Remember how exciting last year was recruiting wise, what with the Gophers making so many top 10 lists and top 5 lists only to pretty much not ever sign anybody? Yeah, I was wondering how every's doing so far this year. Keep in mind it's awfully early in most of these guys' careers. All rankings from 247sports.
PG Tyus Jones (Apple Valley, MN)
247 Rank: #8 overall, #2 PG
Commit: Duke
Close?: Not really
Bummer?: Not really, it was known
Season Stats: 11.3 points and 5.3 assists in 31.5 minutes.
Outlook: He's basically been everything everyone said he would be. Maybe the only point guard the Gophers looked at last year who has a clearly brighter future than Nate Mason. He should die.
PG Ja'Quan Newton (Philadelphia, PA)
247 Rank: #42 overall, #7 PG
Commit: Miami (FL)
Close?: Maybe?
Bummer: He jumped on a Miami offer so quickly it was hard to get too excited. Still, kind of a bummer.
Season Stats: 3.5 points and 1.3 assists in 12 minutes.
Outlook: Typical freshman point guard line so far, and his shooting has been pretty bad (not rare for a freshman). Having Angel Rodriguez there (transfer from Kansas State) has really cut his potential minutes down.
PG Lourawls Nairn (Wichita, KS)
247 Rank: #85 overall, #17 PG
Commit: Michigan State
Close?: Yes, until Izzo got involved.
Bummer?: Yes. After a whole bunch of misses he looked like he might be the big time recruit Pitino would finally sign. Then Tom Izzo called.
Season Stats: 2.0 points and 2.5 assists in 16.7 minutes.
Outlook: I was surprised his minutes are this high because I rarely notice him when I watch the Spartans, but that's probably pretty much what Izzo wants on a team with Travis Trice, Denzel Valentine, and Branden Dawson. His 2.5-to-0.9 assist to turnover ratio is nice for a freshman. Interested to see if he can add any offense next year, since he pretty much never shoots.
SG Riley LaChance (Brookfield, WI)
247 Rank: #133 overall, #34 PG
Commit: Vanderbilt
Close?: At least somewhat.
Bummer?: Not really. Just as his buzz was starting to build he suddenly committed to Vandy.
Season Stats: 12.8 points, 3.2 rebounds, and 2.6 assists in 33.3 minutes.
Outlook: Basically a starter from day 1 and looking like a pretty big recruiting steal for Vandy. He's the team's second leading scorer, has hit double figures in 17 of 23 games this year, gashed Purdue for 26 points, and is hitting 40% of his threes. Maybe wasn't a bummer to lose out on at the time, but he sure is now.
SG Rashad Vaughn (Henderson, NV)
247 Rank: #13 overall, #5 SG
Commit: UNLV
Close?: Not really
Bummer?: Yeah, but we knew it was coming, particularly after the move to Nevada.
Season Stats: 17.8 points and 4.8 rebounds in 32.2 minutes.
Outlook: Dude loves to shoot. He takes 33% of the Rebs shots when he's on the floor and hits a respectable enough 44%. The one and done looks like it's not going to happen (hopefully for the kid) since NBADraft.net ranks him 65th and DraftExpress ranks him 37th (14th among freshman), but he's definitely a talented kid. Another year in college should help polish his game and can only help.
SG Isaiah Whitehead (Brooklyn, NY)
247 Rank: #10 overall, #3 SG
Commit: Seton Hall
Close?: Painfully close. Close enough I watched his press conference hopefully until twitter broke the news.
Bummer?: Extreme bummer. Would have made a huge national splash, and it seemed like they were so close until the Pirates offered his high school coach an assistant coaching gig. Sucked.
Season Stats: 11.9 points, 4.2 rebounds, and 3.1 assists in 25.3 minutes
Outlook: Good bet he's the Big East freshman of the year. He's extremely polished, as advertised, and though he's shooting just 37% this year it's a good bet he's going to challenge for BE player of the year before his career his over. Yeah, this one hurts.
SG J.P. Macura (Lakeville, MN)
247 Rank: #136 overall, #36 SG
Commit: Xavier
Close?: Tough to say, it was never really clear what the interest level was from either side.
