WTF? Are the Gophers actually good?

[Otis]

Steadily steaming on a serene course of Titanic proportions, our direct course to the ousting of much maligned Head Coach Ben Johnson has been thrown off by a much unexpected run of good play!

3 wins in a row with two of the competitors ranked? Surely not under this staff.

And yet here we are.

 

[Off-GridTNgopher]

I hope to God that something clicked and we're good to.go from here on out. I'm not ready to extend Ben but if we make the nit again... I can see him staying another year

 

[MNVCGUY]

In regards to the question you asked that many won't be able to see due to the odd color formatting Gopherhole does on polls where you can't read the text at the top in the bar:

Is this just a run of great luck or are the Gophers actually decent?​

1 win you could chalk up to luck, 3 in a row isn't luck. The Gophers have some talent and a lot of experience. When they play well they are capable of hanging with a lot of teams. However they are also prone to being very inconsistent so the same group that can beat teams like Michigan or Oregon is fully capable of struggling with a team like Omaha, losing to a team like Wichita State or blowing the game against Ohio State.​

 

[short ornery norwegian]

I would say -

The Gophers are not as bad as some people were making them out to be.

that is NOT the same as saying they are now a "good" team.

Better than Bad does not = good.

but - if you look at the B1G standings, 12 of the 18 teams have 4, 5 or 6 losses in conference play. it's a very balanced league to this date. The Gophers had 1 game remaining against one of the top 3 teams in the conference. so there are "winnable" games remaining on the schedule.

 

[BarnBurner]

Mn got more money. For the past few games.

 

[kg21]

The gophers are 3-6 and about to be 3-7

We hit damn near a midcourt shot for a win.

The three wins are awesome, but we still need a new coach.

 

[scools12]

The Gophers are having themselves a nice little stretch.

Overall they are not good.

 

[bga1]

The gophers are 3-6 and about to be 3-7

We hit damn near a midcourt shot for a win.

The three wins are awesome, but we still need a new coach.

The balance is that there is no way that the Ohio State game should be a loss. Make a free throw and they win. Don't foul and they win. They are and should be 3-6 and maybe there is a better argument that they should be 4-5 than 2-7.

 

[FinnGopher]

The Gophers may have a legitimate chance to win four or five more games if they keep playing like the last few games. Any injuries will make it hard. The team is filled with far too many one dimensional players.

 

[Gopher_In_NYC]

Steadily steaming on a serene course of Titanic proportions, our direct course to the ousting of much maligned Head Coach Ben Johnson has been thrown off by a much unexpected run of good play!

3 wins in a row with two of the competitors ranked? Surely not under this staff.

And yet here we are.

I’ll let you know in an about 30 hours

 

[ShushPush]

I would say -

The Gophers are not as bad as some people were making them out to be.

that is NOT the same as saying they are now a "good" team.

Better than Bad does not = good.

but - if you look at the B1G standings, 12 of the 18 teams have 4, 5 or 6 losses in conference play. it's a very balanced league to this date. The Gophers had 1 game remaining against one of the top 3 teams in the conference. so there are "winnable" games remaining on the schedule.

I believe I saw our remaining strength of schedule in the mid 30ish range. The toughest part of our schedule remains.

 

[SplitDecision]

Looking at Torvik Projections from July ‘24, compared to my projections. Not terrible.
After looking at this the groupings would be:
1/2 (Purdue/Michigan St.)
3/4 (Illinois/Indiana)
5/6/7 (Michigan/NU/USC)
8/9/10/11 (MD/UCLA/OSU/Wisc)
12/13/14/15 (Rut/MN/Ore/Iowa)
16 Neb
17 Wash
18 Penn St

 

[jblass]

I’m enjoying this and will take it while it lasts. They certainly have been surprisingly good the last three games but what remains to be seen if they can now be consistently good. That starts tonight with Michigan Sate. Go Gophers!

 

[MNVCGUY]

I’m enjoying this and will take it while it lasts. They certainly have been surprisingly good the last three games but what remains to be seen if they can now be consistently good. That starts tonight with Michigan Sate. Go Gophers!

Agree that it remains to be seen if they can be consistently good coming off this run of 4 straight solid games. But tonight could be a rough one considering it is on the road against a MSU team that has only lost 2 games so far.

