ethomasp31
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On Sunday night, I and brought up Ben Johnson's name as the new head coach and was laughed at....assumed I had no clue about what I was talking about....and told Johnson had no chance to be hired as our new coach. If you would have been paying attention to Doogie and JG's Twitter accounts, they were basically subtly telling you that Ben Johnson was going to be the next head coach. Saturday you could tell that JG knew one candidate had a lot of steam and wasn't sharing what he knew....and Doogie said that the search had really made a turning point Saturday afternoon. Sunday morning, they both talked about why not give the job to Johnson. Someone I hadn't even considered until both of their tweets. I was a Niko guy. Monday afternoon when I opened GopherHole and saw Johnson had been hired....I wasn't really surprised....I sensed it was coming, despite being told there was no chance we were going to hire him.
I've been one who has complained about the Gophers recruiting the last 8 years. It was obvious that there was no relationship with the high school coaches in Minnesota with Pitino. We've offered late, been late to the game and sometimes not present in recruiting guys we needed to be more aggressive looking at. Because of that I'm excited for Ben Johnson as our new coach. I'm old enough to remember when The Barn used to be rocking and we would get just about everyone we wanted to get in the state. Even while Tubby was here we got the 4 biggest recruits from Minnesota while he was here in White, Coleman, Williams and Hoffarber. I'm hopeful with Johnson. He might not be as safe of a pick, but I think his upside is higher than anyone we could have picked except for Musselmen.
I've been one who has complained about the Gophers recruiting the last 8 years. It was obvious that there was no relationship with the high school coaches in Minnesota with Pitino. We've offered late, been late to the game and sometimes not present in recruiting guys we needed to be more aggressive looking at. Because of that I'm excited for Ben Johnson as our new coach. I'm old enough to remember when The Barn used to be rocking and we would get just about everyone we wanted to get in the state. Even while Tubby was here we got the 4 biggest recruits from Minnesota while he was here in White, Coleman, Williams and Hoffarber. I'm hopeful with Johnson. He might not be as safe of a pick, but I think his upside is higher than anyone we could have picked except for Musselmen.