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.
#26-#30 can be found here.
#21-#25 are here
Here's #16-#20
15. Julian Welch (2011-2013).
- This feels high for Welch considering he was a two year player whose playing time dramatically shrunk in his second year, but Welch somehow managed to rank top 10 in assists, three pointers, and steals among all Gophers in this countdown. I don't remember him as a particularly great shooter or passer, but I remember the steals simply because of the difference between his hand speed and foot speed. He had, without question, the fastest hands of any Gopher I can recall. He also was essentially a lawn gnome when he tried to guard anyone trying to get to the lane. I legitimately loved watching him simply because of those two things.
14. Elliott Eliason (2011-2015).
- This is a tough career to try to sum up, but you could probably do it best just by looking at his minutes per game each year: 15.0, 13.7 (regression), 21.9 (big leap forward!), 11.2 (ugh). That's about right. He had that one stretch of brilliance his junior season where he put up double doubles in four of eight games with two other near misses, and that stretch included five Big Ten games, where it looked like he might be becoming something, but alas, it wasn't meant to be and his career kind of spiraled to an underwhelming conclusion. However it's almost impossible to look back on this guy with any kind of bad feelings. He was a guy who came and gave it everything he had whenever he was on the court, and never let playing time get to him in any way you could see or hear about it. Good dude.
13. Lawrence McKenzie (2006-2008).
- McKenzie ranks high because even though he was only a Gopher for two years he was pretty much the man both of those years, averaging 13.3 points per game, and led the Gophers to the NIT in Tubby's first year which seemed like an impossibility following the disaster that was the final Monson/Molinari year and suddenly everything seemed possible and we were on our way and we could build this dream together standing strong forever nothing's gonna stop us now. Or whatever.
12. Maurice Walker (2010-2015).
- Walker played for 17 years as a Gopher, and that kind of time is tough to forget. I also think he might have lost some weight once Pitino came in, but I'm not sure I thought I heard that somewhere though. Seriously though, the first time I saw Walker play as a freshman I could tell right away he had a great feel for the game. You know how a lot of big men get the ball on the block and go right into score mode? Walker didn't, he saw the court amazingly well, although it's not backed up by his assist numbers I stand by what I saw. Injuries and weight issues (perhaps related) robbed him of some athleticism and explosiveness, and who knows what might have been? He was clearly a hard worker, just looking at his weight loss and free throws, and I believe he could have developed an outside shot at some point. This would be a good guy to take a do over on, if you could do such as that.
11. Spencer Tollackson (2004-2008).
- No bonus points for being the radio guy for the Gophers, though not because I dislike him or anything - I actually like when he weights in from the player's perspective on things, even if he's behind only Paul Allen on the homer list. That actually kind of sums up his playing career - a little bit annoying and a little bit likable. Similar to Walker, he was clearly a hard worker who wanted to win. I remember him completely revamping his free throw form to try to fix that issue (didn't work) and going from a garbage man to someone with a variety of moves. Unfortunately, all that hard work to develop those moves didn't really work because he didn't have the natural talent to finish. Clearly worked at it though, which is cool.
Showing posts with label Mo Walker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mo Walker. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
Monday, January 12, 2015
Michigan 62, Minnesota 57
Well that sucked. Another game that looked eminently winnable, and another loss. 0-4 is not a good place to be, but luckily for me I had pretty much prepared myself for this. Yes, I got sucked in a bit and yes, I felt a bit of rage rising post game, but I beat that shit back like Link fighting Ganon. Sorry my kids are really into watching me play Zelda games these days. Anyway, I didn't expect a win, I kind of started to believe, but when the collapse happened I wasn't the least bit surprised and well, I pretty much was just waiting for it. Here are ten things I liked and didn't like about that Michigan game.
1. Back door cuts are killing this team. It happened against Ohio State, it happened against Purdue, and it probably happened against Maryland but I slept through most of that game. It happened again big time against Michigan. It doesn't seem to matter if it's man or zone defense, that back door cut is just killing this team. Against Michigan there was a play I actually rewound twice to see if there was a pick, but no, it was just Dre Hollins falling asleep and letting his man go back door. I don't want to single him out because this is a team wide issue (Carlos hi) but it's a constant problem.
2. Mo Walker has become so good he's getting hard doubled. Pretty much every time Walker got the ball on Saturday Michigan sent a second defender, and not in a semi double way in a hard double way. Walkter had no choice but to pass, basically (which killed my Walker over 13.5 points bet) and it made sense because Michigan doesn't have the personnel to guard him one one hone (which is why I made the bet). He did a good job handling it and found open teammates enough times where it should have helped, but a staggering majority of those times whoever received the pass wasn't ready to shoot. Could have made a lot of difference.
3. I have never seen a team throw the ball directly out of bounds as much as this team. The Gophers turned it over 17 times in the game, and I swear at least 8 of them were balls just thrown directly out of bounds. Michigan is a decent team at causing turnovers, but this was just out of control. I gamble kind of a lot (but always within my means!) and a rule I try to follow is never bet on a dumb team. Baylor, LSU, and any team coached by Bruce Weber usually fall into this. The Gophers are trending in this direction.
4. Carlos Morris could end up being really good. Morris is on a really good run. Outside of the Maryland game (which I slept through) he's managed to take his chucker tendencies and turn them into scorer tendencies (this difference is not missing as much). He can hit the outside shot, he loves to drive to the rim, and against Michigan he showed off a very nice post game on a possession which had me like whoa (he did a very nice fake into an up and under which I didn't know he had in him). Morris can score, and there was little doubt of this from day 1, but he's started doing it in a a way that fits the offense. Next year, when he's the clear #1 option (and he will be) he could seriously end up with a spot on an all Big 10 team. For real.
5. That being said, Morris's jump pass is killing me. One thing you can say about Morris is the boy is confident. When he gets the ball and decides it's scoring time he's going to go to the rim and I am fully in favor of it. The problems is, besides the sometimes really bad shots, is that if he doesn't have a shot he'll jump and look to pass. If someone is open he great, good play dude. But when there's no one around he's suddenly finding himself in the air with nowhere to go. It's not good. Or, at best, rarely good.
6. Derrick Walton's jumper is beautiful. Is it Ray Allen beautiful? Of course not, don't be ridiculous, but it's a good looking shot. I know the stats say the long two is the worst shot in basketball and I don't dispute that, but there are some guys who can just hit it enough to make it worthwhile. Walton looks like he's going to be one of those guys. I wish there was a way to get stock on a guy in a way that actually made money, because I'm telling you right now Walton is going to be an absolute superstar by the time he's out of Ann Arbor. You heard it hear first.
7. The Gophers got killed on the boards. I know the final numbers show Minnesota winning the rebound battle, but man they got smoked on so many by a team that's basically running a four guard lineup. Michigan doesn't crash the o-boards, but the got 31% of their own misses against a season average of 26% (including the Minnesota game). There were just too many times a Michigan missed shot resulted in the Wolverines keeping the ball, which is a killer against a team that thrives in transition. On a list of ways to lose the game, giving up offensive boards should have been near the top. The Wolverines only shot 22% from three, which should have been a big part of a Gopher win, but giving up second chances negated that.
8. Michigan does a great job of taking away passing lanes. They did this in both man-to-man and that 1-3-1, but the whoever is on top for Michigan does a great job of making the offense reset. They don't necessarily try to steal the ball, but whenever a Gopher guard on the wing was trying to pass back to the point the Michigan defender was always in the way, making the pass go much further towards half court than the Gophers would like and effectively making them start the offense over. When Michigan switched to the 1-3-1 it was even more pronounced, and unfortunately no Gopher other than Nate Mason understood you need to attack the gaps rather than just work it around the perimeter. Really, Mason impressed me with his understanding of what needed to be done, but he was the only one.
9. Elliott Eliason is broken. There as a play as the game wound down where somebody (and I wish I had the game recorded right now to rewatch this) left the ball off for him and it should have been a one dribble and dunk situation. Instead it resulted in something else bad which I don't remember because he was just so hesitant. I know he's not a good offensive player, and that's just who he is, but at point Elliott seemed to realize that he could score in the right situation and was seeming to develop into a competent player. I have no idea what happened to the man, but he's become nothing more than a back-up center who can grab some rebounds sometime. The difference between who he was early last season and who he is now is staggering, and it's impossible to not wonder what happened with the coaching here. And yes, this is my first questioning of Pitino and staff I think. It happens.
10. I remember talking with someone and saying the Gopher might have the best back court in the conference. They sure aren't playing like it. Dre Hollins is basically playing the same as last year statswise, and he's shooting well but he has seemed to resign himself to being a jump shooter and isn't driving anymore (though you'll notice when the team is playing well it's when he's driving more) and Dre Matheiu is turning into a guy who won't shoot, even though he's a good shooter and who can't take care of the ball. Both are scoring less than last season, and both have disappeared at times. Despite a hot first half Hollins is still shooting like hell at just 10-46 (7-29 from three) in conference play and he's at 7 assists and 7 turnovers in those games. Mathieu might even have been worse - he's totaled 17 turnovers in B10 games against just 8 assists. I think everyone knew that these two were the key to the Gophers' season, and it's turning out that way. If things are going to get turned around, it has to happen here.
11. Extending this to eleven just because I have to mention Joey King Oof. Didn't shoot well, didn't rebound, and turned the ball over like it was his job. One key play towards the end of the game he dove for a ball on the ground and gained possession (good!), had enough wits about him to not call timeout since the Gophers were out (smart!), and, despite multiple teammates around him, was unable to get the ball to one of them, leading to Michigan possession (bad!). It was a huge play at that stage of the game. I know King is just crazy inconsistent and he's never going to be anything resembling a competent ball handler, but he's been brutal. Do you realize he has had more than one rebound in just one of the last five games? He's 6-9 for christ's sake. Ridiculous.
0-4 is a pretty major hole to dig your way out of, but it can be done. Kenpom still projected the Gophers to finish the conference season at 8-10, and if they could basically do that but steal just one game they aren't supposed to win (without the corresponding bad loss) that's 9-9 and in the ballpark for an NCAA bid. They'll probably need to go 10-8 to feel good, which means a whole lot of winning and it starts Tuesday night against Iowa. The Hawkeyes have been solid this year (11-5) without a single bad loss (Texas, Syracuse, Michigan State, Iowa State, Northern Iowa) and two outstanding road wins (North Carolina, Ohio State). Yes, they won both at Columbus and Chapel Hill, so I don't think they're going to automatically wilt because it's Williams Arena. The Gophers will have to play well. The Hawkeyes like to play fast, so this should be a fun game at least.
Minnesota 80, Iowa 77.
1. Back door cuts are killing this team. It happened against Ohio State, it happened against Purdue, and it probably happened against Maryland but I slept through most of that game. It happened again big time against Michigan. It doesn't seem to matter if it's man or zone defense, that back door cut is just killing this team. Against Michigan there was a play I actually rewound twice to see if there was a pick, but no, it was just Dre Hollins falling asleep and letting his man go back door. I don't want to single him out because this is a team wide issue (Carlos hi) but it's a constant problem.
2. Mo Walker has become so good he's getting hard doubled. Pretty much every time Walker got the ball on Saturday Michigan sent a second defender, and not in a semi double way in a hard double way. Walkter had no choice but to pass, basically (which killed my Walker over 13.5 points bet) and it made sense because Michigan doesn't have the personnel to guard him one one hone (which is why I made the bet). He did a good job handling it and found open teammates enough times where it should have helped, but a staggering majority of those times whoever received the pass wasn't ready to shoot. Could have made a lot of difference.
3. I have never seen a team throw the ball directly out of bounds as much as this team. The Gophers turned it over 17 times in the game, and I swear at least 8 of them were balls just thrown directly out of bounds. Michigan is a decent team at causing turnovers, but this was just out of control. I gamble kind of a lot (but always within my means!) and a rule I try to follow is never bet on a dumb team. Baylor, LSU, and any team coached by Bruce Weber usually fall into this. The Gophers are trending in this direction.
4. Carlos Morris could end up being really good. Morris is on a really good run. Outside of the Maryland game (which I slept through) he's managed to take his chucker tendencies and turn them into scorer tendencies (this difference is not missing as much). He can hit the outside shot, he loves to drive to the rim, and against Michigan he showed off a very nice post game on a possession which had me like whoa (he did a very nice fake into an up and under which I didn't know he had in him). Morris can score, and there was little doubt of this from day 1, but he's started doing it in a a way that fits the offense. Next year, when he's the clear #1 option (and he will be) he could seriously end up with a spot on an all Big 10 team. For real.
5. That being said, Morris's jump pass is killing me. One thing you can say about Morris is the boy is confident. When he gets the ball and decides it's scoring time he's going to go to the rim and I am fully in favor of it. The problems is, besides the sometimes really bad shots, is that if he doesn't have a shot he'll jump and look to pass. If someone is open he great, good play dude. But when there's no one around he's suddenly finding himself in the air with nowhere to go. It's not good. Or, at best, rarely good.
6. Derrick Walton's jumper is beautiful. Is it Ray Allen beautiful? Of course not, don't be ridiculous, but it's a good looking shot. I know the stats say the long two is the worst shot in basketball and I don't dispute that, but there are some guys who can just hit it enough to make it worthwhile. Walton looks like he's going to be one of those guys. I wish there was a way to get stock on a guy in a way that actually made money, because I'm telling you right now Walton is going to be an absolute superstar by the time he's out of Ann Arbor. You heard it hear first.
7. The Gophers got killed on the boards. I know the final numbers show Minnesota winning the rebound battle, but man they got smoked on so many by a team that's basically running a four guard lineup. Michigan doesn't crash the o-boards, but the got 31% of their own misses against a season average of 26% (including the Minnesota game). There were just too many times a Michigan missed shot resulted in the Wolverines keeping the ball, which is a killer against a team that thrives in transition. On a list of ways to lose the game, giving up offensive boards should have been near the top. The Wolverines only shot 22% from three, which should have been a big part of a Gopher win, but giving up second chances negated that.
8. Michigan does a great job of taking away passing lanes. They did this in both man-to-man and that 1-3-1, but the whoever is on top for Michigan does a great job of making the offense reset. They don't necessarily try to steal the ball, but whenever a Gopher guard on the wing was trying to pass back to the point the Michigan defender was always in the way, making the pass go much further towards half court than the Gophers would like and effectively making them start the offense over. When Michigan switched to the 1-3-1 it was even more pronounced, and unfortunately no Gopher other than Nate Mason understood you need to attack the gaps rather than just work it around the perimeter. Really, Mason impressed me with his understanding of what needed to be done, but he was the only one.
9. Elliott Eliason is broken. There as a play as the game wound down where somebody (and I wish I had the game recorded right now to rewatch this) left the ball off for him and it should have been a one dribble and dunk situation. Instead it resulted in something else bad which I don't remember because he was just so hesitant. I know he's not a good offensive player, and that's just who he is, but at point Elliott seemed to realize that he could score in the right situation and was seeming to develop into a competent player. I have no idea what happened to the man, but he's become nothing more than a back-up center who can grab some rebounds sometime. The difference between who he was early last season and who he is now is staggering, and it's impossible to not wonder what happened with the coaching here. And yes, this is my first questioning of Pitino and staff I think. It happens.
10. I remember talking with someone and saying the Gopher might have the best back court in the conference. They sure aren't playing like it. Dre Hollins is basically playing the same as last year statswise, and he's shooting well but he has seemed to resign himself to being a jump shooter and isn't driving anymore (though you'll notice when the team is playing well it's when he's driving more) and Dre Matheiu is turning into a guy who won't shoot, even though he's a good shooter and who can't take care of the ball. Both are scoring less than last season, and both have disappeared at times. Despite a hot first half Hollins is still shooting like hell at just 10-46 (7-29 from three) in conference play and he's at 7 assists and 7 turnovers in those games. Mathieu might even have been worse - he's totaled 17 turnovers in B10 games against just 8 assists. I think everyone knew that these two were the key to the Gophers' season, and it's turning out that way. If things are going to get turned around, it has to happen here.
11. Extending this to eleven just because I have to mention Joey King Oof. Didn't shoot well, didn't rebound, and turned the ball over like it was his job. One key play towards the end of the game he dove for a ball on the ground and gained possession (good!), had enough wits about him to not call timeout since the Gophers were out (smart!), and, despite multiple teammates around him, was unable to get the ball to one of them, leading to Michigan possession (bad!). It was a huge play at that stage of the game. I know King is just crazy inconsistent and he's never going to be anything resembling a competent ball handler, but he's been brutal. Do you realize he has had more than one rebound in just one of the last five games? He's 6-9 for christ's sake. Ridiculous.
0-4 is a pretty major hole to dig your way out of, but it can be done. Kenpom still projected the Gophers to finish the conference season at 8-10, and if they could basically do that but steal just one game they aren't supposed to win (without the corresponding bad loss) that's 9-9 and in the ballpark for an NCAA bid. They'll probably need to go 10-8 to feel good, which means a whole lot of winning and it starts Tuesday night against Iowa. The Hawkeyes have been solid this year (11-5) without a single bad loss (Texas, Syracuse, Michigan State, Iowa State, Northern Iowa) and two outstanding road wins (North Carolina, Ohio State). Yes, they won both at Columbus and Chapel Hill, so I don't think they're going to automatically wilt because it's Williams Arena. The Gophers will have to play well. The Hawkeyes like to play fast, so this should be a fun game at least.