Bummer?: Moreso now than then. Pitino had a lot of fires going and J.P. was lower priority, so he decided Xavier was more for him. After the whiffs on higher profile targets (so many whiffs) maybe making him a higher priority would have been the way to go. Hindsight, and all that.
Season Stats: 6 points and 1.5 rebounds in 13.9 minutes.
Outlook: His shooting has been pretty bad which isn't good when it's your #1 skill, but again, not unusual for a freshman. He's been coming on lately with 21 and 25 minutes played in X's last two games, and is starting to look like a quality four year player. I understand why Pitino didn't go hard after him early in the signing period, but man, it'd be nice to have a second young building block beyond Nate Mason right now.
SF Terry Larrier (Malvern, PA)
247 Rank: #23 overall, #4 SF
Commit: VCU
Close?: Not really
Bummer?: Not really. It was actually pretty exciting knowing a top 25 recruit from the east coast was considering the Gophers. Signaled a whole new recruiting world. Of pain. So far.
Season Stats: 7.0 points and 2.0 rebounds in 17.4 minutes
Outlook: Pretty good freshman numbers though, stop me if you've heard this before, his shooting kind of stinks at under 40%. Still, coming into a system like VCU's and grasping it as a freshman well enough to play 17 minutes per game speaks well of his future. No big whoop, since I don't think he was really ever close to signing with the Gophers.
PF Reid Travis (Minneapolis, MN)
247 Rank: #49 overall, #10 PF
Commit: Stanford
Close?: Agonizingly close.
Bummer?: Hurt so bad. Came right down to the wire and all reports the night before his press conference were that it was looking like the Gophers. Something changed. Still hurts, especially because I don't even think Stanford fans cared.
Season Stats: 6.7 points and 6.0 rebounds in 23.6 minutes
Outlook: Ugh. Look at those rebounds. His season got derailed a bit with a foot injury where he missed about a month and he's just now starting to get back into the swing of things, but leading a major conference team in rebounding as a freshman (pre-injury he as at 6.9 and the team leader)? Playing those kind of minutes on a team with a pretty solid frontcourt already? Gross. I kind of wish I hadn't done this now, or at least skipped this one.
SF Djuan Piper (Seattle, WA)
247 Rank: #153 overall, #36 SF
Commit: North Idaho College
Close?: Uh. Yeah. He was basically all ready to commit and then stupid academics got in the way.
Bummer?: Yeah. It was pretty late in the recruiting game at this point and the Gophers were hopefully about to get a decent player late.
Season Stats: I can't find anything, but he's often mentioned in game recaps and there are pictures of him playing and stuff.
Outlook: Tough to say when I can't find tangible stats. The impression I got from looking for nearly five minutes is that, at a minimum, he's a rotation player, and Idaho is, believe or not, a pretty good JuCo hoops area so that's good. I also found a reference to him being suspended for at least one game, so that's bad. Stay tuned.
PF Abdoulaye Gueye (Birmingham, AL)
247 Rank: #301 overall, #77 PF
Commit: Georgia Tech
Close?: I think this was a case of Gueye willing to commit, but the Gophers holding him off and then he went elsewhere.
Bummer?: No. He was always more of a back-up plan, or at least that's the vibe I got.
Season Stats: 0.3 points and 0.7 rebounds in 3 minutes per game.
Outlook: He's only played 6 games this year and has only a total of 18 minutes played (what, no redshirts at G-Tech?). It doesn't bode well that he couldn't get more PT than that at Georgia Tech, but who knows what the future holds?
C Anas Mahmoud (Orlando, FL)
247 Rank: #87 overall, #9 C
Commit: Louisville
Close?: Maybe? They were at least in the mix.
Bummer?: Kind of. Everything happened so fast there was no real build up time to the heartbreak, plus losing out on him to Louisville is kind of like supposed to happen once they're involved.
