Next week Mark Coyle is likely to make news about the University of Minnesota basketball program. The athletic director could announce the dismissal of men’s head coach Ben Johnson, or make it clear the Minneapolis native will return for a fifth season leading his alma mater.
Either action will make headlines and depending upon your view of the program be polarizing.
A source with knowledge inside the Athletic Department indicated it’s not known which direction Coyle will proceed. Other valued sources aren’t predicting an outcome either, but if pressed believe Coyle will give Johnson another year.
Their view is that 2025 is already a tumultuous time for the department as power four schools anticipate revenue sharing for the first time with athletes. The U is expected to allocate at least $20 million this year to athletes in football, men’s and women’s basketball, men’s hockey and volleyball.
The budget for the 22-sports at the U will be challenging for the self-supporting Athletic Department. To buy out the contracts of Johnson and staff likely totals in the range of $5 million. Then add a similar total for a new staff, plus a possible substantial contract buyout for the new coach’s old school, and it’s clear any change will be significantly more costly than status quo with the men’s basketball program. (Of course, immediate success by a new coach could change the budget with a jump in revenues).
Johnson has struggled to attract Name, Image and Likeness money for his players. If the U had north of $1 million in NIL money this past season, other power programs had totals dwarfing that figure.
With revenue sharing in line with what other Big Ten schools are expected to pay players, the pay-for-play gap narrows for the Gophers next season. Coyle may believe it’s fair to give the likeable Johnson another season because of revenue sharing.
It would be naïve, though, to believe Johnson isn’t under scrutiny by superiors. Deputy athletics director Julie Manning was seated at court side, for example, at the March 1, road game against Nebraska in Lincoln. Her roles at the U include supervising men’s basketball.
Coyle has been the school’s AD since 2016. He is known for his patience and support for coaches, but Johnson’s four-year resume is concerning. The Gophers have two last place regular season finishes during his leadership. They’ve never produced a winning conference record or qualified for the NCAA Tournament and have one appearance in the NIT. Sunday they play their final regular season game on the bubble of whether they will be one of the 15 teams in the 18-member conference who qualify for next week’s Big Ten Tournament.
Minnesota is 7-12 in league games this year, 15-15 overall. Donor support and Fan apathy is apparent.
Johnson’s on-court results have held back donor enthusiasm for NIL which could be even more difficult to generate going forward than in the past if he returns as head coach. Although he has generated sympathy from the media for not having enough NIL money, he is the program leader and someone who previous to the Minnesota job had no head coaching experience and brand recognition to impress donors and the general public.
Regarding attendance at games, the Gophers drew a home sellout crowd last Wednesday for the first time since 2020. Public season ticket totals have been declining for years. As recently as 2019-2020 season tickets totaled 6,820. Next fall that total could be under 4,000.
As a revenue generator men’s basketball is overwhelmingly underperforming. With ticket sales and other revenue streams, the program should be carrying much more of the financial load for the Athletic Department and Coyle knows that better than anyone.
The guess here is Coyle will make a change after making a deliberate and objective evaluation of the program. He could decide he needs more from a program that has good citizens, improved academics and complies with department and NCCA policy. A new start and renewed enthusiasm could certainly be on his mind.
It’s a red flag that the Gophers can be so much more successful in football than in basketball. Head coach P.J. Fleck has succeeded in a sport demanding five times the number of players, and he’s done it in a state where the quality of high school basketball is significantly better in talent than in football.
Basketball is a sport that can see a team’s fortunes change within a year or two, and sometimes overnight, with the right influx of players, coaching, timing—and let’s be honest—luck. After multiple failed hires this millennium, the prerequisite at Minnesota is to find the right fit to lead the program.
The assignment doesn’t necessarily have to command a marquee hire. A few miles from Dinkytown John Tauer, believed to be earning a salary less than $600,000 per season, has been turning heads for years as the St. Thomas head coach.
Tauer won a Division III national title in 2016. For four seasons he has led an ultra-successful transition into Division I with his mid-majors program in the Summit League. This season the Tommies are 12-4 in conference regular season games and 23-9 overall. Think Tauer, with a foundation built on former Minnesota prep players, could win at Minnesota?
Yup.
No one is predicting Tauer, whose roots are deep at St. Thomas, would take the Minnesota job if offered but if he did the expectation would be for him to run a savvy program like the Wisconsin Badgers have done for decades. Wisconsin turned around its basketball program in the 1990s with low profile coaching talent starting with Dick Bennett. Then Bo Ryan and Greg Gard overachieved this millennium with Final Fours, Big Ten titles and national rankings.
The Wisconsin way succeeds without blue-blood players The Badgers are no pipeline to the NBA. But they do have a pipeline to Minnesota preps, for decades featuring talent from the Gopher state. The current roster has five Minnesota natives and five Wisconsin natives.
The Badger program, built around fundamentals and unselfish attitude, is a case study in hard-ass defense, exploiting the weaknesses of opponents and minimizing mistakes including turnovers. At 13-6 in Big Ten games and 23-7 overall, the Badgers are again a force to be reckoned with.
Last Wednesday night’s game with the Gophers was a microcosm of what works for Wisconsin and doesn’t for Minnesota. The Gophers lost their ninth consecutive game in their border rivalry series.
They saw how the Badgers run out of bounds plays contributing to points in a tight game that was tied in the second half. They saw how the Badgers drained three-point shots and balanced that offense with drives to the baskets for scores. They saw how repeatedly Badger defenders offered no path to the basket. And they saw how the decades old Wisconsin winning philosophy includes fundamentals as straight forward as making most of their free throws.
It was another game where all the little things added up to the big thing: A 74-67 Wisconsin win. At places like Wisconsin, the sum is more valuable than the parts.
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