What grade would you give the 2023-24 Gophers basketball season?

What grade would you give the 2023-24 Gophers basketball season?

  • A

    Votes: 2 1.2%

  • B

    Votes: 51 31.5%

  • C

    Votes: 86 53.1%

  • D

    Votes: 22 13.6%

  • F

    Votes: 1 0.6%
  • Total voters
    162
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What grade would you give the 2023-24 Gophers basketball season?
 


B. Blew expectations out of the water and sets up much higher expectations for next year.

Team is now in a better place than when Johnson took over.....and we should take another step going into next year pending disaster.
 
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I voted C because they won a few more games than I expected.

However, they played a really awful non-conference schedule, and lacked any real quality wins despite the favorable B1G schedule. Defensive metrics were awful, and they really didn’t develop any sort of a bench.

They ended losing 6 of their last 8, and were largely non-competitive in those losses. It’s tough to get excited about next year and enjoy the progress we saw glimpses of mid-season after that limp to the finish line.
 

B/B-

Improvement, but seemingly could have made the tourney if we were a level up to a B/B+ squad and we left those opportunities on the table.

Newcomers were better than advertised, so that gives me hope for next year; I think Asuma will be a 10-15 minute guy; he’s got good bounce from the highlights I’ve seen and like D I like basketball players who play contact sports, like football.

He needs to snag couple more key pieces and hopefully we return 4 of our 5 starters, to go to the next level.
 
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There was no B- so I went with a B. Of course, I'm grading on a curve these days.

First winning season and postseason since 2019 so that has to be worth something. Ben did enough to save his job. This team needs a significant talent infusion and some people are going to have to depart to accomplish that. If they do, the coach needs to be very serious about recruiting two or three quality players. No projects!
 

There were times I was ready for this team to take off and be way above average. There were times I was ready to gouge my eyes out with a fork. They averaged out and I went with a C.
 

Glacial improvement must progress, let's get to 3rd round of the NIT next year!
 




TwistingMyMelon said:
There was no B- so I went with a B. Of course, I'm grading on a curve these days.

First winning season and postseason since 2019 so that has to be worth something. Ben did enough to save his job. This team needs a significant talent infusion and some people are going to have to depart to accomplish that. If they do, the coach needs to be very serious about recruiting two or three quality players. No projects!
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Same on my end. They exceeded my low expectations and I would not have been surprised with four fewer conference wins. I’m most pleased with much more consistent effort and a roster that actually has some guys who can shoot. Until late in the season I didn’t see any tendency to give up.

The non conference schedule puts an asterisk on a lot. It’s hard for me to know if he did it to pad wins or it really was a strategy to help them learn. I still hate it and will blow a gasket if he does it again next year.

Defense has to improve. Assuming Garcia heads to more lucrative pastures, Ben needs to replace him with a guy who can pull bigs out to the perimeter and grab some rebounds. They don’t grow on trees.

If this were decade ago, I would be excited about next year. I have to wait until late May to establish any expectations for next year when we know the roster.
 

UpAndUnder43 said:
Compared to previous seasons it’s a B. But that’s not how this works. So I went D.

Finished bottom half of the conference, beat zero good teams and missed the NCAA tourney.
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What’s your definition of good teams? They didn’t beat any top ten teams but beat a couple of top 25 teams who won first round games in the tournament and had two of their best games in losses against top ten teams.

You have been away from grading for a while. Progress is usually rewarded.
 

D. After seeing Thorson yelling at the players and CBJ doing his best Little Ricky impersonation, I'm still hoping for a coaching change. This entire team is smoke and mirrors, bait and switch. One coach has a title and another does all the coaching. No alignment in roles and responsibilities and thus conflicting standards and nebulous accountability.
 

Poorly coached. Zero identity. Beat nobody of any real significance. Sub-.500 B1G. Collapse to end season. One and done B1G Tournament. Miss THE Tournament.
Only an "improvement" when compared to absolutely horrific previous 2 seasons.


Solid "D".
 

C-...if it was year 1 or 2, I'd given it a higher grade. They did make the post season. Missed out on "weakling Wednesday. I wish I had more faith in the foundation. You pull out a couple of bricks (transfer portal) and it could crumble. I'd probably revist this in 30-45 days. Hopefully we'll have some good news. He still has to coach'em up. He's got a stubborn streak, doesn't seem to be adapting to failure.
 


Preseason grade B+/A-.
Final: C-.

The NIT opportunity came as a result of several teams declining their invitation. Instead of using the gift NIT invite as a bonus developmental opportunity and reward, Ben maintained his status quo distribution of playing time.

