Minnesota announces firing of Ben Johnson as head basketball coach

Minnesota had its season end yesterday afternoon in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament. Now, less than half a day later, the Golden Gophers will be going into their offseason looking for a new head coach.

Minnesota released a statement late last night announcing the firing of Johnson. AD Mark Coyle made that decision and has shared a statement regarding that as well as their upcoming coaching search.

“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,” Coyle said in the statement. “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,” continued Coyle. “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.”

Johnson, a former player at Minnesota, spent the past four years on a five-year deal at his alma mater in his first job as a head coach after being an assistant under their previous one in Richard Pitino. Minnesota went 56-71 (.441) in that tenure, including 22-57 (.278) in the Big Ten, with three losing seasons out of the four.

The Golden Gophers were coming off of the one winning record he had last season of 19-15 (.559) as they made it into the NIT. Still, Minnesota finished back below this season with a final record of 15-17 (.469), including losing five of its final six games with the 72-64 loss for No. 12 Minnesota to No. 13 Northwestern in Indianapolis.

Johnson made five other stops in his coaching career as a graduate assistant at Dayton and an assistant at Texas-Pan American, Northern Iowa, Nebraska, and Xavier. Minnesota then brought him back in March of 2021.

As a player in the early 2000s, Johnson started his career as an underclassman at Northwestern before finishing as an upperclassman at Minnesota under Dan Monson. In 59 games for the Golden Gophers, Johnson averaged 9.0 points, 2.7 rebounds, and 2.2 assists.

On3’s Jamie Shaw had named Johnson in a Hot Seat Watch List earlier to start this week. With that, he also mentioned some names who Minnesota could have considered then and could consider now after making this decision.

Johnson did not have a successful tenure back as the head coach at his former school. That leaves the program looking for new leadership starting on Thursday after their season came to an end on Wednesday.