When can we start expecting better recruits?

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Bob_Loblaw

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I understand he might not be able to lock down a spectacular class right now, but when do you all think we should start expecting these good local recruits to start signing with the Gophers?

Next class?
 


Honestly I think it will be once we start winning. Maybe we start seeing A recruit or two here or there, but we're not a basketball powerhouse.

We were already pulling in 4* guys so to get better from that might take some time.
 


2022....hes going to have to do a little scrambling for this cycle.

if we can get 1 early commit on the 2022 class i think we can expect a very good class.....and then hopefully they can show it on the court and win games which will continue to produce better players
 



Does "expect" in this context mean "what we think will happen" or "what we think should/needs to happen (in order to justify the hiring)" ?
 

fan of Ray Williams said:
I think next class. Honestly looking for quick results.
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Yep. He has to do very well between this spring and the fall signings or we have a problem. I expect a top 25 ranked class this fall. I actually think he can do it as I believe that the locals will be encouraged to get alongside Ben. If he pulls that off- then he has breathing room and his ability to coach and grow on the job will be given a decent chance. If not, he doesn't have the experience to avoid getting beaten up in this league and the lack of a "wait until our recruits grow up" narrative to lean on - it could get ugly in a hurry.

Get Garcia and a couple of solid transfers and then roll in a really nice frosh class and build from there!!
 

Pipe dream. I hope that I'm wrong, but I don't think he is going to be the recruiter people think he is. Might do marginally better at home, but most of the players here are mid to lower lever 3*'s or less.
 



Ho Jon said:
Pipe dream. I hope that I'm wrong, but I don't think he is going to be the recruiter people think he is. Might do marginally better at home, but most of the players here are mid to lower lever 3*'s or less.
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How much have you followed Minnesota high school basketball? Lower level 3*s? Yes, there are many of them, but there are 10+ recruits in the 2022 class alone that are mostly high 3** or better, getting offered by P6 teams. In a typical year there are 5-8 really good players going P6. If Johnson can get just 1-2 of them a year, and some good out-of-state players that is a good roster.
 

Ozzy&Ray said:
How much have you followed Minnesota high school basketball? Lower level 3*s? Yes, there are many of them, but there are 10+ recruits in the 2022 class alone that are mostly high 3** or better, getting offered by P6 teams. In a typical year there are 5-8 really good players going P6. If Johnson can get just 1-2 of them a year, and some good out-of-state players that is a good roster.
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I don't think anything I wrote disagrees with what you just said. I said most of them. You told me that 10-15 (10+) are really good. How many players are there in the state? What did I say that is different than what you are saying? Same thing I said basically. I also said that he would do marginally better at home than Pitino.
 

bga1 said:
Yep. He has to do very well between this spring and the fall signings or we have a problem. I expect a top 25 ranked class this fall. I actually think he can do it as I believe that the locals will be encouraged to get alongside Ben. If he pulls that off- then he has breathing room and his ability to coach and grow on the job will be given a decent chance. If not, he doesn't have the experience to avoid getting beaten up in this league and the lack of a "wait until our recruits grow up" narrative to lean on - it could get ugly in a hurry.

Get Garcia and a couple of solid transfers and then roll in a really nice frosh class and build from there!!
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That has to happen. Counting on it. That's why the hire was made.
 

If he gets quality transfers and has a good first year, the recruits will look to be Gophers. He got Murphy, Oturu, Coffey, etc. That was as the Assistant Coach and now he calls as the Head Coach. Big difference.
 



Ho Jon said:
I don't think anything I wrote disagrees with what you just said. I said most of them. You told me that 10-15 (10+) are really good. How many players are there in the state? What did I say that is different than what you are saying? Same thing I said basically. I also said that he would do marginally better at home than Pitino.
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This isn't football. If there are 9 in-state kids in just the 2022 class (for example) who have high-level offers and you can only generally take 2-3 hoops recruits each year, what does it matter what players 10 (or 15) to 100 look like?
 

MaxyJR1 said:
If he gets quality transfers and has a good first year
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Well, that's pretty damn crucial, isn't it? If he wants to make an impression on 2022 kids who don't sign early.

So, in other words: in order for the coach to start laying that early foundation to start winning in the mid-term .............. he needs to win, in the short-term.
 

MaxyJR1 said:
If he gets quality transfers and has a good first year, the recruits will look to be Gophers. He got Murphy, Oturu, Coffey, etc. That was as the Assistant Coach and now he calls as the Head Coach. Big difference.
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If he loses Carr but still finishes better than 13th, at least he has a case to make. I don't have any expectations of how successful they'll be on the court this year--and I wouldn't have had any grand expectations with Smith or Gates or anyone either. If Ben can find some transfers and 3* high-schoolers, he can win a few games.
 

