Until we stop bargain bin shopping for coaches, the result will mostly be the same.

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We should go Full Colorado in replacing Ben.

Latrell Spreewell or Steph Marbury would be perfect in this capacity since we probably can’t afford Dennis Rodman.
 

bga1 said:
Richard Pitino should be a cautionary tale for coaches that are looking at our situation. He had very little success here and suddenly he is looking a lot better at stinking New Mexico. There is no doubt his team would beat ours right now and would have last year as well. What is it that is going on here that is killing coaches? Even Tubby failed.

Until that issue is resolved why would coaches who are having decent success, like Medved, risk getting their career scuttled by this mess? Ben was set up to fail, should never have gotten the job, and now the situation is far worse with 4 more years of losing and we are now in a professional sport where we don't have the resources to compete for high end guys.
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Money and ego.

None of these guys got where they are in this profession without significant ego. They all think "they're the guy" to run or "fix" a downtrodden program.
 



STPGopher said:
Ummm. He's a Gopher. He's from a local Catholic HS. He has coaching experience. He's young. He was up and coming. Often times that gets a look if you can't swing for the fences budget wise. A high risk, potential high reward hire. Such decisions are made all of the time.

The gamble may have been deemed worth it.
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It was a total DEI hire in the wake of George Floyd. Thanks Joan!
STPGopher said:
Niko is still out there to be had. And if he wasn't, there is most likely someone else. Not sure there was an affordable Tubby Smith type hire at the time. IMHO Niko wasn't on that tier.

Sometimes labeling someone as a DEI hire is being lazy. What appears to be his biggest problem is player retention. He's not the only coach struggling with NIL.
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Dutcher was there. Mussy was there. Why do we always talk "affordable here"? The U gets 120 million from TV contracts. Furthermore it is ROI not cost that should be the deciding factor. How affordable is it to go down to 4000 season ticket holders when we used to have 9000? Pay the 5 million a year and get a big name coach and the revenue will come in to pay that off easy. Sometimes cheap is the worst bargain you can get.
 

SelectionSunday said:
Money and ego.

None of these guys got where they are in this profession without significant ego. They all think "they're the guy" to run or "fix" a downtrodden program.
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I think every deal made by any coach that is really good from here on is going to be like the Mussy deal at USC. How much do I get paid to do this and how much NIL will you assure me. That's the formula. Niko will go down in flames if he doesn't get the NIL commitment.
 

bga1 said:
It was a total DEI hire in the wake of George Floyd. Thanks Joan!

Dutcher was there. Mussy was there. Why do we always talk "affordable here"? The U gets 120 million from TV contracts. Furthermore it is ROI not cost that should be the deciding factor. How affordable is it to go down to 4000 season ticket holders when we used to have 9000? Pay the 5 million a year and get a big name coach and the revenue will come in to pay that off easy. Sometimes cheap is the worst bargain you can get.
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Fair comments. IIRC the tv money we now see wasn't quite there yet. I will be surprised if there won't be a different approach this time.
 



STPGopher said:
Ummm. He's a Gopher. He's from a local Catholic HS. He has coaching experience. He's young. He was up and coming. Often times that gets a look if you can't swing for the fences budget wise. A high risk, potential high reward hire. Such decisions are made all of the time.

The gamble may have been deemed worth it. Niko is still out there to be had. And if he wasn't, there is most likely someone else. Not sure there was an affordable Tubby Smith type hire at the time. IMHO Niko wasn't on that tier.

Sometimes labeling someone as a DEI hire is being lazy. What appears to be his biggest problem is player retention. He's not the only coach struggling with NIL.
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I don't think you understand how DEI hires work.

Lets walk through your reasons.
  • He went to a local Catholic school. I am Catholic but this means absolutely nothing. I would hope the U does not prioritize people who went to Hill Murray or Cretin over candidates. If, for whatever reason, they did. . . this would also be a DEI hire (hiring a Catholic)?
  • He has coaching experience. Yep, he's coached basketball. However, he did NOT have the coaching background that we would have considered with any other candidate.
  • He's young. I guess I don't see how that could be seen one way or the other.
  • He was up and coming. No he wasn't. He had just been turned down for jobs at Montana and Northern Illinois. In the context of a Big 10 job, no, he absolutely was not up and coming.
  • "when you can't swing for the fences budget wise". Ben Johnson was not a bargain. His first contract was almost twice the amount of money that Iowa paid for TJ Otzelberger. It was more than Craig Smith. It was really close to Shaka Smart. The same contract would have landed Niko 10 out of 10 times.
These decisions are not made all the time. Ben Johnsons has never shown anything to suggest he had high potential. It is entirely a guess that he has high potential because he doesn't have a proven track record.
 

bga1 said:
I think every deal made by any coach that is really good from here on is going to be like the Mussy deal at USC. How much do I get paid to do this and how much NIL will you assure me. That's the formula. Niko will go down in flames if he doesn't get the NIL commitment.
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Part of the NIL commitment is also on the head coach. When you're an executive, sales is 100% part of your job.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
Part of the NIL commitment is also on the head coach. When you're an executive, sales is 100% part of your job.
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Sure - I'll buy that. You would have a hard time finding a coach that is worse at schmoozing and hyping a program than Ben. That's no knock on him, it is just who he appears to be. I am just saying that coaches coming to a new job are going to ask for that commitment. Right now unless you shock this town with a big name- most people are past believing that we are going to be good any time in the near future.
 

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