Hopefully they continue to play well and give MSU a fight, even if we ultimately come out on the losing side of the scoreboard.

 

[SplitDecision]

Agree that it remains to be seen if they can be consistently good coming off this run of 4 straight solid games. But tonight could be a rough one considering it is on the road against a MSU team that has only lost 2 games so far.

Hopefully they continue to play well and give MSU a fight, even if we ultimately come out on the losing side of the scoreboard.

Yep. Assuming Sparty will shoot their normal 30% from 3, the team with the most layups wins this game.

 

[TwistingMyMelon]

I believe I saw our remaining strength of schedule in the mid 30ish range. The toughest part of our schedule remains.

From the standpoint of looking at conference records, that simply isn't true.

Only conference schedule is relevant for the rest of the year. If you look at the conference records to date of the opponents in the first 10 games vs. the last 10 games, the first 10 clearly are better. There are 9 teams with .500 or better conference records right now. We will have played 7 of them after tonight and the team with the best conference record twice. We will have played only two teams with losing conference records.

In the second ten games, we will play 3 teams with winning conference records and 6 teams with losing records (one of them twice).

 

[GophersInIowa]

I think they're better than their record shows but at best they're still an NIT team.

 

[kix4kix]

Threads like this really do make me laugh. No we are not good, we are tied with basement dwellers Northwestern and one game ahead of 2 win Nebraska. Who by the way has also beaten two ranked teams.

 

[EasyThere Pilgrim]

Mn got more money. For the past few games.

No. But the narrative that Ben is an idiot...and the coaches of the big-money teams are geniuses...has always been absurd.

 

[howeda7]

 

[MNVCGUY]

Threads like this really do make me laugh. No we are not good, we are tied with basement dwellers Northwestern and one game ahead of 2 win Nebraska. Who by the way has also beaten two ranked teams.

I don't think anyone is confused as to where this team falls in the Big Ten pecking order. When they play well we have the ability to hang with a majority of the teams in the conference but margin for error is really slim and we will definitely finish in the bottom half but hopefully still qualify for the Big Ten Tournament.

Winning on the road in the Big Ten is hard. If we get a ranked opponent at Williams arena we have a shot to pull the upset. On the road, like tonight, it is likely to be a different story.

Look at the poll choices, the thread was not meant to be taken seriously.

 

[kix4kix]

I don't think anyone is confused as to where this team falls in the Big Ten pecking order. When they play well we have the ability to hang with a majority of the teams in the conference but margin for error is really slim and we will definitely finish in the bottom half but hopefully still qualify for the Big Ten Tournament.

Winning on the road in the Big Ten is hard. If we get a ranked opponent at Williams arena we have a shot to pull the upset. On the road, like tonight, it is likely to be a different story.

Look at the poll choices, the thread was not meant to be taken seriously.

And yet, you watched the game I am sure

 

[Bad Gopher]

I don't think anyone is confused as to where this team falls in the Big Ten pecking order. When they play well we have the ability to hang with a majority of the teams in the conference but margin for error is really slim and we will definitely finish in the bottom half but hopefully still qualify for the Big Ten Tournament.

Winning on the road in the Big Ten is hard. If we get a ranked opponent at Williams arena we have a shot to pull the upset. On the road, like tonight, it is likely to be a different story.

Look at the poll choices, the thread was not meant to be taken seriously.

I think this is well put.

Somewhere in one of these threads you'll find my post with the hot take that this team was underperforming their talent...and was ridiculed by at least one person who said that this team has almost no talent. Obviously, you don't beat the teams they've beaten since that converation if you don't have any talent.

I think there are a few things going on here:

• This team has gotten better as they've gelled and gotten better at playing together. Credit to the coaches on that.
• It was understandable that a team with so many new pieces would take a while to perform closer to their capability. It's important to recognize we'll be facing the same thing next year after all these seniors graduate.
• Both the winning streak and the thud the other day support the notion that they underperform their talent. Although losing to MSU at Breslin is no shame, a better coached team would not have had that many turnovers and got so rattled so early. That's the kind of situation where you need some savvy and a tactical approach that would do better at keeping things close.
• I hope the recent winning streak and the splash it made in the media will create enough buzz that will attract donations and athletes, but I'll believe it when I see it. There is very little confidence in Johnson in the community, and that lack of confidence has been earned.

