Column: Gophers’ next coach has to be its true star player

Its easy to feel sympathy for Ben Johnson, an honest fellow with a sharp basketball mind who stepped into a bad job at the worst possible time and struggled to establish a bridgehead in Dinkytown.

ADVERTISEMENT A Minneapolis native and Minnesota graduate, Johnson was let go in the dead of night Thursday, right after the moment the team returned from a first-round loss to Northwestern in the Big Ten conference tournament in Indianapolis.

The announcement went out at 1:22 a.m.

Worse, Johnson was about to get a sizable share of $20 million the U will spend on student-athletes next season.

So close.

If it werent for the $2.9 million parachute athletics director Mark Coyle pushed Johnson out of the plane with, it might have been tragic.

Coyle needs to nail this hire.

ADVERTISEMENT The Gophers dont just need someone who can game plan and engage a dwindling fan base.

Or someone who can convince wealthy donors to part with their money on something as trivial as college basketball, or charm the best Minnesota recruits into staying home before and after they actually enroll.

This person needs to be all that and more.

The next coach has to be a star, the teams biggest star, probably always.

Ask 10 basketball fans who Michigan States coach is and 10 will say Tom Izzo.

Ask those same 10 people who their leading scorer is and maybe one or two will say Jaden Akins.

Hes averaging 13 points a game, but the Spartans won the Big Ten regular-season title again and will play in their 27th straight NCAA tournament next week, the longest streak in the country.

The hardest part for Coyle, given the athletics departments finances, will be finding Tom Izzo at the drug store counter.

The AD needs to find the next big thing and convince him that Minnesota has everything required to win.

And it does, including a robust media market that could make a charismatic winner the figurehead the program needs.

ADVERTISEMENT Good coaches have done more with less, and dont kid yourself; Minnesotas players will be well-compensated next season, whether it comes mostly from that $20 million pot, future revenue sharing or private NIL money.

If the Gophers program is going to ever play in another NCAA tournament, this sisyphean cycle of misery has to end.

If this program hasnt hit rock bottom with all due respect to some good players here, most notably Dawson Garcia its dangling so close that falling the last few feet wont hurt that much.

What else can you call it when the coach has to virtually recruit a new team every spring, then spend the summer and fall trying to get it to play at a high level? You do the same thing over and over, only to get your guts ripped out.

The Gophers made this years conference tournament because of a tiebreaker, then got handled by Northwestern in the first round.

ADVERTISEMENT Some of us saw this coming, even before the college athletics model finally exploded.

When Coyle fired Richard Pitino after eight years of general mediocrity, Pitino finally had a promising roster.

Letting him go guaranteed it would fragment, and that his successor would be starting from Ground Zero.

It was a move born of optimism, a belief that Minnesota could and should be a relevant program, but for whatever reason, Johnson wasnt the guy.

Will he be somewhere else? Maybe.

Pitino has been quite successful at New Mexico, NCAA tournament-bound, Mountain West Coach of the Year and a hot candidate for better jobs.

But Minnesota shouldnt be developing coaches for New Mexico or N.C.

State, or wherever Pitino winds up next season.

Its impossible to criticize Coyle for firing Johnson, but hed better thread the needle on this hire.

This program is dangerously close to becoming habitually lousy.

Reversing course requires a star.

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