U of M Coaches Poll - who's the worst?

Which Gopher Coach was the worst?

  • 1992 - 1996 Jim Wacker - 16-39 (.291)

    Votes: 12 17.6%

  • 2007 - 2010 Tim Brewster - 15 - 30 (.333)

    Votes: 13 19.1%

  • 2021 - now Ben Johnson - 24 - 39 (.381)

    Votes: 43 63.2%
  • Total voters
    68
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Is Ben Johnson the worst U of M coach? Maybe, maybe not.
 


That's a fascinating question, but the winning percentages are skewed a bit in favor of CBJ since a little less than half his games are cupcakes in nonconference. To get a true comp, you need to just put up BT records.

Either way, I picked Johnson, as so far, we are absolutely historically awful. I hope it changes, next chance for a W is Thursday night and I'll be watching!

Go Gophers!!
 

BleedGopher said:
Either way, I picked Johnson, as so far, we are absolutely historically awful. I hope it changes, next chance for a W is Thursday night and I'll be watching!

Go Gophers!!
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The Missouri loss was tough but forgivable. They at least showed they could get a 20 point lead against a P6 team and led until the final minute or so. They never had a lead against SF and whenever they cut the lead to a few points, SF enlarged it again quickly.

Someone posted in the game thread that the team might be better than last season but not by much. They'll have a better nonconference record just by virtue of the number of sure things in that schedule and might have a couple more conference wins than last year but that's not a sure thing. Right now I'd guess a 13-18 overall record. I hope that isn't good enough to get a 4th year because it certainly shouldn't be. I've never seen a Big Ten coach fired after two years for performance so I believe Johnson was entitled to a third season but a coach should have to show something in three years to get a 4th.
 

Agree with @BleedGopher - the non-conference schedules between the two sports make a straight overall record a bit difficult to compare. Wacker coached in an era of just an 11 game schedule (so, only 3 non-conference games) and they played some good teams in non-conference during his tenure (...Colorado, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Kansas State, a really good San Diego State, etc.). Brewster had 4 non-conference games during his tenure and was generally was a lighter slate, but they also did play USC, California, plus a couple bowl games.

With Johnson, 6 wins last year and 9 this year (if we can avoid any bad upset) are going to be home wins over cupcakes.

Conference records
Brewster was 6-21 in conference (.222), Wacker 8-32 in conference (.200), Johnson 7-35 (aggregate including B10 tourney) (.167)
 


SomeGopherFan said:
Agree with @BleedGopher - the non-conference schedules between the two sports make a straight overall record a bit difficult to compare. Wacker coached in an era of just an 11 game schedule (so, only 3 non-conference games) and they played some good teams in non-conference during his tenure (...Colorado, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Kansas State, a really good San Diego State, etc.). Brewster had 4 non-conference games during his tenure and was generally was a lighter slate, but they also did play USC, California, plus a couple bowl games.

With Johnson, 6 wins last year and 9 this year (if we can avoid any bad upset) are going to be home wins over cupcakes.

Conference records
Brewster was 6-21 in conference (.222), Wacker 8-32 in conference (.200), Johnson 7-35 (aggregate including B10 tourney) (.167)
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Thanks for posting this, it's relevant information. It's worse than I thought! 1701110549649.png
 


howeda7 said:
Brewster had us 7-1 and ranked in the top 20. Sure it was fleeting, but it was a higher point than we'll ever have with Ben.

Wacker was awful, but at least he had fun offenses. Losing 52-45 is more fun than losing 17-10.
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Purdue game was legendarrrrrrrry. Made a fan out of a young me.
 




Brewster at least excited the fans and had success at times. I don’t believe Johnson has excited the fan base and I don’t believe he’ll ever have success. I am too young to know about wacker. So for those reasons—BeJo is the worst. And he ruined something I loved. LOVED.
 


In Big 10 play:
Jim Wacker: 8-32 .200 winning percentage
Tim Brewster: 6-21 .222 winning percentage
Ben Johnson: 6-33 .154 winning percentage

He'd have to win 6-7 conference games this season to have similar winning percentages to Wacker/Brewster.
 




TwistingMyMelon said:
The Missouri loss was tough but forgivable. They at least showed they could get a 20 point lead against a P6 team and led until the final minute or so. They never had a lead against SF and whenever they cut the lead to a few points, SF enlarged it again quickly.

Someone posted in the game thread that the team might be better than last season but not by much. They'll have a better nonconference record just by virtue of the number of sure things in that schedule and might have a couple more conference wins than last year but that's not a sure thing. Right now I'd guess a 13-18 overall record. I hope that isn't good enough to get a 4th year because it certainly shouldn't be. I've never seen a Big Ten coach fired after two years for performance so I believe Johnson was entitled to a third season but a coach should have to show something in three years to get a 4th.
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And weirdly one of the biggest things we did wrong against San Francisco was just repeatedly giving the ball away. If anyone remembers, Minnesota was #3 in the country in fewest turnovers in Ben's first season. Granted that stat is inflated by the fact that we played at a slow pace, but still, taking care of the ball was one of the things that we were good at right away when Ben got here.
 


Cayman said:
And weirdly one of the biggest things we did wrong against San Francisco was just repeatedly giving the ball away. If anyone remembers, Minnesota was #3 in the country in fewest turnovers in Ben's first season. Granted that stat is inflated by the fact that we played at a slow pace, but still, taking care of the ball was one of the things that we were good at right away when Ben got here.
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Ben's first season was by far his best season as a coach but I am not beginning to think that the roster construction just led him to make better decisions.

His most common lineup was three guards (Loewe, Willis, Stephens) and our best reserve was another wing (Sutherlin). One of our "post" players was also a stretch 4.

This led to considerably better spacing and we were able to take care of the ball.

I'd love to see him try to recreate a much more athletic version of that team and go three guards with Garcia and Payne. We had to play guard-heavy by necessity in Year 1, but the team looked properly organized.
 

Brewster was bad, very bad, but fans often exaggerate how awful he was. He made a bowl game in half of his seasons here, and even his 1-11 season had a lot of competitive games. Until further notice Ben is absolutely worse.
 

Cayman said:
And weirdly one of the biggest things we did wrong against San Francisco was just repeatedly giving the ball away. If anyone remembers, Minnesota was #3 in the country in fewest turnovers in Ben's first season. Granted that stat is inflated by the fact that we played at a slow pace, but still, taking care of the ball was one of the things that we were good at right away when Ben got here.
Click to expand...

Perhaps that was influenced by the maturity and type of the players that season and, as you mentioned, the pace. This team clearly is more turnover prone but it's a better rebounding team than that one at least.
 

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