I expect to see results in the form of quality grad transfers this spring-summer and then some solid recruits for 2022. I think this experiment has a small window to be successful, and that window closes with 2022 high school recruiting.

Unless Ben surprises us all by being an X and O savant who can win without quality transfers and recruits, I don’t know what he could sell to 2023 recruits and beyond without being able to point to results in recruiting or on the court.
 

Bad Gopher said:
If he loses Carr but still finishes better than 13th, at least he has a case to make. I don't have any expectations of how successful they'll be on the court this year--and I wouldn't have had any grand expectations with Smith or Gates or anyone either. If Ben can find some transfers and 3* high-schoolers, he can win a few games.
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Can't predict anything until we know the roster better. If they have Kauscher healthy and Robbins back, that is a quality veteran pair to group around. I think they will be bottom 4, but just assuming that with a new coach and roster.
 

If he brings in the Xavier 4* players from the portal retains Robbins and finds us a PG he will be off to a hell of a start. Garcia would be icing.

Thompson and Photo could go away if he get the Xavier guys.

Really would need 2 PGs if no Mashburn.
 

MplsGopher said:
Well, that's pretty damn crucial, isn't it? If he wants to make an impression on 2022 kids who don't sign early.

So, in other words: in order for the coach to start laying that early foundation to start winning in the mid-term .............. he needs to win, in the short-term.
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I didn't say anything about wins. He can't lose by 20+ every road game.
 

MaxyJR1 said:
I didn't say anything about wins. He can't lose by 20+ every road game.
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I'm saying, it will take wins, to win at local recruiting. I don't believe any human alive is capable of disproving this, at Minnesota, with what our current situation is.

The thread was about local recruiting, mind you.

(unless there is something happening under the table ... and that is impossible to prove)
 

Scholarship numbers will be somewhat hard to predict for 2022. There are just so many variables. Assuming all in the portal stay in the portal, no others join, assuming Brandon Johnson comes back and Curry leaves, and both current 2021 commits stay, that leaves 10 scholarhip players for 21/22 on the books: Robbins, Williams, Mitchell, Gach, Kalscheur, Johnson, Freeman, Ihnen, Thompson, Pohto. That leaves 3 open spots. It's probably likely either 1 of the current commits bail, and/or another current player enters the portal to leave 4 or more open spots. How many of those will be 1-year transfers, and how many will be multiple year transfers and/or spring HS signees?

Then, if you assume no more transfers out after 21/22, and nobody uses an extra year of eligibility going into 22/23 (so Robbins is gone, for example, and doesn't use his COVID year to get himself a super-senior year), we'd only have 6 scholarship guys plus whatever multi-year transfers he takes this year. So even if he gives 2 of the 3 open spots for 21/22 to multi-year guys, we would still have 5 spots to fill for the 2022 class.

This is a lot to assume, as there are way too many moving parts, but moral of the story is there will likely be at least 4-6 spots for 2022 kids to sign here. The 2022 MN class is loaded. Fair or not, his tenure will likely be defined by the 2022 class. With so many open spots, if he signs a bunch of stiffs, they will clog up the roster for years to come and it'll be hard to recover. Look at Pitino and whiffing on big time recruits and ending up with Konate and Dheidhou- that really hampered his roster for 4 years. But if he does well and signs a bunch of difference makers, then it's up to him to prove he can coach.

https://247sports.com/Season/2022-B...ankings/?InstitutionGroup=HighSchool&State=MN
 

forever a gopher said:
Scholarship numbers will be somewhat hard to predict for 2022. There are just so many variables. Assuming all in the portal stay in the portal, no others join, assuming Brandon Johnson comes back and Curry leaves, and both current 2021 commits stay, that leaves 10 scholarhip players for 21/22 on the books: Robbins, Williams, Mitchell, Gach, Kalscheur, Johnson, Freeman, Ihnen, Thompson, Pohto. That leaves 3 open spots. It's probably likely either 1 of the current commits bail, and/or another current player enters the portal to leave 4 or more open spots. How many of those will be 1-year transfers, and how many will be multiple year transfers and/or spring HS signees?

Then, if you assume no more transfers out after 21/22, and nobody uses an extra year of eligibility going into 22/23 (so Robbins is gone, for example, and doesn't use his COVID year to get himself a super-senior year), we'd only have 6 scholarship guys plus whatever multi-year transfers he takes this year. So even if he gives 2 of the 3 open spots for 21/22 to multi-year guys, we would still have 5 spots to fill for the 2022 class.

