What grade do you give Ben Johnson for his first year?

[leib0039]

Obviously TJ did better and he also has more guys to carry over to next year. I think Ben has a better frosh class coming in for next year...so that's good.

Its one site and its close but 247 has Iowa St with the 36th best Fr class with the gophers at 40. Again thats close but its not like ISU has a terrible class and we have a stacked one.

Also for reference, Nebraska is 33rd, Penn St 26th...Arkansas is 2nd (Muss just crushing!)

A lot of that changes with Transfers as well, just pointing out a few things.

 

[MNVCGUY]

Going back to the point in the original post: Iowa St vs Minnesota this year.

- Iowa State hired TJ on March 18, 2021
- this is what TJ was able to do: https://247sports.com/college/iowa-state/Season/2021-Basketball/Commits/

- we hired BJ on March 22, 2021
- this is what BJ was able to do: https://247sports.com/college/minnesota/Season/2021-Basketball/Commits/


This says nothing about how much of those commits were due to the respective coaches vs the previous coaches, it says nothing about how much those players contributed to the current year's results, and it says nothing about who else was left on the roster for this year from the previous year.


The only further caveat is obviously Gabe. On one hand, you could argue that no matter what BJ said, Gabe wanted out and wanted a change of scenery. That could be true. But the case could also be made that Gabe would've stayed if BJ sold him well enough. I have no idea which is correct or closer to correct.

With a healthy Fox the portal additions of both teams are probably a wash. The key difference is that TJ inherited a top 40 recruit who ended up being the teams second leading scorer and the conference freshman of the year, while Ben inherited TT who may develop into a good player but as a skinny 7'0" needs time. As far as I can tell ISU also managed to not have any season ending injuries to contend with.

There is no doubt ISU had a better season than we did but the season's are not that far apart. Both teams went undefeated in the non-conf schedule with ISU racking up 13 wins while we picked up 9. They went 7-11 in conf while we went 4-16. So they played 4 additional non-conf games and 2 fewer conf games than we did. Both teams lost their opening round conf tournament games.

ISU will get to make an appearance in the tournament but I wouldn't pin a lot of hopes on them going far. They were demolished yesterday by Texas Tech in the Big 12 tournament 72-41.

Will be interesting to watch how the programs progress. No clue if he has another year available but seems likely that Brockington goes pro so ISU will be losing its top scorer for next year. The recruiting classes are ranked very similar so it will come down to what each team does in the portal.

 

[Gophers_4life]

With a healthy Fox the portal additions of both teams are probably a wash. The key difference is that TJ inherited a top 40 recruit who ended up being the teams second leading scorer and the conference freshman of the year, while Ben inherited TT who may develop into a good player but as a skinny 7'0" needs time. As far as I can tell ISU also managed to not have any season ending injuries to contend with.

There is no doubt ISU had a better season than we did but the season's are not that far apart. Both teams went undefeated in the non-conf schedule with ISU racking up 13 wins while we picked up 9. They went 7-11 in conf while we went 4-16. So they played 4 additional non-conf games and 2 fewer conf games than we did. Both teams lost their opening round conf tournament games.

ISU will get to make an appearance in the tournament but I wouldn't pin a lot of hopes on them going far. They were demolished yesterday by Texas Tech in the Big 12 tournament 72-41.

Will be interesting to watch how the programs progress. No clue if he has another year available but seems likely that Brockington goes pro so ISU will be losing its top scorer for next year. The recruiting classes are ranked very similar so it will come down to what each team does in the portal.

Excellent post.

This is the kind of "look under the hood" that I was hoping someone could provide, to my very shallow surface level post.

The only "challenge" to your post: TJ still had to sell Hunter on keeping his committment to come to Ames? So when you say "inherited" ... was there literally no way for Hunter to back out and play elsewhere, if he had wanted to? (honest question)


Everyone also seems to be forgetting or sweeping under the rug that we had two very winnable games at home vs Wisc and IU. Win both of those, and I think it could be a huge different in perception of the season. Maybe a full letter grade.

And maybe Fox alone, or Fox + Ihnen gets us there? Probably not tourny, but better.

 

[MNVCGUY]

Excellent post.

This is the kind of "look under the hood" that I was hoping someone could provide, to my very shallow surface level post.

