Which Basketball Coach gets Fired First?

Who gets the Axe first?

  • Whalen

    Votes: 49 62.0%

  • Johnson

    Votes: 25 31.6%

  • Fleck - I mean he already has it! For 2 years straight!

    Votes: 2 2.5%

  • Coyle - not a coach but is his seat warm?

    Votes: 3 3.8%
  • Total voters
    79
Donate To GopherHole
bleedsmaroonandgold said:
So you don't want us to talk about when he may be fired, and you don't want us to talk about his results. Would your preference be that the sole topic of conversation on this board be next year's recruits and their wingspan?

And if hte purpose of this post is to "blast/ridicule" the coach, then it is superfluous, because his record takes care of that on its own.
Click to expand...
Shit, we're not even supposed to watch the games. Avert your eyes!
 

So, the consensus is it’s easier to fire the Minnesota legend than the Men’s coach who is setting new marks for futility, simply because of his race.

I thought we were supposed to judge not by the color of one’s skin but by the content of their character (record).
 

Otis said:
So, the consensus is it’s easier to fire the Minnesota legend than the Men’s coach who is setting new marks for futility, simply because of his race.

I thought we were supposed to judge not by the color of one’s skin but by the content of their character (record).
Click to expand...
Perhaps we could get away with firing Dave Thomson. He seems eligible.
 


howeda7 said:
Who's going to make that argument if Ben is 10-50 in the B1G after three seasons? Do you genuinely see a signficant contingent of media or the public caring enough to do that? I don't. I can't even see Jim Souhan dying on that hill.

I do think the bar Ben has to clear next year will be pretty low. An NIT bid would certainly be enough. But if it's 4-6 wins in the B1G, no one is going to be rushing to his defense.
Click to expand...
The U will absolutely get flack. People find any sort of excuses as to why they're raising a stink. Not enough time. Not enough resources. Didn't publicly support him enough. Pitino being here 8 years doesn't help that case. I don't care unsuccessful CBJ is through 3 years. I've said it elsewhere and will say it again- the U will 100% get flack for firing a black coach for anything less than they gave Pitino (in terms of time). It may only amount to a few newspaper articles, but the U and the Regents have shown that can be enough to make multi-million dollar and multi-year decisions on, as silly as it is. Why was he even given an interview in the first place? It's not because "he's a nice guy".

Slightly non-sequitur, but Dan Monson had a 44-68 (.393) conference record, and had the team in the NIT his second year. That was legitimately a "total rebuild", unlike what others are calling this. If the team goes winless the rest of this year, CBJ would need to reel off 18 straight conference wins to match Monson's career win %. Or put another way, (again if the team goes winless the rest of this season), he would need to go 13-7 and 14-6 in conference the next 2 years to match Monson's career win %.
 
Last edited:


forever a gopher said:
The U will absolutely get flack. People find any sort of excuses as to why they're raising a stink. Not enough time. Not enough resources. Didn't publicly support him enough. Pitino being here 8 years doesn't help that case. I don't care unsuccessful CBJ is through 3 years. I've said it elsewhere and will say it again- the U will 100% get flack for firing a black coach for anything less than they gave Pitino (in terms of time). It may only amount to a few newspaper articles, but the U and the Regents have shown that can be enough to make multi-million dollar and multi-year decisions on, as silly as it is. Why was he even given an interview in the first place? It's not because "he's a nice guy".

Slightly non-sequitur, but Dan Monson had a 44-68 (.393) conference record, and had the team in the NIT his second year. That was legitimately a "total rebuild", unlike what others are calling this. If the team goes winless the rest of this year, CBJ would need to reel off 18 straight conference wins to match Monson's career win %. Or put another way, (again if the team goes winless the rest of this season), he would need to go 13-7 and 14-6 in conference the next 2 years to match Monson's career win %.
Click to expand...
Even if that's true, it reinforces making the right move for the program. If those few who will "raise a stink" are still going to do it after year 5 saying the exact same things as they would now, then it should have no impact on the decision.
 

forever a gopher said:
The U will absolutely get flack. People find any sort of excuses as to why they're raising a stink. Not enough time. Not enough resources. Didn't publicly support him enough. Pitino being here 8 years doesn't help that case. I don't care unsuccessful CBJ is through 3 years. I've said it elsewhere and will say it again- the U will 100% get flack for firing a black coach for anything less than they gave Pitino (in terms of time). It may only amount to a few newspaper articles, but the U and the Regents have shown that can be enough to make multi-million dollar and multi-year decisions on, as silly as it is. Why was he even given an interview in the first place? It's not because "he's a nice guy".

Slightly non-sequitur, but Dan Monson had a 44-68 (.393) conference record, and had the team in the NIT his second year. That was legitimately a "total rebuild", unlike what others are calling this. If the team goes winless the rest of this year, CBJ would need to reel off 18 straight conference wins to match Monson's career win %. Or put another way, (again if the team goes winless the rest of this season), he would need to go 13-7 and 14-6 in conference the next 2 years to match Monson's career win %.
Click to expand...
Total rebuild for Monson?

