What Ben Johnson can learn from NCAA Tournament

[MaxyJR1]

As another poster mentioned they do have an excellent recruiting class this year but usually don’t get the stars that Duke, Kentucky and maybe Kansas gets on a yearly basis. I don’t think Izzo cares about the B1G tourney at all and focuses on having team fresh/ready for a run into April.

Juwan Howard is a great example but can’t coach the talent. Bielien was a phenomenal coach and got Michigan to multiple final fours with less talent.

Michigan State can run and play with any team in the country. That doesn't always translate to B1G regular season and tournament. Izzo has his teams ready, playing their best at tournament time. Tournaments are also about match-ups and teams that win tend to get good match-ups buy luck of the draw.

MSU truly plays defense and turns it into offense. Many B1G teams look good because the games are so slow and plodding in the regular season and bad offenses make the defenses look better.

 

[minnyrules11]

Michigan State can run and play with any team in the country. That doesn't always translate to B1G regular season and tournament. Izzo has his teams ready, playing their best at tournament time. Tournaments are also about match-ups and teams that win tend to get good match-ups buy luck of the draw.

MSU truly plays defense and turns it into offense. Many B1G teams look good because the games are so slow and plodding in the regular season and bad offenses make the defenses look better.

Agreed and Michigan St is always tough on the glass.

 

[Crappie]

I think discussing ways it could improve is way more interesting than just repeatedly saying the only solution is fire the coach....which clearly isn't going to happen until next year around this time at the earliest.

Your discussion centers on "if", over and over.

 

[MNVCGUY]

Your discussion centers on "if", over and over.

Sure....because it is an unknown.....if these things happen then the team can get back on track and moving in the right direction.

Still feels preferable to me to engage in looking at things that way as opposed to just giving up and deciding the only solution is firing the coach and there is no hope that he could possibly get the players he needs.

 

[RockChalk]

Assuming that is true, what can any poster on this board do about that?

Do you think if we all scream, stomp our feet, and pump our fists in the air for a period of time, they'll fire the coach immediately?

An angry attitude and $3.00 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

Pay close attention to the very first line of this.
ENJOY

 

[Crappie]

Sure....because it is an unknown.....if these things happen then the team can get back on track and moving in the right direction.

Still feels preferable to me to engage in looking at things that way as opposed to just giving up and deciding the only solution is firing the coach and there is no hope that he could possibly get the players he needs.

The real solution is for the Mn administration to want to do everything possible to have winning bb. When you hire two unqualified coaches, this is what you get.
Be positive all you want. Just grab reality and get back to gh.

 

[60's Guy]

Thanks.

So, I popped in to see if I saw any portal news...
I noticed Rohde is now #23
These rankings are very fluid as they add guys....they had 94? guys rated now 112 rated
Battle dropped to #10
Cooper to #51
Henley is now #107 of 112 but I think he's much better than that but then maybe not because they are cherry picking the list of guys to rate? My point Henley has potential.
Reason or speculation why Rohde is leaving? NCAA Tournament ineligibility? NIL? Or something else...it wasn't playing time

 

[60's Guy]

The two guys we have been linked to I'm aware of...
Mitchell of Pepperdine is #17
and Taylor of Butler is #57

 

[Gophers7NatTitlesBadgers0]

An angry attitude and $3.00 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

It would get you a shot glass size cup of coffee maybe!

 

[SelectionSunday]

So, I popped in to see if I saw any portal news...
I noticed Rohde is now #23
These rankings are very fluid as they add guys....they had 94? guys rated now 112 rated
Battle dropped to #10
Cooper to #51
Henley is now #107 of 112 but I think he's much better than that but then maybe not because they are cherry picking the list of guys to rate? My point Henley has potential.
Reason or speculation why Rohde is leaving? NCAA Tournament ineligibility? NIL? Or something else...it wasn't playing time

My gut feeling on Rohde is NCAA Tournament ineligibility. That's tough to know in your 4-year career you'll never have a chance to play in the NCAA Tournament unless the NCAA changes that rule.

 

[Gopher Teeth]

I saw several teams that were bad a year or two ago that were in the tourney this year. A lot of them got a transfer or two to boost them, but none of them were turning over the entire starting lineup year after year.

There's a lot of problems with Gopher basketball at the moment, but roster continuity is #1. As Ben Johnson entered, he had to basically start over with an expansion team of random transfers. Those guys largely left after Year 1 (including good players on tournament teams like Marcus Carr and Gabe Kalscheur) so in comes a whole different team this year. Now we're getting a load more transfers and will have a very different team in Year 3.