 

[DarthGopher]

Both the winning streak and the thud the other day support the notion that they underperform their talent. Although losing to MSU at Breslin is no shame, a better coached team would not have had that many turnovers and got so rattled so early. That's the kind of situation where you need some savvy and a tactical approach that would do better at keeping things close.

Whole post well said.

In regards to the quoted above, if this team loses even the slightest bit of lubrication, they go from operational to grinding metal on metal in a shower of sparks in short order. The lead mechanic is hit or miss in his ability to diagnose the problem and return the system to an operable state, and often looks as surprised as the players when the gears are friction welding themselves into a giant glob of indistinguishable crap.

As others have said, the margin of error with this team is very small, vacillating between competence and clunker depending on a few key sequences at any point during a game.

 

[TwistingMyMelon]

Somewhere in one of these threads you'll find my post with the hot take that this team was underperforming their talent...and was ridiculed by at least one person who said that this team has almost no talent. Obviously, you don't beat the teams they've beaten since that converation if you don't have any talent.

Great post (the entire thing - not just the shortened version above). I remember reading your words described above and I agreed with them. The primary senior transfers recruited in the off-season were not cast-off stumblebums. They made significant contributions at prior stops. It was not irrational to expect a reasonably good level of performance from them. As you alluded, building the "fit" together may have been the process that took the longest time and it's still ongoing.

I commented some time ago that the schedulers didn't do us any favors with the front-loaded conference schedule but maybe the process yielded some benefits. At least we have a better idea of what we can or can't do. We don't have the horses to beat a team like Michigan State. We don't have the shooters, the system, or the coaching to beat a team like Purdue. I don't think we have the size to beat Wisconsin and the same thing might be said for UCLA where they can just put in 7'3" Mara to shoot right over us. Illinois may be bridge too far.

The rest of the league we can match up with well enough. Even in one of our losses (Ohio State), we played well enough to win despite Garcia having one of the worst games of his Minnesota career but we lost the game by a point in double overtime because we missed 15 free throws.

 

[TwistingMyMelon]

Whole post well said.

In regards to the quoted above, if this team loses even the slightest bit of lubrication, they go from operational to grinding metal on metal in a shower of sparks in short order. The lead mechanic is hit or miss in his ability to diagnose the problem and return the system to an operable state, and often looks as surprised as the players when the gears are friction welding themselves into a giant glob of indistinguishable crap.

As others have said, the margin of error with this team is very small, vacillating between competence and clunker depending on a few key sequences at any point during a game.

Way to make a point and entertain at the same time! Well done!

 

[FinnGopher]

Whole post well said.

In regards to the quoted above, if this team loses even the slightest bit of lubrication, they go from operational to grinding metal on metal in a shower of sparks in short order. The lead mechanic is hit or miss in his ability to diagnose the problem and return the system to an operable state, and often looks as surprised as the players when the gears are friction welding themselves into a giant glob of indistinguishable crap.

As others have said, the margin of error with this team is very small, vacillating between competence and clunker depending on a few key sequences at any point during a game.

Your blue collar analogy is spot on.

 

[Bad Gopher]

Whole post well said.

In regards to the quoted above, if this team loses even the slightest bit of lubrication, they go from operational to grinding metal on metal in a shower of sparks in short order. The lead mechanic is hit or miss in his ability to diagnose the problem and return the system to an operable state, and often looks as surprised as the players when the gears are friction welding themselves into a giant glob of indistinguishable crap.

As others have said, the margin of error with this team is very small, vacillating between competence and clunker depending on a few key sequences at any point during a game.

This is first-ballot analogy hall of fame.

 

[MNVCGUY]

Whole post well said.

In regards to the quoted above, if this team loses even the slightest bit of lubrication, they go from operational to grinding metal on metal in a shower of sparks in short order. The lead mechanic is hit or miss in his ability to diagnose the problem and return the system to an operable state, and often looks as surprised as the players when the gears are friction welding themselves into a giant glob of indistinguishable crap.

As others have said, the margin of error with this team is very small, vacillating between competence and clunker depending on a few key sequences at any point during a game.

Love the analogy. Just needs something in there to incorporate how the most talented mechanic in the shop is often MIA for long stretches as well and the rest aren't able to function well without him. Maybe Johnson needs to be the supervisor and Garcia the lead mechanic.