He inherited from Clem:
Przybilla
Rychart
Simmons
Ohnstad
Bickerstaff
And 4 others.

That’s not exactly an empty cupboard, yeah it was not great but there were some guys to work with.

Ben inherited:
Eric Curry - promising but injury plagued player-she’ll of his former self.
Isaiah Ihnen - never saw the court as knee injury cost him the season.

The rest of the lineup came from HS and the portal. One of more celebrated transfers never played due to a knee injury.

Those situations aren’t even comparable. Ben basically started from scratch, Monson at least had a base even though he had NCAA sanctions to deal with.
 

Otis said:
Total rebuild for Monson?

He inherited from Clem:
Przybilla
Rychart
Simmons
Ohnstad
Bickerstaff
And 4 others.

That’s not exactly an empty cupboard, yeah it was not great but there were some guys to work with.

Ben inherited:
Eric Curry - promising but injury plagued player-she’ll of his former self.
Isaiah Ihnen - never saw the court as knee injury cost him the season.

The rest of the lineup came from HS and the portal. One of more celebrated transfers never played due to a knee injury.

Those situations aren’t even comparable. Ben basically started from scratch, Monson at least had a base even though he had NCAA sanctions to deal with.
Click to expand...

Ben inherited more than that, they just didn't stay. Ben could go out into the portal and rebuild his team like so many other coaches have done with a high degree of success over the last two seasons. He recruited last place talent and has had a last place team for 2 years straight.

Monson didn't have the free transfer portal luxury. Monson took over after a messy scandal with scholarship reductions, postseason bans, and a public black eye. He still landed the two highest rated recruits in Gopher history.

You're right, those situations are not comparable, Monson took over a far more difficult situation and won far more than Ben has in his first two seasons.
 

Agree to disagree wx man!

Ben basically started from scratch.

Maybe his biggest mistake was taking so many seniors the first year.

I also suspect the Pitinos were fouling the transfer waters.
 



GopherWeatherGuy said:
Ben inherited more than that, they just didn't stay. Ben could go out into the portal and rebuild his team like so many other coaches have done with a high degree of success over the last two seasons. He recruited last place talent and has had a last place team for 2 years straight.
Click to expand...
You know that it was bare. The ones who would’ve stayed weren’t good. we’ve gone over this enough.
GopherWeatherGuy said:
Monson didn't have the free transfer portal luxury. Monson took over after a messy scandal with scholarship reductions, postseason bans, and a public black eye. He still landed the two highest rated recruits in Gopher history.
Click to expand...
Besides Humphries who was the other? I thought Rickert committed when Clem was here? Timeline could be off though.
GopherWeatherGuy said:
You're right, those situations are not comparable, Monson took over a far more difficult situation and won far more than Ben has in his first two seasons.
Click to expand...
This is where some disagree. It’s fine you feel that way, but it’s not far off for others to think it’s very similar in bad situations.
 

Gopherfan84 said:
You know that it was bare. The ones who would’ve stayed weren’t good. we’ve gone over this enough.

Besides Humphries who was the other? I thought Rickert committed when Clem was here? Timeline could be off though.

This is where some disagree. It’s fine you feel that way, but it’s not far off for others to think it’s very similar in bad situations.
Click to expand...
Rickert was a Monson recruit.
 


Gopherfan84 said:
You know that it was bare. The ones who would’ve stayed weren’t good. we’ve gone over this enough.
Click to expand...

We have, but people keep repeating the lie that he only inherited 2 players, which is completely false.

Gopherfan84 said:
This is where some disagree. It’s fine you feel that way, but it’s not far off for others to think it’s very similar in bad situations.
Click to expand...

There is no comparison to what Ben inherited and what Monson inherited. Ben has had no recruiting, scholarship, or postseason restrictions to deal with. He didn't have an academic scandal to clean up and recover from. Every other comparable coach has improved their team from the free transfer portal, except for Ben.

There's only one person to blame for the Gophers now being the worst program in the B1G, and being at the the lowest point in school history: Ben Johnson
 



GopherWeatherGuy said:
We have, but people keep repeating the lie that he only inherited 2 players, which is completely false.
Click to expand...
Ok I guess.
GopherWeatherGuy said:
There is no comparison to what Ben inherited and what Monson inherited. Ben has had no recruiting, scholarship, or postseason restrictions to deal with. He didn't have an academic scandal to clean up and recover from. Every other comparable coach has improved their team from the free transfer portal, except for Ben.

There's only one person to blame for the Gophers now being the worst program in the B1G, and being at the the lowest point in school history: Ben Johnson
Click to expand...
Different circumstances of course. While we didn’t have academic restrictions, we did have an extremely dysfunctional locker room and lacked talent. We also don’t have NIL that others have. Ben was not able to build it quick. That is for sure on him. He also chose to not take bad character guys and is trying to do it the right way without shortcuts and something sustainable. It’s not unreasonable to say this job was in a bad spot either before he got here.
 