I get it, losing is hard and the portal seems like a quick fix. But something needs to be done to keep guys around so investing in the hard times pays off down the line.

K-State has two guys from last year's team...two, you don't get much more turnover than that.

 

[Gopher_In_NYC]

Michigan St does not get the cream of the crop and usually do more with less.

Thanks Tom

 

[bga1]

Not sure what you consider cream of the crop, but Michigan State recruits at least two 4-stars a year. Their class next year is rated third in the nation.

Yep. I'd guess that if we had the talent Izzo reels in, we wouldn't be talking about firing coaches.
That's part of the job though- it's just tougher here.

 

[Gopher_In_NYC]

There are something like 672 players in the portal right now (increasing as I write this no doubt). I think these rankings are pretty dubious. I just saw Henley ranked #23 on the On3 portal ranking. Sorry, that made me laugh. There were 130 + freshman guards who played 600 minutes or more this season and Henley was near the bottom on a number of key composite measures. Battle No. 8? Not the way he played this year. If he reverts to last season's form, maybe he can get close to that.

By the way, you can't count a recruit who never played here as a loss from this past season's team. Would have been nice to have him next season but at least we avoided the dilemma of how to play both Payne and him for major minutes.

Good post.

Most rankings are subjective, ergo arbitrary, as people that do them have biases and/or are lazy.

 

[Spaulding!No!]

My gut feeling on Rohde is NCAA ineligibility. That's tough to know in your 4-year career you'll never have a chance to play in the NCAA Tournament unless the NCAA changes that rule.

Ummmmm

 

[fmlizard]

K-State has two guys from last year's team...two, you don't get much more turnover than that.

Fair enough, but generally speaking having a new roster every year doesn't help with winning unless that roster is filled with 5 stars, and even then it's hit or miss.

 

[USAF]

What Ben learned from the NCAA Tournament: tickets are freaking expensive.

 

[bga1]

After watching a lot of tournament games, my conclusion to the thread question is simply this. Get better players. Garcia and Payne would fit right in with most of these squads- the glaring difference to me seemed to be the speed and scoring ability at the guard positions versus our beloved Gophers.

I didn't see one coach out Xing and Oing other coaches, I just saw better players, making plays within a team concept. Having a leader on the floor who commands respect and gets everyone involved is crucial. Case in point is Nowell of KState.

 

[Bob_Loblaw]

Obviously, it's get better players but I don't think that was new to Ben.

The biggest thing is that all of these teams have an identity. I know that isn't tangible but the more tangible lesson in building an identity is that you need to put your best players in the best positions to be successful. Playing someone out of position not only hurts them but it destroys the entire synergy of the team.

 

[Crappie]

After watching a lot of tournament games, my conclusion to the thread question is simply this. Get better players. Garcia and Payne would fit right in with most of these squads- the glaring difference to me seemed to be the speed and scoring ability at the guard positions versus our beloved Gophers.

I didn't see one coach out Xing and Oing other coaches, I just saw better players, making plays within a team concept. Having a leader on the floor who commands respect and gets everyone involved is crucial. Case in point is Nowell of KState.

Nowell hit some deeeeeeep shots.

 

[bga1]

Obviously, it's get better players but I don't think that was new to Ben.

The biggest thing is that all of these teams have an identity. I know that isn't tangible but the more tangible lesson in building an identity is that you need to put your best players in the best positions to be successful. Playing someone out of position not only hurts them but it destroys the entire synergy of the team.

Building identity is much easier if you are able to "select" players that fit it. The problem we have had in Minnesota for 20+ years is we are not able to select, instead we take what we can get.
Monson wanted an up tempo team like he had at Gonzaga- he couldn't get the recruits to do it here. Tubby was at times close to having the talent to create the tough defensive identity he wanted but not quite.

Pitino, like Monson, wanted to get up and down the court. He shot the moon to go after those players and couldn't convince them to come. It wasn't long and he was mucking it up with a slower brand of ball. Then he got Dorsey, Mason, Duprayer and Murphy and he looked like he might be headed in the right direction and scandal hit. And then it hit again a few years later.

Ben has talked about a gritty team but we really haven't seen that. Certainly they have never quit on him but they certainly don't seem to have the talent or muscle to be mistaken for a Huggins type squad that just out toughs you. I really don't know what he wants and I am not sure that we will see it unless he gets the right players.

