Battle goes for season-high 31 as losing streak grows to 10

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Gopherfan84 said:
You’re learning!!! Burner you and I gonna be agreeing left and right soon! Lol
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Learning every day.

This great culture and fit aren't leading to much winning, and that is why the games are played - for anyone being honest.
 

cjbfbp said:
And when people like you finally decide to grace us with your presence again, the usual result is a rehash of things that already have been discussed ad infinitum.
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And you're not bringing anything new to the conversation that hasn't already been discussed ad infinitium.

This site is just a repeat of the same discussions over and over again because that's what happens when you win 5 B1G games in 2 years.
 

Gopherfan84 said:
Lol I’ve coached and heard pretty much every coach talk about finding kids that fit what they want to do. Call it what you want, but fit matters. To what extent you can certainly debate. Don’t buy it if you don’t want, but coaches care about it.
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You specifically said "cultural" fit. That's what I think is hard to determine from brief encounters unless you have concrete examples of behavioral (including academic) problems. Fit in terms of athleticism, skill, physical dimensions, or type of player is not as hard to determine.
 

cjbfbp said:
You specifically said "cultural" fit. That's what I think is hard to determine from brief encounters unless you have concrete examples of behavioral (including academic) problems. Fit in terms of athleticism, skill, physical dimensions, or type of player is not as hard to determine.
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That’s what the recruiting process entails. Learning how they’ll fit culturally. The trick is finding the players that fit it too. We’ve done so the last two classes imo.
 

Gopherfan84 said:
That’s what the recruiting process entails. Learning how they’ll fit culturally. The trick is finding the players that fit it too. We’ve done so the last two classes imo.
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I don't like the use of the word "culture" because I think it's often misused and ill-defined. Here's a definition from the Cambridge online English dictionary:

the way of life, especially the general customs and beliefs, of a particular group of people at a particular time

Culture implies that there are particular standards, beliefs, customs, behaviors that apply, at least to a degree, to a particular group more than some others. Saying "we have a culture of playing hard" would be silly because no one wants lazy players. Saying "we don't want troublemakers" isn't truly cultural either because no one wants them. In some ways, "culture" is synonymous with "identity" and you can see how much trouble people around here had in coming up with a positive "identity" for this team in a recent board poll.

Sometimes you can ascribe "culture" because of a degree of emphasis. Everyone wants to be effective offensively but Iowa consistently is rated highly on that dimension and not so highly on the defensive one. Rutgers is the opposite.

I don't know what our particular "culture" or "identity" is and I can tell that hardly anyone else on this board can identify it either. Perhaps Coach Johnson has an idea of his preferred team "culture" but, whatever it is, it doesn't show. If your culture doesn't show or you're not even sure what it is, how you can be so sure that a particular player wouldn't fit into that culture?
 



cjbfbp said:
I don't like the use of the word "culture" because I think it's often misused and ill-defined. Here's a definition from the Cambridge online English dictionary:

the way of life, especially the general customs and beliefs, of a particular group of people at a particular time

Culture implies that there are particular standards, beliefs, customs, behaviors that apply, at least to a degree, to a particular group more than some others. Saying "we have a culture of playing hard" would be silly because no one wants lazy players. Saying "we don't want troublemakers" isn't truly cultural either because no one wants them. In some ways, "culture" is synonymous with "identity" and you can see how much trouble people around here had in coming up with a positive "identity" for this team in a recent board poll.

Sometimes you can ascribe "culture" because of a degree of emphasis. Everyone wants to be effective offensively but Iowa consistently is rated highly on that dimension and not so highly on the defensive one. Rutgers is the opposite.

I don't know what our particular "culture" or "identity" is and I can tell that hardly anyone else on this board can identify it either. Perhaps Coach Johnson has an idea of his preferred team "culture" but, whatever it is, it doesn't show. If your culture doesn't show or you're not even sure what it is, how you can be so sure that a particular player wouldn't fit into that culture?
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Team dynamics and norms are the culture. Yes at the D1 level it’s beyond just working hard. Some teams eat dinners together, some don’t. Some work out together some done. Some coaches are ok with their guys going out, some aren’t. Some are cool with them smoking weed and not alcohol. Some create a variety of acronyms, some just keep it simple. You identified that it’s really hard to carry and offensive and defensive identity on the court. That’s true, typically coaches choose their identity based on what they are and pass that on to their players.
I get why some think culture is coach speak. I haven’t heard any coaches that I’ve met or worked with that don’t think it’s the number 1 priority in a sustainable and successful program regardless of sport
 