Thursday, January 8, 2015
Game Preview: Gophers vs. Michigan
This probably seems like a weird time to come back. The Gophers are now 0-3 on the Big Ten Season and at this point the only decent wins they can point to are an almost blown win against an ok Georgia team and a win at Wake Forest that we still aren't sure if it's a decent win or a throwaway win. The team's best player is pretty much in the tank and may or may not be still or newly hurt and the team depth seems to be getting shallower by the minute. A gritty effort was proven to not be enough, and the team continued the tradition of screwing up end of game possessions, dropping a heart breaker that would have been enough to restore some optimism to the fan base. It's not a wonderful time to be a fan.
But you know what? Kind of it is. The loss to Purdue basically told me everything I needed to know about what kind of team and year this was going to be (and this isn't hindsight, I said so in the preview) so, after a mini-breakdown or tantrum or hiatus or whatever term you prefer, I returned to watch the game against Ohio State with zero expectations, other than expecting the Buckeyes to win. With lowered expectations comes lower stress levels and in a strange way more of an enjoyable viewing experience. So after the Buckeye loss instead of being angry about another missed opportunity, I was pleased they hung in there and more of an "aw shucks would have been nice to get that one." That's not being happy with a moral victory, it's simply accepting reality. There was almost no way they were going to win that game - Ohio State is about 50 times better than they are - and it would take something miraculous to make the NCAA Tournament. Once you accept that, it makes this year much easier to swallow.
So with that out of the way, let's move on to Saturday's game at Michigan. The Wolverines have had some much celebrated issues this year - the losses to NJIT and Eastern Michigan - and, well, we still don't really know what's up with Michigan this year. They started strong with wins over decent Syracuse and Oregon and hung tight with Villanova and everything looked like they'd be ok. Then came those two horrible losses followed by an absolute drubbing by Arizona. Since then they've won an overtime home game against Illinois, lost at Purdue, and lost at Penn State. So who really knows what's up with this team? I lean towards lower middle tier Big Ten team with very little shot at teh NCAA Tournament, so this should be a pretty even match up.
The bad news is the Wolverines really take care of the ball, and in particular they rarely have it stolen away - the Gophers #1 move. The good news is they aren't particularly good at anything else. This isn't one of the great shooting teams of the past few years, although they sure do like to chuck the three. Of all Wolverine 3-point attempts so far this year, 43.5% of them have been three pointers, and the team makes 35.9% which is a good, but not great number. Guards Caris LeVert (39%) and Derrick Walton (29%) and wing Zak Irvin (35%) all have over 50 3-point attempts already on the year, and all are capable of putting up either a 5-7 or 1-7 performance. They rely on those three heavily, and all play 33-35 minutes per game, scoring about 60% of the team's points. Getting the three to put the ball on the floor and take contested 2-pointers would be an excellent strategy, rather than letting them find open threes. Anyone helping on a driver off a perimeter shooter should be benched immediately (that includes Spike Albrecht, who doesn't have the volume but hits 40% and needs an open shot to score).
After those four nobody else plays more than 19 minutes per game and you may have noticed those four are all perimeter players so you may be asking "does this mean Michigan is weak inside" and the answer is a resounding yes. The only size on the team comes from three freshmen - 6-7 Kam Chatman, 6-9 Mark Donnal, and 6-9 Ricky Doyle and although the three have been better than I expected (combined 50 minutes, 16 points, 9 rebounds per game) they still aren't much of an inside presence. They don't block any shots (Michigan is 335th in the country in block rate) or grab any offensive rebounds (322nd), though they do protect the defensive glass well overall (40th). Mo Walker should (SHOULD!) be in line for a pretty big game.
All-in-all to me it looks like a pretty even matchup, and that includes the Wolverines' home court advantage. The Gophers should be able to feast inside, while Michigan will have plenty of chances to hit outside shots. I think if the Gophers let the pressure of being 0-3 get to them, they'll do stupid things and miss open shots. If they're relaxed and playing ball, they'll win. This one's on Pitino.
And I still believe.
Minnesota 69, Michigan 66
But you know what? Kind of it is. The loss to Purdue basically told me everything I needed to know about what kind of team and year this was going to be (and this isn't hindsight, I said so in the preview) so, after a mini-breakdown or tantrum or hiatus or whatever term you prefer, I returned to watch the game against Ohio State with zero expectations, other than expecting the Buckeyes to win. With lowered expectations comes lower stress levels and in a strange way more of an enjoyable viewing experience. So after the Buckeye loss instead of being angry about another missed opportunity, I was pleased they hung in there and more of an "aw shucks would have been nice to get that one." That's not being happy with a moral victory, it's simply accepting reality. There was almost no way they were going to win that game - Ohio State is about 50 times better than they are - and it would take something miraculous to make the NCAA Tournament. Once you accept that, it makes this year much easier to swallow.
So with that out of the way, let's move on to Saturday's game at Michigan. The Wolverines have had some much celebrated issues this year - the losses to NJIT and Eastern Michigan - and, well, we still don't really know what's up with Michigan this year. They started strong with wins over decent Syracuse and Oregon and hung tight with Villanova and everything looked like they'd be ok. Then came those two horrible losses followed by an absolute drubbing by Arizona. Since then they've won an overtime home game against Illinois, lost at Purdue, and lost at Penn State. So who really knows what's up with this team? I lean towards lower middle tier Big Ten team with very little shot at teh NCAA Tournament, so this should be a pretty even match up.
The bad news is the Wolverines really take care of the ball, and in particular they rarely have it stolen away - the Gophers #1 move. The good news is they aren't particularly good at anything else. This isn't one of the great shooting teams of the past few years, although they sure do like to chuck the three. Of all Wolverine 3-point attempts so far this year, 43.5% of them have been three pointers, and the team makes 35.9% which is a good, but not great number. Guards Caris LeVert (39%) and Derrick Walton (29%) and wing Zak Irvin (35%) all have over 50 3-point attempts already on the year, and all are capable of putting up either a 5-7 or 1-7 performance. They rely on those three heavily, and all play 33-35 minutes per game, scoring about 60% of the team's points. Getting the three to put the ball on the floor and take contested 2-pointers would be an excellent strategy, rather than letting them find open threes. Anyone helping on a driver off a perimeter shooter should be benched immediately (that includes Spike Albrecht, who doesn't have the volume but hits 40% and needs an open shot to score).
After those four nobody else plays more than 19 minutes per game and you may have noticed those four are all perimeter players so you may be asking "does this mean Michigan is weak inside" and the answer is a resounding yes. The only size on the team comes from three freshmen - 6-7 Kam Chatman, 6-9 Mark Donnal, and 6-9 Ricky Doyle and although the three have been better than I expected (combined 50 minutes, 16 points, 9 rebounds per game) they still aren't much of an inside presence. They don't block any shots (Michigan is 335th in the country in block rate) or grab any offensive rebounds (322nd), though they do protect the defensive glass well overall (40th). Mo Walker should (SHOULD!) be in line for a pretty big game.
All-in-all to me it looks like a pretty even matchup, and that includes the Wolverines' home court advantage. The Gophers should be able to feast inside, while Michigan will have plenty of chances to hit outside shots. I think if the Gophers let the pressure of being 0-3 get to them, they'll do stupid things and miss open shots. If they're relaxed and playing ball, they'll win. This one's on Pitino.
And I still believe.
Minnesota 69, Michigan 66
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Gophers 84, Wake Forest 69
Ok so I was wrong. Wake did get to the line a ton but didn't shoot well once there, the Gophers controlled their rebounding, and the Gophers shot the bell well and got a great night out of Andre Hollins. Wake was as bad as I thought and the Gophers were just better. It's nice to see them take care of business against an inferior opponent on the road, not that they'll have to do that again for a month or so. Anyway, here's ten things.
1. Can we get this Dre Hollins all the time? Man is he fun to watch when he gets going like tonight. It seems like it's been a rough go with him lately, what with his regression to chucker and turnover machine status so far this year, but tonight he had it all working again and it was glorious. His shot was so on he was NBA Jam On Fire in the second half and he was active the whole game, resulting in 7 boards. He did have 3 turnovers but that's acceptable, even against 0 assists because he's just not a point guard anymore. It's pretty much Mathieu or Mason getting the ball handling work, and I'm actually more comfortable with either of them than with Dre, so it works for me. He's a scorer, so go be a scorer.
2. The press continues to work. You can't say Pitino hasn't changed this team's style, that's for sure. They're fast - last night's game ended up at 77 possessions, just shy of the Louisville game and helped speed Wake up to a faster pace than they generally like, which ended up in sloppy possessions and a whole mess of Gopher turnovers once again. Wake gave the ball away on 23% of their possessions with the Gophers stealing the ball 13 times (18 total TOs), an incredible number which upped their % to 14.7% on the year, 7th highest in the country. It's worth mentioning that last night's press was more aggressive with trapping than the press usually is, suggesting Pitino knew Wake was a questionable ball handling team and intentionally upped the pressure. It's a little thing and may seem obvious, but I know other coaches here didn't make little adjustments like that from game to game. It's nice to see that attention to detail and willingness to tweak things based on opponent.
3. The Gopher guards do a really nice job against ball screens. Aaron Craft got a lot of pub last year about how he's the best defender ever and stuff like that, and he was good, but one of the things he was exceptional at was slithering over the top of a ball screen (Shannon Scott too, which is why OSU was so good defensively last year). If you can slip between the screener and the ball handler, nobody has to hedge or help or switch or rotate, and it becomes a wasted motion by the offense that takes up time but does nothing towards getting the offensive team closer to scoring. It's a valuable skill, and the Gopher guards are good at it (not Craft or Scott good, but good enough to be mentioned). Mathieu is on that Scott/Craft level, Hollins can do it every time if his offensive game is clicking (yes, sorry, but his offensive game triggers his defensive level of effort, it's true), and I've seen Mason do it more often than you'd expect a freshman too. It's not a stat and doesn't show up in the paper or our fantasy league, but it's a really valuable skill and three Gopher guards have it. Nice.
4. I'm going to say something nice about Carlos Morris. There are parts of his undisciplined JuCo wild approach that work because of his athleticism. Eight steals last night is awesome, and yes, many of them game with him gambling and taking chances (which is fine) and there were times he missed the steal and gave Wake an easy path to the basket or to break the press (which happens) but as long as his gambles are paying off with 8 steals, I'll take it. I also really like how when he gets a rebound he'll just turn and book it down court. Mathieu is the only other one who does that. They just fly and then assess if they should continue to attack or pull back once they cross the timeline rather than let the defense get back and get set right away. I love it, and I think more Gophers should do it when they get a board (NOT Joey King). I didn't like Morris's shot selection, six turnovers, or that time he went up for a (ill advised) jumper and chucked the ball straight backwards, but I've been hammering on him and he's not really all bad, he just needs to be controlled a little bit - like a pet alligator.
5. Beyond just Morris, this team turns into a really dumb team sometimes. I really hate dumb teams. As an avid gambler one of my biggest rules is "never bet on a dumb team." It's one of my strongest rules along with "never take an under on Marcus Paige or Yogi Ferrell" and "don't ever bet on a football team who can't throw". Sometimes, however, you don't know who is a dumb team, and sometimes smart teams turn into dumb teams, and all this is just me finding a way to say that I'm starting to fear that this Gopher team is dumb. Dumb teams take stupid shots, make dumb turnovers, foul too much and at stupid times, miss tons of free throws, and give up easy buckets with defensive lapses including but not limited to not getting back in transition which the Gophers did like 117 times last game (I didn't count). So far this year the Gophers take stupid shots, make dumb turnovers, foul too much and at stupid times, miss tons of free throws, and give up easy buckets with defensive lapses including but not limited to not getting back in transition. I'm absolutely terrified for the rest of this year.
6. The Gophers kept going to a pretty simple play, and it kept resulting in 3 points. It's nothing special, really, but they used it several times and Hollins got two three-pointers out of it and King got one. Shooter guy starts on one wing and just sprints to the opposite corner or wing, rubbing off a back pick on the near wing and a second pick on the opposite block. It's basically just two picks, but it worked early for the Gophers and they kept going back to it, rightly so since it worked several times. They also ran a modified version for Carlos Morris where instead of going to the corner or wing for a jumper he turned it into a curl cut where he's already moving towards the bucket when he receives the ball. Good modification. Good play.
7. Josh Martin is going to be a really good rebounder some day. His box score looks pretty brutal with just six minutes played and 1 rebound (to go with one missed shot, two turnovers, and two fouls) but I paid attention to Martin last night and I saw some promising things, mainly around rebounding. Offensive or defensive, he was always in good position and got his hand on 2-3 other rebounds that he couldn't corral because his positioning was perfect. He also got shoved almost all the way under the basket by some Wake guy on a free throw so we're still a little ways off, but he'll get there. I'm going to say one year in the future he'll average as many as EIGHT rebounds per game. You heard it here first.
8. Mo Walker, rim protector? Walker is never going to be confused for Antoine Broxsie or Jerome Holman when it comes to shot blocking, what with 37 career blocks coming into this season, but suddenly he's a different defender. The combination of the weight loss, recovery from injury, and the confidence he's gained after a successful season last year have him as active as I've ever seen defensively and it's paying off big time. I always considered Eliason the defensive presence and Walker the offensive banger, but this year Walker is averaging 1.6 blocks in 20 minutes per game, blocking 9.8% of the opponents shot attempts while he's on the floor. That's an incredible number that's doubled from last season and is almost 3 times higher than Eliason, and it ranks as the 42nd best percentage in DI (behind only A.J. Hammons, Alex Olah, and Michal Cekovsky in the B10). I didn't notice this until last night when he was challenging, and blocking, shots but man, what a huge development.
9. The Gophers look really good in transition, thanks to Mathieu. Boy is this team fun to watch in transition. I love when Mathieu just takes off and guys are sprinting to fill lanes. He's incredibly good at being able to observe the defenders at 100mph and know when to go to the rim, when to pull back, and my favorite is when he'll kind of drift towards the off ball defender, knowing a teammate is screaming up the opposite wing and he can hit him with either pass leading towards the rim or a kick out for an open three attempt. He struggles against teams who can challenge his quickness, but when he has it going like last night (8 assists) it's a thing of beauty. I still wish he'd look for his shot a bit more since he is a quality shooter but he's down a full 2 shot attempts per game this year. Don't worry, that's not a complaint. Love this guy.
10. So by my count the Big Ten now leads the challenge 6-2. That's good! They only need two more wins to win this thing which would be the sixth straight year of the Big Ten not losing after losing the first ten iterations of this thing. Normally I'm not one who cares about rooting for your conference and usually I hope any and all rivals face ruthless and humiliating defeats whenever possible, but in this case Big Ten wins help the Gophers. It bumps up any winning team's RPI, and by extension the whole conference's RPI, and if the B10 does well it helps the national perception of the teams which can only help in March when those nerds go into their sealed room and start talking about NCAA Tournament bids. So yeah, in general I root for the Big Ten in these games, except for Iowa and I hope a black hole opens up in Madison tonight and swallows Wisconsin, Duke, and all the fans of those teams in attendance into Bolivian. Who wouldn't want that?
So that's it for meaningful games until the conference slate opens on New Year's Eve at Purdue. Until then it's a bunch of garbage. Next up is Western Carolina on Wednesday, and other than Kevin Martin possibly showing up (it's his alma mater and the Wolves are in town, though they play the Rockets and I don't know the rules like if he has to be there when he's hurt or if he can go to the Gopher game) there's not a whole lot to be excited about. Really not the Martin thing either because meh.
1. Can we get this Dre Hollins all the time? Man is he fun to watch when he gets going like tonight. It seems like it's been a rough go with him lately, what with his regression to chucker and turnover machine status so far this year, but tonight he had it all working again and it was glorious. His shot was so on he was NBA Jam On Fire in the second half and he was active the whole game, resulting in 7 boards. He did have 3 turnovers but that's acceptable, even against 0 assists because he's just not a point guard anymore. It's pretty much Mathieu or Mason getting the ball handling work, and I'm actually more comfortable with either of them than with Dre, so it works for me. He's a scorer, so go be a scorer.
2. The press continues to work. You can't say Pitino hasn't changed this team's style, that's for sure. They're fast - last night's game ended up at 77 possessions, just shy of the Louisville game and helped speed Wake up to a faster pace than they generally like, which ended up in sloppy possessions and a whole mess of Gopher turnovers once again. Wake gave the ball away on 23% of their possessions with the Gophers stealing the ball 13 times (18 total TOs), an incredible number which upped their % to 14.7% on the year, 7th highest in the country. It's worth mentioning that last night's press was more aggressive with trapping than the press usually is, suggesting Pitino knew Wake was a questionable ball handling team and intentionally upped the pressure. It's a little thing and may seem obvious, but I know other coaches here didn't make little adjustments like that from game to game. It's nice to see that attention to detail and willingness to tweak things based on opponent.