Season Stats: 1.2 points and 1.9 rebounds in 9.7 minutes
Outlook: Had a brief burst of consistent playing time in the non-conference, but he's seen that trail off to spot duty and he hasn't broken the 10 minute mark in playing time since Louisville's first ACC game in early January. Clearly, Rick Pitino doesn't know how to properly use him and he should look to transfer somewhere he already felt comfortable when he visited and has a desperate need for post players. (TRANSFER TRANSFER TRANSFER! FREE ANAS!)
And then there's a handful of players who were once Gophers (on some level) who left:
SG Alvin Ellis
Who?: Gophers signee of Tubby, transferred after the coaching change, although rumor was he would have stayed if anybody had bothered to talk to him.
Where?: Michigan State
Class?: Sophomore
Season Stats: 1.5 points and 0.6 assists in 9.4 minutes
Summary: His stats are actually worse than his freshman year, mainly due to his inability to make a basket (6-30 shooting this year). I haven't noticed him when I've taken in a Spartan game so I don't know if he's overmatched, but his 2-year results don't look good.
PF Alex Foster
Who?: Gophers signee of Tubby, transferred after the coaching change. Seemingly made his college choice based on playing for Tubby.
Where?: Texas Tech
Class?: Sophomore
Season Stats: 1.1 points and 0.9 rebounds in 6.3 minutes
Summary: He's basically completely failed to crack the rotation in two seasons in Lubbock, and this for teams that have gone 14-18 and 12-13. Tubby's playing a deep bench this year with 10 guys averaging at least 10 minutes per game, and Foster not being one of them is not a real good sign for the future.
SF Joe Coleman
Who?: You remember him. Played two decent, if uneven, seasons for the Gophers before bolting when Richard Pitino got hired, even though Pitino's system probably would have been really good for him.
Where?: St. Mary's
Class?: Junior
Season Stats: 3.0 points and 1.0 rebounds in 14 minutes
Summary: Played in one game for the Gaels before a leg injury caused him to shut it down. I seriously can't find any more information on him than "leg injury." Hopefully it's not too serious and he'll get two more years as a Gael to show the world what he can do.
SG Chip Armelin
Who?: The hyper athletic, somewhat wild but deserved more of a chance shooting guard who played for Tubby for two years before transferring to get more playing time. Yes he's still around.
Where?: Southern Miss
Class?: Senior
Season Stats: 15.3 points and 4.0 rebounds in 34.3 minutes
Summary: He's having a fantastic senior season, leading the Golden Eagles in scoring. Southern Miss had a pretty solid year for them last year before being bested by the Gophers in the NIT quarters, and with their five top players graduating there was going to be a scoring void, which Armelin stepped into admirably. Of course, Southern Miss is 6-16 and 1-10 in a terrible C-USA and recently self-imposed a postseason ban (lol) because of questions around former coach Donnie Tyndall's recruiting practices. Nice to see him have some personal success though. I always liked him.
Also Better Call Saul has been awesome so far.
Showing posts with label Reid Travis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reid Travis. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Monday, November 11, 2013
Gophers Game Recap and Life after Reid Travis
Holy shit you guys there is a lot to talk about Gopher hoops-wise, and so very little of it has to do with what happened on the court Friday night. I suppose I might as well start with the clear A topic: Reid Travis.
It truly sucks that Travis chose Stanford, considering I, like many, had gotten the idea that he as getting pretty close to a Gopher lock. My heart sank a bit when it became clear he was describing Stanford, and I definitely said a bad word when he confirmed it. It's hard to fault the young man, unless of course you're one of the chemically inbalanced over at Gopher Hole who wrote some pretty vile things about a 17-year old, for choosing a four year education at Stanford. That's an elite institution, and knowing the Travis family's focus on academics (he has a brother at Harvard), it was probably tough to pass up. Add in that the Stanford basketball program has been more successful over Reid's life (check the numbers over the last 20 years, sad but true) and the fact that Johnny Dawkins and staff were one of the first groups on him and have been recruiting him for four years, and it's actually kind of a no brainer. The fact that the Gophers were that close in the end is probably a positive, although it's a pretty hollow thing to say right now.