The only "challenge" to your post: TJ still had to sell Hunter on keeping his committment to come to Ames? So when you say "inherited" ... was there literally no way for Hunter to back out and play elsewhere, if he had wanted to? (honest question)


Everyone also seems to be forgetting or sweeping under the rug that we had two very winnable games at home vs Wisc and IU. Win both of those, and I think it could be a huge different in perception of the season. Maybe a full letter grade.

And maybe Fox alone, or Fox + Ihnen gets us there? Probably not tourny, but better.

Can't answer the question on Hunter but he committed in August of the year before so seemed pretty locked in for ISU. Don't follow basketball recruiting closely at all.

Obviously no way to know but I truly believe a healthy Fox/Ihnen this year would have flipped a couple of the hard fought loses into the win column for this team because those two would have directly addressed the two biggest problems for this squad (Front court depth and rebounding). But there is no way to know for sure. So we move on and see what happens going forward.

Really interested to see what Fox brings to the table. He was highly sought after when he put his name into the portal. He and Battle could provide a really nice tandem to build around.

 

[Gophers_4life]

Well, of course, just a commitment is obviously not binding. If he signed an NLI to ISU, then that I wonder about how legally binding it is or if it is actually ingrained into the NCAA rules that if you violate your NLI you are then ineligible to play that coming season. Don't know if it has ever been challenged.

EDIT: yes it is https://www.recruitref.com/blog/is-a-national-letter-of-intent-legally-binding

Hunter could have asked ISU to be released from an NLI, but they would be under no obligation to do so.

But frankly, if a school fires the coaching staff that recruited you and to whom you signed the NLI under, it feels pretty crappy to continue to enforce it. Anyway ....

 

[MNVCGUY]

The results in this poll are crazy. Not sure I can recall a poll on this site with letter grades where you have the same number of A and F votes (9 each).

 

[cheeseheadgophfan]

Boys was not a MAC recruit. The others were. PJ also didn’t have to deal with free transfers, which considering all that went on during that time and the anger the players had towards the university I would guess there would have been a large group that would have left.

Mafe had no other P5 offers when the Gophers offered.....he had NDSU, SDSU, etc.....I think Rutgers came in late and offered but he was definitely considered a MAC level recruit.

 

[Ogee Ogilthorpe]

Battle got better. But he was a soph so room to grow. Curry, Loewe, Stephens, Willis, Sutherlin, Daniels, and Ogele are all fifth or six year players. Days of improvement are gone.

Not to be argumentative but this is kind of a ridiculous statement. Completely new coaching staff and new offensive and defensive systems for all the players, a new school and environment for a bunch of the players. It doesn't matter if you're 18 or 24 years old, you should be a lot more efficient and effective playing in the new system and scheme in March than you were in Nov/Dec if the coaching is doing anything at all.

I hope you're not saying that players in the NBA stop progressing and developing when they reach 22 years old? Come on man...

There are different ways to evaluate a coach, with two primary ones in college being recruiting/roster assembly and actual coaching. BJ and the staff can absolutely 100% get a free pass this first year on how difficult it was going to be to assemble a roster. I find it hard to give them a free pass on the team just plain looking a lot worse at the end of the year than in the beginning. The competition argument is weak as well, regardless of competition, you can tell if the players are improving and working more efficiently in the system.

 

[GopherNuts]

Flecks first year was a 3 way tie for 11th
2-2 vs bottom 7 in the conference
Gophers in a 2 way tie for 13th.
3-7 vs bottom 7 in the conference:

both unbeaten against a non conference schedule not that impressive.

I would say that getting last place in the conference is worse than not getting last place but that’s just me. I suppose that you could say both were equally totally disappointing.

Fleck took over a program that won 9 games with a very promising freshmen group (that turned out to be historic). Johnson took over a team that finished 13th the year prior with Carr transferring no matter what, Robbins was only sticking around if his uncle did and an underwhelming group of underclassmen. Pitino left this program in a horrendous situation, all that was left to do was to clear out

 

[bga1]

Not to be argumentative but this is kind of a ridiculous statement. Completely new coaching staff and new offensive and defensive systems for all the players, a new school and environment for a bunch of the players. It doesn't matter if you're 18 or 24 years old, you should be a lot more efficient and effective playing in the new system and scheme in March than you were in Nov/Dec if the coaching is doing anything at all.

I hope you're not saying that players in the NBA stop progressing and developing when they reach 22 years old? Come on man...