 

[PhiloVance]

After watching a lot of tournament games, my conclusion to the thread question is simply this. Get better players. Garcia and Payne would fit right in with most of these squads- the glaring difference to me seemed to be the speed and scoring ability at the guard positions versus our beloved Gophers.

I didn't see one coach out Xing and Oing other coaches, I just saw better players, making plays within a team concept. Having a leader on the floor who commands respect and gets everyone involved is crucial. Case in point is Nowell of KState.

But Nowell is to short...if you read a lot of the posters comments.

 

[MonikerSchmoniker45]

After watching a lot of tournament games, my conclusion to the thread question is simply this. Get better players. Garcia and Payne would fit right in with most of these squads- the glaring difference to me seemed to be the speed and scoring ability at the guard positions versus our beloved Gophers.

I didn't see one coach out Xing and Oing other coaches, I just saw better players, making plays within a team concept. Having a leader on the floor who commands respect and gets everyone involved is crucial. Case in point is Nowell of KState.

How is it that when the Gophers can't hit a shot or run anything resembling an offense it's all CBJ's fault. But when players "make plays, within a team concept" it doesn't have to do with coaching? Seems contradictory.

 

[bga1]

How is it that when the Gophers can't hit a shot or run anything resembling an offense it's all CBJ's fault. But when players "make plays, within a team concept" it doesn't have to do with coaching? Seems contradictory.

I am not saying either of those things.

I think that in Ben's first year we often ran a pretty decent looking offense, but were simply over matched physically, especially on the boards and in the post defensively.

-in this case- I think there was good coaching but not enough talent- provided by the same coaches

This past year our offense looked terrible most of the year and then as Payne and Henley improved and we began to feed the post- it looked better than it had earlier. Earlier in the year, I thought that Ben had zero clue what he was doing but I was encouraged later in the year that he was developing and kids were getting it to a degree.

- in this case- I think it is not enough guards/ guards and SF too slow to run an effective offense. Again this appears to me to be more of a recruiting issue than a coaching/ teaching issue.

I think Ben has a learning curve in terms of coaching. He needs to get better. But I think his bigger problem is roster management and overall not enough talent - especially at the 3 guard positions. You have to both coach well and recruit well. Recruiting super well will get you competitive against anyone. Coaching will get you to win the close games when you do have players. How good was Shrewsbury without Pickett? I don't know but I think he's not as good of a coach without him!

 

[Ewert86PC]

quote from Vegwards: Unlike Battle and Cooper who are delusional in thinking they will be pro basketball players (except maybe in Poland or Slovakia).

I heard there were significant openings on the Ukraine teams.

but will they be able to hit those openings with a pass?

 

[Ewert86PC]

So who is responsible for our identity being empty possessions?

 

[Dakota2]

Obviously, it's get better players but I don't think that was new to Ben.

The biggest thing is that all of these teams have an identity. I know that isn't tangible but the more tangible lesson in building an identity is that you need to put your best players in the best positions to be successful. Playing someone out of position not only hurts them but it destroys the entire synergy of the team.

I am looking for the team that crowds two guys into the same space because they are both best as 4s. Still looking.

 

[bga1]

So who is responsible for our identity being empty possessions?

In the end it is always the coach. You have to recruit and organize. His recruiting is decent so far but his roster balance and usage has been bad. This was his first good class. Are Betts and Christie good? We don't know yet. Can he get help from the portal to save his bacon this year? We'll see.

 

[Indiana Gopher]

Not sure what you consider cream of the crop, but Michigan State recruits at least two 4-stars a year. Their class next year is rated third in the nation.

We can debate semantics, numbers, and stars all day long....but what Tom Izzo has done at MSU is absolutely the blueprint for a successful program outside the top 10 'blue bloods'. If we could achieve even a portion of his success with Sparty we would be ecstatic!

 

[WindyCityGopher]

We can debate semantics, numbers, and stars all day long....but what Tom Izzo has done at MSU is absolutely the blueprint for a successful program outside the top 10 'blue bloods'. If we could achieve even a portion of his success with Sparty we would be ecstatic!

I will absolutely argue that Michigan State is a top 10 blue blood program.

Tier 1
Duke
N Carolina
Kansas
Kentucky

Tier 2
UCLA
Indiana
Louisville
Note: Yes, UCLA and Indiana have the distant past that should make them Tier 1, but their glory is faded. It’s been 28 years since a title for the Bruins, and 36 years for the Hoosiers. It’s been 21 years since IU has even gone to a Final Four.

Tier 3
UConn
Michigan State
Syracuse