3. The Gopher guards do a really nice job against ball screens. Aaron Craft got a lot of pub last year about how he's the best defender ever and stuff like that, and he was good, but one of the things he was exceptional at was slithering over the top of a ball screen (Shannon Scott too, which is why OSU was so good defensively last year). If you can slip between the screener and the ball handler, nobody has to hedge or help or switch or rotate, and it becomes a wasted motion by the offense that takes up time but does nothing towards getting the offensive team closer to scoring. It's a valuable skill, and the Gopher guards are good at it (not Craft or Scott good, but good enough to be mentioned). Mathieu is on that Scott/Craft level, Hollins can do it every time if his offensive game is clicking (yes, sorry, but his offensive game triggers his defensive level of effort, it's true), and I've seen Mason do it more often than you'd expect a freshman too. It's not a stat and doesn't show up in the paper or our fantasy league, but it's a really valuable skill and three Gopher guards have it. Nice.
4. I'm going to say something nice about Carlos Morris. There are parts of his undisciplined JuCo wild approach that work because of his athleticism. Eight steals last night is awesome, and yes, many of them game with him gambling and taking chances (which is fine) and there were times he missed the steal and gave Wake an easy path to the basket or to break the press (which happens) but as long as his gambles are paying off with 8 steals, I'll take it. I also really like how when he gets a rebound he'll just turn and book it down court. Mathieu is the only other one who does that. They just fly and then assess if they should continue to attack or pull back once they cross the timeline rather than let the defense get back and get set right away. I love it, and I think more Gophers should do it when they get a board (NOT Joey King). I didn't like Morris's shot selection, six turnovers, or that time he went up for a (ill advised) jumper and chucked the ball straight backwards, but I've been hammering on him and he's not really all bad, he just needs to be controlled a little bit - like a pet alligator.
5. Beyond just Morris, this team turns into a really dumb team sometimes. I really hate dumb teams. As an avid gambler one of my biggest rules is "never bet on a dumb team." It's one of my strongest rules along with "never take an under on Marcus Paige or Yogi Ferrell" and "don't ever bet on a football team who can't throw". Sometimes, however, you don't know who is a dumb team, and sometimes smart teams turn into dumb teams, and all this is just me finding a way to say that I'm starting to fear that this Gopher team is dumb. Dumb teams take stupid shots, make dumb turnovers, foul too much and at stupid times, miss tons of free throws, and give up easy buckets with defensive lapses including but not limited to not getting back in transition which the Gophers did like 117 times last game (I didn't count). So far this year the Gophers take stupid shots, make dumb turnovers, foul too much and at stupid times, miss tons of free throws, and give up easy buckets with defensive lapses including but not limited to not getting back in transition. I'm absolutely terrified for the rest of this year.
6. The Gophers kept going to a pretty simple play, and it kept resulting in 3 points. It's nothing special, really, but they used it several times and Hollins got two three-pointers out of it and King got one. Shooter guy starts on one wing and just sprints to the opposite corner or wing, rubbing off a back pick on the near wing and a second pick on the opposite block. It's basically just two picks, but it worked early for the Gophers and they kept going back to it, rightly so since it worked several times. They also ran a modified version for Carlos Morris where instead of going to the corner or wing for a jumper he turned it into a curl cut where he's already moving towards the bucket when he receives the ball. Good modification. Good play.
7. Josh Martin is going to be a really good rebounder some day. His box score looks pretty brutal with just six minutes played and 1 rebound (to go with one missed shot, two turnovers, and two fouls) but I paid attention to Martin last night and I saw some promising things, mainly around rebounding. Offensive or defensive, he was always in good position and got his hand on 2-3 other rebounds that he couldn't corral because his positioning was perfect. He also got shoved almost all the way under the basket by some Wake guy on a free throw so we're still a little ways off, but he'll get there. I'm going to say one year in the future he'll average as many as EIGHT rebounds per game. You heard it here first.
8. Mo Walker, rim protector? Walker is never going to be confused for Antoine Broxsie or Jerome Holman when it comes to shot blocking, what with 37 career blocks coming into this season, but suddenly he's a different defender. The combination of the weight loss, recovery from injury, and the confidence he's gained after a successful season last year have him as active as I've ever seen defensively and it's paying off big time. I always considered Eliason the defensive presence and Walker the offensive banger, but this year Walker is averaging 1.6 blocks in 20 minutes per game, blocking 9.8% of the opponents shot attempts while he's on the floor. That's an incredible number that's doubled from last season and is almost 3 times higher than Eliason, and it ranks as the 42nd best percentage in DI (behind only A.J. Hammons, Alex Olah, and Michal Cekovsky in the B10). I didn't notice this until last night when he was challenging, and blocking, shots but man, what a huge development.
9. The Gophers look really good in transition, thanks to Mathieu. Boy is this team fun to watch in transition. I love when Mathieu just takes off and guys are sprinting to fill lanes. He's incredibly good at being able to observe the defenders at 100mph and know when to go to the rim, when to pull back, and my favorite is when he'll kind of drift towards the off ball defender, knowing a teammate is screaming up the opposite wing and he can hit him with either pass leading towards the rim or a kick out for an open three attempt. He struggles against teams who can challenge his quickness, but when he has it going like last night (8 assists) it's a thing of beauty. I still wish he'd look for his shot a bit more since he is a quality shooter but he's down a full 2 shot attempts per game this year. Don't worry, that's not a complaint. Love this guy.
10. So by my count the Big Ten now leads the challenge 6-2. That's good! They only need two more wins to win this thing which would be the sixth straight year of the Big Ten not losing after losing the first ten iterations of this thing. Normally I'm not one who cares about rooting for your conference and usually I hope any and all rivals face ruthless and humiliating defeats whenever possible, but in this case Big Ten wins help the Gophers. It bumps up any winning team's RPI, and by extension the whole conference's RPI, and if the B10 does well it helps the national perception of the teams which can only help in March when those nerds go into their sealed room and start talking about NCAA Tournament bids. So yeah, in general I root for the Big Ten in these games, except for Iowa and I hope a black hole opens up in Madison tonight and swallows Wisconsin, Duke, and all the fans of those teams in attendance into Bolivian. Who wouldn't want that?
So that's it for meaningful games until the conference slate opens on New Year's Eve at Purdue. Until then it's a bunch of garbage. Next up is Western Carolina on Wednesday, and other than Kevin Martin possibly showing up (it's his alma mater and the Wolves are in town, though they play the Rockets and I don't know the rules like if he has to be there when he's hurt or if he can go to the Gopher game) there's not a whole lot to be excited about. Really not the Martin thing either because meh.
Sunday, November 30, 2014
Gophers finished third in NIT Tip-Off! (out of 4).
First they were in total charge of the St. John's game, until they weren't, and ended up losing. Then they were in total charge of the Georgia game, until they weren't, but ended up winning. Overall the event did more to make me pessimistic about the rest of the season than optimistic, but that doesn't mean there weren't some positives. Up front I will tell you I watched the St. John's game at the bar which is a much less conducive environment to trying to make semi-interesting or fairly entertaining observations, so much of this will refer more to the Georgia game. It's doubtful it's semi-interesting or fairly entertaining anyway, as per usual. Anyway, here's ten things.
1. Free throws are killing me. I'm talking both sides of the ball here. After FT shooting nights of 9-16 against St. John's and 12-23 versus Georgia, the Gophers are now shooting a robust 55.2% for the season. That 55.2% ranks 343rd in the entire NCAA. There are 351 teams in Division I. UNLV is the only other major conference team anywhere near the Gophers in terms of being that horrible at free throws which, in case you'rs unsure, are completely unguarded shots by rule. There's more. The Gophers rank 318th in opponents FT attempts per FG attempt, which means they are constantly putting their opponents at the free throw line where they get to shoot without any defense. Usually this kind of profile belongs to an undersized, undermanned team and all the teams near the Gophers here are small schools or crappy teams like Oregon State and Boston College. The Gophers are giving up a ridiculous amount of free points while failing to take advantage of the same. Opponents are scoring 27% of their points at the line (rank #309), while the Gophers score 17% of their points from there (290th). This is a really good way to lose a lot of games you probably shouldn't, and is a major, major red flag. I'm pretty scared. Keep an eye on this one.
2. Nate Mason continues to impress. He led the team in scoring against the Red Storm with 15 and though he struggled shooting against Georgia he chipped in with 3 assists and 3 rebounds and has clearly emerged as the top player off the bench. Much of what he does is obvious when you watch him, but I want to point out something that might not stand out - he's an incredible rebounder. He's averaging 4.3 per game, and considering he's not playing starter's minutes it's even more impressive. His defensive rebounding rate is 20.8%, meaning he grabs one out of every five missed shots on the defensive end when he's on the court. That number ranks 216th in the country and I don't mean just for guards, I mean for everyone, and he's a 6-1 guard. He's probably going to average a triple double his senior year, if he's not already in the NBA.
3. Richard Pitino's beloved pressure defense is working. Mostly, at least, as the Gophers rank 31st in the country in defensive efficiency, giving up just .92 points per possession. They're mainly winning by causing turnovers, ranking 10th in the country and turning over their opponents 27.1% of the time, a ridiculous number that's just behind Rick Pitino and Louisville's 27.5%. The Gophers are also playing at the pace of 70.2 possessions per game (52nd in the country) which is identical to Louisville, so I think it's safe to say the system is pretty much in place. How well it ends up working against B10 competition is up in the air as it can lead to easy shots by the opponent as the Gophers rank just 127th in opponents' two point FG percentage, but as long as the turnovers keep coming you can handle a little trade off there. Georgia certainly did their part by giving the ball away 18 times, as did St. John's on Wednesday. It's a fun brand of basketball, and even more fun when they win.
4. Another thing that is fun so far is how well the Gophers are passing the basketball. With one glaring, notable exception (see below) the Gophers are moving the ball really well and it's fun to watch. Dre Mathieu is one of the best in the country at getting into the lane because he's so quick, and he's been exceptional this year at hitting open teammates when he does. Mason has mostly been a pass first kind of guy this year, Dre Hollins is an excellent passer when he wants to be, and both Joey King and Mo Walker are above average passers for big men. This has led to the Gophers registering an assist on 64.5% of their baskets this year, a number that ranks 21st in the nation and (somehow) 4th in the Big Ten behind Iowa, Purdue (?), and Michigan State. Of course, there's someone who is trying to destroy all that fun.
5. Pitino has got to reign in Carlos Morris. Last year writing about DeAndre Matheiu I said I like my guards a little bit out of control, and I do, but Morris is not a little bit out of control he's just straight up damaging when he's on the court. Poor defensive rotations, ball stopping, and bad shots are three of the most harmful things you can bring to a team and he's an expert at all three. His only good game this year was against Franklin Pierce, he's taking one shot attempt per point this year, and has as many turnovers as assists. It hasn't been good, though I'm not ready to give up because he has serious athletic potential, it just needs to be harnessed. There was one possession in the Georgia game where the team was moving the ball around the perimeter pretty well until it got to Morris at the top of the key. His defender was playing off him just enough to dare him shoot so Morris did, but not before holding the ball and just staring at the defensive dude for like 3 seconds, no joke. Naturally the result of the shot was an airball. The whole thing was a perfect encapsulation of his season so far. Let's hope we can look back on this as growing pains by year's end, because Morris is going to get a ton of minutes, and the less damage he can do the better.
6. Charles Buggs could be a solid contributor. I don't think there have ever been any questions about his shooting and he's shooting well again this season (5-10 on threes), but for Buggs to really crack the rotation he needed to work on other things. With the McNeil situation he's going to get a lot more rope, and he's going to get time at the 3 spot which, to me, is more his natural fit if he can play defense. So far this year he's looked better defensively, though not a standout by any means but he's not getting lost nearly as often. He's rebounding a little bit better, and most importantly he's slashed his turnovers from a horrendous 27% to an outstanding 10%. He's even grabbed a couple of steals (literally two) and gone to the line a handful of times. Buggs was pretty clearly a long term project from the moment he stepped on campus, but he's looked considerably better this year to the point where he might be able to give them 10-15 minutes per game which is going to be badly needed now. What more could you ask for?
7. I actually really like Bob Knight as an announcer. Sure he gets stuck on certain ideas and won't let them go, such as shot fakes and not having Eliason or Walker set picks so far away from the basket, but I really like the coach's perspective he brings to being the color man. I know plenty of other announcers are former coaches, but they all seem to have at least shifted some towards "being entertaining" from "being informative" (with varying degrees of success) but Knight is still in coach/educator mode. He's always pointing out positioning on defense or rebounding or discussing plays more in depth than your average guy, and he does it in a deadpan voice that pretty much tells you he's not interested in being your trained monkey there for entertainment. I also like how he kept referring to Walker and Eliason as "the big kids." I don't know. I dig it.
8. Dre Hollins has turned into a turnover machine. And I don't like it one bit. Twelve turnovers in the two tournament games bring his season total to 18 against 19 assists. His assist rate is actually up this year compared to last after plummeting from his sophomore season, which is to be expected with Mathieu on board and taking up most of the point guard minutes, but his turnover rate has absolutely sky rocketed to 27%, worse even than his wild freshman year. The only players in the conference who play major minutes with a worse turnover rate are ball handlers new to the league (Lourawls Nairn (34%), freshman), Tai Webster (30%, his second year), Bishop Daniels (28%, juco transfer)) or big men with questionable handles (A.J. Hammons (28%), Mo Walker (29%), Ross Travis (28%)). I mean, that's a really crappy number. Take that turnover number and add in 41% shooting from the floor and that's an awful lot of wasted possessions. He's in chucker territory. Please stop doing that.
9. I finally made sriracha fried rice and it was awesome. I've had it at a couple of Thai places and it's like, the best thing ever, so I finally decided to give it a shot and I'm damn glad I did. It's one of the most delicious things ever. It's great too, because for the veggies you can just use whatever you have. One time I had green pepper so I used it, another time (yes I made it twice this weekend) we were out of pepper so I used about a quarter bag of frozen peas and it worked out just fine. Here's the recipe. You're welcome.
2 c. cooked rice (I just used minute rice)
2 celery stalks, chopped or slivered
1 carrot, peeled and chopped or slivered
1/2 green pepper, diced
1/4 bag frozen peas
1/4 t dried ginger (if you have fresh it's probably better, I didn't)
1 t toasted sesame oil
2 T soy sauce
2 T sriracha
1-2 garlic cloves
some green onions, chopped with the white and green separated
1. Heat a skillet or wok on medium high until hot, pour in some olive oil and garlic and saute for 30 seconds
2. add the veggies except the green part of the green onion and saute for about 3 minutes
3. add the rice and ginger and saute about 3 minutes, rice should start to change color a little
4. add the soy sauce, sesame oil, and sriracha and mix until everything is combined
5. remove from heat and eat.
So good.
10. This Wake game is the last one that's going to matter for a while. I'm not really sure if Wake Forest is any good (tune in tomorrow) but it's the last threat to the Gophers for about a month, and the last game that will could potentially have any positive impact on the Gophers' future NCAA Tournament resume. The next six games after the Deacons are just brutal. The best teams according to kenpom are teams like Western Carolina, Seattle, and UNC-Wilmington who aren't even contenders in their own conferences and who rank in the mid-200s. The NCAA selection committee doesn't use kenpom at all (I don't think) but I'm pretty sure there's some sort of correlation when it comes to RPI and none of these clown shoes teams are going to help. One huge advantage Tubby's staff had over Pitino's is they had figured out how to make a schedule full of non-threatening games which still kept their SOS and RPI in good shape. i don't think this schedule is going to do that. Which means the Big 10 season is going to be even more important than in previous years, which terrifies me. Beat Wake.
1. Free throws are killing me. I'm talking both sides of the ball here. After FT shooting nights of 9-16 against St. John's and 12-23 versus Georgia, the Gophers are now shooting a robust 55.2% for the season. That 55.2% ranks 343rd in the entire NCAA. There are 351 teams in Division I. UNLV is the only other major conference team anywhere near the Gophers in terms of being that horrible at free throws which, in case you'rs unsure, are completely unguarded shots by rule. There's more. The Gophers rank 318th in opponents FT attempts per FG attempt, which means they are constantly putting their opponents at the free throw line where they get to shoot without any defense. Usually this kind of profile belongs to an undersized, undermanned team and all the teams near the Gophers here are small schools or crappy teams like Oregon State and Boston College. The Gophers are giving up a ridiculous amount of free points while failing to take advantage of the same. Opponents are scoring 27% of their points at the line (rank #309), while the Gophers score 17% of their points from there (290th). This is a really good way to lose a lot of games you probably shouldn't, and is a major, major red flag. I'm pretty scared. Keep an eye on this one.
2. Nate Mason continues to impress. He led the team in scoring against the Red Storm with 15 and though he struggled shooting against Georgia he chipped in with 3 assists and 3 rebounds and has clearly emerged as the top player off the bench. Much of what he does is obvious when you watch him, but I want to point out something that might not stand out - he's an incredible rebounder. He's averaging 4.3 per game, and considering he's not playing starter's minutes it's even more impressive. His defensive rebounding rate is 20.8%, meaning he grabs one out of every five missed shots on the defensive end when he's on the court. That number ranks 216th in the country and I don't mean just for guards, I mean for everyone, and he's a 6-1 guard. He's probably going to average a triple double his senior year, if he's not already in the NBA.
3. Richard Pitino's beloved pressure defense is working. Mostly, at least, as the Gophers rank 31st in the country in defensive efficiency, giving up just .92 points per possession. They're mainly winning by causing turnovers, ranking 10th in the country and turning over their opponents 27.1% of the time, a ridiculous number that's just behind Rick Pitino and Louisville's 27.5%. The Gophers are also playing at the pace of 70.2 possessions per game (52nd in the country) which is identical to Louisville, so I think it's safe to say the system is pretty much in place. How well it ends up working against B10 competition is up in the air as it can lead to easy shots by the opponent as the Gophers rank just 127th in opponents' two point FG percentage, but as long as the turnovers keep coming you can handle a little trade off there. Georgia certainly did their part by giving the ball away 18 times, as did St. John's on Wednesday. It's a fun brand of basketball, and even more fun when they win.
4. Another thing that is fun so far is how well the Gophers are passing the basketball. With one glaring, notable exception (see below) the Gophers are moving the ball really well and it's fun to watch. Dre Mathieu is one of the best in the country at getting into the lane because he's so quick, and he's been exceptional this year at hitting open teammates when he does. Mason has mostly been a pass first kind of guy this year, Dre Hollins is an excellent passer when he wants to be, and both Joey King and Mo Walker are above average passers for big men. This has led to the Gophers registering an assist on 64.5% of their baskets this year, a number that ranks 21st in the nation and (somehow) 4th in the Big Ten behind Iowa, Purdue (?), and Michigan State. Of course, there's someone who is trying to destroy all that fun.
5. Pitino has got to reign in Carlos Morris. Last year writing about DeAndre Matheiu I said I like my guards a little bit out of control, and I do, but Morris is not a little bit out of control he's just straight up damaging when he's on the court. Poor defensive rotations, ball stopping, and bad shots are three of the most harmful things you can bring to a team and he's an expert at all three. His only good game this year was against Franklin Pierce, he's taking one shot attempt per point this year, and has as many turnovers as assists. It hasn't been good, though I'm not ready to give up because he has serious athletic potential, it just needs to be harnessed. There was one possession in the Georgia game where the team was moving the ball around the perimeter pretty well until it got to Morris at the top of the key. His defender was playing off him just enough to dare him shoot so Morris did, but not before holding the ball and just staring at the defensive dude for like 3 seconds, no joke. Naturally the result of the shot was an airball. The whole thing was a perfect encapsulation of his season so far. Let's hope we can look back on this as growing pains by year's end, because Morris is going to get a ton of minutes, and the less damage he can do the better.
6. Charles Buggs could be a solid contributor. I don't think there have ever been any questions about his shooting and he's shooting well again this season (5-10 on threes), but for Buggs to really crack the rotation he needed to work on other things. With the McNeil situation he's going to get a lot more rope, and he's going to get time at the 3 spot which, to me, is more his natural fit if he can play defense. So far this year he's looked better defensively, though not a standout by any means but he's not getting lost nearly as often. He's rebounding a little bit better, and most importantly he's slashed his turnovers from a horrendous 27% to an outstanding 10%. He's even grabbed a couple of steals (literally two) and gone to the line a handful of times. Buggs was pretty clearly a long term project from the moment he stepped on campus, but he's looked considerably better this year to the point where he might be able to give them 10-15 minutes per game which is going to be badly needed now. What more could you ask for?
7. I actually really like Bob Knight as an announcer. Sure he gets stuck on certain ideas and won't let them go, such as shot fakes and not having Eliason or Walker set picks so far away from the basket, but I really like the coach's perspective he brings to being the color man. I know plenty of other announcers are former coaches, but they all seem to have at least shifted some towards "being entertaining" from "being informative" (with varying degrees of success) but Knight is still in coach/educator mode. He's always pointing out positioning on defense or rebounding or discussing plays more in depth than your average guy, and he does it in a deadpan voice that pretty much tells you he's not interested in being your trained monkey there for entertainment. I also like how he kept referring to Walker and Eliason as "the big kids." I don't know. I dig it.
8. Dre Hollins has turned into a turnover machine. And I don't like it one bit. Twelve turnovers in the two tournament games bring his season total to 18 against 19 assists. His assist rate is actually up this year compared to last after plummeting from his sophomore season, which is to be expected with Mathieu on board and taking up most of the point guard minutes, but his turnover rate has absolutely sky rocketed to 27%, worse even than his wild freshman year. The only players in the conference who play major minutes with a worse turnover rate are ball handlers new to the league (Lourawls Nairn (34%), freshman), Tai Webster (30%, his second year), Bishop Daniels (28%, juco transfer)) or big men with questionable handles (A.J. Hammons (28%), Mo Walker (29%), Ross Travis (28%)). I mean, that's a really crappy number. Take that turnover number and add in 41% shooting from the floor and that's an awful lot of wasted possessions. He's in chucker territory. Please stop doing that.
9. I finally made sriracha fried rice and it was awesome. I've had it at a couple of Thai places and it's like, the best thing ever, so I finally decided to give it a shot and I'm damn glad I did. It's one of the most delicious things ever. It's great too, because for the veggies you can just use whatever you have. One time I had green pepper so I used it, another time (yes I made it twice this weekend) we were out of pepper so I used about a quarter bag of frozen peas and it worked out just fine. Here's the recipe. You're welcome.
2 c. cooked rice (I just used minute rice)
2 celery stalks, chopped or slivered
1 carrot, peeled and chopped or slivered
1/2 green pepper, diced
1/4 bag frozen peas
1/4 t dried ginger (if you have fresh it's probably better, I didn't)
1 t toasted sesame oil
2 T soy sauce
2 T sriracha
1-2 garlic cloves
some green onions, chopped with the white and green separated
1. Heat a skillet or wok on medium high until hot, pour in some olive oil and garlic and saute for 30 seconds
2. add the veggies except the green part of the green onion and saute for about 3 minutes
3. add the rice and ginger and saute about 3 minutes, rice should start to change color a little
4. add the soy sauce, sesame oil, and sriracha and mix until everything is combined
5. remove from heat and eat.
So good.
10. This Wake game is the last one that's going to matter for a while. I'm not really sure if Wake Forest is any good (tune in tomorrow) but it's the last threat to the Gophers for about a month, and the last game that will could potentially have any positive impact on the Gophers' future NCAA Tournament resume. The next six games after the Deacons are just brutal. The best teams according to kenpom are teams like Western Carolina, Seattle, and UNC-Wilmington who aren't even contenders in their own conferences and who rank in the mid-200s. The NCAA selection committee doesn't use kenpom at all (I don't think) but I'm pretty sure there's some sort of correlation when it comes to RPI and none of these clown shoes teams are going to help. One huge advantage Tubby's staff had over Pitino's is they had figured out how to make a schedule full of non-threatening games which still kept their SOS and RPI in good shape. i don't think this schedule is going to do that. Which means the Big 10 season is going to be even more important than in previous years, which terrifies me. Beat Wake.
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Gophers 76, Western Kentucky 54
And that folks is the best visiting team you'll see in the Barn this year prior to conference season.
1. In case there was any question who the most valuable Gopher is, tonight should have cemented it. No question it's the Honey Gopher, DeAndre Mathieu. He was lackluster against UMD and so was the team, he was in foul trouble and struggled against Louisville and so did the team, and tonight he was awesome and so was the team. He completely sets the tone on both sides of the ball. His defense, both on and off ball, is just outstanding, and obviously watching him run the break is freaking enjoyable as all hell. Tonight he even looked for his own shot from the perimeter and though he only hit one of three from behind the arc that's still a positive. Don't forget he hit 49% from there last year in limited attempts. If he can get to the point where opponents have to respect his deep jumper it should open up more opportunities to drive past them, and once he's on the drive he seems to have mastered the score or dish skill set. Love this guy. Plus I'm about 90% sure my dad called him DeAndre Mathews tonight, which just makes it all the better.
2. Mo Walker was a completely different player in each half. I give credit to my brother Snacks for pointing this out first, but Mo Walker, and whoever told him to, made a significant change at half time and it paid major dividends. In the first half he was still in the mode he was against Louisville, where he'd get the ball on the block and make some fancy moves and shot fakes and stuff like that and it just wasn't falling. At half time someone must have mentioned he was playing the Hilltoppers and not the Cardinals, because after the break when he got the ball on the block he just put his head down and overpowered his man for easy buckets. He finished with 14 points and had an overall excellent game, but when he came out and scored with ease from the block on the first two Gopher possessions of the second half it really sent a message. I still struggle at times thinking of him as a legitimate offensive weapon for some reason, but he's going to be a major force for this team as their only legit low post threat. Love him too.
3. The guy who sits in front of me has a giant head. Seriously. This guy must be close to 6-8 and his head is some kind of planetoid. I'm not a tall guy, but I'm not a short guy either and the Williams Arena seats are set up so there shouldn't be a problem, but behind him I have to do that thing where depending on where the ball is I have to shift my head to see around his giant melon. Honestly there's just no way this guy could walk into a normal store and buy a hat, they'd definitely have to special ordered. It's the size of my TV. I feel like if he head butted a car the car would blow up. I'm going to have to do something about this. Probably just complain all the time. That still counts as something.
 |
| This is who I sit behind, without the sword. Probably |
4. Though the offense was mostly humming pretty well, there were also some pretty bad possessions. There was one really bad stretch, no surprise Mathieu wasn't on the floor, where a whole bunch of one-on-one ball was going on, leading to really bad long 2s early in the shot clock. This went on for like three or four possessions and was just not good. Carlos Morris is just a wild card with so much chucker in him yearning for freedom it's going to drive me crazy this year, and Dre Hollins really needs to ditch the step back 18-footer. It worked out because after a TV timeout they ran some cool plays like three possessions in a row, including a neato one with a double screen with both a roller and a popper, where after the popper gets the ball if he doesn't have a shot he does a handoff and then immediately sets a ball screen that led to an open jumper for Morris and they scored on I think three straight possessions, but it's worth watching. There were times last year Pitino let this kind of crap go on for too long without a timeout or any kind of change, so hopefully he's more on top of it this season. He was tonight.
5. Joey King's shot fake is still a thing of beauty. He's easily the most polarizing player on the team in my own brain, at least until Morris takes over, but you have to give him credit for that shot fake of his. He consistently gets his man in the air, but usually then can't really take advantage of it which kind of sums him up. And man his ball-handling. At one point WKU did their token press but someone managed to force King to be in charge of the ball and he desperately looked around for help, then tried to hand it off to a guard but it ended up on the floor and I can't remember who got it but I remember yelling "Joey no!" which I think I did eighty hundred times last year. He does some really nice things, like the shot fake, and some really bad things as well. Drives me crazy, but I think I'm glad they have him.
6. Nate Mason rules. Boy this kid does not look like a freshman out there. He was the first player I saw when we got there late tonight (Mac's was slow. Go there and get the blackened buffalo wings. So good) and I was like, whoa he's bigger than I thought and then he drilled two threes. He's confident in his game, he's already a plus defender, he can play either guard spot, and he looks like one of the better shooters on the team. Ok so he has no lift on his three-point shot which could cause problems but neither do Dirk Nowitzki or Glen Rice which yeah as was pointed out to me they're way taller than him but whatever he'll be fine. Josh Martin and Bakary Konate have the athleticism but still look really raw, but Mason is already a polished player. Great get by Pitino, he's going to be special.
7. This team is really fast. I mean really fast. It all starts with Mathieu of course who is one of the fastest players in the country, but at this point pretty much everyone on the team can get up and down quickly. Hollins, Mason, Martin, Konate, Morris, and McNeil can all get out and run and excel in the open court. Even Eliason and Walker have gotten themselves to the point where they don't hold the team up. King does ok for himself too. This is a very different team than we're used to, both because of personnel and coaching style, and they're going to be fun to watch and should score plenty of points. It's going to be all about the defense to decide how good this team can be. Hopefully the million cupcakes on the schedule can help them get that all straightened out, because the press seemed mostly ineffective last season except for a few spots. The athleticism and speed this year will help. I'm really interested to see what they do here.
8. The mini-ball toss is no longer fair. What was that? I'm in row 15 so it's not like any of the cheerleaders can get a mini-ball to me anyway, but tonight when they did the ball toss they only threw to the student section. You know what? I want a ball. My son wants a ball. My daughter wants a ball. At least let us dream it's possible. The students don't need a ball anyway, and they already get to play all the fun games on the court like the run around and get dizzy and try to make a lay-up thing. If you really want to help out the students throw them money or pizza or beer or something. If they get a ball they'll probably just turn it into a bong anyway.
9. The WKU chuckers did not disappoint. I would have liked to see a little more volume shooting, but I said the Hilltoppers had 3 chuckers and the three combined to shoot 5-21, 3-12 from three, and turned it over 14 times against 8 assists. 14 turnovers! 25% shooting! They really came through. It's too bad it was spread out among three players though. Can you imagine they voltron formed one mega chucker and put up that line? Simply outstanding. Really if it wasn't for those two bench guys (and who doesn't enjoy a guy named Snipes sniping a handful of three-pointers) this game could have been a 40-point blowout because these three guys were awful. And nobody else really did anything either. Ladies and gentlemen, the best home non-conference opponent the Gophers will play this year!
10. On to New York. There are two horrible games coming up this week which I don't expect to write about at all, and then comes the one good stretch before conference play when the Gophers head to New York to play St. Johns and then either Georgia or Gonzaga, followed by a trip to Winston-Salem to play Wake Forest in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge. That should be a fun time, and since the Gophers basically own Madison Square Garden the tournament should be theirs for the taking. Enjoy that stretch, since following that it's six straight games basically covering the entire month of December that are all terrible and the Gophers will be favored by 20+ in all of them. Actually, they'll be favored by 20+ in maybe none of them because I think they're all in too terrible of conferences to even have lines offered. Speaking of gambling, click on the banner above this post if you want to start a wagering account. Mybookie.ag is a new site that's pretty slick and has really good bonuses. It probably sounds like they're paying me to say this but they're not. They did pay me to put that banner up though, but I'm not shilling here (god forbid I'd be a Schilling), I'm serious.
Overall, a pretty good win. Western Kentucky isn't anything special, but they weren't supposed to be some pushover either. The Gophers were favored by twelve and won by 22. That's a nice outing. Now just nobody get hurt before the NYC trip. Beat Zaga.
Overall, a pretty good win. Western Kentucky isn't anything special, but they weren't supposed to be some pushover either. The Gophers were favored by twelve and won by 22. That's a nice outing. Now just nobody get hurt before the NYC trip. Beat Zaga.
Sunday, November 16, 2014
Louisville 81, Gophers 68
Say la vee. Anyone expecting the Gophers to win was probably a raging homer so this doesn't really come as a surprise, and they kept it from a being a blowout against a Final Four contender so that's a positive. It's tough to get a true read on a game like tonight since there were one million fouls called and Louisville made free throws and the Gophers didn't, but there's still some things we can learn. Here are 10 things I liked and didn't like about the Louisville game, with the caveat that this opponent was probably the best team the Gophers will face all season.
1. Dre Hollins looked good. Or should I say Andrew Hollins, which is what the pregame announcer called him during lineups. Dre led the team with 22 points, and more importantly did it by getting to the rim as well as jump shots which was a slight concern I still had. He took six threes versus nine twos which is a better ratio of 2s to 3s than he's had in his career and a sign that maybe he's decided attacking the rim is the way to go, which it is. He hit a couple of floaters in the lane which is a shot I don't remember him having in his repertoire before and is a positive. It also looks like he'll be playing strictly off the ball this year with Mathieu and Mason doing the ball handling. This might be a negative for his NBA potential, but a definite positive for the Gophers and should lead to more and better scoring chances coming off picks.
2. Mo Walker has a chance to be a real force. Man did he look good. Like basically every Gopher who matters he spent a chunk of the game in foul trouble so his numbers were maybe suppressed a bit (10 pts, 4 rebs on 5-7 shooting) but he is tough when he's in the paint. A nice drop step and a nice looking lefty jump hook that could become a nice pet move, and his footwork combined with his size make it really hard for a defender to get into, and even more stay into, a good guarding position. I'm getting ahead of myself here, but there's a chance Walker has become the type of player you can't defend one-on-one. We won't know until he plays legit competition again which is in like a month, but I'm extremely positive on Mo right now.
3. Nate Mason is legit. He was probably pressed into more minutes than Pitino (Richard not Rick) would like due to foul trouble (I guess) but the kid looked like a player. He was a little shaky with the ball early which made me think he was a nervous freshman in a big spot, but he quickly overcame that and flashed some high level skills and a tremendous amount of confidence. His first collegiate bucket came taking the ball basically coast-to-coast including a stutter step move that allowed him to blow right by quality defender Wayne Blackshear, and he's good enough already on the defensive end to stick with Chris Jones - or at least as well as anybody can. He had five rebounds in 20 minutes, which is tremendous for a guard, and after some free throw troubles settled down to hit 6-10 on the night. If he can give you that kind of defense and rebounding and continue getting to the line he's going to be an absolute steal for the Gophers.
4. It's ok to play guys with more fouls than you'd like earlier than you'd like when needed. I HATE THIS. It's not just our Pitino to be sure since most coaches follow the sit down a guy with 2 fouls in the first half mantra, but it's not necessary. When the offense has completely stagnated because your top two shot creators in Mathieu and Morris are both on the bench with two fouls you need to get them back in before Louisville goes on a 15-2 run. I recognize it's prudent to try to keep your best players from becoming disqualified and not being around for crunch time, but sometimes it's more important to take a chance so maybe you can get to crunch time in a competitive position. Ugh.
5. Montrezl Harrell is ridiculous. How unfair was it when Harrell hit that three pointer as the first basket of the game? I practically did a double take. Harrell's game was always pretty much paint oriented, but I guess he worked his ass off to become a jump shooter and man that just isn't fair. He went 3-4 from three and hit at least one other jumper, all in addition to complete dominating the glass and the paint on his way to a 30 point, 7 rebound night. Granted, the Gophers don't have anyone who can match up with him as the only guy who could maybe do it physically is a freshman and everyone else is either too small (King) or too slow (Walker and Eliason), but he certainly took advantage. Then again, there aren't too many players who can match up with him in the nation period. He could very well be the best player in the country. Super impressive.
6. Carlos Morris is going to be an adventure. When I wrote after the UMD exhibition game I said that Morris looks like he believes he can score on every position, but that I meant that in a good way. I still hold that same sentiment, even after an off game. He shot just 3-9 in this one and took some horrendous shots along the way, not to mention forcing drives where they weren't going to work. It's hard as hell going from JuCo defenders and UMD to Louisville so it wasn't a surprise watching Morris struggle, but a big key to the season might be if Morris can adjust his game to be a more efficient and effective scorer against better defenses. The Gophers still need his ability to create offense, but he just has to do it in the flow of the offense, transition or half court. And no more contest long twos.
7. Crappy long 2-point jumpers are not how you win games. A lot of this is due to Louisville's stellar defense, but man did the Gophers take a lot of crappy shots. When the Gophers got out in transition and ran they did fine, but in the half court it was pretty brutal. The worst was when Mathieu, Walker, and Morris were all on the bench with two fouls in the first half (the horror!) and the Gophers simply could not initiate any kind of offense. Hollins came around in the second half just fine, but in the first he was very passive (I actually made the note "Hollins passive" but the second half wiped it out) and there was just no offense going on at all. Seemed more like a Tubby offense than a Pitino offense, but I suppose it doesn't really matter what you draw up if nobody can get inside that damn defense. Though it would be nice to at least work the ball around a bit rather than throwing that crappy long 2 up with 20 seconds left on the shot clock (*coughMorriscough*).
8. Josh Martin and Bakary Konate had rough intros to college ball. Granite, making your debut in a modified aircraft hanger in stifling hot weather in a foreign country against one of the best teams in the country is probably pretty tough, but yikes. They only played 10 total minutes, but in that time managed a couple of turnovers, a few bad fouls, several horrible defensive rotations, and Konate put up the single worst shot of the night by throwing up a half contested 18.5 foot jumper that shockingly didn't go in. I'm not worried about either freshmen as I'm sure they'll be fine against normal, human teams, I'm just saying it wasn't pretty. Even if it's understandable ugly is still ugly. Like a chick hit in the face with a frying pan.
9. The free throws, my god the free throws. The Gophers ended up hitting 20 of 33 free throws which is a horrible 61%, and they only got to that number by getting hot at the end. In a game with one billion fouls called it was maddening every time the Gophers got a chance at the line to help narrow the gap and ended up clanging away two free points again and again and yes I'm looking at you Nate Mason. I think the team was 8-18 at one point, and even if I'm making that up it was something similarly horrible to that. I'm sure it's stupid for a middle aged white nerd sitting on his couch to say how easy free throws are, but I'm going to anyway because I hit 83% in my high school career. I guess what I'm saying is, I probably could have played division I high major college ball. Probably.
10. I don't know what to say about Joey King. He clearly tries hard. He's changed himself from a perimeter obsessed mincing nancy to someone who does his best to be a real life power forward, and that's really admirable. He tries to bang around in the lane, tries to be a big time rebounder, gives it his all defensively, and has actually become a halfway decent scorer in the lane, and he still has his not horrible jumper. He really tries, but man there are times when his physical limitations are just glaring, like against Louisville. Anyone the Cardinals ran out there just ran and jumped circles around King, or pushed him around, or in the case of Harrell did all three. I've stopped hating him, but man it can be tough to watch when he's just getting brutalized and there's nothing he can do about it.
All in all the Gophers stuck pretty close with a Final Four contender and didn't roll over and die when it would have been pretty easy to just give up. I don't know how anyone can't be happy with that. Now we move on. Three games this week, but only Western Kentucky in the home opener Tuesday night is likely to put up any kind of fight. Then comes the big Thanksgiving tournament in New York, where they'll play St. John's and either Georgia or Gonzaga. Need to go 1-1 at worst.
I'll try to get a preview up for WKU, but no promises. I will not be doing a preview for Bernard Pierce or Mildred Pierce or whatever. I do have some standards.
1. Dre Hollins looked good. Or should I say Andrew Hollins, which is what the pregame announcer called him during lineups. Dre led the team with 22 points, and more importantly did it by getting to the rim as well as jump shots which was a slight concern I still had. He took six threes versus nine twos which is a better ratio of 2s to 3s than he's had in his career and a sign that maybe he's decided attacking the rim is the way to go, which it is. He hit a couple of floaters in the lane which is a shot I don't remember him having in his repertoire before and is a positive. It also looks like he'll be playing strictly off the ball this year with Mathieu and Mason doing the ball handling. This might be a negative for his NBA potential, but a definite positive for the Gophers and should lead to more and better scoring chances coming off picks.
2. Mo Walker has a chance to be a real force. Man did he look good. Like basically every Gopher who matters he spent a chunk of the game in foul trouble so his numbers were maybe suppressed a bit (10 pts, 4 rebs on 5-7 shooting) but he is tough when he's in the paint. A nice drop step and a nice looking lefty jump hook that could become a nice pet move, and his footwork combined with his size make it really hard for a defender to get into, and even more stay into, a good guarding position. I'm getting ahead of myself here, but there's a chance Walker has become the type of player you can't defend one-on-one. We won't know until he plays legit competition again which is in like a month, but I'm extremely positive on Mo right now.
3. Nate Mason is legit. He was probably pressed into more minutes than Pitino (Richard not Rick) would like due to foul trouble (I guess) but the kid looked like a player. He was a little shaky with the ball early which made me think he was a nervous freshman in a big spot, but he quickly overcame that and flashed some high level skills and a tremendous amount of confidence. His first collegiate bucket came taking the ball basically coast-to-coast including a stutter step move that allowed him to blow right by quality defender Wayne Blackshear, and he's good enough already on the defensive end to stick with Chris Jones - or at least as well as anybody can. He had five rebounds in 20 minutes, which is tremendous for a guard, and after some free throw troubles settled down to hit 6-10 on the night. If he can give you that kind of defense and rebounding and continue getting to the line he's going to be an absolute steal for the Gophers.
4. It's ok to play guys with more fouls than you'd like earlier than you'd like when needed. I HATE THIS. It's not just our Pitino to be sure since most coaches follow the sit down a guy with 2 fouls in the first half mantra, but it's not necessary. When the offense has completely stagnated because your top two shot creators in Mathieu and Morris are both on the bench with two fouls you need to get them back in before Louisville goes on a 15-2 run. I recognize it's prudent to try to keep your best players from becoming disqualified and not being around for crunch time, but sometimes it's more important to take a chance so maybe you can get to crunch time in a competitive position. Ugh.
5. Montrezl Harrell is ridiculous. How unfair was it when Harrell hit that three pointer as the first basket of the game? I practically did a double take. Harrell's game was always pretty much paint oriented, but I guess he worked his ass off to become a jump shooter and man that just isn't fair. He went 3-4 from three and hit at least one other jumper, all in addition to complete dominating the glass and the paint on his way to a 30 point, 7 rebound night. Granted, the Gophers don't have anyone who can match up with him as the only guy who could maybe do it physically is a freshman and everyone else is either too small (King) or too slow (Walker and Eliason), but he certainly took advantage. Then again, there aren't too many players who can match up with him in the nation period. He could very well be the best player in the country. Super impressive.
6. Carlos Morris is going to be an adventure. When I wrote after the UMD exhibition game I said that Morris looks like he believes he can score on every position, but that I meant that in a good way. I still hold that same sentiment, even after an off game. He shot just 3-9 in this one and took some horrendous shots along the way, not to mention forcing drives where they weren't going to work. It's hard as hell going from JuCo defenders and UMD to Louisville so it wasn't a surprise watching Morris struggle, but a big key to the season might be if Morris can adjust his game to be a more efficient and effective scorer against better defenses. The Gophers still need his ability to create offense, but he just has to do it in the flow of the offense, transition or half court. And no more contest long twos.
7. Crappy long 2-point jumpers are not how you win games. A lot of this is due to Louisville's stellar defense, but man did the Gophers take a lot of crappy shots. When the Gophers got out in transition and ran they did fine, but in the half court it was pretty brutal. The worst was when Mathieu, Walker, and Morris were all on the bench with two fouls in the first half (the horror!) and the Gophers simply could not initiate any kind of offense. Hollins came around in the second half just fine, but in the first he was very passive (I actually made the note "Hollins passive" but the second half wiped it out) and there was just no offense going on at all. Seemed more like a Tubby offense than a Pitino offense, but I suppose it doesn't really matter what you draw up if nobody can get inside that damn defense. Though it would be nice to at least work the ball around a bit rather than throwing that crappy long 2 up with 20 seconds left on the shot clock (*coughMorriscough*).
8. Josh Martin and Bakary Konate had rough intros to college ball. Granite, making your debut in a modified aircraft hanger in stifling hot weather in a foreign country against one of the best teams in the country is probably pretty tough, but yikes. They only played 10 total minutes, but in that time managed a couple of turnovers, a few bad fouls, several horrible defensive rotations, and Konate put up the single worst shot of the night by throwing up a half contested 18.5 foot jumper that shockingly didn't go in. I'm not worried about either freshmen as I'm sure they'll be fine against normal, human teams, I'm just saying it wasn't pretty. Even if it's understandable ugly is still ugly. Like a chick hit in the face with a frying pan.
9. The free throws, my god the free throws. The Gophers ended up hitting 20 of 33 free throws which is a horrible 61%, and they only got to that number by getting hot at the end. In a game with one billion fouls called it was maddening every time the Gophers got a chance at the line to help narrow the gap and ended up clanging away two free points again and again and yes I'm looking at you Nate Mason. I think the team was 8-18 at one point, and even if I'm making that up it was something similarly horrible to that. I'm sure it's stupid for a middle aged white nerd sitting on his couch to say how easy free throws are, but I'm going to anyway because I hit 83% in my high school career. I guess what I'm saying is, I probably could have played division I high major college ball. Probably.
10. I don't know what to say about Joey King. He clearly tries hard. He's changed himself from a perimeter obsessed mincing nancy to someone who does his best to be a real life power forward, and that's really admirable. He tries to bang around in the lane, tries to be a big time rebounder, gives it his all defensively, and has actually become a halfway decent scorer in the lane, and he still has his not horrible jumper. He really tries, but man there are times when his physical limitations are just glaring, like against Louisville. Anyone the Cardinals ran out there just ran and jumped circles around King, or pushed him around, or in the case of Harrell did all three. I've stopped hating him, but man it can be tough to watch when he's just getting brutalized and there's nothing he can do about it.
All in all the Gophers stuck pretty close with a Final Four contender and didn't roll over and die when it would have been pretty easy to just give up. I don't know how anyone can't be happy with that. Now we move on. Three games this week, but only Western Kentucky in the home opener Tuesday night is likely to put up any kind of fight. Then comes the big Thanksgiving tournament in New York, where they'll play St. John's and either Georgia or Gonzaga. Need to go 1-1 at worst.
I'll try to get a preview up for WKU, but no promises. I will not be doing a preview for Bernard Pierce or Mildred Pierce or whatever. I do have some standards.
Monday, November 3, 2014
Big Ten Basketball Preview: #4 Minnesota Golden Gophers
Hell I don't know. This feels both overly optimistic and totally right, so it's probably viciously wrong but I'm going with it. Every team I have ranked below the Gophers either has serious questions or serious flaws, and it's not like the Gophers are perfect or anything, but they're more settled than almost every team in the conference, aren't they? AREN'T THEY? They have 64% of their minutes back from last year, which I'm guessing without doing the math is fourth behind Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Penn State. They have their starting back court back, which can only be said by them Iowa, and kind of Northwestern and kind of Nebraska. They also have forwards and centers and stuff back. I hate being optimistic, but I'm optimistic.
The back court with Dre Hollins and DeAndre Mathieu might be the best in the conference. We all know Dre was a bit off last year after the ankle injury as he pretty much turned into a jump shooter, taking just 17% of his shots at the rim last year, which also dragged his field goal percentage down to a career low 38%. In fact, Hollins didn't make over 50% of his shots in any one of the team's last 7 games, and actually he shot just 24% from the floor during the team's NIT run. Obviously his health and return to form is going to be the major key to the Gophers' season. We know we don't have to worry about Mathieu, who is completely awesome and unstoppable in every way. If he looks for and improves his outside shot he's going to be an absolute star. I love him so much. Freshman Nate Mason sounds like a really fun player and should be able to fill in at either guard spot.
The paint is mostly set too, with the two headed monster of Elliott Eliason and Mo Walker at center. If the Gophers can get first half of season Elliott and second half of season Walker that's going to be one hell of a tandem. That out of nowhere five game run where Mo averaged 14 and 6 was pretty much the most fun thing about last year (besides Honey Gopher, of course) and the fact that it didn't come against the patsies but in the heart of the Big Ten schedule tells me he's for real. Hopefully Eliason's late season swoon isn't, or the Gophers will need more from freshman Bakary Konate than they're likely planning on, although early reports on him are positive.
Forward is where the questions lie with Minnesota, though there's plenty of bodies it's more how they'll fit. In an ideal world newcomers Carlos Morris and Josh Martin would be able to step in and start with Joey King paying his "offense off the bench" sixth man role and Konate, Charles Buggs, and Daquein McNeil, who will also add minutes at the 2, backing them up with Gaston Diedhiou hopefully getting himself eligible for the second semester. I think it's more likely King starts the season as the starting power forward which I don't love as he's a tweener between a 3 and 4 so it's not a perfect fit wherever you put him. He did clearly work last year to improve his power forward type of skills and you could see the positive results by season's end, so hopefully he's been doing more work. And getting like, more faster and jumpy and stuff.
Yep, Gophers still have plenty of questions, but they also have more answers than an awful lot of teams in the Big Ten. It feels very strange writing something this positive, and even though I believe it I also don't believe the Gophers could possibly finish 4th in the conference and have an NCAA bid sewed up prior to the B10 Tournament. Things never go that well for Minnesota teams, so I'm expected some kind of a major injury either around game 4, or one of the first few Big Ten games after a really good pre-conference start. It's bound to happen. It's science.
OTHER PREVIEWS:
#5 ILLINOIS FIGHTING ILLINI
#6 MICHIGAN
#7 MICHIGAN STATE
#8 IOWA HAWKEYES
#9 MARYLAND TERRAPINS
#10 INDIANA HOOSIERS
#11 PENN STATE NITTANY LIONS
#12 NORTHWESTERN WILDCATS
#13 PURDUE BOILERMAKERS
#14 RUTGERS SCARLET KNIGHTS
The back court with Dre Hollins and DeAndre Mathieu might be the best in the conference. We all know Dre was a bit off last year after the ankle injury as he pretty much turned into a jump shooter, taking just 17% of his shots at the rim last year, which also dragged his field goal percentage down to a career low 38%. In fact, Hollins didn't make over 50% of his shots in any one of the team's last 7 games, and actually he shot just 24% from the floor during the team's NIT run. Obviously his health and return to form is going to be the major key to the Gophers' season. We know we don't have to worry about Mathieu, who is completely awesome and unstoppable in every way. If he looks for and improves his outside shot he's going to be an absolute star. I love him so much. Freshman Nate Mason sounds like a really fun player and should be able to fill in at either guard spot.
The paint is mostly set too, with the two headed monster of Elliott Eliason and Mo Walker at center. If the Gophers can get first half of season Elliott and second half of season Walker that's going to be one hell of a tandem. That out of nowhere five game run where Mo averaged 14 and 6 was pretty much the most fun thing about last year (besides Honey Gopher, of course) and the fact that it didn't come against the patsies but in the heart of the Big Ten schedule tells me he's for real. Hopefully Eliason's late season swoon isn't, or the Gophers will need more from freshman Bakary Konate than they're likely planning on, although early reports on him are positive.
