Ben Johnson Fired

The University of Minnesota made the announcement early in the morning in Thursday

The University of Minnesota announced at 1:21 Thursday morning that Ben Johnson had been fired as head coach of the Minnesota Golden Gophers men’s basketball team. The Gophers will begin an immediate national search for his successor.

The full statement from Minnesota athletic director Mark Coyle is below:

“I met with Ben in-person early this morning when the team returned to Minneapolis from the Big Ten Men’s Basketball Tournament and informed him that we were making a change in leadership. I thanked him for his dedication and for guiding the program, one he cares deeply about, for the last four years. Ben is a terrific person, and we wish him well.

“These decisions are difficult and are made after careful consideration and evaluation. The expectation for our program is to compete for championships, and unfortunately, we have not done that in the last four years.

“This is an extremely desirable job in one of the best conferences and cities in the nation, and we fully expect to compete at the highest level on and off the court. We provide a world-class experience for our student-athletes, have one of the best practice facilities in the nation and play games in a historic venue. We offer everything that is needed to be successful, and we will immediately begin a nationwide search for our next men’s basketball coach.

In four years as Minnesota head coach Johnson went 56-71 overall, and 22-57 in Big Ten play. This past season the Gophers finished 15-17, including 7-13 in conference play. The Gophers ended officially in 12th place in the Big Ten (really a 5-way tie for 11th) after preseason predictions placed them 18th out of 18 teams in the newly expanded Big Ten.

Two things about the announcement are allready making ripples in the Twin Cities sports world on Thursday morning. The first is the timing of the announcement. Minnesota released the press release at 1:21 AM on Thursday. Many prominent Twin Cities media people had negative comments on the timing.

Here are what appear to be the facts. The Gophers lost 72-64 to Northwestern in the Big Ten Tournament yesterday. Minnesota did not leave Indy until later that evening after needing to go back to the hotel to pick up gear, etc. The Gophers did not arrive back at MSP until 11:54 PM last night according to flight aware.

The team would arrive back to campus about 12:30 AM, where according to the press release Coyle would have told Johnson immediately that he had been fired. Then the U told the public immediately rather than waiting until the morning. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

As Justin Gaard of KFAN and Gopher women’s PBP voice along with various other jobs in the Gopher media universe put it, Mark Coyle’s presence on the NCAA basketball committee pretty much forced this to be the timeline unless the Gophers wanted to wait until Monday.

JG basically says Coyle watched the game yesterday allready being in Indy for NCAA Committee work, flew home separate from the team, fired Ben immediately in person in Minneapolis rather than doing it before the flight home in Indy, and then flew back to Indy this morning to resume work forming the NCAA Tournament field. Again, damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

The other factor that will be explored in greater detail over the next few days is what will a new coach do about NIL. We can all admit that Ben Johnson was hamstrung by the lack of NIL and institutional support for the Men’s Basketball program. Some of Ben’s strongest supporters wanted to give him one more season with a hopeful uptick in NIL and revenue sharing dollars. In the end, Mark Coyle decided with that vast majority of the roster turning over, this was the time to make a full scale change. Only time will tell if this was the right decision. Coyle saying in the press releease that the “expectation for our program is to compete for championships” is not realistic possible with the current level of support for the program. Will just making a coaching change help that investment? If not the best coach in the world isn’t going to matter.

One thing that is true though. This may be the biggest hiring decision Mark Coyle will have as AD at Minnesota. He hired PJ Fleck which has worked out. But he botched both basketball hires initially with now Ben Johnson joining Lindsay Whalen as Gopher alums who didn’t work out. There is a lot of angst out there in the Minnesota fan base, and this hire if it would fail may be enough to get the winds to change and start the call for replacing Coyle. But, if he nails it, then he should deserve a lot of the praise. Again, only time will tell.

We will have much more on the firing later this week as well as a look at who might be in consideration to replace Ben Johnson.