Guards Ben tried to recruit

[Holy Man]

Don't really disagree with anything you said there. As for next year's roster....that will be the million dollar question in the off season.

Something will have to give in the Garcia, Payne, Evans, Battle, Henley, Fox, Ihnen, JOJ, Thompson mix as that is just too many front court guys and not enough quality minutes to go around.

Gut feeling is that Garcia, Payne, Evans, JOJ, Henley all come back
Battle is probably back.
Thompson is almost certainly gone
Fox & Ihnen are massive wild cards - 1 or both is probably not back next season.

Going to be an interesting off season because Johnson will be under a lot of pressure to start showing that things are moving in the right direction after 2 rough seasons.

Good roster analysis for next year. Not one thing I could poke a hole in. Your confidence level on guys returning is higher than mine, though. You can almost bet on someone we all thought would be a contributor taking off.

 

[cheeseheadgophfan]

My problem with the situation isn't necessarily Cooper himself. He is a solid player that is a good distributor and is a decent shooter. However, he's extremely slow for a no. 1 PG and has almost no ability to initiate a fast break (hence the Gophers being dead last in the B1G in fast break points). It became very obvious what kind of player he was after watching him for maybe 2 games, and I'm no basketball scout with years of experience.

If you look at the other PG's that were offered and where they ended up, (IMO) it becomes obvious that they were a.) told either they'd be sharing PG duties, b.) told they'd be backing up Cooper, or c.) were straight up told to look elsewhere after the Cooper commit. There is no way with where those other viable players ended up that we couldn't have gotten at least one of them to sign on and be a 20min/game B1G player. Cooper committed on April 20th and Samuels committed on May 9th (after being in the portal since March 8th). The way the chips fell, I firmly believe CBJ thought Cooper was "the guy", and then tried to get an off-guard to fill the other spot. It is extremely likely that if CBJ wanted another PG to fill 20ish mins/game he could have gotten one. I do not think he "swung and missed"; I think his/his coaches misevaluated the situation and proceeded poorly. I really don't think it's a recruiting miss, I think it's an evaluation/roster mismanagement miss, which is much more damning.

The guards on this roster: PG Cooper, SG Samuels, SG Carrington, SG Ramberg.

So they have a single PG who is slow, a SG in Samuels that should really be a spot-minute guy, maybe 5mins/game, Ramberg who really should be playing in mop-up duty, and a true freshman who isn't some 5-star guy that can come in and log extensive minutes and contribute big immediately. Between 2 positions (80 mins total), realistically those guys should be totaling about 35 mins (20 Cooper, 5 Samuels, 10 Carrington). Maybe if you're generous and say Henley can play the 2, that would add another 10-15mins. That's not just "missing on a guy", that is a massive roster blunder.

So then how is this situation going to resolve itself in 2023/24? Samuels is out, Ramberg goes back to walk-on. Christie comes in. Unless somebody is forced out, next season likely won't be much better. What if TT sticks to his guns and doesn't want to leave? Who is shown the door? At this point, Ben has to pin all his hopes on forcing somebody out and finding a legit PG in the portal, or we're in the same situation next year due to roster mismanagement yet again.

Good analysis.....I don't know where Betts fits in? Is he considered a shooting guard or is more of a small forward? I know I saw some highlights before he committed of him hitting a lot of 3's.

 

[forever a gopher]

Good analysis.....I don't know where Betts fits in? Is he considered a shooting guard or is more of a small forward? I know I saw some highlights before he committed of him hitting a lot of 3's.

While this is an extremely small sample size, a comp seemed to be Henley from the preseason open scrimmage I attended. I honestly kept mistaking them for each other - similar hairdo at the time, and extremely similar builds and height. Not sure about Betts' handle, if he'd be able to fill-in at the 2 or not. While Henley's been wild at times, he should be able to develop decent ball handling skills from what we've seen.

Take this with a massive grain of salt, being that Betts was essentially a HS senior during that practice, but I wouldn't expect him to come in next year and light it up. I would expect him to be more of a developmental guy you hope can get minutes his So/Jr/Sr years. Especially with the logjam at F, and if Ihnen comes back and plays any sort of minutes, there's not much room next year for him to learn on the job. I would think he's an under 5min/game kind of guy at least next year.

 

[forever a gopher]

Gut feeling is that Garcia, Payne, Evans, JOJ, Henley all come back
Battle is probably back.
Thompson is almost certainly gone
Fox & Ihnen are massive wild cards - 1 or both is probably not back next season.

Going to be an interesting off season because Johnson will be under a lot of pressure to start showing that things are moving in the right direction after 2 rough seasons.

That's probably a fair point - I hadn't considered that. It is possible one of them transitions to a role like Jarvis Johnson and no longer counts against the scholly limit.

 

[Bob_Loblaw]

So - we all agree that he is what he is. He's just not quick enough to be a starting PG in the Big Ten.
Solid? Yeah he has been steady at the level he is at. Isn't it unanimous that a really good PG would solve a fair number of this team's issues? If we had a good one, Battle, Garcia, Payne and Henley would all be put in better positions to succeed as a result. Our defense might look a little better as well.

While I don't disagree with your assessment of Cooper, I just think he is one of our least problems. It reminds me a bit of Garcia. Garcia has a lot of issues, but I think Cooper and Garcia are our best players.

I am not sure if the delta between Cooper and the average starting PGs in the Big 10 is very big. However, the delta between our wings and the average set of wings in the Big 10 is enormous.

 

[MNVCGUY]

While I don't disagree with your assessment of Cooper, I just think he is one of our least problems. It reminds me a bit of Garcia. Garcia has a lot of issues, but I think Cooper and Garcia are our best players.

I am not sure if the delta between Cooper and the average starting PGs in the Big 10 is very big. However, the delta between our wings and the average set of wings in the Big 10 is enormous.

Cooper with a good shooting supporting cast would be a very good point guard because he is a pass first guy. Problem is that right now the team could really use a shoot first point guard because there is very little scoring coming from the other guys.

There are a lot of things missing from this current squad but one of the biggest issues is a lack of a shooter that can be counted on to hit that big 3 pointer in clutch situations. Most teams seem to have that guy who can do that, we don't right now.

 

[bga1]

While I don't disagree with your assessment of Cooper, I just think he is one of our least problems. It reminds me a bit of Garcia. Garcia has a lot of issues, but I think Cooper and Garcia are our best players.

I am not sure if the delta between Cooper and the average starting PGs in the Big 10 is very big. However, the delta between our wings and the average set of wings in the Big 10 is enormous.

He's just not quick enough on either end. He's a pretty good shooter (not as good as he appeared for a while) and he is a very good rebounder for a guard. He gets beat on defense and he is not quick enough to run Ben's offense which appears to really need a slasher to get things going. Cooper would probably be workable in a different system. Watch how bad the offense looks, if you have a quicker PG it doesn't look this bad. As I have said he probably would be pretty good off the bench on a good team playing either guard position. That said- he is one of our better players...which is why we are so bad.