Ogee Ogilthorpe said:
They're not firing a black mens basketball head coach after 2 years. Probably not even after 3 years. If Johnson were white, with this same unmitigated dumpster fire of an opening two seasons, he would likely be fired by March 15 next month.

Ben isn't going anywhere anytime soon. It's best to just hope (pray) that some of the players start to put things together and figure some things out. The body of evidence up to this point doesn't offer a ton of optimism but there's still time.
Click to expand...
"The body of evidence" requires a brain to process it though. Instead of simply melting down after every loss during the first year of a ground-up rebuild.
 


Gopherfan84 said:
You know that it was bare. The ones who would’ve stayed weren’t good. we’ve gone over this enough.

Besides Humphries who was the other? I thought Rickert committed when Clem was here? Timeline could be off though.

This is where some disagree. It’s fine you feel that way, but it’s not far off for others to think it’s very similar in bad situations.
Click to expand...
Does cbj have any restrictions of any sort?

No.

Monson had it far worse.
 

Gopherfan84 said:
Ok I guess.

Different circumstances of course. While we didn’t have academic restrictions, we did have an extremely dysfunctional locker room and lacked talent. We also don’t have NIL that others have. Ben was not able to build it quick. That is for sure on him. He also chose to not take bad character guys and is trying to do it the right way without shortcuts and something sustainable. It’s not unreasonable to say this job was in a bad spot either before he got here.
Click to expand...
No nil, but open portal, something Monson didn't have.
 


Crappie said:
Does cbj have any restrictions of any sort?

No.

Monson had it far worse.
Click to expand...
No to little NIL is about the equivalent to having restrictions. Not a full on excuse to lose like this though. Other schools lack NIL and still win, but they mostly do so by development and it takes longer.
Crappie said:
No nil, but open portal, something Monson didn't have.
Click to expand...
How do you think you get the high level guards in the portal?
 


At this point, it'd probably be Whalen. But in all honesty, Coyle should be first on the chopping block for the utter mess he has brought to both basketball programs.
 

Gopherfan84 said:
How do you think you get the high level guards in the portal?
Click to expand...

Is this a trick question? I do believe the answer, the only obvious answer, is RECRUITING. Pretty sure we heard a few times along the way that the new coach was going to be really good at this
 

Ogee Ogilthorpe said:
Is this a trick question? I do believe the answer, the only obvious answer, is RECRUITING. Pretty sure we heard a few times along the way that the new coach was going to be really good at this
Click to expand...
Yeah he is good at building relationships which typically translates well to recruiting. You still gotta get the people to at least talk to you. Similar to PJ, our lack of someone just throwing money at them eliminates a lot of options for us. Is what it is right now. Need to be superior in evaluations and development. The development part will take some time and we don’t really know yet if the staff is good or bad at that.
 

I think this was a poorly done poll. The conversation has been solid though.

If I had to fire someone after the year I would fire Whalen but…no one needs to be fired. I think you give her one more year unless there is a mass exodus of the current best players.

Looks terrible to fire a coach after two years with scandal. A third year of 1-3 conference wins should lead to his firing though.
 

UpAndUnder43 said:
I think this was a poorly done poll. The conversation has been solid though.
If I had to fire someone after the year I would fire Whalen but…no one needs to be fired. I think you give her one more year unless there is a mass exodus of the current best players.

Looks terrible to fire a coach after two years with scandal. A third year of 1-3 conference wins should lead to his firing though.
Click to expand...

OUCH!! A third year of 1-3 conference wins would mean that ol' Ben had accumulated a grand total of about the same number of conference wins, 6, as the last coach had won in his final single year when he got shit-canned.
 

Ogee Ogilthorpe said:
OUCH!! A third year of 1-3 conference wins would mean that ol' Ben had accumulated a grand total of about the same number of conference wins, 6, as the last coach had won in his final single year when he got shit-canned.
Click to expand...

I debated the number. If he goes 7-13 and has a good non conference that is reasonable progress. Even 5 wins could be. But 1-3? No way.
 


Gopherfan84 said:
The ones who would stay wouldn’t have helped and were pretty worthless everywhere else they’ve been
Click to expand...
Robbins, Kalschuer, and Brandon Johnson all left after the coaching change.

But just keep repeating the lie that there weren’t any players here. If you say it enough, maybe it’ll come true.
 

forever a gopher said:
Robbins, Kalschuer, and Brandon Johnson all left after the coaching change.

But just keep repeating the lie that there weren’t any players here. If you say it enough, maybe it’ll come true.
Click to expand...
Johnson was one who could’ve stayed. Robbins was following his uncle and Gabe was out no matter whoever was the coach. So yeah they weren’t in the portal yet, but those two were gone. Counting them as still here and part of what Ben could’ve kept is also just as disingenuous to the conversation. So feel free to keep pretending that they were options and continue to say it enough, maybe it’ll come true…
 

You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom