Best Gophers of the Tubby Era: #26-30

Throughout the summer I'll be writing up each of the 34 players who played for the University of Minnesota under Tubby Smith.  Why Tubby?  Because it's the most recent era that's over.  If this goes well perhaps I'll go back and do Monson as well.  I'll be looking at any player who played at Minnesota under Tubby at some point, even if it was just a year.  And I will be considering their entire Gopher career, so guys who started under Monson or finished under Pitino will have their whole career considered, but anyone who transferred in or out is only evaluated on their Gopher stats.  With me?  Here we go:

#34 to #31 can be found here.

30.  JUSTIN COBBS (2009-2010).
-  He had a completely acceptable freshman year backing up Al Nolen, averaging 2 pts and 1 assist per game in about 11 minutes, and he looked like he'd end up being a quality player.  He did, ending his playing days with career averages of 11.3 points and 4.2 assists per game including points per game averages over 15 each of his last two seasons.  The only problem is his last three years all happened at Cal after Cobbs transferred out following his first season here.  His overall career would rank him significantly higher on this list, but with only 363 of his career minutes coming as a Gopher he has to land here.

29.  KENDAL SHELL (2011-2015).
-  Significantly less minutes in his Gopher career than even Cobbs with just 86 in his four years, I put Shell here because he's just been a good Gopher - no not playing wise but you know what I mean.  There's something endearing about a guy willing to walk-on for four straight years (I know he got a stray scholarship or something at some point but the point stands).  Did you know he wore three different jersey numbers in his time as a Gopher?  Basketball Reference says, and Google Images confirms, that he wore 34, 2, and 12.  Like, last season Nate Mason came in and wanted 2, so Shell shifted to 12.  I assume the same thing happened with the switch from 34 to 2, though I can't come up with who wore 34 recently.  Probably because I'm a little drunk.  Anyway, Kendal Shell was a good soldier for four years, and I'd love to put him higher.  With 17 career points, however, I cannot.

28.  JONATHAN WILLIAMS (2004-2009).  
-  The longest tenured of anybody on this list with 5 years spent in the maroon and gold, he actually has better total numbers than a lot of people who will be ranked above him but that's a product of those five years.  He played in 107 games but never averaged more than 3 points or rebounds per game.  Basketball Reference doesn't have his minutes stats for some reason, but he finished his career with under two field goal attempts per game so it's safe to say he didn't get a lot of run (I'm struggling to clearly remember him at all).  I went back in my archives to see what I said about him and he's been tagged five times in posts.  They're, uh, not good.  I found this:

The Ugly: Jon Williams. Forced to play a lot of minutes by Tollackson's foul trouble and Wisconsin's size, and now has me praying Sampson and Iverson can play immediately. Williams was 0-5 shooting, and somehow it was even uglier than that. All five misses were from inside 3 feet, including a missed dunk. He's completely overmatched in the Big Ten, and I don't know if he's fixable at this point. 

So there you go.  

27.  KEVIN PAYTON (2006-2009).
-  He just never developed.  I remember he was a 3-star, and at 6-6 when he was forced to play point he did it well and I was optimistic.  That was silly.  He never averaged more than the 2.2 points and 2.5 assists per game that he did as a freshman, and his numbers just kind of, trend down until he did nothing his junior year and then flat out quit playing basketball.  Still have no idea what happened here.

26.   ANDRE INGRAM (2011-2013).
-  A Minnesota kid who came to the Gophers after two years at JuCo I always liked Ingram (to be clear, it has nothing to do with him being a Minnesota kid who came home because I'm not one of those types).  He just seemed like he was trying really hard.  Unfortunately he just wasn't very good, ending up with career averages of 1.8 points and 1.7 rebounds per game. I've wrote on this blog many times that Andre Ingram was a really intriguing sophomore.  Unfortunately he was a senior.  And the NCAA has pretty strict rules around eligibility.  Fascists.

Not that it Matters

But Kevin Payton has been suspended for academic reasons. No word on if he'll be able to stand at the end of the intro line and do complicated handshakes and jumping butt bumps while wearing a suit.


Also Northwestern won at Michigan State tonight, which is very stunning but good news for the Gophers profile.

Minnesota 88, NDSU 56

Eat it Bison.

I actually feel a little embarrassed that I was worried about this team. I guess the crappy Gopher football team has me conditioned to be worried about NDSU automatically. In this case, there was no need. NDSU wasn't much different than Riverside, and Winkelman and Woodside were like any other pair of decent players on a bad team - they score because they have to. Woodside was blanketed pretty well by Nolen whenever he was in there, with Nolen even taking it right from him when he was bringing it up the court at one point. He was a slow, good shooting white kid. Basically the kind of guy I would have loved a few years ago, but have been cured and recognize that he really isn't very good. And Winkelman was pretty much completely unnoticeable. Yet, because nobody else can score on that team, they still ended up with 16 and 17 points, many of which in garbage time.

On the Gopher side, Al Nolen continues to impress. He knocked down 3 of 4 threes he attempted, had five steals, played great defense, and ran the offense well. I was always nervous for next season, wondering who would play point if Nolen didn't work out. Now, granted we haven't seen him play in the Big Ten yet, and he did struggle against FSU (so did everyone), but I'm officially not worried about PG next season anymore - except for the backup.

Kevin Payton should really just transfer and make everybody happy, himself included. He looks lost most of the time when he's on the court, and he has zero semblance of an offensive game whatsoever. I don't know what's wrong with him, he averaged 22 per game in high school with a high of 51, but he should probably go ahead and try to figure it out at UM-Kansas City or something, not in the Big Ten.

Lawrence Westbrook, or $LDUB, played only fifteen minutes but scored 11 on 5-7 shooting. I'm starting to get a crush on him.

Danny Coleman scored 15 points, had 8 rebounds, and 4 assists. Sounds like a pretty good line, and if you hadn't watched the game, you'd be pretty impressed. Don't be. Coleman hasn't developed at all. Against this team, he should have completely controlled the game, and he most certainly didn't. He floats around, looks lost half the time, and just seems kind of out of it. If the Gophers are going to do any damage in the Big Ten at all, Coleman really needs to step it up, good stat lines only go so far.

McKenzie had 11, played a pretty solid overall game, Tollackson had 8 with four rebounds and four fouls - the fact that he couldn't stay out of foul trouble against NDSU is very worrisome. Also, there's hustle, and then there's stupid hustle. Tollackson at one point tried to dive to knock a pass away, missed by five feet, and the guy went in for an easy layup. Just play defense. Hoffbauer had 10, and keeps gaining confidence, which is good. He still can't play defense. Shamala got poked in the eye and for some reason the game stopped for like 20 minutes. I think it was a moment of silence for his eye. People love white people.

Also, if you sit next to me at the game please take note of a few facts:

1. The Gophers do indeed commit fouls. They also will travel, double-dribble, and lose the ball out of bounds from time to time. This is not a conspiracy, the refs are not out to screw the home town team. Yelling at the refs will not change the fact that they made the right call. My favorite is when you can't see the play at all because it's on the far end of the arena, but you're convinced "That god damn ref is just trying to screw us."

2. I'm not sure which look you're going for with that mustache, but somehow you managed to nail both 70's porn star and child molester, all in one. Bravo.

3. Stop yelling "pass the ball" constantly. I actually agree that in a motion offense, the ball should keep moving most of the time. However, when it gets dumped down low, or they call an isolation play, or someone gets the ball with a mismatch, they can take some time and make a play on their own. This is called "offense."

4. You suck and I hate you.

I think I'm OK with this

According to Jeff Shelman of the Star Tribune, Tubby Smith has no plans to add any players to the Gophers for this upcoming season.

When Smith was hired, he originally said that he wasn't going to add any players just for the sake of adding one, and if he was to sign anyone they would have to be ready to contribute immediately. Apparently he couldn't find anyone willing to sign who would make an impact, so the team will remain as is for this coming season, which sucks, but whatever.

By not signing anyone, it means the Gophers will have at least four scholarships to offer next season, when Smith will have had an entire season to recruit players to the U, instead of just a month. Smith said he's currently recruiting several talented players, which could just be coachspeak but hopefully not.

It would have been great if Tubby could have gotten somebody in here for next season on such short notice, but it probably wasn't realistic. We'll just have to take the current team and hope Tubby's coaching (markedly better than Super Dan Monson) and the improvement of current players like Dan Coleman (get stronger and tougher), Lawrence McKenzie (seriously, pass the ball), and Lawrence Westbrook (I think he can be a quality player with greater opportunity), will be enough to make next season a little more entertaining. Of course, this also means another year of Kevin Payton at point guard, and that's a bit worrisome, but hopefully he didn't do anything all summer but practice not sucking.