Forward is where the questions lie with Minnesota, though there's plenty of bodies it's more how they'll fit. In an ideal world newcomers Carlos Morris and Josh Martin would be able to step in and start with Joey King paying his "offense off the bench" sixth man role and Konate, Charles Buggs, and Daquein McNeil, who will also add minutes at the 2, backing them up with Gaston Diedhiou hopefully getting himself eligible for the second semester. I think it's more likely King starts the season as the starting power forward which I don't love as he's a tweener between a 3 and 4 so it's not a perfect fit wherever you put him. He did clearly work last year to improve his power forward type of skills and you could see the positive results by season's end, so hopefully he's been doing more work. And getting like, more faster and jumpy and stuff.
Yep, Gophers still have plenty of questions, but they also have more answers than an awful lot of teams in the Big Ten. It feels very strange writing something this positive, and even though I believe it I also don't believe the Gophers could possibly finish 4th in the conference and have an NCAA bid sewed up prior to the B10 Tournament. Things never go that well for Minnesota teams, so I'm expected some kind of a major injury either around game 4, or one of the first few Big Ten games after a really good pre-conference start. It's bound to happen. It's science.
OTHER PREVIEWS:
#5 ILLINOIS FIGHTING ILLINI
#6 MICHIGAN
#7 MICHIGAN STATE
#8 IOWA HAWKEYES
#9 MARYLAND TERRAPINS
#10 INDIANA HOOSIERS
#11 PENN STATE NITTANY LIONS
#12 NORTHWESTERN WILDCATS
#13 PURDUE BOILERMAKERS
#14 RUTGERS SCARLET KNIGHTS
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Gophers 81, Southern Miss 73
Good win, and on to Madison Square Garden. Here are 10 things I liked and didn't like about the Southern Miss game. And it's going to be fast, because I have some sweet 16 stuff I need to ignore my real work for tomorrow.
1. Obviously the A topic here is Austin Hollins's monster game. 32 points. 6-11 from 3. 2-3 from 2. 11-11 from the line. 4 assists and 3 steals with no turnovers to boot. Plus he was as active as I can ever remember seeing him, just running all over the court especially without the ball which is a place he can disengage from a game from time to time. Great going away game from Austin in his final game at the Barn and I'm glad he got to have a huge moment in front of the home crowd after he's been beaten up pretty hard by a certain segment of fans (*cough* gopherhole). A good well rounded player who cares as much about defense as offense is always a nice luxury to have and although I wouldn't call him a Gopher legend (he's no Stan Gaines) he will be sorely missed next season. I'd slot him somewhere below Damian Johnson and above Travarus Bennett. Pretty good spot to be in.
2. The other A topic should be the freaking horrible announcers and actually all around production by ESPN. Good lord are Dan Dakitch and whoever the other guy was terrible. How many times did they get Austin and Andre Hollins confused? And every time the Gophers had the ball all they could talk about was how the Gophers needed to get Austin the ball, even though I'm positive they meant Andre because they had no idea he wasn't 100% because I don't think - no, I know - neither of them has seen a Gopher game this year. Then what happens? The show a graphic to show Austin's great stats and the picture is Andre. Good lord we could have expected this in year 1 with both of them, but it's year 3. I was surprised, however, they never mentioned that they are brothers. Odd.
3. Great job handling pressure......until the last two minutes. The Gophers turned the ball over 10 times which for them I would consider good. But two of the ten came in the last two minutes and it felt like a lot more because the Gophers suddenly seemed all panicky. Southern Miss is a big time turnover creating team, which makes the overall numbers very impressive. I said they'd have to take care of the ball to win and they did. If they had played like this more often, well, we probably wouldn't have any more Gopher ball to watch, but we'd all be a lot happier with the season.
4. Someone in the middle of the zone - unstoppable. Against that matchup zone, and really any zone, is getting someone in the middle of the zone, right about the free throw line, and getting them the ball. Tonight it was usually either Joey King (more on him later) or Elliot Eliason there - when someone was there - and almost every time they got the ball either King hit a jumper or King or Eliason were able to find an open shooter, and the team was actually hitting open shots tonight so everybody was all smiling and stuff. Sadly, far too often nobody bothered to get in the middle, which is like why not? I would love to have some kind of breakdown of points per possession when they got a touch in the middle vs. not. One led to easy shots, the other a ton, and a mean a ton, of contested long jumpers and three pointers. Just some terrible shots tonight. Some great offense too. Schizo team, as usual.
5. The rebounding and defense kind of sucked. A 14-4 edge on the offensive rebounds is not very good, and letting Southern Miss shoot over 50% on twos is not ideal. No reason to harp on this, because it's been a season long theme, luckily tonight their offense was good enough to overcome it. Moving on.
6. This Mavsurgence is not real. Mav has made some headlines after scoring 21 in the first round game against High Point, but that was High Point. Since then he's come back to normal but is at least hitting his shots which is really his only role or should be. Tonight he had a possession where he basically like, kicked the ball away from himself and then fell down. It felt like a metaphor for something, but I'm not sure what.
7. Joey King is good? Seriously, is he? I hated him at first, he slowly won me over, but after scoring 15 points tonight that makes four straight games in double figures, which I'm told is the first time he's done that in his career, I'm wondering if he's actually good. Like, starting Big 10 caliber good? He looked awfully good as the middle guy against the zone, he's started to get better from three without relying on it, he's gone from zero post moves to something like 0.8 post moves, and just, stopped being such a tit. I can't believe I might be a fan. Not what I was expecting.
8. Dre Hollins is still broken. He's shooting like shit, yes at 6-38 in his last four games (not a misprint) but other than a down tick because he can't get to the rim as easily as he used to that's not what I'm talking about. There were two plays tonight that made it crystal clear he doesn't have the burst he did before he hurt his ankle. One was a run out where he had one of those one on two breaks but the two are out of position so you generally take it right at the rim and he tried but was turned back because he was too slow and the other was a trap towards the end of the game that he usually would be able to dribble out of with his quickness but was unable to. It makes this win (and the last one) even more impressive by the Gophers doing it with a best player who is max at 90% of his capability. Hopefully he's all back next year.
9. I am far too excited about Mo Walker next year. I can't get over about how good he's been since his breakout against Ohio State. He's learned to trust his body and can just bull his way into lay-ups, even against good defenders. He's got a semi decent jumper out to about 16 feet, and he can pass the ball very well for a man his size. If he adds 1-2 post moves other than his jump hook and the drop step lower your shoulder he could end up nearly unstoppable. Generally I don't trust college kids to work all that hard because I remember being a college kid, but this is a guy who lost 60 pounds or whatever, I can see him busting his ass to add a dream shake and a fall away or something. So excited. Unreasonably so.
10. Why not win it I guess. The NIT mostly sucks. It's hard to care about, you play mediocre teams who you have no idea whether they're at all interested, and many of the games run up against NCAA games and as such go unwatched. But hell, as long as you're stuck in it you might as well win it, right? And wins over St. Mary's and Southern Miss are nice wins you can build on? I don't know. The Gophers are still playing, and god help me I'm still watching. Let's hope they win two more.
1. Obviously the A topic here is Austin Hollins's monster game. 32 points. 6-11 from 3. 2-3 from 2. 11-11 from the line. 4 assists and 3 steals with no turnovers to boot. Plus he was as active as I can ever remember seeing him, just running all over the court especially without the ball which is a place he can disengage from a game from time to time. Great going away game from Austin in his final game at the Barn and I'm glad he got to have a huge moment in front of the home crowd after he's been beaten up pretty hard by a certain segment of fans (*cough* gopherhole). A good well rounded player who cares as much about defense as offense is always a nice luxury to have and although I wouldn't call him a Gopher legend (he's no Stan Gaines) he will be sorely missed next season. I'd slot him somewhere below Damian Johnson and above Travarus Bennett. Pretty good spot to be in.
2. The other A topic should be the freaking horrible announcers and actually all around production by ESPN. Good lord are Dan Dakitch and whoever the other guy was terrible. How many times did they get Austin and Andre Hollins confused? And every time the Gophers had the ball all they could talk about was how the Gophers needed to get Austin the ball, even though I'm positive they meant Andre because they had no idea he wasn't 100% because I don't think - no, I know - neither of them has seen a Gopher game this year. Then what happens? The show a graphic to show Austin's great stats and the picture is Andre. Good lord we could have expected this in year 1 with both of them, but it's year 3. I was surprised, however, they never mentioned that they are brothers. Odd.
3. Great job handling pressure......until the last two minutes. The Gophers turned the ball over 10 times which for them I would consider good. But two of the ten came in the last two minutes and it felt like a lot more because the Gophers suddenly seemed all panicky. Southern Miss is a big time turnover creating team, which makes the overall numbers very impressive. I said they'd have to take care of the ball to win and they did. If they had played like this more often, well, we probably wouldn't have any more Gopher ball to watch, but we'd all be a lot happier with the season.
4. Someone in the middle of the zone - unstoppable. Against that matchup zone, and really any zone, is getting someone in the middle of the zone, right about the free throw line, and getting them the ball. Tonight it was usually either Joey King (more on him later) or Elliot Eliason there - when someone was there - and almost every time they got the ball either King hit a jumper or King or Eliason were able to find an open shooter, and the team was actually hitting open shots tonight so everybody was all smiling and stuff. Sadly, far too often nobody bothered to get in the middle, which is like why not? I would love to have some kind of breakdown of points per possession when they got a touch in the middle vs. not. One led to easy shots, the other a ton, and a mean a ton, of contested long jumpers and three pointers. Just some terrible shots tonight. Some great offense too. Schizo team, as usual.
5. The rebounding and defense kind of sucked. A 14-4 edge on the offensive rebounds is not very good, and letting Southern Miss shoot over 50% on twos is not ideal. No reason to harp on this, because it's been a season long theme, luckily tonight their offense was good enough to overcome it. Moving on.
6. This Mavsurgence is not real. Mav has made some headlines after scoring 21 in the first round game against High Point, but that was High Point. Since then he's come back to normal but is at least hitting his shots which is really his only role or should be. Tonight he had a possession where he basically like, kicked the ball away from himself and then fell down. It felt like a metaphor for something, but I'm not sure what.
7. Joey King is good? Seriously, is he? I hated him at first, he slowly won me over, but after scoring 15 points tonight that makes four straight games in double figures, which I'm told is the first time he's done that in his career, I'm wondering if he's actually good. Like, starting Big 10 caliber good? He looked awfully good as the middle guy against the zone, he's started to get better from three without relying on it, he's gone from zero post moves to something like 0.8 post moves, and just, stopped being such a tit. I can't believe I might be a fan. Not what I was expecting.
8. Dre Hollins is still broken. He's shooting like shit, yes at 6-38 in his last four games (not a misprint) but other than a down tick because he can't get to the rim as easily as he used to that's not what I'm talking about. There were two plays tonight that made it crystal clear he doesn't have the burst he did before he hurt his ankle. One was a run out where he had one of those one on two breaks but the two are out of position so you generally take it right at the rim and he tried but was turned back because he was too slow and the other was a trap towards the end of the game that he usually would be able to dribble out of with his quickness but was unable to. It makes this win (and the last one) even more impressive by the Gophers doing it with a best player who is max at 90% of his capability. Hopefully he's all back next year.
9. I am far too excited about Mo Walker next year. I can't get over about how good he's been since his breakout against Ohio State. He's learned to trust his body and can just bull his way into lay-ups, even against good defenders. He's got a semi decent jumper out to about 16 feet, and he can pass the ball very well for a man his size. If he adds 1-2 post moves other than his jump hook and the drop step lower your shoulder he could end up nearly unstoppable. Generally I don't trust college kids to work all that hard because I remember being a college kid, but this is a guy who lost 60 pounds or whatever, I can see him busting his ass to add a dream shake and a fall away or something. So excited. Unreasonably so.
10. Why not win it I guess. The NIT mostly sucks. It's hard to care about, you play mediocre teams who you have no idea whether they're at all interested, and many of the games run up against NCAA games and as such go unwatched. But hell, as long as you're stuck in it you might as well win it, right? And wins over St. Mary's and Southern Miss are nice wins you can build on? I don't know. The Gophers are still playing, and god help me I'm still watching. Let's hope they win two more.
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Illinois 62, Minnesota 49
Ok, whatever, I'm over it. I'm surprising myself here by actually writing about this game, but I guess I'm so numb to disappointment as a Gopher fan that like, no big whoop. So here are 10 things I liked and didn't like about the Illinois game.
1. First off, the defense was fine. There are plenty of ugly stretches you can blame on the Gophers' defense this year, but last night wasn't one of them. Kendrck Nunn torched them and the Illini hit 8 of 13 threes, and giving up 1.09 points per possession isn't ideal, but then again giving up 1.09 ppp to a team that hit 62% of it's threes isn't bad. Minnesota held Illinois to 34% on 2-pointers and created a turnover on a respectable 19% of the Illini's possessions. And, contrary to brain dead Shon Morris's contention, most of those threes were tough shots. One or two might have come from a defensive breakdown (I remember one by Mo in the corner) but in general Illinois was hitting tough shots from deep. Sucks.
2. The Gopher offense was horrendous. Obvious enough to anybody watching, but Illinois played the same style defense the Gophers did, sagging in the paint to take away the drive and daring the Gophers to shoot. And boy did they fall for it. They hit a very nice 58% from 2, but took 25 freaking three pointers, hitting just four, and turned the ball over 26% of the time leading to a disastrous 0.86 points per possession which will never, ever win a game. This was one of the ugliest games I can remember watching in quite a while.
3. The whole team was embarrassingly flat last night and just totally out of it. How many balls went through hands? How many passes were off the mark? How many loose balls did the Gophers come up with? Most importantly, how the hell do you get called twice for not stepping all the way out of bounds to throw the ball in after a made Illini bucket? Twice! It rarely happens at all. The refs generally give a generous amount of leeway on that play, but the two called on the Gophers last night were so egregious the refs had no choice but to call them. I'm not even sure Eliason had one foot out of bounds on the one they called on him, let alone two. Just an embarrassing game in every respect.
4. Has Andre Hollins lost his point guard skills? I know DeAndre Mathieu is definitely the #1 point guard with Hollins the shooting guard, but wasn't the plan for Hollins to be the PG when Matheiu is on the bench? His assist numbers are drastically down, and last night he became Malik Smith, putting up 13 shots with 11 of them coming from three. Maybe it's an ankle issue, but he's looked fine the last two games, at least in that respect. The Gophers have two players who can create their own shot and create shots for others, and when one of them becomes a stand still jump shooter there are going to be problems.
5. Maybe we should do away with the autosit in the first half with two fouls. It's clear at this point that Mathieu is the team's most important player and per my previous point the offense stagnates when he's not on the floor, so maybe playing an entire 12 minutes stretch without him isn't the best thing to do. The Gophers led 14-3 when he went out with his second foul. There is nothing worse to me than sticking to dumb, rigid rules. It was clear the Gophers needed Mathieu back in before Illinois crawled all the way back, but because "the book" says to sit 'em the first half if he has two fouls he never got back off the bench. Stupid.
6. Mo Walker is becoming unstoppable. Last night 5-7 shooting for 10 points, and one of the prettiest moves I can remember seeing from any Gopher post man in quite some time. Against Maverick Morgan he was able to use his size and strength to just bull his way to the rim, and against Egwu he used great footwork, footwork I didn't know he had, to get his shots. Walker needs to become a focal point, if not the focal point, of this offense going forward, and I don't mean as the screener on pick-and-rolls. The PF picking Walker's man on one block to spring him going across the lane and establishing position on the other block needs to be a staple for this team for the next two years.
7. I started the year hating Joey King, but I seem to find myself writing positive things about him every time I write lately. His offensive game continues to blossom week-by-week as he understands more and more that the team needs him to be a power forward and not just a three point specialist. He's added a little bit of a post game, which I wrote about last time, and in this game he did a really nice job passing the ball out of the high post, even totaling what I assume is a career high 4 assists. The one thing he does that is killing me is when he pump fakes at the three point line and gets his man to leave his feet - and then does nothing or just passes it off. Freaking put the ball on the ground and move, man! Even if it's just to side step and shoot a three do something! You've gained an advantage, don't squander it.
8. King's counterpart, however, was pretty much ignored and invisible. If you watched last night the Gophers ran several pick and rolls with Oto as the screener, and none of them came close to working on any level because Illinois didn't care what Oto did. Every time he'd pop out to the wing, but Illinois's defense would just double the ball handler and force him the other way. Oto would do the right thing and cut baseline to the opposite corner, but it was such an aggressive double team I think they managed to find him exactly once for a possible shot, which ended up either a turnover or a missed shot I don't remember. Might have been nice to actually roll towards the basket and see if that opened something up elsewhere, because the way they ran this with Oto it was worthless.
9. Daquein McNeil is going to be really good. If nothing else he's going to be a heady, smart guard and a plus defender. I don't think he's ever going to be a really dynamic scorer or distributor, but he should develop into the kind of off guard who can knock down the open shot, drive if it's there, and limit his mistakes. Take that along with his tremendous defense already, which should just get better, and he's got real potential. We've seen him play good defense in spurts, and he did a great job against Drew Crawford in the Northwestern game, but now he's getting more consistent with it. I noticed last night that he does a thing Aaron Craft is really good at in that he can sneak between his man and a ball screen, reducing the need for any kind of hedge while at the same time avoiding going under the screen and giving up a possible open jumper. It's a valuable skill, and McNeil already seems to have it.
10. Now we can relax. There certainly isn't a bright side to this loss, but if you stretch far enough to can at least talk yourself into thinking you'll enjoy the games more now that you can watch the rest of the games stress free. There's now zero reason to expect the Gophers to make the NCAA Tournament this year, and the really sad thing is it's not their performance against the top tier teams that's keeping them out, but a combined 2-4 against Nebraska, Northwestern, Purdue, and Illinois. With a very difficult schedule the rest of the way just sit back and enjoy the ride, and enjoy speculating on what teams we might get to see at the Barn in the NIT/CBI/CIT.
It's going to be nice for me to not worry too much about it the next couple of weeks because I'm going to be on a bit of a whirlwind. Next week I will be in New Mexico for the entire week (hopefully I'll get up to some drunk posting like old times), then I'm back for half a week and off to Florida for vacation for a week and a half. So it'll be nice to not be obsessing over the Gophers. Expect posts from New Mexico for sure, and probably one or two at least from Florida, just don't expect them to be 100% Gopher stuff. Kind of liberating.
1. First off, the defense was fine. There are plenty of ugly stretches you can blame on the Gophers' defense this year, but last night wasn't one of them. Kendrck Nunn torched them and the Illini hit 8 of 13 threes, and giving up 1.09 points per possession isn't ideal, but then again giving up 1.09 ppp to a team that hit 62% of it's threes isn't bad. Minnesota held Illinois to 34% on 2-pointers and created a turnover on a respectable 19% of the Illini's possessions. And, contrary to brain dead Shon Morris's contention, most of those threes were tough shots. One or two might have come from a defensive breakdown (I remember one by Mo in the corner) but in general Illinois was hitting tough shots from deep. Sucks.
2. The Gopher offense was horrendous. Obvious enough to anybody watching, but Illinois played the same style defense the Gophers did, sagging in the paint to take away the drive and daring the Gophers to shoot. And boy did they fall for it. They hit a very nice 58% from 2, but took 25 freaking three pointers, hitting just four, and turned the ball over 26% of the time leading to a disastrous 0.86 points per possession which will never, ever win a game. This was one of the ugliest games I can remember watching in quite a while.
3. The whole team was embarrassingly flat last night and just totally out of it. How many balls went through hands? How many passes were off the mark? How many loose balls did the Gophers come up with? Most importantly, how the hell do you get called twice for not stepping all the way out of bounds to throw the ball in after a made Illini bucket? Twice! It rarely happens at all. The refs generally give a generous amount of leeway on that play, but the two called on the Gophers last night were so egregious the refs had no choice but to call them. I'm not even sure Eliason had one foot out of bounds on the one they called on him, let alone two. Just an embarrassing game in every respect.
4. Has Andre Hollins lost his point guard skills? I know DeAndre Mathieu is definitely the #1 point guard with Hollins the shooting guard, but wasn't the plan for Hollins to be the PG when Matheiu is on the bench? His assist numbers are drastically down, and last night he became Malik Smith, putting up 13 shots with 11 of them coming from three. Maybe it's an ankle issue, but he's looked fine the last two games, at least in that respect. The Gophers have two players who can create their own shot and create shots for others, and when one of them becomes a stand still jump shooter there are going to be problems.
5. Maybe we should do away with the autosit in the first half with two fouls. It's clear at this point that Mathieu is the team's most important player and per my previous point the offense stagnates when he's not on the floor, so maybe playing an entire 12 minutes stretch without him isn't the best thing to do. The Gophers led 14-3 when he went out with his second foul. There is nothing worse to me than sticking to dumb, rigid rules. It was clear the Gophers needed Mathieu back in before Illinois crawled all the way back, but because "the book" says to sit 'em the first half if he has two fouls he never got back off the bench. Stupid.
6. Mo Walker is becoming unstoppable. Last night 5-7 shooting for 10 points, and one of the prettiest moves I can remember seeing from any Gopher post man in quite some time. Against Maverick Morgan he was able to use his size and strength to just bull his way to the rim, and against Egwu he used great footwork, footwork I didn't know he had, to get his shots. Walker needs to become a focal point, if not the focal point, of this offense going forward, and I don't mean as the screener on pick-and-rolls. The PF picking Walker's man on one block to spring him going across the lane and establishing position on the other block needs to be a staple for this team for the next two years.
7. I started the year hating Joey King, but I seem to find myself writing positive things about him every time I write lately. His offensive game continues to blossom week-by-week as he understands more and more that the team needs him to be a power forward and not just a three point specialist. He's added a little bit of a post game, which I wrote about last time, and in this game he did a really nice job passing the ball out of the high post, even totaling what I assume is a career high 4 assists. The one thing he does that is killing me is when he pump fakes at the three point line and gets his man to leave his feet - and then does nothing or just passes it off. Freaking put the ball on the ground and move, man! Even if it's just to side step and shoot a three do something! You've gained an advantage, don't squander it.
8. King's counterpart, however, was pretty much ignored and invisible. If you watched last night the Gophers ran several pick and rolls with Oto as the screener, and none of them came close to working on any level because Illinois didn't care what Oto did. Every time he'd pop out to the wing, but Illinois's defense would just double the ball handler and force him the other way. Oto would do the right thing and cut baseline to the opposite corner, but it was such an aggressive double team I think they managed to find him exactly once for a possible shot, which ended up either a turnover or a missed shot I don't remember. Might have been nice to actually roll towards the basket and see if that opened something up elsewhere, because the way they ran this with Oto it was worthless.
9. Daquein McNeil is going to be really good. If nothing else he's going to be a heady, smart guard and a plus defender. I don't think he's ever going to be a really dynamic scorer or distributor, but he should develop into the kind of off guard who can knock down the open shot, drive if it's there, and limit his mistakes. Take that along with his tremendous defense already, which should just get better, and he's got real potential. We've seen him play good defense in spurts, and he did a great job against Drew Crawford in the Northwestern game, but now he's getting more consistent with it. I noticed last night that he does a thing Aaron Craft is really good at in that he can sneak between his man and a ball screen, reducing the need for any kind of hedge while at the same time avoiding going under the screen and giving up a possible open jumper. It's a valuable skill, and McNeil already seems to have it.
10. Now we can relax. There certainly isn't a bright side to this loss, but if you stretch far enough to can at least talk yourself into thinking you'll enjoy the games more now that you can watch the rest of the games stress free. There's now zero reason to expect the Gophers to make the NCAA Tournament this year, and the really sad thing is it's not their performance against the top tier teams that's keeping them out, but a combined 2-4 against Nebraska, Northwestern, Purdue, and Illinois. With a very difficult schedule the rest of the way just sit back and enjoy the ride, and enjoy speculating on what teams we might get to see at the Barn in the NIT/CBI/CIT.
It's going to be nice for me to not worry too much about it the next couple of weeks because I'm going to be on a bit of a whirlwind. Next week I will be in New Mexico for the entire week (hopefully I'll get up to some drunk posting like old times), then I'm back for half a week and off to Florida for vacation for a week and a half. So it'll be nice to not be obsessing over the Gophers. Expect posts from New Mexico for sure, and probably one or two at least from Florida, just don't expect them to be 100% Gopher stuff. Kind of liberating.
Sunday, February 9, 2014
Gophers 66, Indiana 60
I wouldn't call this a great win, but it's a good one and one they absolutely had to have to keep the NCAA dream alive. As with most wins, there was plenty of good to come out of it. Here are the 10 things I liked and didn't like about the game:
1. It may be time to mostly scrap the zone. I know it's Pitino's preferred defensive style, but it simply isn't working. Indiana is a team that struggles against zone defenses most of the time, but they were able to shred the Gophers in the first half. To Pitino's credit he went man-to-man for the second half, and the Gophers played great defense which basically won them the game. This team has the athletes to play killer man-to-man against anybody, and big enough centers to handle anyone in the Big 10 one-on-one, or at least not get killed. However in a zone the guards are too short, they don't really have a true rim protector, and power forward is a basically an empty space when it comes to rebounding. Hopefully we'll see man-to-man going forward, with a mix of zone thrown in here and there simply to change up looks and hopefully throw the opponent's offense out of whack. This kind of sounds like a negative I guess, but what I'm trying to say is that this team has played some awesome man-to-man a few times this year, and they can do it against anybody. I'm hopeful we see more of it.
2. DeAndre Matheiu's jump stop/euro step/slide through and body control are simply amazing. I don't know exactly what you'd call it because it's not a true euro step, but you know what I'm talking about. It's that thing where he drives, does a jump stop and then kind of slithers to the rim with his two steps, and that combined with his ability to create space between him and the help defense by initiating just enough contact and then make lay-ups from bizarre angles is nothing short of magnificent. Yeah, I said magnificent. There have been a lot of Gopher players I've loved throughout all my years of watching (and plenty I've hated as well) but I'm having an awfully hard time thinking of anybody as flat out enjoyable as the Honey Gopher. Rodney Williams had his highlight dunks and Blake Hoffarber was fun as hell when he was hot, and I was always a fan of guys who could play inside and outside like Sam Jacobson and Michael Bauer. The all-timers like Bobby Jackson and Willie Burton were pretty consistently great, and it's fun seeing guys who get so much better from year to year like Eric Harris and Damian Johnson, but I really, really enjoy watching Mathieu right now.
3. It is absolutely criminal how Tom Crean does nothing to get Noah Vonleh the ball. I mean this guy is an absolute beast. As my buddy $nake said at the game, he already looks like Antonio McDyess. Add in a nice shooting touch, some good handles (that little shake and bake he did in the second half was like whoa), and some decent creativity around the rim and he should be getting the ball on the block almost every possession for that team. Instead all the offense he gets he has to create himself because Crean's idea of coaching seems to be "Hey Yogi go run around and then either shoot or throw it to somebody at random but mostly shoot." One of the biggest possessions of the game for Indiana at the end and his team clearly had zero idea what to do yet he waits until 7 seconds left on the shot clock to finally call a timeout? Then he diagrams up.......nothing. Seriously, the guy is absolutely terrible.
4. For all the bitching and kvetching about the new rules, I've barely noticed the change. Teams pretty much adapted quickly, and for the most part everything is hunky dory. What really made me remember there are new rules however, is the lack of enforcement of the new rules in this game. I can't remember seeing a game this physical with little to nothing called all season, and I didn't mind it. Just 28 fouls called in the entire game between the two teams, and without bothering to look it up I'm going to guess that's the fewest in any Gopher game this season. There could have been a lot more called, but what's his face, the bald guy, and the other one decided to let the boys play. I really don't care if a game is called tightly or loosely (though I prefer loosely) as long as it's called evenly on both ends of the court, and this one was. Good times, ref guys.
5. I have nothing left to say about Mo Walker. Nothing. His transformation into a legitimate Big Ten big man with possible all-Big 10 potential next season is nothing short of remarkable. Another big game (14 points, 8 rebs) against a quality opposing big man. He showed some flashes of skill when he was a freshman but was saddled with all that extra weight, and then shortly after that he had basically no mobility recovering from that knee injury. Now, with the pounds gone and a healthy knee he looks downright unstoppable at times. If he takes the time in the offseason and makes that jumper we saw against Purdue a reliable weapon and develops one or two go to moves in the post he could be a legitimate destructive forced next season. Of course, all this has come at the expense of Eliason, who has started to look tentative out there and is a shell of what he was to open the season. Would be pretty stellar to get both of these guys running hot at the same time.
6. For the second straight game Pitino dropped the ball on calling a timeout down the stretch. Last game, against Purdue, I thought a timeout should have been taken to set up a play when it was clear the Matheiu pick and rolls weren't working. This game, they really needed a timeout taken when Dre Hollins was trapped along his own baseline by 3 guys, one of which was the aforementioned gigantic athletic Noah Vonleh, considering there were 40 seconds left and they were only up 4. Hollins had no help (I think 3 Gophers were on the wrong side of the floor), he had already picked up his dribble, and he was trapped between the baseline and three Hoosiers - basically the absolute worst possible situation. It's bad enough that Hollins didn't call a timeout, but the fact that Pitino didn't call one - remember, the coach can call one at any time when his team has the ball - is just terrible. I don't know if you chalk this one up to coach's inexperience or what, but predictably Vonleh got the steal and the bucket, and it could have cost the Gophers the game. In most phases Coach Pitino has impressed me, but his late game management needs work.
7. Joey King is impressing me a little tiny bit on offense. I still cringe a little bit when he posts up and still say "Joey no!" more often that I'd like, but I can't deny he's getting better. I'm not really sure about his footwork in the post, and he only seems to have the one move where he fakes a turnaround and then tries to go up and under a little bit, but that's more moves than he had at the start of the season. My biggest concern with King was everything I had heard about him was he was basically going to be nothing but a perimeter guy, so the fact that he's playing in the post and appears to be working on that facet of his game is a great sign. His defense is still going to give me a stroke, and one of Indiana's first baskets came when they were coming down in a three on two situation and instead of getting in proper defensive position King peeled off to pick up his man leading to an open lay up for the Hoosiers, but I am far more of a King fan now than I was before.
8. The Gopher guards showed some good patience. Indiana was really aggressive after a pick in some cases, basically turning a hard hedge into a full on trap of the Gopher with the ball. The guards generally kept their heads and were able to move the ball to a safer location, which led to Indiana scrambling and resulted in some open shots. Twice I recall whoever had the ball not only avoiding getting trapped, but keeping the ball and passing lanes open long enough for the roller to get into the lane and then hitting said roller for a wide open dunk. It was great patience and vision by the guards, and of course absolutely shitty defense by Indiana as nobody rotated to pick up the roller which is defense 101, but just because Crean is a dumpster fire of a coach is no reason to not be impressed by how the Gophers handled pressure.
9. There was a guy there in a custom made Hosea Crittendon jersey. I have so many questions. Did he buy this back in 1995 and is still wearing it nearly 20 years later? How much does it cost to get a custom made Gopher jersey? How much back in '95? Why a white one instead of the more classic gold? Does he own more custom made jerseys of semi-obscure Gophers like Antoine Broxsie, Wade Hokenson, or Sunshine Esselink? Does he wear it like, to the grocery store or on casual Friday at work? Do other people recognize it and high five him at the gas station? I need answers.
10. Big road trip coming up next. The Gophers head to Wisconsin and Northwestern now, and both of these games are important. The Gophers, in my estimation, need to get to 9 wins in conference play in order to feel safe about an NCAA bid going into the Big Ten Tournament. I consider there to be three absolute must wins: @Northwestern, vs. Illinois, and vs. Penn State. That gets them to 8, which means they need to steal another game, and beating Wisconsin in Madison might actually be the easiest one to steal. If the road trip ends up 0-2, well, we can go ahead and stop stressing out about this season, because she's over.
1. It may be time to mostly scrap the zone. I know it's Pitino's preferred defensive style, but it simply isn't working. Indiana is a team that struggles against zone defenses most of the time, but they were able to shred the Gophers in the first half. To Pitino's credit he went man-to-man for the second half, and the Gophers played great defense which basically won them the game. This team has the athletes to play killer man-to-man against anybody, and big enough centers to handle anyone in the Big 10 one-on-one, or at least not get killed. However in a zone the guards are too short, they don't really have a true rim protector, and power forward is a basically an empty space when it comes to rebounding. Hopefully we'll see man-to-man going forward, with a mix of zone thrown in here and there simply to change up looks and hopefully throw the opponent's offense out of whack. This kind of sounds like a negative I guess, but what I'm trying to say is that this team has played some awesome man-to-man a few times this year, and they can do it against anybody. I'm hopeful we see more of it.
2. DeAndre Matheiu's jump stop/euro step/slide through and body control are simply amazing. I don't know exactly what you'd call it because it's not a true euro step, but you know what I'm talking about. It's that thing where he drives, does a jump stop and then kind of slithers to the rim with his two steps, and that combined with his ability to create space between him and the help defense by initiating just enough contact and then make lay-ups from bizarre angles is nothing short of magnificent. Yeah, I said magnificent. There have been a lot of Gopher players I've loved throughout all my years of watching (and plenty I've hated as well) but I'm having an awfully hard time thinking of anybody as flat out enjoyable as the Honey Gopher. Rodney Williams had his highlight dunks and Blake Hoffarber was fun as hell when he was hot, and I was always a fan of guys who could play inside and outside like Sam Jacobson and Michael Bauer. The all-timers like Bobby Jackson and Willie Burton were pretty consistently great, and it's fun seeing guys who get so much better from year to year like Eric Harris and Damian Johnson, but I really, really enjoy watching Mathieu right now.