It doesn’t take much to give a few bench players a minute or two here and there to rest your starters. Ben showed no trust in his bench that he formed and he gave them no rewards. Ben only has to look at himself for the failure of his bench to provide needed depth.

In year 3, Ben formed a much better and rounded team than the Gophers had in many years. I was encouraged by that, but he failed to live up to the commitment he made to develop his players, and to build upon their successes.

How many players will he lose now?
 

C - Some solid pieces on the roster and some things to build around. But also major areas for growth and improvment as well.

Gotta keep the key players here and find a way to add to them in the portal. Expectations go up for 24/25 so hopefully they can find a way to continue on an upward trajectory.
 

C or D range makes the most sense to me.

There were improvements and I can squint and see a pretty good team next year depending upon attrition/additions. I can't really go higher than C because I can't really inflate this grade because his previous seasons were so awful (that's not how grading on a curve works).
 

Rex said:
C-...if it was year 1 or 2, I'd given it a higher grade. They did make the post season. Missed out on "weakling Wednesday. I wish I had more faith in the foundation. You pull out a couple of bricks (transfer portal) and it could crumble. I'd probably revist this in 30-45 days. Hopefully we'll have some good news. He still has to coach'em up. He's got a stubborn streak, doesn't seem to be adapting to failure.
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All true for us but also mostly true for almost every team in the country.

He clearly has demonstrated an ability to evaluate under the radar talent. I wasn’t immediately expecting the kind of production we got from Hawk and Mitchell and both proved they belonged in high major basketball.

He has a bit more to sell with a season in the right direction.

His ability to develop players is still a question mark but Payne has shown good growth. If Betts can go from a too young freshman to productive player in two years that will show me something.
 

Holy Man said:
Same on my end. They exceeded my low expectations and I would not have been surprised with four fewer conference wins. I’m most pleased with much more consistent effort and a roster that actually has some guys who can shoot. Until late in the season I didn’t see any tendency to give up.

The non conference schedule puts an asterisk on a lot. 1) It’s hard for me to know if he did it to pad wins or it really was a strategy to help them learn. I still hate it and will blow a gasket if he does it again next year.

2) Defense has to improve. Assuming Garcia heads to more lucrative pastures, Ben needs to replace him with a guy who can pull bigs out to the perimeter and grab some rebounds. They don’t grow on trees.

If this were decade ago, I would be excited about next year. I have to wait until late May to establish any expectations for next year when we know the roster.
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1) I'd say both.

2) I don't know how it couldn't improve over the performance today because I wasn't sure whether they were playing any defense at all at times!
 

Holy Man said:
You have been away from grading for a while. Progress is usually rewarded.
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Yes, as a retired college professor I often chuckle about some of the comments regarding "grading"
around here. My guess is that the substantial majority of these posters have never been subjected to the grading standards they espouse.
 

Holy Man said:
What’s your definition of good teams? They didn’t beat any top ten teams but beat a couple of top 25 teams who won first round games in the tournament and had two of their best games in losses against top ten teams.

You have been away from grading for a while. Progress is usually rewarded.
Click to expand...

They beat some mid-seeded NCAA tourney teams. Aka bottom tier P6 ncaa teams.

And if you get a 30% on a test, then you get a 60%…you got an F and D. You dont reward progress. What are you talking about?
 

TwistingMyMelon said:
Yes, as a retired college professor I often chuckle about some of the comments regarding "grading"
around here. My guess is that the substantial majority of these posters have never been subjected to the grading standards they espouse.
Click to expand...

So if someone fails two exams, then barely passes the exam, do you give an F, F and a B? Or is it still an F, F and a D because they barely passed the third one?
 


Holy Man said:
What’s your definition of good teams? They didn’t beat any top ten teams but beat a couple of top 25 teams who won first round games in the tournament and had two of their best games in losses against top ten teams.

You have been away from grading for a while. Progress is usually rewarded.
Click to expand...

They only had one Q1 win. MSU was a top 25 NET team, but that was the only one. They were 33rd on the "S" curve according to the committee. None of the wins were ranked wins though, much like the first 2 years.
 

UpAndUnder43 said:
They beat some mid-seeded NCAA tourney teams. Aka bottom tier P6 ncaa teams.

And if you get a 30% on a test, then you get a 60%…you got an F and D. You dont reward progress. What are you talking about?
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Only 34 of the 80 P6 teams made the tournament. So where exactly does the bottom tier start for P5? Anything outside of the top two teams in every conference? Because Nebraska and Northwestern finished third and fourth in the Big Ten this year.
 

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