Yo I'm Here (Gophers vs. Miami)

Ok, so maybe I exaggerated a bit.  Turns out I will have time to post on tonight's game, but only the second half.  Because of the early start, I was on Wonderbaby^TM duty and sort of caught the first half in bits and pieces between "fishing" and "playing blocks" and other various wonders of the baby variety.

The Gophers lead 30-25, and here is what I was able to tell:

1. Al Nolen is playing his best game of the year.
2. Miami is really sloppy with the ball.
3. Rodney Williams is really bad at free throws.
4. Miami is more athletic and it shows on the boards and when they drive to the rim, but luckily they hit a bunch of threes early, have fallen in love with the outside shot, and haven't gotten inside nearly enough.
5. Not nearly enough touches for Ralph.

So now Wonderbaby^TM is in bed, the wife is in the other room watching god knows what kind of crap on our brand new TV, and I'm holed up in the bedroom watching the Gophers on a 13 inch screen. But I am watching. Go

19:41 - Miami immediately tries to drive the ball, gets repelled, and then settles for a horrible three-point attempt that lodges between the rim and the backboard like a Rod-Will free throw.  I like this.

18:56 -  Ralphie dunk on another great assist by Nolen.  THIS is what he needs to be.  It's freaking glorious when he does this - I just wish it happened more often.

17:00 - Gophers miss a couple in the lane and an open jumper, shades of the Portland game.  This team is very good at getting quality shots, they just aren't very good at getting them to fall.  I'm going to consider this a positive though, because they eventually have to hit, right?  RIGHT?

16:40 - Is this guys' name Duece?  That would be sweet.

16:25 - Ralphie jumper!  Unstoppable.

16:13 - I looked it up, and his name is Dews.  That's disappointing.  Also disappointing?  This 23-10 rebound edge the Hurricanes have.  How is that even possible?  They're shooting 38%.  In 24 minutes o fgame play don't you think you'd get more than 10 rebounds by accident?

15:38 - They can't guard Nolen.  Their only chance is to just let him shoot instead of pass.  Remember how far off of Rondo the Bulls played in 2008?  That should be the defensive strategy here for the Canes.  I also want to use this space to point out to you that every single girl named either Casey or Cassie is hot.  It's true.  See:

15:30 - Oh, so apparently thanks to work I totally missed that Royce White pled guilty to something.  Now I'm going to have to spend my free time looking it up.  Maybe I'll just text Snacks.

14:15 - Damian with an offensive tip in.  Announcer guy wants us to know he has great length.  I'm sorry but I laughed.  The Canes tie it on another launched three (you guys go ahead and keep launching) but Hoff gives the lead back with a three of his own on yet another assist from Al freaking Nolen.  That's got to be at least 20 for him already.  He's the next Scott Skiles.

12:38 - Another chucked three missed by Miami.  Good god who coaches this team, Beilein?  I'm going to have to look this up now and see if this is just a team strategy. 

11:31 - Does anybody else think maybe Paul Carter, Rodney Williams, and probably Damian Johnson should maybe not shoot three-pointers?  Am I even allowed to talk badly about DJ?  I feel really guilty right now. 

10:44 - Canes take the lead 43-42 on another three pointer.  This one was open.  And since I know you've been waiting, it turns out Miami is in the upper 20% of teams in terms of how often they shoot threes.  Even more interesting, they actually have the 7th best shooting percentage of all teams on 2-pointers, but are 129th in 3-point percentage.  So yes, by all means stay on the perimeter.

10:30 - Whoa, how did Illinois get back in that game against Clemson?  Last I saw, the Illini were down 20.  Now they're down just five.  It makes me physically angry at myself how much I want the Big Ten to win this.  And it's not even from a rational mind as in raising the conferences RPI in order to help the Gophers get to the NCAA Tournament, it's just from some kind of conference pride.  When did I turn into my father?  I hate all the other Big Ten teams.

8:55 - Devoe with back-to-back threes to put the Gophers back up one.  Take that, three-point chucking jerks.  Maple Leaf power and all that shit.  Speaking of swearing, I'm reading the Bill Simmons basketball book right now, and it's weird because he swears in it.  Not a lot, and not excessively, but just occassionally enough.  It's like you're reading one of his columns (back when he still wrote them) with all it's homerism and arrogance but still damn entertaining, and then he drops a shit or a fuck on you.  Jarring.

7:57 - Since I didn't write a preview, here's your MIAMI FUN FACT:  Rick Barry not only holds every scoring, scoring average, and rebounding record at the school (game, season, career), he also holds the top eight single season scoring marks in the school's history.

7:39 - Westbrook just airballed a 12 footer with the Gophers down one.  What.  The.  Fuck.

7:12 -  Terrible defense on a high screen.  No help, no switch, no step out - not even a show by whoever the big guy was whose man set the screen.  I don't have Tivo in this room so I can't rewind, but I'm going to assume it was definitely not a lapse by Ralph.

6:03 - Nolen continues to be unguardable, and continues to get guys open shots.  And they continue to be missed.  I'm starting to think maybe that 15-footer isn't in Ralph's range.  But it's so pretty and so smooth.  He's like the next Sam Perkins, but without the three-point range.  Yet.

5:51 - Tie ballgame, Gophers go to a full-court press and force Miami to take a timeout.  I like this.  The Canes have been very sloppy with the ball all game, could be a good gamble here.  Or it could lead to thousands upon thousands of open three-pointers.  Also my new boss used the word "irregardless" when talking to me today, and I'm 99.9% sure he wasn't trying to be funny.  It took every ounce of willpower I had to not say anything.

4:45 - I'm about 90% sure Malcolm Grant could go by Devoe just as easily as Nolen has been going buy everybody tonight.  Luckily he has chosen not to so far.  And as I've been typing this Damian Johnson missed two free throws and Devoe airballed a three-pointer.  Bad omens.

2:57 - So I know Westbrook leads the Gophers in scoring and all tonight, but boy does he seem lost out there a bit.  I guess it's a nice improvement from last year, when he would seem lost and just stand around and do nothing.  And he just missed a pretty huge jumper.  Gophers down 55-53, Miami ball, 1:30 left.

0:42 - Westbrook turnover.  Gophers down four and now need to foul.  We're kind of in miracle territory here.  Somebody please go back in time to when I said I felt like Westbrook was in for a special kind of senior year and kick me in the nuts.  This more like Corky-special, not the good kind of special.

0:37 - Or, instead of fouling, they could let the Canes baseball pass it over their heads for a dunk, then turn it over without getting a shot, and give up a three-point play and suddenly be down by 8 with only 28 seconds left.

0:00 - Sigh.  Gophers lose .  Yet again, another missed opportunity to get a quality win, their last chance before conference play.  Similar to the Portland and Texas A&M games, this isn't going to go down as a bad loss, but it's another whiff on a chance to get a marquee win, which could come back to haunt them.  That's less margin for error in the conference games. 

I'm really just so disappointed.  Four big chances for big non-conference wins, four winnable games, and a 1-3 record.  Damn it.