Why all the disappointment?

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I was disappointed at first, but a couple things are changing my mind.

1. Ben appears to be the most plugged in guy in the world in Minnesota hoops.
2. Ben has more polish on him than I thought he'd have.
3. Coyle seemed to have a very good idea on the whole coaching staff that Ben would want. This calms some of the concerns on how he'll actually coach the team. If he can, etc.

And the newest one is this:

#4. Mark Coyle said today that he and Ben will be tied together at the hip. I have a feeling Joan Gable told Mark "Ben WILL BE SUCCESSFUL. YOU'LL MAKE SURE OF IT". I think Mark will be assisting on all of the head coach administrative things that PJ does so well, that Ben will need to learn. I would also assume Mark will have PJ help "mentor" Ben on anything U related.

The biggest factor of the success will be if President, AD, and Coach all have the same goals, and they really seem to.
 

I am optimistic that Johnson can recruit good Minnesota players but I am skeptical that he can recruit blue chip players. Minnesota will not be a premier program with good Minnesota kids or good national players. Blue Chip Minnesota players are too infrequent to carry the program. Furthermore, some will naturally go to other programs for a new experience. The program needs to frequently land blue chip players nationally like the major programs. Unfortunately, this will be hard to do until Minnesota improves its results and reputation. It remains to be seen if Johnson has the coaching ability to get the maximum performance from his players.
 

GopherDude said:
You should suspiciously like a boomer in disguise with the "dumbest posts I've seen" comment...

My post is not referencing the people on GH that "aren't thrilled with the hire"... it's referencing the dozens of commenters who have said repeatedly that "he was only hired because he's black" or the hundreds of additional hysterical responses that are calling for Coyle's head, mentioning that they're going to take a few years off from Gopher basketball or examples like the one 9 posts above this comment, "It's like if Andy Dufresne crawled through that river of shit and came out of the pipe not to freedom, but to another cell."

There were literally hundreds of overly emotional (again, I'm not referencing the commenters who aren't thrilled, I'm talking the hysterical sh*t) responses today on GH and all I'm saying is the 20-25 people I've spoken with about this hire who are under the age of 40 are all cautiously optimistic-extremely excited. Maybe we just haven't been Gopher fans long enough and therefore we refuse to be full blown cynics about a new coach on day 1?

The funniest part of all this to me is that it gets announced today that Johnson was the lead guy/reason that Coffey & Oturu came to Minnesota and some of you still think that Craig Smith would have a better chance at landing in state Top 100 kids (because of his win percentage as a coach at South Dakota & Utah State) than the super well connected & respected (at least by the basketball royalty in the Minnesota Community) guy who was named our coach today.
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You stated that most of the negative comments are from boomers, who you obviously dislike a lot. You have no idea if this is even remotely close to being true. It's a dumb comment and you deserved to be called out. It's like you don't understand how a message board works.

You then made the dumb comment that boomers don't like Fleck. Again.... No idea what you are talking about.

Johnson helped get Coffey, etc. He gets credit for the gets. What about the numerous misses?

You sound more hysterical than 90% of what I've read the last two days and you make zero sense.
 

alaska said:
Maybe I am missing something huge, but what is everyone down on this hire? Other than Musselman, which was not coming here, not of the other mentions that we have talked about got me aroused at all. I would much rather go with a guy like Johnson and see what he can do, especially in the recruiting game than fail on a guy we bring in from a mid major who has had above average success, but has not real excitement around them. And there was no excitement for anyone outside of Mussleman.

Give Johnson a chance, Coyle is not an idiot, he is making a hire that is tied to his own success. I'm not sure why we don't trust that and give this young guy a chance to make things exciting around here again. As soon as he gets the first of our in state big recruits to stay home we will be praising him just like Fleck.
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Have you ever heard of Gerry Faust...
 

tikited said:
This is one of the dumbest posts I've seen so far. I'm a Gen X before you go all "boomer" on me...which only dumb people say.

