Ben Johnson Cautions Optimism

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Ben and Kirk must be best of friends. Shoot golly gosh darn it we sure tried hard. I know MN fans we lost again but golly gee did I think we had a chance. We just have such bad luck and it's never our fault but gosh darn we will try again next week.

Makes me think of the saying "show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser" those 2 are both pathetic. Never won anything important ever and then blame something else.
 

Ben seems like a really good guy and I hope I'm reading way too much into some one off interview (I very likely am, but you know, it's a sports message board), but Ben seems kind of defeated. He seems to be almost the poster child of someone who may have been put into the deep end too soon.

Forget the "why", he got hired. We could all speculate about that forever, but regardless of the why, I think we can all admit that this was a massive jump in terms of spotlight, complexity, expectations, etc. He has had to juggle his first time being a HC with it being at his alma mater during the inception of NIL.

To me, he looks like it someone where this was all too much too soon and he is second guessing himself and his program. He doesn't sound like someone who is confident and he almost seems embarrassed. I think it shows in how he is attempting to build the program.

I hope I'm wrong. Maybe he just was having a more laid back day the day of this interview. But man, my chili ain't bubbling.
 


60's Guy said:
It could be but it would take confidence in your ability to schedule St Thomas. Ben doesn't dare play them. He knows he could easily get beat and be ridiculed. Ben has no confidence...Macalester to Bethune Cookman and on down the list of non conference opponents.

The question is: who really scheduled Missouri?
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That's beyond funny. Ben Johnson, Scheduler in Chief, avoids St. Thomas at all cost knowing he could never compete. Then another Ben Johnson, who has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with scheduling, discovers he has to play Missouri.
 

Is that what Tomlin would say or do? Just say you have a picture of Tubby on the wall……why does everything have to be so clunky with this guy.
 


Dakota2 said:
That's beyond funny. Ben Johnson, Scheduler in Chief, avoids St. Thomas at all cost knowing he could never compete. Then another Ben Johnson, who has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with scheduling, discovers he has to play Missouri.
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I totally agree he’s not scheduling St. Thomas cause he’s scared to lose to them
 



gopherbadgerman said:
I totally agree he’s not scheduling St. Thomas cause he’s scared to lose to them
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It's a no win situation. If he wins- he didn't win by enough and it elevates St Thomas. If he loses its a total disaster. It would be dumb for him to schedule that game until he has the program where he wants it and until St Thomas has done the same. If it becomes an Xavier/ Cincinnati type game in years to come- that would be great.
 



FinnGopher said:
Well damn, I guess Tim Brewster is the greatest head coach to ever step on campus then.
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Never said it was the only thing that matters when it comes to running a program. Brewster is also a significantly better football recruiter and coach than BJ is at basketball.
 

Uhhh...if there is one thing that doesn't need to be done, it is caution optimism. He could simply write a couple of hand written notes to the few who actually have any optimism.
 


I would 100% love to see the Gophers vs. Tommies. I’d argue it’d be the most intriguing game on their non-conference slate, including Mizzou, and by a wide margin.

I also 100% understand why Ben won’t schedule it. Ben and the Gophers have zero to gain playing UST. Nothing. Nadda. Zilch.
 



bga1 said:
It's a no win situation. If he wins- he didn't win by enough and it elevates St Thomas. If he loses its a total disaster. It would be dumb for him to schedule that game until he has the program where he wants it and until St Thomas has done the same. If it becomes an Xavier/ Cincinnati type game in years to come- that would be great.
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The only reason why it's a no win situation is because we are historically bad and we would have either lost or barely scratched by a team full of D3 players.

If we would have played UST and beat them by 17, it's a win for the U. It's probably a win for UST too. The game would have generated way more buzz than any other non-conference game. Any time UST would get coverage, it would have to be grounded in the idea that they are significantly worse than the U.

If I'm UST, there isn't a kid or a coach that I don't tell them "we'd love to play the Gophers but they won't play us". I think that hurts the U much worse than beating them by 15 would hurt the U. That's where we are now.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
The only reason why it's a no win situation is because we are historically bad and we would have either lost or barely scratched by a team full of D3 players.

