What grade do you give Ben Johnson for his first year?

What grade do you give Ben Johnson for his first year?

  • A

    Votes: 14 5.9%

  • B

    Votes: 75 31.8%

  • C

    Votes: 92 39.0%

  • D

    Votes: 41 17.4%

  • F

    Votes: 14 5.9%
  • Total voters
    236
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PMWinSTP said:
Pitino had basically the same record in 2017-18 playing two fewer conference games, and finished 11th. It's pretty much a toss-up if you are in those last four spots. As mentioned earlier, Johnson was in an unenviable spot having to cobble together a roster in short order. They flat ran out of gas.
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That's on Ben.

Otzelberger took over a worse roster at Iowa St and they'll be playing in the NCAA tournament in his first season.
 



GopherWeatherGuy said:
Oh really, please explain?
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You gave every excuse in the book for Fleck only winning 5 games due to roster turnover (I agreed with you).

What about the other coaches that were hired and had the majority of the roster transfer out? BC sucked, DePaul sucked, and Utah (GH and you really wanted their coach) sucked. Virtually impossible to have your entire roster transfer and compete. Sure it's on the coach but circumstances in pretty much the first year of the portal is different than years past.
 

The evidence appears to show Ben might struggle connecting to student athletes.
 


GopherWeatherGuy said:
That's on Ben.

Otzelberger took over a worse roster at Iowa St and they'll be playing in the NCAA tournament in his first season.
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Otzelberger was certainly able to bring in transfers from bigger programs. I have to wonder if Johnson not having previous head coaching experience affected the type of transfers he was able to bring in. It'll be interesting to see how it goes this offseason.

Will also mention though that Otzelberger benefited from the 37th best recruit in the country already being committed to Iowa St. when he took over. Hunter ended up being their second best player this year.
 

I said C. Having to completely redo almost the entire roster in that short of a period is tough to do. The first half of the season was fun, the second half not so much. Still optimistic about the future, but obviously still a ton of work to do.
 

GophersInIowa said:
Otzelberger was certainly able to bring in transfers from bigger programs. I have to wonder if Johnson not having previous head coaching experience affected the type of transfers he was able to bring in. I'm interested in seeing how it goes this offseason.

Will also mention though that Otzelberger benefited from the 37th best recruit in the country already being committed to Iowa St. when he took over. Hunter ended up being their second best player this year.
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And credit has to go to him for keeping him there, without a doubt.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
Otzelberger took over a worse roster at Iowa St and they'll be playing in the NCAA tournament in his first season.
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Maybe, maybe not. They have a 7-11 record in the conference.

I also don't agree that he had a worse roster. He had two former RSCI Top 100 players and transfer Brockington was one of Penn State's best players last year. Washington State transfer Kunz was a good shooter with size. Conditt was a fair starting center and transfer Robert Jones was certainly a better backup than Daniels.
 



I'm just up in the air on whether Ben will turn this program around or what our potential is with him. There's a real chance he's 4 to 5 years and gone (Coyle is not paying him much and not a huge buyout at least). But I'm also not going to write him off. He's a recruiter and I do still think he'll get more and more talent in here. He needs time.

I'm still holding out hope that he brings in a couple meaningful transfers and we're competing for an NCAA bid next year. Is that fair of me? Probably not, but it's all about the NCAA tournament. So much fun to be a part of it and our Gophers miss it way too often.

I'm contradicting myself throughout this post but you all get it.
 


The roster needed to be better. In the absence of talent, I was okay with loading up on experienced players to develop a culture and system, and that was working well through January. But the way the season ended was inexcusable. Basically blown off the court in first halves against Nebraska, Northwestern and Penn State. If players were worn down, that's on Ben for the roster and lack of development (or talent) of the freshmen. We're starting from scratch again next year with no real reason to expect anything different. D.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
That's on Ben.

Otzelberger took over a worse roster at Iowa St and they'll be playing in the NCAA tournament in his first season.
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Wow comparing UofM to Iowa State and BJ to Otzelberger...be prepare for criticism.
 



Johnnyboy18 said:
You gave every excuse in the book for Fleck only winning 5 games due to roster turnover (I agreed with you).