I wanted Smith and I was beyond happy with Fleck. I commented that he was almost a too good to be true hire.

I hope Johnson succeeds but anyone who doesn't get why so many people aren't thrilled with the hire are delusional.
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Same.
 



howeda7 said:
Same.
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Smith would have done nothing for excitement....what is his recruiting track record? It would have been anotehr 5 years and in the same place. Johnson had to be hired. He is the only on in the cadidate pool that we had that could have got some excitement going. We need that.
 

alaska said:
Smith would have done nothing for excitement....what is his recruiting track record? It would have been anotehr 5 years and in the same place. Johnson had to be hired. He is the only on in the cadidate pool that we had that could have got some excitement going. We need that.
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Winning generates excitement. All Smith does is win. What has Johnson won?

This program needs to be built like Wisconsin, Virginia, Villanova, etc. Smith is the perfect X's and O's coach to do that. Those programs didn't start off by landing big recruits, they started off by coaching up kids to play their system. The bigger recruits came later.

Minnesota won't win anything by landing a bunch of mid-tier Minnesota recruits, and having someone who doesn't know how coach them. Maybe Johnson can, but his track record of being apart of losing programs suggests otherwise.
 




GopherWeatherGuy said:
Winning generates excitement. All Smith does is win. What has Johnson won?

This program needs to be built like Wisconsin, Virginia, Villanova, etc. Smith is the perfect X's and O's coach to do that. Those programs didn't start off by landing big recruits, they started off by coaching up kids to play their system. The bigger recruits came later.

Minnesota won't win anything by landing a bunch of mid-tier Minnesota recruits, and having someone who doesn't know how coach them. Maybe Johnson can, but his track record of being apart of losing programs suggests otherwise.
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Mid-Tier Minnesota recruits the last 5 years have been 4 and high 3 star players that would have certainly played and started this year for the Gophers.

I don't think using assistant coaches record is good barometer for success but that's just me.

Basketball is one of the easiest sports to have a decent team at, recruit at a top 30 level and you will more than likely make the tournament every year. Pitino failed at that and that's why he failed here. This has been seen over and over again here but if you go after top 400 spring recruits and have to rely on them after injuries you are going to fail. It happened to Tubby and it happened to Richard, hopefully it doesn't happen to Ben.
 

Johnnyboy18 said:
Mid-Tier Minnesota recruits the last 5 years have been 4 and high 3 star players that would have certainly played and started this year for the Gophers.

I don't think using assistant coaches record is good barometer for success but that's just me.

Basketball is one of the easiest sports to have a decent team at, recruit at a top 30 level and you will more than likely make the tournament every year. Pitino failed at that and that's why he failed here. This has been seen over and over again here but if you go after top 400 spring recruits and have to rely on them after injuries you are going to fail. It happened to Tubby and it happened to Richard, hopefully it doesn't happen to Ben.
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Ben Johnson actually does have a decent chance to turn this more quickly than people think. It's the complete unknown relative to coaching, in game, etc. that won't be known for months. It's been gone thru countless times, but assuming he keeps Robbins, he needs a couple other 6'10" serviceable big men, and needs to find some shooters and a point guard. It seems like a tall order, but this is the point of the portal. Garcia would change things in a hurry, along-side Robbins. Then it's about the guards he can bring in.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
Winning generates excitement. All Smith does is win. What has Johnson won?

This program needs to be built like Wisconsin, Virginia, Villanova, etc. Smith is the perfect X's and O's coach to do that. Those programs didn't start off by landing big recruits, they started off by coaching up kids to play their system. The bigger recruits came later.

Minnesota won't win anything by landing a bunch of mid-tier Minnesota recruits, and having someone who doesn't know how coach them. Maybe Johnson can, but his track record of being apart of losing programs suggests otherwise.
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So, if he had landed Garcia, Walton, and Carlson, there wouldn't be much success unless he was a top coach.
 

