. Then there is Williams Arena. The Barn is loved by many of us, but I'd guess it has cost the U more recruits than it has attracted. And, like it or not, there is the politics and the culture. You are directly competing against 2 professional teams that play at the same time that you do; and you have a Viking team that sucks an awful lot of the attention up all year around.

Minnesotans, in general, love the U and support it. But there is simply not the passion to do whatever it takes. GH is an anomaly where the fervent go, but it's not reflective of the state as a whole. No amount of arguing and gnashing of teeth and snarky comments about Johnson on GH is going to change that.

I've been a Gopher fan since the early 1960's and would love nothing better than to see this thing get turned around, but I also know the odds.

I'm not sure you really responded to @Gophers7633 . He mentioned hiring a "competent" head coach as a means to prevent the roster churn that bga was predicting.

Your post is more about buyout (nothing to do with existing players leaving/staying), salary for a new coach (again, not related to players staying/leaving), and you talk about what recruits might think of the barn, which again, isn't related to players staying/leaving.

You mentioned NIL, and that is the one thing that affects players staying/leaving, but that's an issue even if we keep Ben.

Sounds like you just didn't like @Gophers7633 post?

 

[Dakota2]

I think a lot of posters think beyond the moment, and aren't seeing much of anything that will improve the situation beyond what it is now.

The problem for me and I suspect a lot of other old guys here is that in the brave new world of college basketball, there almost has to be something "in the moment now" that gives us reason to have any confidence at all down the road. Even with the decent recruiting you cite, the risk of rosters emptying in the portal is so high that it feels just short of a fools errand to think it will get much better.

Talent aside, the most discouraging thing for me this year was the poor defense and disorganized offense on the floor. That has my knees knocking about whether the current staff has what it takes to coach up less talented guys into better performers and have the whole be more than the sum of the parts. I'm just not seeing it, and that is absolutely what this program needs.

I appreciate the "he's not going anywhere now, so make the best of it" approach. I put myself in that cluster, but it is totally reasonable to see this going nowhere, and making any leadership transition that much more difficult next year. I'm grateful to read a little mostly reasoned optimism (and it is much better than its cranky campaigning counterpart), but I just don't share it. I want to be proven wrong.

A lot of the disorganized offense was do to Battle's selfish play. There is no ball movement when one guy is forcing long threes early in the clock. That is effectively a turnover.

 

[Dakota2]

Yep, summer is when fans are supposed to have hope....but we have some in here that are so beaten down they can't even allow for the possibility that anything good could happen.

Plenty would rather be proved right than see an improved team.