There is another set of fans who may not hold the actual commitment against him, but feel personally betrayed because of the circumstances. The feel led on by Travis going to the Gophers final exhibition game, shadowing classes at the U, and inviting the general public to his press conference (if he actually did that). They feel that doing all of that, and then not picking the home school, was a dick move. I personally disagree. First of all, pretty much every highly ranked recruit announces press conference style, and if you were Reid and saw all your friends from AAU ball doing it you'd probably want to do it too. Secondly, he says he didn't make up his mind until the night before he announced, and I have no reason to doubt him (although plenty of cretins do), so it was just an unfortunate situation, not something Reid Travis "intentionally set up because he doesn't care about other human being's feelings and is a total prick" which is something I actually read that a presumed adult wrote.
Being pissed at a 17 year old kid for not picking your favorite school, particularly when he picks a place like Stanford, is ludicrous. Say damn it, and move on. Speaking of moving on, with one more scholarship still available for 2014 the Travis decision means Richard Pitino is still going to have to work the recruiting trail. Also, by the way, anybody who blames Travis going to Stanford on Pitino is completely clueless. FACT. Anyway, here are some of the options still available for 2014:
1. SF Josh Cunningham - Top 150 type who is more athlete than basketball player, but has the traits where he could blossom in the right system, and that would include Pitino's. Gophers seemed to cool on him which led to him cooling on them or the other way around? Looking like he's pretty strongly towards Bradley, but would he re-think it if a Big Ten team got involved?
2. PF Abdoulaye Gueye - A pretty skilled, but still raw, big man. His combination of size and athleticism has certainly gotten him noticed, even if he's not shooting up rankings or anything. When Memphis is involved (they've offered) you know something is going right. Probably the #1 guy (not counting Vaughn) right now for Pitino.
3. C Anas Osama Mahmoud - His recruiting seems to be going awfully slowly right now, but now that he's moved to Florida from Egypt and stands seven feet tall you know he's going to draw interest. Louisville is involved, which is interesting not just for the father vs. son angle but also because if Louisville's looking at him it's probably worth exploring for the Gophers. I can't find much information on this guy, but from what I can tell he's really tall and really skinny, and there are a lot of respectable schools on him. Ok sounds good.
4. SG Delshon Strickland - Back court is awfully crowded at this point, but due to Strickland being from Holy Angels you never know if the team might go after a local kid to fill that last scholarship. Currently holds offers from Auburn and Miami, so he's no slouch, even if he isn't highly rated. Interested to see if he has a big senior year if the Gophers look to grab him in the Spring, assuming Vaughn is a no go.
5. C Fred Iduwe - Pure project with size and leaping ability but very raw basketball skills seeing as he pretty much just picked up a basketball yesterday. Naturally the mind drifts towards Gorgui Dieng, but Dieng was a lot more skilled than your typical African import, spent time at Huntington Prep which is a basketball factory, and was highly sought by a lot of big time programs. Iduwe would be a complete flier.
Of course, the ideal option would be for Rashad Vaughn to actually decide to become a Gopher. There's also the option to hang on to that scholarship and bank it to 2015, when Pitino has had over a year to hopefully work his magic on that class. I think I'd prefer that option over anybody other than Vaughn.
- As far as the game goes, it seemed like it was going to be a pretty bad night. First the Travis thing, then just before the game it was reported that Wally Ellenson wouldn't play due to a verbal issue with Pitino (later denied by Pitino) and Mo Walker had been suspended six games due to a violation of University policy (confirmed). It was like, what else can go wrong today? And then everyone remembered it was Lehigh and all was well as the Gophers smoked fools 81-62. Some thoughts:
* This may have been by design, but the offense seemed really scatter shot with very little structure, which I realize is kind of the point in transition but to me it seemed to carry on longer than it should have once they got into the half court. I need to pay more attention to this next game.
* The Hollins brothers are going to be everything this year. They're both just so good and so skilled. They won't be the top two scorers in every game, but they're almost certain to be the top two scorers in average by the end of the season.
