Ben Johnson’s Last Stand
3 Likes
I would be mildly surprised if Ben Johnson is still the Minnetonka coach in about four weeks tbh.
Minnesota fans are pissed about Henley. He was pals with Dennis Evan’s and got free reign to do whatever he wanted on the court this year but is now out and a big reason Evans backed out too
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such a weird thing to say publicly IMO. John Beilein would never speak like this
2 Likes
Always found Underpants strategy for building a team curious. Seems he finds a lot of parts that dont work together well. Kofi really saved his bacon.
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RJ come to AA. Ty Rodgers, Jett is gone and you don’t need that guy in your life. It’s a toxic relationship. I think you both are rockstars
10 Likes
OTOH, I feel like Plummer was a near-perfect fit. PG play just killed them this year which was buying into the Skyy Clark situation. Wasn’t the right move.
john beilein doesn’t know what rockstars are. the coolest job he can imagine is playing second base for the 1964 st louis cardinals
7 Likes
Yeah hes gonna strike some gold here and there. I mean Shannon and Mayer were great pickups. But, and obviously in retrospect, shouldve taken another guard instead of both of them.
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Losing Jayden Epps at the end also clearly hurt them
The only downside of Illinois losing is that it would have been so funny when when a national audience found out that the story of them overcoming adversity was just Matthew Mayer getting caffeine poisoning from drinking 6 monster energy drinks.
Him enjoying one Monster energy drink responsibly after a big win could have made One Shining Moment
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I think Underwood is just kinda a chaotic mess and his roster building moving forward is going to reflect this. So I would expect the “rockstar” approach from them. Keep some foundational pieces like Rodgers, Goode, Epps, etc. around but the major players will come from the portal.
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This is the first season after kofi, so it’s a long way to go but if this is what they are now - middle of the pack in the conference and first weekend tournament loser - then that makes sense. Underpants seems to get good talent, and deploy it reasonably well, but seems to be a tournament choker.
Underwood has this part down to a science. Him and Fran could give graduate level lectures on it at this point.
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I don’t really think Underwood is as chaotic as some of you are describing. Is his situation really any different than ours besides the tournament disappointment? They had a solid recruiting class, they paid the price for having young guards, they did better in the portal but still had a mismatched group, they are dealing with life after Kofi and a ton of attrition… I think a lot of the “roster building chaos” that Illinois is dealing with is just life in 2023. They had a star freshman flake out, they brought in two senior transfer studs but didn’t know how to fit the pieces together, etc.
I do think they have a couple of young pieces to build around but overall they are going to be missing some key ingredients…just like most teams. I have no idea what Shannon will do as I never thought of him as a 2-year player and he walked during senior night.
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I think Illinois’ season is extremely similar to ours in that they had a bunch of talent and missed 1 key ingredient (a point guard) to bring it together. The constant portrayal as the guy who has been one of the two best recruiters in the conference and has the best 4 year running conference W/L record as a “mess” seems more like wishcasting than anything.
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Meaningless 2023-24 rankings based on complete guesses of who will come back vs go pro and who will do well in the transfer portal:
- Maryland
- Michigan State
- Ohio State
- Illinois
- Michigan
- Indiana
- Purdue
- Rutgers
- Wisconsin
- Iowa
- Penn State
- Northwestern
- Nebraska
- Minnesota
Had to get this out there before Bart poisons my mind when he releases his rankings in like two weeks.
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Who is coming back for Maryland? Is the expectation that those guys will use COVID years?
I think 2/3 of Young, Scott, and Hart will be back plus they have a decent recruiting class and Willard is usually good with transfers (Young at Maryland, Obiagu, Aiken, Richmond at Seton Hall). We will all be sick of Julian Reese hype by July.
Is the thought Edey goes pro? I have no idea what NIL is like there, but he seems to be in a Hunter-ish situation right?
I think OSU is a good call that high (they may be by #1), I’m a little sketchy on MSU. They have a good freshman class but I’m really unsure how much that will matter next year.
2 Likes