Big Ten Basketball: Ranking all 14 head coaches heading into 2023-24 season
By Caleb Hall
No. 14: Ben Johnson, Minnesota Golden Gophers
Ben Johnson has had a less than stellar start to say the least at Minnesota. He spots a 22-39 record in his two years with the Golden Gophers and has come 13th and 14th in the BIG Ten standings. Johnson’s recruiting classes are nothing to write home about either, as they come near the bottom of the BIG Ten.
Johnson was a glorified assistant at Minnesota and Xavier for the past 10 years and stepped away from Xavier to be the head coach at Minnesota, his alma mater. Johnson was known for his ability to develop backcourt players at Xavier, and his recruiting was well touted at Minnesota as well. He helped put together back to back top 30 recruiting classes at Xavier, so it is a little shocking how underwhelming he has been at Minnesota.
The Gophers are not known to be historically great in the BIG Ten, but 2nd to last and last in the conference isn’t necessarily where they should be. Johnson should have this team in a better place then where they are right now in the conference.
Johnson will need to get things going for the Gophers soon and this season could be the start of things going in the right direction, or the beginning of the end for Johnson and the Gophers.