Category: BEN JOHNSON

Brian Dutcher, a University of Minnesota alum, has his San Diego State Aztecs in the Final Four this week in Houston.  About 23 months ago there was reason to believe Dutcher might become the new men’s basketball coach at Minnesota.

Dutcher’s contract back then had a reported buyout of nearly $7 million if he were to leave San Diego for another head coaching job—with one exception.  The San Diego Union Tribune reported in September of 2020 that Dutcher had a contract in place allowing him to leave for Minnesota with a $1 million buyout.

That signaled Dutcher, a Bloomington native, had a strong interest in coming home even though the Gopher job wasn’t open at the time and wouldn’t be until early March of 2021.  A homecoming would have meant living in the Twin Cities and being near his father Jim, the former Golden Gophers head basketball coach, and his three sisters.

When the announcement came that Minnesota athletic director Mark Coyle and head coach Richard Pitino had parted ways, Dutcher was coaching his team in the NCAA Tournament. After the Aztecs were eliminated in a first round loss to Syracuse, Coyle and Brian spoke by phone about the Minnesota opening, per Jim Dutcher.

Jim told Sports Headliners yesterday his son and Coyle talked about getting together but never did.  Soon after the initial conversation, Coyle called again to say he had hired former Gopher guard and assistant coach Ben Johnson, who was then an assistant at Xavier.  Jim said he understood the reasoning at the time for Coyle’s decision to hire a coach with “Minnesota connections” for recruiting and building the program around more high level local talent.

Would Brian have accepted the Gopher job if offered? “I don’t know,” his father said.

What’s for certain is Brian publicly demonstrated his interest in the U by including the modest buyout in his contract.  “It’s my school, where I went, and was able to be part of that basketball program with my dad,” Brian told the Union-Tribune.  “But it’s still a buyout. It’s not like it’s free.”

Brian, who after graduating from Bloomington Jefferson High School was a student manager for his dad’s teams at Minnesota, has the Mountain West Conference Aztecs in the Final Four for the first time in school history.  They play upstart Florida Atlantic Saturday, with the Connecticut and Miami game to follow. Connecticut is the betting favorite, with the Aztecs second.

Jim, who turns 90 on April 17 and still lives in Bloomington, will fly to Houston Thursday along with eight other family members including two grandchildren. There was a decision made awhile ago that if the Aztecs advanced to the Final Four the family would follow.

Despite advancing age, Jim has frequently made trips to San Diego to visit family and watch the Aztecs.  He acknowledges “creaky knees” but otherwise is healthy.

“I don’t use a walker or a wheelchair,” Jim said. “I just kind of shuffle a long. But my health is good. I don’t take one pill. My blood pressure is good. It’s just that arthritic knees make it hard to get a long.”

Either through network telecasts or via streaming, Jim and family in Minnesota have watched every Aztecs game in 2022-2023.  They have seen the 31-6 Aztecs win the Mountain West regular season title and tournament championship and rattle off four straight wins in the single elimination NCAA Tournament. It was a team that improved over the weeks and months.

“They play defense,” Jim said.  “That’s what keeps them in the games. They’re one of the top three defensive teams in the country. …They’re not a great offensive team but the four teams they played in the NCAA Tournament, all of them had their season low scores when they played the Aztecs.”

In a trip to San Diego several months ago Jim met the players at practice.  What he’s learned about them is they are a “tight group” with no academic or off court problems. “It’s just a really good group of kids,” Jim said.

Brian uses 10 players in games and on some teams that could cause dissension about playing time but not for the Aztecs.  “…They sometimes get better when they go to the bench, and so that’s helped them keep their defense at an elite level because the guys are always rested,” Jim said.

The Aztecs reflect the admirable character of their coach.  Humble and without ego, Brian has the same high values as his father who coached the Gophers to the 1982 Big Ten title.  The Dutchers have a calm, rational and common-sense approach to basketball and life.

Basketball advice from father to son? Jim acknowledged the two occasionally talk about situational things like handling full court pressure, but Brian has the whole coaching package from recruiting to X’s and O’s. “He’s a better coach than I ever was,” Jim said.

Brian trusts his team even to the extent of falling off a ladder into the arms of his players.  It’s become a tradition after winning big games at San Diego State for the coach to climb a ladder and cut down the nets.  “…He does that trust fall where he falls backward (and) they catch him,” Jim said.  “So he’s done that for a number of years.”

Brian, 63, has been head coach of the Aztecs for six seasons following decades of assistant coaching including at San Diego State starting in 1999.   Brian’s 2020 team was 30-2 during the regular season but there was no NCAA Tournament because of the pandemic.

Jim believes that was Brian’s most talented club, with better personnel than this year’s team that is two wins away from winning the school’s and the Mountain West’s first national title.  The Aztecs don’t have an NBA prospect on the team, Jim said.

This is a new time in college basketball with players being compensated for name, image and likeness.  Each of the Aztecs receive $2,000 per month for community service work like visiting elementary schools or participating in a walk for charity, Jim said.  He referred to the amount as “peanuts” compared with what some schools are reportedly paying out for high-end talent.

Brian’s teams have won multiple Mountain West regular season and tournament titles and been to four NCAA Tournaments. His teams have won 77 percent of their games, certainly among the best percentage in college basketball during his six-year span.

Jim said at one time Brian’s goal was to coach until he was 65.  But he’s built a power at San Diego State and in the near future the Aztecs may join the Pac-12 Conference. With UCLA and USC leaving the Pac-12 and headed for the Big Ten in 2024, new recruiting opportunities for the Aztecs beckon in southern California.