There are different ways to evaluate a coach, with two primary ones in college being recruiting/roster assembly and actual coaching. BJ and the staff can absolutely 100% get a free pass this first year on how difficult it was going to be to assemble a roster. I find it hard to give them a free pass on the team just plain looking a lot worse at the end of the year than in the beginning. The competition argument is weak as well, regardless of competition, you can tell if the players are improving and working more efficiently in the system.

Good post. The U of M put Ben in an impossible situation. They hired a coach who had never been a head coach to sell himself to the first ever full on college free agent market. You are not going to get a strong roster under those conditions. This year was a throw away year for that reason. It is up to Ben to prove that it was worth it. I hope he can. This next year is key. It MUST show great potential or he is going to lose this town in a hurry. So many fans have already exited. We don't have to make the tournament but we have to show potential for the future. We can't go out and win 6-7 Big Ten games with mainly rental guys.

 

[Some guy]

Fleck took over a program that won 9 games with a very promising freshmen group (that turned out to be historic). Johnson took over a team that finished 13th the year prior with Carr transferring no matter what, Robbins was only sticking around if his uncle did and an underwhelming group of underclassmen. Pitino left this program in a horrendous situation, all that was left to do was to clear out

Yeah it’s a terrible comparison all the way around. You are totally correct.
what they took over is different.
what they did the first year was different.

 

[Spaulding!No!]

Fleck and Ben are polar opposites when it comes to leadership. Ben should be at Bethel, hitting refresh with the hope a recruit is responding.

 

[formerlybis]

If you are grading based on expectations given the circumstances, then it was a very low bar. I'll choose to not factor in anything prior to when the cards were dealt (i.e., players leaving/injured, getting who they got).

In terms of wins and losses, it was a mixed bag. Good at the beginning, a couple of valiant efforts, but last place is last place.

In terms of competitiveness, it was good.

But, the analytics were not great - they were basically the same rank in the B1G in offense and defense efficiency (and the defense was dead last) as last year. If a culture/foundation/identity is being built, what is it? "Trying hard" is not objectively measured. Rutgers was known for trying hard when Pikiell took over, but that was accompanied by their defense going from 14th to 7th in year 1 (when they only won one conference game). Where is the trying hard showing up in any meaningful metric for the Gophers?

So, in the end, I would have expected a bit more. D

 

[GFBfan]

Mafe had no other P5 offers when the Gophers offered.....he had NDSU, SDSU, etc.....I think Rutgers came in late and offered but he was definitely considered a MAC level recruit.

He was an instate Gopher Recruit. I said that in my post because GWG used his name as a player that PJ brought with him. He didn't. PJ honored the commitment that was given to Boye by the previous staff. Same as Ben honoring the commitment to TT.

 

[BarnBurner]

Not to be argumentative but this is kind of a ridiculous statement. Completely new coaching staff and new offensive and defensive systems for all the players, a new school and environment for a bunch of the players. It doesn't matter if you're 18 or 24 years old, you should be a lot more efficient and effective playing in the new system and scheme in March than you were in Nov/Dec if the coaching is doing anything at all.

I hope you're not saying that players in the NBA stop progressing and developing when they reach 22 years old? Come on man...

There are different ways to evaluate a coach, with two primary ones in college being recruiting/roster assembly and actual coaching. BJ and the staff can absolutely 100% get a free pass this first year on how difficult it was going to be to assemble a roster. I find it hard to give them a free pass on the team just plain looking a lot worse at the end of the year than in the beginning. The competition argument is weak as well, regardless of competition, you can tell if the players are improving and working more efficiently in the system.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Dikota

 

[GopherWeatherGuy]

He was an instate Gopher Recruit. I said that in my post because GWG used his name as a player that PJ brought with him. He didn't. PJ honored the commitment that was given to Boye by the previous staff. Same as Ben honoring the commitment to TT.

I responded to johnnyboy who inferred that PJ's recruiting wasn't that impressive because all he did is bring with him MAC level commits. Then I listed all of the NFL level players that committed to Fleck his first 3 weeks on the job. I didn't say he brought Mafe with him, because he didn't.

Mafe also wasn't committed to the previous staff. He committed to Fleck.

How many NBA caliber players did Ben Johnson sign his first 3 weeks on the job?