3. It is absolutely criminal how Tom Crean does nothing to get Noah Vonleh the ball. I mean this guy is an absolute beast. As my buddy $nake said at the game, he already looks like Antonio McDyess. Add in a nice shooting touch, some good handles (that little shake and bake he did in the second half was like whoa), and some decent creativity around the rim and he should be getting the ball on the block almost every possession for that team. Instead all the offense he gets he has to create himself because Crean's idea of coaching seems to be "Hey Yogi go run around and then either shoot or throw it to somebody at random but mostly shoot." One of the biggest possessions of the game for Indiana at the end and his team clearly had zero idea what to do yet he waits until 7 seconds left on the shot clock to finally call a timeout? Then he diagrams up.......nothing. Seriously, the guy is absolutely terrible.
4. For all the bitching and kvetching about the new rules, I've barely noticed the change. Teams pretty much adapted quickly, and for the most part everything is hunky dory. What really made me remember there are new rules however, is the lack of enforcement of the new rules in this game. I can't remember seeing a game this physical with little to nothing called all season, and I didn't mind it. Just 28 fouls called in the entire game between the two teams, and without bothering to look it up I'm going to guess that's the fewest in any Gopher game this season. There could have been a lot more called, but what's his face, the bald guy, and the other one decided to let the boys play. I really don't care if a game is called tightly or loosely (though I prefer loosely) as long as it's called evenly on both ends of the court, and this one was. Good times, ref guys.
5. I have nothing left to say about Mo Walker. Nothing. His transformation into a legitimate Big Ten big man with possible all-Big 10 potential next season is nothing short of remarkable. Another big game (14 points, 8 rebs) against a quality opposing big man. He showed some flashes of skill when he was a freshman but was saddled with all that extra weight, and then shortly after that he had basically no mobility recovering from that knee injury. Now, with the pounds gone and a healthy knee he looks downright unstoppable at times. If he takes the time in the offseason and makes that jumper we saw against Purdue a reliable weapon and develops one or two go to moves in the post he could be a legitimate destructive forced next season. Of course, all this has come at the expense of Eliason, who has started to look tentative out there and is a shell of what he was to open the season. Would be pretty stellar to get both of these guys running hot at the same time.
6. For the second straight game Pitino dropped the ball on calling a timeout down the stretch. Last game, against Purdue, I thought a timeout should have been taken to set up a play when it was clear the Matheiu pick and rolls weren't working. This game, they really needed a timeout taken when Dre Hollins was trapped along his own baseline by 3 guys, one of which was the aforementioned gigantic athletic Noah Vonleh, considering there were 40 seconds left and they were only up 4. Hollins had no help (I think 3 Gophers were on the wrong side of the floor), he had already picked up his dribble, and he was trapped between the baseline and three Hoosiers - basically the absolute worst possible situation. It's bad enough that Hollins didn't call a timeout, but the fact that Pitino didn't call one - remember, the coach can call one at any time when his team has the ball - is just terrible. I don't know if you chalk this one up to coach's inexperience or what, but predictably Vonleh got the steal and the bucket, and it could have cost the Gophers the game. In most phases Coach Pitino has impressed me, but his late game management needs work.
7. Joey King is impressing me a little tiny bit on offense. I still cringe a little bit when he posts up and still say "Joey no!" more often that I'd like, but I can't deny he's getting better. I'm not really sure about his footwork in the post, and he only seems to have the one move where he fakes a turnaround and then tries to go up and under a little bit, but that's more moves than he had at the start of the season. My biggest concern with King was everything I had heard about him was he was basically going to be nothing but a perimeter guy, so the fact that he's playing in the post and appears to be working on that facet of his game is a great sign. His defense is still going to give me a stroke, and one of Indiana's first baskets came when they were coming down in a three on two situation and instead of getting in proper defensive position King peeled off to pick up his man leading to an open lay up for the Hoosiers, but I am far more of a King fan now than I was before.
8. The Gopher guards showed some good patience. Indiana was really aggressive after a pick in some cases, basically turning a hard hedge into a full on trap of the Gopher with the ball. The guards generally kept their heads and were able to move the ball to a safer location, which led to Indiana scrambling and resulted in some open shots. Twice I recall whoever had the ball not only avoiding getting trapped, but keeping the ball and passing lanes open long enough for the roller to get into the lane and then hitting said roller for a wide open dunk. It was great patience and vision by the guards, and of course absolutely shitty defense by Indiana as nobody rotated to pick up the roller which is defense 101, but just because Crean is a dumpster fire of a coach is no reason to not be impressed by how the Gophers handled pressure.
9. There was a guy there in a custom made Hosea Crittendon jersey. I have so many questions. Did he buy this back in 1995 and is still wearing it nearly 20 years later? How much does it cost to get a custom made Gopher jersey? How much back in '95? Why a white one instead of the more classic gold? Does he own more custom made jerseys of semi-obscure Gophers like Antoine Broxsie, Wade Hokenson, or Sunshine Esselink? Does he wear it like, to the grocery store or on casual Friday at work? Do other people recognize it and high five him at the gas station? I need answers.
10. Big road trip coming up next. The Gophers head to Wisconsin and Northwestern now, and both of these games are important. The Gophers, in my estimation, need to get to 9 wins in conference play in order to feel safe about an NCAA bid going into the Big Ten Tournament. I consider there to be three absolute must wins: @Northwestern, vs. Illinois, and vs. Penn State. That gets them to 8, which means they need to steal another game, and beating Wisconsin in Madison might actually be the easiest one to steal. If the road trip ends up 0-2, well, we can go ahead and stop stressing out about this season, because she's over.
Thursday, February 6, 2014
Purdue 77, Minnesota 74
Blah blah balh let's just get to the 10 things I liked and mostly didn't like.
1. First off, as most triple overtimes games are this one was heart breaking. The bad part is it wasn't heart breaking in a "they battled their asses off just couldn't get the win" way or a "man they really did everything they could it just wasn't enough" way. It was heart breaking in a "Purdue did everything they could to not win and they're really terrible and the Gophers are just more terrible" way. The worst part is that at no time from the last five minutes through the three overtimes did I expect the Gophers to win. We've been conditioned to expect terrible Februaries, and it's looking like the team has been as well. I hoped that would all change with the new coach, and hopefully it still will. Just maybe not this year.
2. Rebounding. God damn rebounding. It's going to be everyone's point about this game and you know how the public is generally wrong about everything? Well they're right this time and god dammit. Purdue grabbed 23 offensive rebounds, which means they got the ball back on 46% of their missed shots - that's a ridiculous number. Lest you think we can just pin this on the big men, Ronnie and Terone Johnson combined for 8 offensive boards on their own, which tells me the guards for the Gophers aren't doing any work when the ball goes up. We know the Gophers have rebounding issues, and we know Purdue is a great offensive rebounding team (moved from #2 in the Big 10 to #1 after last night) but god that was just disgusting to watch.
3. The zone defense was just swiss cheese. Nothing but holes, baby. The hope was to pack in the zone and let Purdue throw up brick after brick from the outside, but they played smart last night. The Gopher zone was a little more extended than I would have liked, and it left the middle wide open time after time after time. After some initial struggles, probably because they were confused that they kept getting the ball with nobody on them in a strong position, Sterling Carter and Terone Johnson played the zone like a fiddle, scoring when it was available and finding and open teammate when it wasn't. It was basically a clinic on how to score against a zone when you're terrible.
4. Of course the switch to man didn't go much better. Then it just became Ronnie Johnson penetrating off a screen and finding an open teammate, or if not him then Carter. The Gopher interior defense kept having to help, and the secondary help was never there in time. Make no mistake, this game was there for the taking. Purdue refused to make free throws and turned the ball over 15 times, just begging the Gophers to win and put them out of their misery. When you can't play zone, and you can't play man, well, I don't really think there's a third thing.
5. I'm starting to run out of good things to say about Mo Walker. On the offensive end, at least. When he was big and fat he showed flashes of good footwork and passing ability, and now that he's in better shape he's putting those skills to good use and showing a lot of confidence. His post up game has changed from just trying to bull people over to actually using moves and some quickness. At least twice he took it at Hammons and actually used his footwork to get a good shot instead of throwing it directly into his arms like he would have done in the past. He's making free throws and even hit a nice 17 foot jumper Purdue dared him to take. He's coming into his own, and it's fantastic to watch.
6. I'm starting to worry about Dre Mathieu just a little bit. Look, I love the Honey Gopher and I love how he plays. I said earlier this season that I like my point guard to be just a little bit out of control, and that's how Mathieu played for much of this season, but I'm now worrying he's crossed over and gone too far out of control. After playing a great game against Wisconsin he's now had three subpar games in a row, averaging 4 assists and over 6 turnovers per. In the team's first 15 games he had more TOs than assists just once, since then they've played 8 games and he's done it four times. I will grant the level of competition has increased, but he doesn't seemed to have adjusted.
7. I said it would be important for one of the "power forwards" to step up offensively and Joey King did. Fourteen points and nine rebounds is a really nice line from him, and he actually scored in a post a few times without looking like a baby deer trying to walk. It's rather stunning to see he played 47 minutes last night to just 8 for Oto. I think it's clear Pitino really prefers King to Oto, and if he's played well he's going to see the bulk of the minutes. Maybe this was King's breakout game. Of course his defense was still terrible and he constantly got lost on picks. The next time I see King successfully navigate multiple picks and end up in good defensive position on his man will be the first time.
8. I have no idea why they didn't call a timeout at the end of the second overtime (I think). It was their first chance to really win the game, and I get not calling a TO right away and trusting your players but it wasn't working. Mathieu was trying to work a pick and roll with Mo Walker and he just couldn't get the penetration and kept having to reset. At that point you need to call a timeout and run a designed play, because I know the Gophers this year have plenty of them designed to get a shot. Instead they got nothing but a Dre Hollins contested fade away from 17 feet. I even double and triple checked and yep, they still had a timeout available. Zero idea why Pitino didn't call one there when it was clear that "letting them play" wasn't going anywhere.
9. Shon Morris is absolutely terrible. Most announcers aren't very good but are pretty easy to tune out, but Morris somehow blasts through your ear hole and into your brain like some sort of miniature super villain. He seems to feel the need to make some sort of analysis on every single play, and most of the time he's either making shit up or just flat wrong. If Dre Hollins throws the pass over Austin Hollins' head and out of bounds, I don't need some in depth analysis about why he threw a shitty pass unless there's actually a reason. Sometimes it's just a shitty pass. He's just horrible. Of course, he gets stuck doing games like Minnesota vs. Purdue, so maybe the Gophers should just be more better.
10. Indiana is now a must win game. The Gophers are now 4-6 in conference, and in order to feel safe and make their Big Ten Tournament results mostly irrelevant they'll need to get to 9-9, which means closing out at 5-3. With only four games they "should" win left (home vs. Indiana, Illinois, and Penn State and @Northwestern which I'm still counting as a "should win") that means they've really put themselves in a terrible place. If they can win those four they still need to steal one out of the @Wisconsin, @Ohio State, @Michigan, and home vs. Iowa group. Yes, that's doable, but if they drop any of the "should win" games they'll have to get two of those others, and I don't see that happening. I was starting to think this would be the year I'd finally get to see the Gophers in the "lock" category in a bubble watch column. Not looking that way, once again.
I might put up a preview of the Indiana game but if not in a nutshell I have no idea how they're going to keep Yogi Ferrell out of the lane and I'm pretty sure Indiana has a good chance to score 100.
1. First off, as most triple overtimes games are this one was heart breaking. The bad part is it wasn't heart breaking in a "they battled their asses off just couldn't get the win" way or a "man they really did everything they could it just wasn't enough" way. It was heart breaking in a "Purdue did everything they could to not win and they're really terrible and the Gophers are just more terrible" way. The worst part is that at no time from the last five minutes through the three overtimes did I expect the Gophers to win. We've been conditioned to expect terrible Februaries, and it's looking like the team has been as well. I hoped that would all change with the new coach, and hopefully it still will. Just maybe not this year.
2. Rebounding. God damn rebounding. It's going to be everyone's point about this game and you know how the public is generally wrong about everything? Well they're right this time and god dammit. Purdue grabbed 23 offensive rebounds, which means they got the ball back on 46% of their missed shots - that's a ridiculous number. Lest you think we can just pin this on the big men, Ronnie and Terone Johnson combined for 8 offensive boards on their own, which tells me the guards for the Gophers aren't doing any work when the ball goes up. We know the Gophers have rebounding issues, and we know Purdue is a great offensive rebounding team (moved from #2 in the Big 10 to #1 after last night) but god that was just disgusting to watch.
3. The zone defense was just swiss cheese. Nothing but holes, baby. The hope was to pack in the zone and let Purdue throw up brick after brick from the outside, but they played smart last night. The Gopher zone was a little more extended than I would have liked, and it left the middle wide open time after time after time. After some initial struggles, probably because they were confused that they kept getting the ball with nobody on them in a strong position, Sterling Carter and Terone Johnson played the zone like a fiddle, scoring when it was available and finding and open teammate when it wasn't. It was basically a clinic on how to score against a zone when you're terrible.
4. Of course the switch to man didn't go much better. Then it just became Ronnie Johnson penetrating off a screen and finding an open teammate, or if not him then Carter. The Gopher interior defense kept having to help, and the secondary help was never there in time. Make no mistake, this game was there for the taking. Purdue refused to make free throws and turned the ball over 15 times, just begging the Gophers to win and put them out of their misery. When you can't play zone, and you can't play man, well, I don't really think there's a third thing.
5. I'm starting to run out of good things to say about Mo Walker. On the offensive end, at least. When he was big and fat he showed flashes of good footwork and passing ability, and now that he's in better shape he's putting those skills to good use and showing a lot of confidence. His post up game has changed from just trying to bull people over to actually using moves and some quickness. At least twice he took it at Hammons and actually used his footwork to get a good shot instead of throwing it directly into his arms like he would have done in the past. He's making free throws and even hit a nice 17 foot jumper Purdue dared him to take. He's coming into his own, and it's fantastic to watch.
6. I'm starting to worry about Dre Mathieu just a little bit. Look, I love the Honey Gopher and I love how he plays. I said earlier this season that I like my point guard to be just a little bit out of control, and that's how Mathieu played for much of this season, but I'm now worrying he's crossed over and gone too far out of control. After playing a great game against Wisconsin he's now had three subpar games in a row, averaging 4 assists and over 6 turnovers per. In the team's first 15 games he had more TOs than assists just once, since then they've played 8 games and he's done it four times. I will grant the level of competition has increased, but he doesn't seemed to have adjusted.
7. I said it would be important for one of the "power forwards" to step up offensively and Joey King did. Fourteen points and nine rebounds is a really nice line from him, and he actually scored in a post a few times without looking like a baby deer trying to walk. It's rather stunning to see he played 47 minutes last night to just 8 for Oto. I think it's clear Pitino really prefers King to Oto, and if he's played well he's going to see the bulk of the minutes. Maybe this was King's breakout game. Of course his defense was still terrible and he constantly got lost on picks. The next time I see King successfully navigate multiple picks and end up in good defensive position on his man will be the first time.
8. I have no idea why they didn't call a timeout at the end of the second overtime (I think). It was their first chance to really win the game, and I get not calling a TO right away and trusting your players but it wasn't working. Mathieu was trying to work a pick and roll with Mo Walker and he just couldn't get the penetration and kept having to reset. At that point you need to call a timeout and run a designed play, because I know the Gophers this year have plenty of them designed to get a shot. Instead they got nothing but a Dre Hollins contested fade away from 17 feet. I even double and triple checked and yep, they still had a timeout available. Zero idea why Pitino didn't call one there when it was clear that "letting them play" wasn't going anywhere.
9. Shon Morris is absolutely terrible. Most announcers aren't very good but are pretty easy to tune out, but Morris somehow blasts through your ear hole and into your brain like some sort of miniature super villain. He seems to feel the need to make some sort of analysis on every single play, and most of the time he's either making shit up or just flat wrong. If Dre Hollins throws the pass over Austin Hollins' head and out of bounds, I don't need some in depth analysis about why he threw a shitty pass unless there's actually a reason. Sometimes it's just a shitty pass. He's just horrible. Of course, he gets stuck doing games like Minnesota vs. Purdue, so maybe the Gophers should just be more better.
10. Indiana is now a must win game. The Gophers are now 4-6 in conference, and in order to feel safe and make their Big Ten Tournament results mostly irrelevant they'll need to get to 9-9, which means closing out at 5-3. With only four games they "should" win left (home vs. Indiana, Illinois, and Penn State and @Northwestern which I'm still counting as a "should win") that means they've really put themselves in a terrible place. If they can win those four they still need to steal one out of the @Wisconsin, @Ohio State, @Michigan, and home vs. Iowa group. Yes, that's doable, but if they drop any of the "should win" games they'll have to get two of those others, and I don't see that happening. I was starting to think this would be the year I'd finally get to see the Gophers in the "lock" category in a bubble watch column. Not looking that way, once again.
I might put up a preview of the Indiana game but if not in a nutshell I have no idea how they're going to keep Yogi Ferrell out of the lane and I'm pretty sure Indiana has a good chance to score 100.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