Brian could certainly coach beyond 65, dad said.  Amen to that.

Updated November 5, 2023

The Gophers have been playing Big Ten basketball for over 115 years. A last place finish this winter in the Big Ten standings (all but certain) will be the program’s second straight in the basement.

That’s never happened before but the 2023 Gophers are historically bad. They have one conference win after last night’s embarrassing 81-46 loss to Maryland—the largest margin of defeat ever for a Minnesota Big Ten home game.

No Gopher team since World War II has won only one conference game. Minnesota’s record is 7-15 overall, 1-11 in league games and the Gophers are stumbling through a seven game Big Ten losing streak.

There are eight games remaining on the regular season schedule and the Gophers are expected to lose them all.  They might not but Minnesota faces an ambitious challenge trying to match last season’s dismal 4-16 conference record.

The results of head coach Ben Johnson’s first two seasons leading the program are painful and they substantiate concerns of critics about his hire as a former college assistant with no experience leading a program. But let’s be clear: he is going to be the Gopher head coach for the foreseeable future.

How long? If Johnson directs the program into a competitive position where the Gophers are contending annually for upper-level positioning in the standings, he will be a hero and working in Dinkytown indefinitely.  But if the program can’t come out of the abyss by next winter, then athletic director Mark Coyle could be thinking of a change, or one additional trial season for the 42-year-old Minneapolis native.

It’s delusional to think Johnson will be terminated after this season.  Also, Coyle doesn’t do knee-jerk reactions with coaches he hires.  Patience with men’s basketball will be the mantra for a while. This comes in an environment where interest in the program has reached apathy status and program revenues are light years from their potential in an athletic department that counts on basketball to be a cash cow to help the budgets of other sports.

Johnson’s supporters argue he has a difficult task with a program rebuild.  Previous coach Richard Pitino was fired after the 2020-2021 season, with his last team producing a 6-14 Big Ten record. Only once in eight seasons did Pitino win more than half of his conference games.

Johnson didn’t want to or couldn’t retain key leftover personnel in center Liam Robbins, and guards Marcus Carr and Gabe Kalscheur. Collectively, their talent surpasses any Johnson and staff have brought to town so far.

In the college sports transfer portal era, there is more potential than ever to successfully remake a roster in a hurry.  Johnson scored with transfers Jamison Battle and Payton Willis in 2021, and with Dawson Garcia last offseason, but overall has come up short in filling needs.

So far players coming in from high school haven’t been difference makers.  The present freshmen class is the first one Johnson and his assistants had a head start in recruiting.  The first-year group is an athletic bunch but on the court they lack cohesiveness, judgment and scoring skills.

Forward-center Pharrel Payne is 6-foot-9, the other three freshmen are 6-4 to 6-7 and are also similar in offensive abilities as shown so far.  Braeden Carrington, Jaden Henley and Joshua Ola-Joseph look athletic driving to the basket but don’t convert consistently and show minimal outside shooting accuracy.

The roster not only lacks talent and experience, but the pieces don’t complement one another. The Gophers don’t excel at any aspect of play.  Offense, defense, rebounding and playmaking are all subpar. Even the free throw shooting is atrocious, with Minnesota making 60.9 percent of attempts and ranking No. 352 in the nation.

It’s dicey to question the effort of players but it’s easier to comment on focus and mental lapses.  In last night’s debacle the Gophers made one of their 16 turnovers when they errored (against no pressure) inbounding the basketball after a made Maryland basket.  In another game, a Gopher player was backdoored three times for scores in less than 10 minutes of playing time.

As limited as the personnel is, the Gophers should be playing better than a team that has consecutive losses twice by 35 points and once by 20.  Questions can be asked about the impact of the coaching regarding ball movement, cuts to the basket, creating open shots, second chance points, offensive and defensive rebounding, minimizing turnovers, forcing turnovers, covering open spaces in the zone defense, defensive switches, lack of defensive intensity and team confidence.

Injuries have sidelined two Gophers, forwards Isaiah Ihnen and Parker Fox, for two consecutive seasons. Difficult to know what difference their presence would have made. Ihnen has averaged 3.1 points in two previous seasons.  Fox has yet to play Division I basketball after a high scoring Division II career.

As of late both Carrington and Dawson haven’t played because of injuries.  Dawson’s absence, as the team’s leading scorer and rebounder, is significant but he could play as soon as Tuesday night at Illinois. With Dawson in the lineup the Gophers defeated Ohio State and had three league losses by a combined nine points.

For the more optimistic Gophers fans, it’s wait for next year mode. That’s when hyped center Dennis Evans and shooting guard Cameron Christie arrive. Evans, perhaps the best prep center in the country, will help the interior defense a lot and Christie, a prep sharpshooter, is a welcome addition to a team that can’t shoot straight (41.4 percent on field goals, ranking No. 315 nationally).

But like they say on Wall Street, there are no guarantees for the future.  In addition to Evans and Christie, the Gophers need to add more potentially effective players.  They also need to retain the ones they have, including Battle, Garcia and the current freshmen.

It’s been suggested the Gophers can’t win for awhile because the program is too low.  But it only takes a couple of the right players and the right coaching to throw the switch, though. Quick turnarounds happen every year in college basketball.

With Gophers fans wondering if this is the historically worst of Gopher basketball, positive changes can’t come soon enough.