Go Get Musselman

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bga1 said:
Well, he was right about that. He should have started all season. One of the stubbornest coaching things I have seen. Remember who was starting in front of him?
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I guess you forgot that he started the year with a back injury that followed him most of the season?

Dude, if starting 19 games and the offense going through him a lot isn't enough, the kid can fuck right off.
 




WriterGoph said:
I guess you forgot that he started the year with a back injury that followed him most of the season?

Dude, if starting 19 games and the offense going through him a lot isn't enough, the kid can fuck right off.
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How do you really feel? I feel like Ben didn't handle it well.
 


howeda7 said:
Yes and no. He got popped for shoplifting because he was an idiot. The whole laptop thing was BS. Nothing ever came of it and Maturi kept him suspended the entire year while the UMPD "investigated". Any other kid gets their laptop stolen from an open dorm room, they take your report and say "better lock the door next time."
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And Terrance Shannon is going to the Elite 8 while being investigated for rape.....
 

Jackrabbit coach out in Brookings does pretty good for himself. It's too bad the whole league is just a farm system for P6 schools. That being said he finds underrated players and continues to develop them.
 



howeda7 said:
Managed to piss off both Payne and then JOJ by stubbornly insisting on starting him over Payne and then burying him on the bench.
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I will admit that whole sequence was baffling. Pretty much everybody on this board was screaming "start Payne". Only the most ardent CBJ bobos were saying, "yeah, but he gets plenty of minutes and that's what matters". Which of course may be true, but there is a psychological thing about starting, especially when you're 18-22 years old and especially when through HS and the recruiting process everybody has been massaging your ego telling you how wonderful you are.

Then starting JOJ, giving him tons of run, and then completely shutting off the tap at once. Just bizarre.

One side of me is the old man yelling at the kids to get off the lawn. "Learn to be a teammate. Learn your role to better help the team. Strive to be better to EARN playing time. Everybody has "downs" in life, and it's how we respond to them that build our character". And on the flip side, you look at the reality of NIL and transfer portal and realize you have to treat these players with total "kid gloves" in fear of upsetting them and their precious egos and driving them to go elsewhere. Yes, NIL and transfer portal have given players "power". However, the sense of entitlement and unwarranted grandeur will not serve these kids well through the rest of their lives. Gone are the days of earning things. Everybody gets a trophy. Everybody is exceptional. /end rant
 


forever a gopher said:
I will admit that whole sequence was baffling. Pretty much everybody on this board was screaming "start Payne". Only the most ardent CBJ bobos were saying, "yeah, but he gets plenty of minutes and that's what matters". Which of course may be true, but there is a psychological thing about starting, especially when you're 18-22 years old and especially when through HS and the recruiting process everybody has been massaging your ego telling you how wonderful you are.

Then starting JOJ, giving him tons of run, and then completely shutting off the tap at once. Just bizarre.

One side of me is the old man yelling at the kids to get off the lawn. "Learn to be a teammate. Learn your role to better help the team. Strive to be better to EARN playing time. Everybody has "downs" in life, and it's how we respond to them that build our character". And on the flip side, you look at the reality of NIL and transfer portal and realize you have to treat these players with total "kid gloves" in fear of upsetting them and their precious egos and driving them to go elsewhere. Yes, NIL and transfer portal have given players "power". However, the sense of entitlement and unwarranted grandeur will not serve these kids well through the rest of their lives. Gone are the days of earning things. Everybody gets a trophy. Everybody is exceptional. /end rant
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We literally have no idea what is going on behind the scenes. Payne might have recommended the he come off the bench to get some time to feel out the officials and the game. Ola-Joseph may have been as lackadaisical in the classroom or in practice as he was on defense during games and failed to meet clearly articulated expectations Johnson established for him to return to getting minutes. We may never know.
 

ecoperson said:
We literally have no idea what is going on behind the scenes. Payne might have recommended the he come off the bench to get some time to feel out the officials and the game. Ola-Joseph may have been as lackadaisical in the classroom or in practice as he was on defense during games and failed to meet clearly articulated expectations Johnson established for him to return to getting minutes. We may never know.
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100% The main thesis of my ramble was the fact that coaches now have to treat players WAY differently than they did pre-NIL/transfer portal. Any whiff of adversity and kids jump ship.
 







So Muss is good enough for USC but not Minnesota??? It's almost laughable. His buyout is supposedly "only" a million. It's our last shot at him. Why not take a swing for the fences? I guarantee he would excite the donors at DTA much more than the current regime. This would be our shot to actually raise enough funds for NIL to be competitive. IF he flat out says NO....so what?
 

cheeseheadgophfan said:
So Muss is good enough for USC but not Minnesota??? It's almost laughable. His buyout is supposedly "only" a million. It's our last shot at him. Why not take a swing for the fences? I guarantee he would excite the donors at DTA much more than the current regime. This would be our shot to actually raise enough funds for NIL to be competitive. IF he flat out says NO....so what?
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I honestly have zero idea what we are doing at this point other than waiting for UST to catchup.
 