What about the other coaches that were hired and had the majority of the roster transfer out? BC sucked, DePaul sucked, and Utah (GH and you really wanted their coach) sucked. Virtually impossible to have your entire roster transfer and compete. Sure it's on the coach but circumstances in pretty much the first year of the portal is different than years past.
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PJ Fleck was a proven head coach and that situation was entirely different than this one. Plus his recruiting in his first 3 weeks on the job was remarkable.

I don't really have strong feelings about Earl Grant at BC, but they didn't finish last, and they have won 2 games in the ACC tournament so far. I feel the same way about DePaul, I didn't exactly want either of those head coaches over Ben.

I did want Craig Smith and Utah was worse than I expected this season. They also lost the majority of their roster, and have regressed. Ben's HS recruiting is much better currently for next season than Smith's. But Smith was able to keep his best player, and did bring in some younger transfers, so unlike Ben, he will return 4 of his top 7 scorers next season. It will be interesting to watch this play out over the next few years.
 

GophersInIowa said:
Otzelberger was certainly able to bring in transfers from bigger programs. I have to wonder if Johnson not having previous head coaching experience affected the type of transfers he was able to bring in. It'll be interesting to see how it goes this offseason.

Will also mention though that Otzelberger benefited from the 37th best recruit in the country already being committed to Iowa St. when he took over. Hunter ended up being their second best player this year.
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So Otzelberger has proven to be a better recruiter than Ben so far, which is the #1 job of a college coach. They went from 2 wins last season to 20 so far this season.
 

cjbfbp said:
Maybe, maybe not. They have a 7-11 record in the conference.

I also don't agree that he had a worse roster. He had two former RSCI Top 100 players and transfer Brockington was one of Penn State's best players last year. Washington State transfer Kunz was a good shooter with size. Conditt was a fair starting center and transfer Robert Jones was certainly a better backup than Daniels.
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PhiloVance said:
Wow comparing UofM to Iowa State and BJ to Otzelberger...be prepare for criticism.
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Iowa St won 2 games last season. Otzelberger had to recruit those players to stay or commit from elsewhere. His recruiting class for next season is also ranked slightly higher than Minnesota's, led by 2 MN recruits who are both rated higher than any of our current commits.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
PJ Fleck was a proven head coach and that situation was entirely different than this one. Plus his recruiting in his first 3 weeks on the job was remarkable.

I don't really have strong feelings about Earl Grant at BC, but they didn't finish last, and they have won 2 games in the ACC tournament so far. I feel the same way about DePaul, I didn't exactly want either of those head coaches over Ben.

I did want Craig Smith and Utah was worse than I expected this season. They also lost the majority of their roster, and have regressed. Ben's HS recruiting is much better currently for next season than Smith's. But Smith was able to keep his best player, and did bring in some younger transfers, so unlike Ben, he will return 4 of his top 7 scorers next season. It will be interesting to watch this play out over the next few years.
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We flipped a bunch of MAC recruits that were committed to him at WMU why was that impressive?
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
PJ Fleck was a proven head coach and that situation was entirely different than this one. Plus his recruiting in his first 3 weeks on the job was remarkable.

I don't really have strong feelings about Earl Grant at BC, but they didn't finish last, and they have won 2 games in the ACC tournament so far. I feel the same way about DePaul, I didn't exactly want either of those head coaches over Ben.

I did want Craig Smith and Utah was worse than I expected this season. They also lost the majority of their roster, and have regressed. Ben's HS recruiting is much better currently for next season than Smith's. But Smith was able to keep his best player, and did bring in some younger transfers, so unlike Ben, he will return 4 of his top 7 scorers next season. It will be interesting to watch this play out over the next few years.
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I have no idea how much it had to do with Craig Smith, Ben Johnson, or Pitino ... but Both Gach decided to go back to Utah and ended up averaging around 23-24 mins per game for them.

I assume he could come back next year for them, eligibility wise.
 

Otzelberger had a track record. Ben did not. It easy to assume that is one major reason he got better transfers than Ben. Same thing with Texas.

Imagine our season if Fox and Ihnen would have been healthy!!! I thinks its safe to assume that our record would have been better plus both players would have a full year of BIG under their belt. Prospects for next season would likely be improved.

But that did not happen. Injuries are a part of the formula and change the look and performance of a team. So what we have to look forward to is one quality player in Battle and hope that the two injured have fully recovered, prove to be solid BIG players and the incoming players are better than what we had this season.
 