If we would have played UST and beat them by 17, it's a win for the U. It's probably a win for UST too. The game would have generated way more buzz than any other non-conference game. Any time UST would get coverage, it would have to be grounded in the idea that they are significantly worse than the U.

If I'm UST, there isn't a kid or a coach that I don't tell them "we'd love to play the Gophers but they won't play us". I think that hurts the U much worse than beating them by 15 would hurt the U. That's where we are now.
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How’d we get here
 


short ornery norwegian said:
Full disclosure - I like Ben as a person and I'm rooting for him to succeed.

But beyond that - Ben is who he is. He's a more low-key, soft-spoken, thoughtful person. and that is how he comes off.

so what do you want? Do you want him to start yelling, dropping F-bombs, or saying that they're going to win the Conference? that just isn't his style.

AND the person or people who hired him had a chance to evaluate that style, and THEY chose to hire him. If they wanted a more high-energy, up-beat type, then they should have hired a different person.
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Didn’t have a chance to evaluate his head coaching style. I don’t need a coach who goes crazy on the bench but how about someone who shows some emotion instead of looking half a sleep most of the. time.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
Never said it was the only thing that matters when it comes to running a program. Brewster is also a significantly better football recruiter and coach than BJ is at basketball.
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CBJ would need to go 8-12 in conference play this year to surpass Brewster’s conference winning %. Surpassing Brewster is a pretty low bar, and yet, here we are.
 

60's Guy said:
I believe Ben won the interview...not sure he had to, to get the job...but believe he did.
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Serious question. Why would you the guy who lost the NIU interview won the Minnesota one?
 

noamfromm said:
Serious question. Why would you the guy who lost the NIU interview won the Minnesota one?
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Well, if you have participated in these interviews with a dozen people seated at a conference table...it can be a little intimidating. At NIU maybe one person of the group was interested in really interviewing Ben... versus likely the majority of the folks at Minnesota were welcoming him in a friendly relaxing open arms manner.
Based on that ... Ben now had experience interviewing, he knew some of the people interviewing having been an assistant here and they likely hoped he'd interview well, which becomes obvious in that setting and Ben got more confident, more excited in his answers and wowed them. Maybe in large part because they hoped he would. The deck was stacked for him to win...he just needed to smile and be enthusiastic.
NIU he had to convince them why he deserved to be a DI head basketball coach. Minnesota he fit who they were looking for with his local connections and experience recruiting the area and people here knew him as a model citizen which was more important to them than his basketball coaching qualifications to lead the program.
 

I agree with most of the comments about scheduling St Thomas. The analogy of it being like Wisconsin playing Marquette totally misses the mark. Marquette is a Big East school and has won a National Championship St Thomas is in it's infancy of playing D1 Basketball and plays in a 1 bid league. This isn't even Iowa or Iowa State playing Drake or Northern Iowa (they used to round robin that but don't anymore) as those teams are more established and play in a better league. If St Thomas wins its an absolute disaster for Minnesota and the program will be mocked for it, not just for that season, but many seasons after the fact. If Minnesota wins by anything less than 15 the game will be viewed as a win for the "upstart" programg. If Minnesota wins by more than 15, the Gophers will be mocked for scheduling such a weak team and the Gophers horrible results against their peers will be brought up. Judd Zulgad tweeted about wanting this game to be played while he was watching the hockey version of this matchup. The same Judd Zulgad who tweeted something to the point of it was easy to feel good for Bret Bielema in response to the video of Bret waddling to his victory celebration after the Gophers horrific loss on Saturday.

Hopefully we hire a great coach after this season. Then, hopefully not longer than a year or two later, we schedule St Thomas. We beat them by 30 and then never schedule them again. I have nothing against St Thomas, but it's not Minnesota's job to prop up a competitor in its own market. It's embarassing that we can't take the risk of playing them now, but it's the right decision.
 

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