Ex-Gophers guard says Ben Johnson firing 'messed' things up for seniors

"It messed up a lot of stuff for us seniors. Finding out that we were going to play in the Crown, we found out that we were in it and I guess they, the higher ups, just didn't want to do it and they were ready to just move on," said Patterson.

"It messed up a lot of our seniors' success because that's more basketball to be played. More eyes, more scouts... to help guys like me, Mike, Femi, even probably Dawson. No telling what he could've did. He could've been drafted. Stuff like that. I just felt like we kind of got the short end of the stick on that."

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Like the rest of the world, the Gophers delivering the news of Johnson's firing at 1:20 a.m. shocked Patterson.

"Him getting fired kind of hurt a lot of stuff with us. It was a shock coming home after a loss. We knew we was going to play in some postseason tournament, and they texting us that they let go of Coach Ben. You could've at least waited like a day or two, you know? It was just like, what can you even say? We just lost and it was just like everything was going downhill," Patterson explained.

"It was really just confusing to everybody. We wanted to play more basketball, even if it wasn't the NCAA Tournament. You get a chance to go play in the Crown and win $20,000 a player? It just didn't feel good as a senior and wanting to go out with a bang — and the team that won it (Nebraska), we just beat them on their home court. You just look at it as like, 'Wow, we could've ran through that and won it.' That just hurt. It hurt a lot of our seniors, but it's a business at the end of the day and you can only control what you can control."

Patterson says his basketball career isn't over, though he's "waiting for my opportunity" whether it's overseas, in the G League, or something else.

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