A program doesn't need blue chip players to be consistently successful. Look at Wisconsin. They hit lightning in a bottle w Dekker (who was a top 50 high schooler) and lucked out that Kaminsky turned out to be so good. He averaged less than 2 pts/game as a frosh. Even without those guys, they go to the tourney every year and win a game or two. That should be the U's goal at this point. You need solid defenders, some size and toughness, 3 or 4 knock down 3 pt shooters and a Junior and Senior heavy team to make runs in the tournament. The blue chippers leave after a year, if they even go the college route. I think more and more will follow the LaMello Ball plan to prep to be a pro...I don't think 1 year of college does that. Teams that truly establish a culture of toughness and unselfishness along with a little talent as well can win consistently.
 



GopherDude said:
Couldn't agree more!

Half the threads from today are so unbelievably negative & whinny. & based on what I'm seeing on social media (and just by the general tone of the negative posts on GH - haha), I'm assuming most (not all) of the whinners are in the 65+ demographic. "Wahhhhh, I'm a boomer and I always get my way, why didn't we hire Craig Smith? Minnesota hired Johnson only because he's a minority, he's not qualified, harumph, I'm cancelling my season tickets and done supporting my favorite team because of this, can't wait for the next coach in 3-5 years"....

Seriously, it's so annoying for the rest of us actual fans that are excited to support our new head coach who 1. actually played basketball at a high level 2. has 17 years of experience as an assistant college basketball coach 3. was born and raised in Minnesota, played for the Gophers and quite obviously has the drive & determination to bring the basketball program to new heights (this is especially clear when compared to Tubby or Pitino) 4. clearly is a above average to excellent recruiter 5. Had an incredible first press conference 6. If he is successful, will probably end up at Minnesota for decades since it's his true dream job and 7. everyone with actual basketball knowledge (former players, coaches, insiders, etc.) are praising the hire

There's so many more positives to this hire than negatives, but at least half the posts today seem to be negative. What's the worst thing that happens? We have a .360 Big Ten win percentage during Johnson's tenure, whiff on almost every major in-state recruit and only make the tournament a quarter of the time?..... Oh wait......

All the complainers about this hire are the same people that cried about the Fleck hire because they didn't like his energy, enthusiasm and vigor!

Go to bed boomers! The rest of us want to celebrate this excellent hire without your constant blabbering & moaning!!
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This post is a cope. No cap. One of the most boomer things in the world right now is to call people boomers. The cool kids were doing it about 10 years ago.

Northern Illinois didn't hire him.

The worst thing that could happen is we could continue to be crappy because we have another crappy coach (I'm not saying he's crappy, just detailing what is the worst thing that could happen).

He had a terrible press conference. He looked scared and couldn't ask a question about how he was going to play. It's not a rip on him, it just didn't get my chili hot.

The board unanimously was pumped up about the Fleck hire and are pretty unanimously pissed about this hire. Fleck just brought a MAC team to a NY Bowl. That'd be like if Craig Smith brought Utah State to the Final 4 and then we hired him. Comparing these two hires is idiotic. Fleck was interviewing with Tennessee, Ben had just been passed over by Montana and Northern Illinois.
 

alaska said:
Maybe I am missing something huge, but what is everyone down on this hire?
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The biggest thing -- by far -- I mean let's be honest it is the thing: complete and total lack of head coaching experience, let alone a proven record of winning (at lower levels) as a head coach.

Gates would've been infinitely more qualified, in this respect, with only two years in the Horizon League (and of course, a fairly remarkable two years, for whatever that is worth in that kind of a league).


It's a hope and a prayer that he'll figure out how to be a head coach, and a good one, in his first shot at it.

Gates did it, sure ... but he got to do it in a much lower level, in a much easier league.


Look, at the end of the day, winning is what matters. Right? A lot of strange, weird crap (*cough* FLECK *cough*) can be looked the other way upon, if you win.


I just think it's an incredibly tall task for him to just start winning in the Big Ten.

It won't get done by "out talenting" other teams. We can't do that, at least not from starting near the bottom, as we are.
 