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howeda7 said:
First, the older season ticket holders are the ones with the $$. And second, local ties aside, he's a year removed from three straight Elite 8/Sweet 16 appearances and has taken multiple programs to the Sweet 16. At worst, he's the basketball version of Fleck.
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Absolutely right. It is weird how many posters on here think career success is not important.
 

cheeseheadgophfan said:
So Muss is good enough for USC but not Minnesota??? It's almost laughable. His buyout is supposedly "only" a million. It's our last shot at him. Why not take a swing for the fences? I guarantee he would excite the donors at DTA much more than the current regime. This would be our shot to actually raise enough funds for NIL to be competitive. IF he flat out says NO....so what?
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In the next 48 hours, Musselman will agree with USC, Garcia and/or Christie will leave and we'll be told poor Ben we can't do any better. At some point it becomes pointless to care until the Administration does something.
 

howeda7 said:
In the next 48 hours, Musselman will agree with USC, Garcia and/or Christie will leave and we'll be told poor Ben we can't do any better. At some point it becomes pointless to care until the Administration does something.
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It is frustrating. Whether it be Musselman, Medved, Craig Smith etc.. our administration(or our certain fanbase on here) seem to think that this so awful of a program that nobody would want to come here if they have other options. And maybe a long list was offered and all declined, I don’t know, but I haven’t heard that.

It’s sad because I grew up loving this program and thinking at worst it was a middle Big10 program and now we celebrate a momentary return to mediocrity. And I get it, there is a political and locality appeal to this staff, but actually winning anything is very backseat.
 


Otis said:
Musselman won’t be able to fix this.

We need a Deon like hire who brings NIL with him.

So what retired NBA player has enough swag to do for us what Deon has done for Colorado?

Does KG want to coach?
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I like the idea of sending out Head Coach applications to the top-100 richest guys in the state.
 

Wet_Blanket_Guy said:
Texas a&m paid ~$100m to fire jimbo fisher and his assistant coaches (football) this past year. There are schools that value athletics, the U doesn’t.
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Imagine spending $100 million to buy out a coach! That’s not valuing athletics. That’s genuflecting at the alter of athletics, also know as having the university’s priorities backwards.
 

Couple thoughts on points made in this thread. We have 3 guys leaving (though Carrington might be returning?) from Ben's 4 commit class from 2 seasons ago. Henley already left. All 4 have been reported to be upset with their playing time/how they were used at Minnesota and at least Payne (and Carrington lol) thought they should be getting more NIL. My issue here is that literally every school in the country is dealing with kids who believe they should play more and be paid more. Despite using 5 of his scholarships on complete non-factors (Wilson, Betts, , Keinys, Ihnen, and the walk on ), Ben couldn't keep 8 guys happy? This after a similar thing happened with Henley last year who was upset Samuels played over him. I am not saying the players are in the right here (though Payne absolutely should have been starting), but at some point the people managing skills have to come in to play. The answer can't be I can only keep the guys who play 40 minutes a night and are allowed to have the ultimate green light on offense.

If Muss ends up at USC, it's another missed opportunity. It's completely possible that he'd rather be at USC but I think his actions this Spring have shown that the rumors of him putting feelers out to Minnesota were likely correct.

The University has to lead here. If nothing changes, next year will be our 12th season in a row with one of if not the lowest paid coaches in the Big Ten. You want fans to pay for a middle of the pack or better NIL program while the University trots out the lowest paid coach in the conference? You can't make a pitch to the fanbase to claim how good you will be next year if they open their wallets and then lose 5 of 6 to close the year and sit at a 15-44 conference record through 3 seasons. People with big dollars to give want, at minimum, to see a proof of concept before investing. There is none here. Not from the University and not from Ben.

A hire on the level of Muss says to the fanbase: we're serious, join us. Give the fanbase an opportunity to buy in to something. Bring in someone with some passion to sell the program and a track record of success to back it up their talk.
 

If Garcia and or Christie leave, it's rip cord time. If one of them leaves, why would Hawkins even stay?

I know the CBJ apology tour is going to endlessly pout about NIL and the portal while ignoring the fact that impacts every team. We are getting routed by what were similarly-situated schools because they have good coaches.
 

Go Gophs said:
Here is and has always been the real problem with MN basketball. They fired Clem. And let themselves get hammered into oblivion. Flat out that was the day it was over and has never recovered.
Had they stood behind him like Kansas, etc has done, he would have gone on to build(or continue) to be a consistent winner. Instead they showed everyone that this University does not care about sports or their coaches and it has been all downhill ever since.

They get LUCKY to land PJ Fleck.
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Yup.

howeda7 said:
There was never any way they were going to let Clem stay. Sure it seems sort of quaint now, but even Kansas would have fired the coach for doing what Clem did in 1999.

I would argue Maturi throwing Royce White and Mbakwe under the bus and letting Tubby's best team get torpedoed was almost as damaging. That could have been a Sweet 16 or better team and led to having a real shot with Tyus Jones and co. We'll never know.
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Clem had far less wrongdoing than many coaches/programs that got zero or very light penalties.

But you're correct about throwing White & Mbakwe under the bus. That was DEVASTATING. Add them to our NCAA team that was set to return its top-9 players...and it's the National Championship favorite.

Dave H said:
If they had stood behind him they would have gotten way worse. Back then no one challenged that crap and it is revisionist history to pretend otherwise. The NCAA would have made an example out of us because they could.
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If you fight hard, bring in lawyers and show them you mean business...the NCAA backs off.
 

howeda7 said:
It's now or never. He wants out of Arkansas so bad he was flirting with SMU. Next season's roster is imploding. This is your last, best chance. Find the $$ and go do it Mark.
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What you wrote may be right except that one line is exaggerated or yet to be determined. We have to watch Christie and Garcia. They haven't left.
 

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