 

[cjbfbp]

ISU will get to make an appearance in the tournament but I wouldn't pin a lot of hopes on them going far. They were demolished yesterday by Texas Tech in the Big 12 tournament 72-41.

I wouldn't bet on that. 7-12 against conference competition, #47 in the NET rankings, #60 on Sagarin, #69 on RPI, and a 31 point loss in their opening conference tournament game. Right now I would say that Oklahoma is a better bet than ISU: higher rankings in the metrics and a win last night over Baylor. They might just take 5 from the Big 12.

 

[GFBfan]

I responded to johnnyboy who inferred that PJ's recruiting wasn't that impressive because all he did is bring with him MAC level commits. Then I listed all of the NFL level players that committed to Fleck his first 3 weeks on the job. I didn't say he brought Mafe with him, because he didn't.

Mafe also wasn't committed to the previous staff. He committed to Fleck.

How many NBA caliber players did Ben Johnson sign his first 3 weeks on the job?

He was offered by the previous staff, took two unofficial visits that fall and was pretty much a lock to commit. PJ didn't recruit him prior, so had the Gophers not offered before, do you really think he would have given him one? He honored the offers that the prior staff had made to in state recruits and didn't offer any other MN recruit after he was hired.

Different sport so your last question doesn't mean much. Who knows, TT may turn out to be a dud or NBA level by the time he is done. (not likely but there is a chance...perhaps)

 

[Johnnyboy18]

I responded to johnnyboy who inferred that PJ's recruiting wasn't that impressive because all he did is bring with him MAC level commits. Then I listed all of the NFL level players that committed to Fleck his first 3 weeks on the job. I didn't say he brought Mafe with him, because he didn't.

Mafe also wasn't committed to the previous staff. He committed to Fleck.

How many NBA caliber players did Ben Johnson sign his first 3 weeks on the job?

Did you think/know those players were NFL caliber players when they signed? What an absurd statement.

Battle and Willis were 2 of the 20 best players in the B1G.

 

[Johnnyboy18]

He was offered by the previous staff, took two unofficial visits that fall and was pretty much a lock to commit. PJ didn't recruit him prior, so had the Gophers not offered before, do you really think he would have given him one? He honored the offers that the prior staff had made to in state recruits and didn't offer any other MN recruit after he was hired.

Different sport so your last question doesn't mean much. Who knows, TT may turn out to be a dud or NBA level by the time he is done. (not likely but there is a chance...perhaps)

They offered an NDSU commit but he stuck with his commitment I believe.

Noah Gindorff

 

[GopherWeatherGuy]

He was offered by the previous staff, took two unofficial visits that fall and was pretty much a lock to commit. PJ didn't recruit him prior, so had the Gophers not offered before, do you really think he would have given him one? He honored the offers that the prior staff had made to in state recruits and didn't offer any other MN recruit after he was hired.

Different sport so your last question doesn't mean much. Who knows, TT may turn out to be a dud or NBA level by the time he is done. (not likely but there is a chance...perhaps)

Since when are offers and commitments the same thing? He honored the MN commitments, not the offers. Fleck pushed ~10-12 of Claeys actual commits out the door as soon as he was hired. How did he owe Mafe more than them? You're making things up.

Mafe didn't commit to the Gophers until the day before signing day. He took an official visit to Rutgers a week earlier. Fleck wanted him and that's why he signed.

You guys are the one trying to make parallels between Fleck and BJ when there are none, not me.

 

[GopherNuts]

Yeah it’s a terrible comparison all the way around. You are totally correct.
what they took over is different.
what they did the first year was different.

The comparison was made to show that even good to great coaches can have first seasons like these where they start hot and trail off. Matt Painter went 9-19 (3-13 in conference) his first season at Purdue, that doesn’t mean the season was a complete failure. It’s simple minded to form an opinion entirely on the end result.

 

[Some guy]

The comparison was made to show that even good to great coaches can have first seasons like these where they start hot and trail off. Matt Painter went 9-19 (3-13 in conference) his first season at Purdue, that doesn’t mean the season was a complete failure. It’s simple minded to form an opinion entirely on the end result.

Matt painters first season was a failure. You don’t have to get a 0% to fail.
Johnson’s first year is a failure, no doubt. That doesn’t mean he didn’t do anything well. That doesn’t mean that his second or third year will be failures

 

[GFBfan]

Since when are offers and commitments the same thing? He honored the MN commitments, not the offers. Fleck pushed ~10-12 of Claeys actual commits out the door as soon as he was hired. How did he owe Mafe more than them? You're making things up.