Face The Facts said:
I was disappointed at first, but a couple things are changing my mind.

1. Ben appears to be the most plugged in guy in the world in Minnesota hoops.
2. Ben has more polish on him than I thought he'd have.
3. Coyle seemed to have a very good idea on the whole coaching staff that Ben would want. This calms some of the concerns on how he'll actually coach the team. If he can, etc.

And the newest one is this:

#4. Mark Coyle said today that he and Ben will be tied together at the hip. I have a feeling Joan Gable told Mark "Ben WILL BE SUCCESSFUL. YOU'LL MAKE SURE OF IT". I think Mark will be assisting on all of the head coach administrative things that PJ does so well, that Ben will need to learn. I would also assume Mark will have PJ help "mentor" Ben on anything U related.

The biggest factor of the success will be if President, AD, and Coach all have the same goals, and they really seem to.
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What do you mean by this?
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
Fleck just brought a MAC team to a NY Bowl. That'd be like if Craig Smith brought Utah State to the Final 4 and then we hired him. Comparing these two hires is idiotic. Fleck was interviewing with Tennessee, Ben had just been passed over by Montana and Northern Illinois.
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This. This. THIS.
 

It's absolutely baffling how people can't understand why this hire is so underwhelming. He literally has no track record of success other than helping lure a pair of Gophers that ended up playing in the NBA. That's literally all there is.

Has never been a head coach at any level. He's had numerous assistant coaching jobs and never under high-level coaches. The teams he's been assistants on haven't even made the NCAA Tournament on a consistent basis. His qualifications amount to being from Minnesota, having supposedly good relationships with AAU coaches and having recruited Amir Coffey and Daniel Oturu. That's where it begins and ends.

Will he be a good coach? Nobody has any clue because there isn't any track record to this point. We as a fanbase just went through eight years of that with Richard Pitino and the results weren't good.

So it should be completely expected that people are disappointed or even disgusted by the hire. It's now up to Ben Johnson to prove us all wrong. I'll be more than happy to eat crow if the hire works out wonderfully. But this is a power-five job and it looks an awful lot like Mark Coyle just punted with this hire.

Time will tell, but there is more than enough reason to not be thrilled with how this went down.
 

Wouldn't it be wild if Ben's first call was to John Beilein to ask if he'd like to be the Lead Assistant, and John said "Sure, I'd love to get back into coaching for a couple of years, I just don't want all the responsibility and headaches that come with being the Head Coach."?

​

 

Chico Gopher said:
"Sure, I'd love to get back into coaching for a couple of years, I just don't want all the responsibility and headaches that come with being the Head Coach."?
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Has any former high-profile head coach, ever done this? Asking for a friend.
 

jovs said:
So, if he had landed Garcia, Walton, and Carlson, there wouldn't be much success unless he was a top coach.
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Who's going to play guard? I really find it entertaining that just because Ben Johnson is the coach, who was here recruiting for 5 years under Pitino, is suddenly going to bring everyone back home and keep everyone at home.

Garcia would make some sense, but why would Walton and Carlson come back home?
 

MplsGopher said:
Has any former high-profile head coach, ever done this? Asking for a friend.
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Does Martelli at Michigan count? Granted never as big a name as Beilein, but very lengthy head coaching career and well respected. Can't think of any others off the top of my head, usually they would use it to spring board to another HC gig like Jeter did here.
 

Johnnyboy18 said:
Mid-Tier Minnesota recruits the last 5 years have been 4 and high 3 star players that would have certainly played and started this year for the Gophers.

I don't think using assistant coaches record is good barometer for success but that's just me.

Basketball is one of the easiest sports to have a decent team at, recruit at a top 30 level and you will more than likely make the tournament every year. Pitino failed at that and that's why he failed here. This has been seen over and over again here but if you go after top 400 spring recruits and have to rely on them after injuries you are going to fail. It happened to Tubby and it happened to Richard, hopefully it doesn't happen to Ben.
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Most of Pitino's classes were ranked 30-50, it's not like they were terrible or always at the bottom of the B1G. They lost because Pitino is a terrible in game coach.