This is a lot to assume, as there are way too many moving parts, but moral of the story is there will likely be at least 4-6 spots for 2022 kids to sign here. The 2022 MN class is loaded. Fair or not, his tenure will likely be defined by the 2022 class. With so many open spots, if he signs a bunch of stiffs, they will clog up the roster for years to come and it'll be hard to recover. Look at Pitino and whiffing on big time recruits and ending up with Konate and Dheidhou- that really hampered his roster for 4 years. But if he does well and signs a bunch of difference makers, then it's up to him to prove he can coach.

https://247sports.com/Season/2022-B...ankings/?InstitutionGroup=HighSchool&State=MN
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Nailed it.
 

tmvander said:
Honestly I think it will be once we start winning. Maybe we start seeing A recruit or two here or there, but we're not a basketball powerhouse.

We were already pulling in 4* guys so to get better from that might take some time.
Click to expand...

Isn't this with every single coach in the country?

This feels like sort of a chicken and the egg discussion. It seems like with this hire, we are saying the recruiting is the egg (which obviously came first) and that the results would flow from the improved recruiting.
 

matt said:
I expect to see results in the form of quality grad transfers this spring-summer and then some solid recruits for 2022. I think this experiment has a small window to be successful, and that window closes with 2022 high school recruiting.

Unless Ben surprises us all by being an X and O savant who can win without quality transfers and recruits, I don’t know what he could sell to 2023 recruits and beyond without being able to point to results in recruiting or on the court.
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Just as important is if and his staff prove to be excellent on development. Ihnen and Mitchell both have a ton of upside but don't have the skills or the muscle. Can they be ready by this fall to contribute on a different level than Pitino had them at?

Can they teach Williams to play to his strengths? Can they get Freeman to improve his skills and be a solid Big Ten center? Can they restore Gabe's confidence and get his shot back to where it was?
 


MplsGopher said:
I'm saying, it will take wins, to win at local recruiting. I don't believe any human alive is capable of disproving this, at Minnesota, with what our current situation is.

The thread was about local recruiting, mind you.

(unless there is something happening under the table ... and that is impossible to prove)
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What's is winning to you? For me winning is being top 8 in conference on a regular basis and in the tournament as much as possible.
 

forever a gopher said:
Scholarship numbers will be somewhat hard to predict for 2022. There are just so many variables. Assuming all in the portal stay in the portal, no others join, assuming Brandon Johnson comes back and Curry leaves, and both current 2021 commits stay, that leaves 10 scholarhip players for 21/22 on the books: Robbins, Williams, Mitchell, Gach, Kalscheur, Johnson, Freeman, Ihnen, Thompson, Pohto. That leaves 3 open spots. It's probably likely either 1 of the current commits bail, and/or another current player enters the portal to leave 4 or more open spots. How many of those will be 1-year transfers, and how many will be multiple year transfers and/or spring HS signees?

Then, if you assume no more transfers out after 21/22, and nobody uses an extra year of eligibility going into 22/23 (so Robbins is gone, for example, and doesn't use his COVID year to get himself a super-senior year), we'd only have 6 scholarship guys plus whatever multi-year transfers he takes this year. So even if he gives 2 of the 3 open spots for 21/22 to multi-year guys, we would still have 5 spots to fill for the 2022 class.

This is a lot to assume, as there are way too many moving parts, but moral of the story is there will likely be at least 4-6 spots for 2022 kids to sign here. The 2022 MN class is loaded. Fair or not, his tenure will likely be defined by the 2022 class. With so many open spots, if he signs a bunch of stiffs, they will clog up the roster for years to come and it'll be hard to recover. Look at Pitino and whiffing on big time recruits and ending up with Konate and Dheidhou- that really hampered his roster for 4 years. But if he does well and signs a bunch of difference makers, then it's up to him to prove he can coach.

https://247sports.com/Season/2022-B...ankings/?InstitutionGroup=HighSchool&State=MN
Click to expand...
Very good assessment.
 

A bigger name in Whalen wasn't able to lock down one of the best talents produced in the state in Paige Beuckers (not sure I spelled correctly) in her first year so it would stand to reason Johnson might need some time to start producing results.
 

MaxyJR1 said:
What's is winning to you? For me winning is being top 8 in conference on a regular basis and in the tournament as much as possible.
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But that's exactly the point.

This is the question that matters to the discussion at hand: "what's winning, to local 4* players?"

What kind of winning would they need to see, to overcome their natural bias against selecting the Gophers?


And rest assured: it need not be the case, likely isn't the case, nor am I suggesting it is the case, that this is a binary proposition.

Even if we can move the needle, that's something. Very hard to measure in a small window, though.
 

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