Gopherfan84 said:
Team dynamics and norms are the culture. Yes at the D1 level it’s beyond just working hard. Some teams eat dinners together, some don’t. Some work out together some done. Some coaches are ok with their guys going out, some aren’t. Some are cool with them smoking weed and not alcohol. Some create a variety of acronyms, some just keep it simple. You identified that it’s really hard to carry and offensive and defensive identity on the court. That’s true, typically coaches choose their identity based on what they are and pass that on to their players.
I get why some think culture is coach speak. I haven’t heard any coaches that I’ve met or worked with that don’t think it’s the number 1 priority in a sustainable and successful program regardless of sport
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Dynamics change by the hour. That's certainly not culture.
 

Gopherfan84 said:
I get why some think culture is coach speak. I haven’t heard any coaches that I’ve met or worked with that don’t think it’s the number 1 priority in a sustainable and successful program regardless of sport
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Thinking about something or even talking about it and operationalizing it are two different things. You get credit for the latter, not so much for the former. When it comes to PJ Fleck, I don't think "culture" is simply coach speak. He has these particular traditions, contests, and terms for players. Now, he is not always right on his recruiting decisions (he has a fairly high transfer rate) and certainly isn't averse to recruiting over existing players. In the end, he gets it right on the whole more often than not.
 



GopherWeatherGuy said:
And yet we're still 2nd to last in the conference in defense
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Well, Sports Reference has us last in both offensive and defensive ratings but the offensive rating is marginally worse when compared to other teams.

For example, in defensive rating we are 7.7% worse than the median team in the conference and about 2% worse than the 13th place team.

For offensive rating we are 13% worse than the median team in the conference and about 5.1% worse than the 13th place team.
 

Gopherfan84 said:
Totally agree. Our defense has been the most disappointing thing about Bens tenure imo. If it doesn’t dramatically improve next year I’ll be off the wagon
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This.

The defense we were promised doesn’t exist. They do nothing well defensively yet they don’t try to do anything different. It’s insane.
 

cjbfbp said:
Well, Sports Reference has us last in both offensive and defensive ratings but the offensive rating is marginally worse when compared to other teams.

For example, in defensive rating we are 7.7% worse than the median team in the conference and about 2% worse than the 13th place team.

For offensive rating we are 13% worse than the median team in the conference and about 5.1% worse than the 13th place team.
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I agree, I'm just saying both are really bad and both need to improve significantly.
 

cjbfbp said:
And when people like you finally decide to grace us with your presence again, the usual result is a rehash of things that already have been discussed ad infinitum.
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And the reason I did is because I thought it was important enough to finally weigh in on the issue.
 
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EasyThere Pilgrim said:
I've been a member of a recruiting pay-site since 2003 though. And believe me, with how things have been...I follow recruiting and freshman development a lot...more than I watch the games. So I know what I'm talking about as far as our freshmen and recruiting.

And yes...the guy who posted that big complaint and said our freshmen are no good...he does NOT know what he's talking about.

I have no reason to lie. Or exaggerate.
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Omg..you have been a member of paid-recruiting for site years! Holy shit! Maybe my 40 years of watching Gophers' basketball should step the fuck down! This was the same damn rhetoric with the Brewster supporters.
 
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Gopherfan84 said:
It’s also the part where anyone who compares Ben Johnson to Brewster shows they have no idea what they are talking about. Brew sucked for a variety of other reasons. If Ben doesn’t improve it will be for a completely different set of them. Brewster had no stability and ran a program that didn’t have good students and people. Brewster took whomever no matter the fit. Ben won’t take someone who’s not a fit to maybe a fault.
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Btw..I wasn't saying that Brewster and Johnson were the same. My argument was that this is false hope of 'I'm going to out-recruit the rest' is the same. While Brewster and Johnson are nowhere near the same as far as bravado, they are the same in lack of experience and coaching ability to bring the 'talent' they've recruited to their upmost in ability. Also, like Brewster, I would argue the recruits that have been brought in have been far exaggerated beyond their actual playing abilities,
 

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