What has Johnson accomplished that all of a sudden he's going to land a top 30 class every year? Just because people like him, doesn't mean they are going to bet their basketball future on him.

He's still going to be battling against highly experienced and successful coaches on the recruiting trail.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
This post is a cope. No cap. One of the most boomer things in the world right now is to call people boomers. The cool kids were doing it about 10 years ago.

Northern Illinois didn't hire him.

The worst thing that could happen is we could continue to be crappy because we have another crappy coach (I'm not saying he's crappy, just detailing what is the worst thing that could happen).

He had a terrible press conference. He looked scared and couldn't ask a question about how he was going to play. It's not a rip on him, it just didn't get my chili hot.

The board unanimously was pumped up about the Fleck hire and are pretty unanimously pissed about this hire. Fleck just brought a MAC team to a NY Bowl. That'd be like if Craig Smith brought Utah State to the Final 4 and then we hired him. Comparing these two hires is idiotic. Fleck was interviewing with Tennessee, Ben had just been passed over by Montana and Northern Illinois.
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I thought his press conference was fine. I'm one of many on here who thought it would a big name hire. That's not how it turned out, but I think Ben Johnson did as well as many would do yesterday. Sarcasm not intended, he nor most would pull out their whiteboard and describe their plan, or even without the whiteboard. The questions were answered similarly IMO to how most would answer them, and he looked people in the eyes, was at ease, etc. I didn't see a nervous HC.

I understand people being dumbfounded by the hire, but it's done and interesting at this point, is how does he assemble his staff, leverage the portal, and get after the prep recruits.
 

As long as we don’t see any BLM warm-up shirts and no kneeling during the National Anthem I would be willing to accept the losses.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
They lost because Pitino is a terrible in game coach.
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Would expand this to say either his overall philosophy about how college basketball should be played, was deeply flawed in general or just doesn't work in the Big Ten, and then they also made no adjustments when it didn't work. Just tried to keep forcing it to work.

Afraid that BJ is just going to do the exact same thing.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
Most of Pitino's classes were ranked 30-50, it's not like they were terrible or always at the bottom of the B1G. They lost because Pitino is a terrible in game coach.

What has Johnson accomplished that all of a sudden he's going to land a top 30 class every year? Just because people like him, doesn't mean they are going to bet their basketball future on him.

He's still going to be battling against highly experienced and successful coaches on the recruiting trail.
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His classes have been terrible for the last couple of years and you could see that with all of the reaches taken the last couple of years.

He'll put effort in that Pitino didn't. Which accounts for a lot believe it or not. Coaches, players, and families had no respect for Richard.

Two of Richard's years were sabotaged by injuries and lack of depth. His in game coaching was fine when the team was healthy this year. Do you think we'd be having this conversation if Gabe and Liam didn't get injured this year? Or if Lynch and other injuries didn't happen 2 or 3 years ago? No, the team had talent in the starters but once injuries happen to those players recruiting really matters. Mutaf, Greenlee, and Freeman had no business being on a Big Ten roster.
 

As someone with experience, to a large extent you either "have it" or you don't. That may be the consternation about a pretty good or safe hire.

A person could play basketball for 30 years and a 16 year-old could be better. You can do art for a lifetime and a kid could be better at it. You could be doing any aspect of business and a person 30 years your junior could be better at it. Tenure does not equate to excellence, it just gives a better window to judge it.

People who listen (i.e. learn) tend to hone their craft and get better over time, but most are too prideful for that, so most people are who they were.

With that as a backdrop, just because avg joe or suzy does not know about Johnson's ability does not mean he does not have it, it just means you don't know.
 


benlaur said:
With that as a backdrop, just because avg joe or suzy does not know about Johnson's ability does not mean he does not have it, it just means you don't know.
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Montana St, Northern Illinois? What didn't they know?
 

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