Gophers_4life said:
I have no idea how much it had to do with Craig Smith, Ben Johnson, or Pitino ... but Both Gach decided to go back to Utah and ended up averaging around 23-24 mins per game for them.

I assume he could come back next year for them, eligibility wise.
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Gach was still fairly mediocre this year.
 

Holy Man said:
But how much of the roster turnover was his doing? It’s not like it was just foist on him.
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This is why it's so hard to grade. Was it even possible for him to retain some of the previous roster? One way or another, that happened on his watch, and he wasn't in any different position than any other first-year coach in the NCAA. I found the degree of desertion shocking at the time, and I'm still kind of freaked out by it.

I do like the pieces he was able to get on short notice, although it certainly fell short of what we'd have hoped. EG mentioned Garcia, Thompson, and Mitchell, and even though it's tempting to think of them as out of our league, it's important to reflect on why Coyle said he brought in such an inexperienced head coach: the belief he'd be an ace recruiter of local talent. If your AD is going to establish high expectations among the fans, you'll eventually face the prospect of having to meet them.

I appreciate how quickly this team of newcomers gelled together. That was extraordinary and cannot be understated. It appears as though the team reached its potential early, which is great, but never had the ability to get very much better, which isn't great.
 

Hates Monikers said:
The roster needed to be better. In the absence of talent, I was okay with loading up on experienced players to develop a culture and system, and that was working well through January. But the way the season ended was inexcusable. Basically blown off the court in first halves against Nebraska, Northwestern and Penn State. If players were worn down, that's on Ben for the roster and lack of development (or talent) of the freshmen. We're starting from scratch again next year with no real reason to expect anything different. D.
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Think the season ending injuries to 2 key front court pieces could have anything to do with some of the second half struggles?

We aren't starting from scratch next year but there will be work to do. For this season Johnson was starting with almost nothing and had to build a full roster in a really short window. Next year he has Battle, Fox, Ihnen, Thiam and Thompson along with at least 4 freshman that he recruited to build around. Thiam was a disappointment but he was also a true freshman so way too early to write him off. Thompson will have an off season to add size/strength to hopefully better set him up to compete.

He will need to go find some guards from the portal again, and that is much less daunting task than finding big men.

It was easy to see struggles coming this season with the way the roster looked heading into the season after Fox and Ihnen went down. Hopefully heading into 22-23 season there are more reasons for optimism. Might be wise to wait and see how the roster actually looks before assuming the results next year will look the same as this year.
 

Johnnyboy18 said:
We flipped a bunch of MAC recruits that were committed to him at WMU why was that impressive?
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I guess Tanner Morgan, Chris Autman-Bell, John Michael Schmitz, Mo Ibrahim, Boye Mafe, and Esezi Otomewo should have just stayed in the MAC since they haven't contributed to the success of the program....Plus he had to recruit Winfield Jr to stay and keep Blaise Andries committed. All of those players were recruited his first 3 weeks on the job to a program coming off of a very public scandal.
 

B-

Pre-Season Projections: National
ESPN-141 (worst in B1G)
CBS- 155 (worst in B1G)
(Most Pre-season B1G power ranking systems had either Gophers or Nebraska last)

Gopherholers:
I looked at our pre-season expectations and most people landed on anything over 13 wins as successful and many people thought that 10 wins or better would be a success. I will say there were more people within those responses that thought we would win more conference games but not by much (5-7 compared to the 4 we won). Personally, the B1G season was very disappointing but it was clear we ran out of gas in a major way. Part of that is on CBJ for not utilizing his bench (major weak spot).

Qualitative Remarks: Gopherholers
Many folks mentioned these kinds of remarks as metrics of success back in November (I agree with most all of these as markers of success as well).
1. No discipline issues
2. No hero ball (neutral: when the hero ball came I believe it was out of necessity )
3. Offensive flow/structure +
4. I’m game adjustments - (poor out of halftime although they did have a penchant for storming back with 10 minutes to go)

Positives/Negatives
+ Road/Neutral site wins (including a tournament win in NC
+ Ball security
+ 3 pt shooting
+ out of bounds plays out of timeouts
- recruiting (give him a pass this year but needs to have a huge recruiting cycle this year for 2023 and needs to find at least 2 impact guys out of the portal- I’m looking at you Walton & Garcia)
- Bench development
- Rebounding (should get markedly better with Fox/Ihnen ect)
 

skiumah1 said:
I'm just up in the air on whether Ben will turn this program around or what our potential is with him. There's a real chance he's 4 to 5 years and gone (Coyle is not paying him much and not a huge buyout at least). But I'm also not going to write him off. He's a recruiter and I do still think he'll get more and more talent in here. He needs time.