Mafe didn't commit to the Gophers until the day before signing day. He took an official visit to Rutgers a week earlier. Fleck wanted him and that's why he signed.

You guys are the one trying to make parallels between Fleck and BJ when there are none, not me.

I see you didn’t answer my question.
The only parallels between them are they were hired by Coyle and they’re young HC’s
Other than that, they came to MN at entirely different times, especially when it concerns recruiting(due to the number of players that can sign and when they can sign). and transferring.

 

[fan of Ray Williams]

Regarding Painter, that second time his team finished in last place he had 5 top 100 recruits on his roster. (2013-2014) I realize a couple were freshmen and a couple sophs, but still.

 

[Gopher Teeth]

Just the fact he was a rookie head coach moves the grade from C to B considering what he did in that situation. A lot of coaches with 20 years at the helm could not have done it.

Exactly a lot of 20 year coaches couldn't have finished as well as last place....good point.

 

[GopherWeatherGuy]

I see you didn’t answer my question.
The only parallels between them are they were hired by Coyle and they’re young HC’s
Other than that, they came to MN at entirely different times, especially when it concerns recruiting(due to the number of players that can sign and when they can sign). and transferring.

I agree with most of this.

The question that do I think Fleck would have recruited Mafe if he didn't already have an offer? Yes, he recruited a bunch of players who didn't already have MN offers over those 3 weeks, and didn't recruit a bunch of kids who had MN offers or were already committed.

This is when Kill took the Rutgers OC job and was Mafe's lead recruiter there. Fleck could have easily let him go there where his offer would have been honored by a member of the previous staff.
If Mafe truly wanted to be a Gopher from the beginning, he would have committed months earlier under Kill/Claeys. But he didn't.

Fleck went after Mafe hard because he wanted him and beat Kill out for him. This was also the first time there was a published confrontation between Fleck and Kill.

 

[cjbfbp]

Pitino still owns the best conference finish and only true conference title contention in the 23 years since Haskins was fired (11-7, 4th place, 3 games out of first place). That was his fourth season here. The hope is that Ben can at least duplicate that feat in his first half decade in this job.

I'm a firm believer that one shouldn't be judged solely by his best or worst performances. If we looked simply at overall yearly records (probably the best indicator of the overall levels of fan happiness or unhappiness in a season), I think fair grades for Pitino's tenure are:

1 A grade
2 B grades
1 C grade
3 D grades
1 F grade

That's not a B or even a C+ student. That's a 1.875 average.

As the old saying goes: Even a blind pig finds an acorn once in awhile.

 

[50PoundHead]

I voted B. I really have to laugh at all the tough-guy F grades. Go back to the exodus and see how many were predicting things like 4- or 5-win seasons. The team exceeded expectations by a good measure in my view.

Ben's clearly not there yet as a coach, but it's his first year in the big chair so I'm going to cut him some slack. My biggest disappointment is that he didn't give Thompson more playing time. If Ben didn't think Thompson was ready physically, he should have just red-shirted him.

The team did regress in the second half and I hate to break it to you guys, but the other teams do scout us and that is probably the primary reason for the regression. Battle is a stud and Willis is a good B1G-level player, but we didn't have the personnel to counterpunch when the opposition made adjustments. Willis, while good, isn't a true point guard and that showed up as he started to do a Marcus Carr imitation (and a pretty convincing one) during the second half of the B1G season.

Roster construction could have been better (no surprise). Would have been nice if Brandon Johnson had stuck around (and Ihnen and Fox were healthy), but I don't know if that makes a major difference other than giving them a better opportunity to red-shirt Thompson. They clearly needed a true point guard and that, along with some front court muscle, are the biggest needs going into next season. Nice recruiting class coming in and we'll see how much they can contribute. It's probably going to take awhile.

 

[cjbfbp]

So, in the end, I would have expected a bit more. D

I think that's fair. In the end, what really matters to most fans is the mix of high and low points in a season. A 13-17 record definitely had more low points than high points and the high points were swamped by the low points in a 4-16 (4-17 if you count the conference tournament) conference season. The mitigating factors of Ben being a first year coach and having to replace almost an entire roster in the offseason may lead us to be more understanding but they don't really take the sting out of the season.