I'm still holding out hope that he brings in a couple meaningful transfers and we're competing for an NCAA bid next year. Is that fair of me? Probably not, but it's all about the NCAA tournament. So much fun to be a part of it and our Gophers miss it way too often.

I'm contradicting myself throughout this post but you all get it.
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For me, year three is the first year to have any higher level expectations. Next season is definitely a building year and he'll need some experienced transfers in the starting mix. Thompson will hit the weight room and have another offseason to develop. Solid incoming class.
 


PMWinSTP said:
For me, year three is the first year to have any higher level expectations. Next season is definitely a building year and he'll need some experienced transfers in the starting mix. Thompson will hit the weight room and have another offseason to develop. Solid incoming class.
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Big indicator for me this year (on future coaching potential) was how Ben managed his bench and in-game rotations. If we are playing all starters for 40 mins in the big ten tourney next year, there will be serious concerns, as I am sure most will agree.
 

'B'

Can't really blame him for the patchwork roster. He had very little time to bring in basically an entirely new team. Despite that....he managed to set forth a gameplan that gave the team a chance to win most games despite a large gap in talent.

We'll see how he fares moving forward.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Think the season ending injuries to 2 key front court pieces could have anything to do with some of the second half struggles?

We aren't starting from scratch next year but there will be work to do. For this season Johnson was starting with almost nothing and had to build a full roster in a really short window. Next year he has Battle, Fox, Ihnen, Thiam and Thompson along with at least 4 freshman that he recruited to build around. Thiam was a disappointment but he was also a true freshman so way too early to write him off. Thompson will have an off season to add size/strength to hopefully better set him up to compete.

He will need to go find some guards from the portal again, and that is much less daunting task than finding big men.

It was easy to see struggles coming this season with the way the roster looked heading into the season after Fox and Ihnen went down. Hopefully heading into 22-23 season there are more reasons for optimism. Might be wise to wait and see how the roster actually looks before assuming the results next year will look the same as this year.
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That's two guys that would have likely been playing significant minutes. Tough to deal with when the roster is already so thin.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Think the season ending injuries to 2 key front court pieces could have anything to do with some of the second half struggles?

We aren't starting from scratch next year but there will be work to do. For this season Johnson was starting with almost nothing and had to build a full roster in a really short window. Next year he has Battle, Fox, Ihnen, Thiam and Thompson along with at least 4 freshman that he recruited to build around. Thiam was a disappointment but he was also a true freshman so way too early to write him off. Thompson will have an off season to add size/strength to hopefully better set him up to compete.

He will need to go find some guards from the portal again, and that is much less daunting task than finding big men.

It was easy to see struggles coming this season with the way the roster looked heading into the season after Fox and Ihnen went down. Hopefully heading into 22-23 season there are more reasons for optimism. Might be wise to wait and see how the roster actually looks before assuming the results next year will look the same as this year.
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Just stop. You repeatedly use this excuse, and that is exactly what it is. Injuries happen to all teams. This season wasn't unique or any other term you love to use.

Ihnen would have benefitted the team, no doubt. I think he can rebound a bit, and his defense was a bit better near the end of last season. Would it have meant a win or two more? Could have.

From all accounts, Fox is not a shooter. Slasher is the term most use. Is he going to rebound well at 6-8 220? In the Big 10? Maybe. Again, how many more wins this season? Same as above.

I dont see either of them as a high impact player that would have made a huge difference in wins this season. Hope I am wrong as I really like II.

CBJ needs to sign kids that will be impact players, quickly. Next season is pivotal, imo. Another season of less than mediocre in therms of wins will put CBJ on tough ground, imo.

I have watched this program for darn near 50 years. Nothing I want more than going to The Barn to an atmosphere like the 90's. It was special. The Barn was a blast when the team returned home around midnight after punching the FF ticket. Something I will never forget.
 

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