* The Honey Gopher (Dre Mathieu) is going to help Dre Hollins out huge this year by allowing him to play off the ball more. Without having to always be the one setting up the offense Hollins will have chances to go down on the block or the wing and have a play actually ran for him to get a shot - something that did work well against Lehigh when they tried it. His assists may be down from last year (and it's not going to help his NBA aspirations to play anything but pure point) but he might very well end up leading the Big Ten in scoring.
* Speaking of Mathieu, he is just so fast and attack-y I can't help but love him. He has a tendency to attack when he probably shouldn't (perhaps because he just don't care?) and that will lead to some very ugly turnovers but also some easy baskets where it looks like there shouldn't be one. I like a point guard who sometimes says F it and forces the action, and while Dre H. has some of it, Drizzy has a whole lot of it.
* Double double for Elliot Eliason with 11 pts and 17 rebs, and I don't care if it was against a team without a real front court it still counts. I can now count Eliason along with the two Hollinses as the three players I don't worry about at all this season. Eliason is what he is, and while he's never going to make an all conference team or get an NBA tryout, he's going to bust his ass and be a serviceable (maybe slightly better) Big Ten center. And I'm totally happy with that.
* Joey King led the team in scoring with 20, and although he did absolutely nothing to allay my fears about him (1 freaking rebound?!!?!?), I now see where he may have a place on the team. Every team is better off when they have an instant offense type off the bench (this is what the T-Wolves are sorely lacking) and King and his love of the outside shot could provide this. If there was some way to then sub him out for somebody else to play defense that would be great.
* Not sure what to make of Malik Smith. He's shown me absolutely nothing so far, but I suspect he's a better player than that and is still trying to find his role, no longer being the alpha dog. I'm sure it'll come in time, and he'll probably end up practically single handedly winning a game with his three point shooting. Of course he'll probably shoot them out of at least one game too, but say la vee.
* Maverick will be fine as a shooter off the bench. He should never be allowed to dribble. Like Willie Mays Hayes in Major League, Mav should have to do push ups any time he puts the ball on the floor.
* Oto is a tough one. He seems to alternate between competence and pants shitting panic. He seems to still have a serious confidence problem carrying over from last season where the basket had a lid on it for him. If the coaches and his teammates can help him get over what ever that mental block is I think he can be pretty good in this offense. If they can't, he'd be worthless in even a pick-up game at the Y.
* Charles Buggs has really long arms. Also, I was wrong to be so excited about him.
- Lastly, I won't act like I'm some football diehard because I'm not, but this gopher football thing is really freaking cool. I've been going to games for my entire life, usually 2-3 a year and that's never wavered so I've paid my dues enough to enjoy the hell out of this. I mean, a legit chance at the Gator Bowl? The freaking Gator Bowl? That is amazing. And they're actually fun to watch too. I mean, they run plays and stuff and have players who can like, do things. It's really great.
It truly sucks that Travis chose Stanford, considering I, like many, had gotten the idea that he as getting pretty close to a Gopher lock. My heart sank a bit when it became clear he was describing Stanford, and I definitely said a bad word when he confirmed it. It's hard to fault the young man, unless of course you're one of the chemically inbalanced over at Gopher Hole who wrote some pretty vile things about a 17-year old, for choosing a four year education at Stanford. That's an elite institution, and knowing the Travis family's focus on academics (he has a brother at Harvard), it was probably tough to pass up. Add in that the Stanford basketball program has been more successful over Reid's life (check the numbers over the last 20 years, sad but true) and the fact that Johnny Dawkins and staff were one of the first groups on him and have been recruiting him for four years, and it's actually kind of a no brainer. The fact that the Gophers were that close in the end is probably a positive, although it's a pretty hollow thing to say right now.
There is another set of fans who may not hold the actual commitment against him, but feel personally betrayed because of the circumstances. The feel led on by Travis going to the Gophers final exhibition game, shadowing classes at the U, and inviting the general public to his press conference (if he actually did that). They feel that doing all of that, and then not picking the home school, was a dick move. I personally disagree. First of all, pretty much every highly ranked recruit announces press conference style, and if you were Reid and saw all your friends from AAU ball doing it you'd probably want to do it too. Secondly, he says he didn't make up his mind until the night before he announced, and I have no reason to doubt him (although plenty of cretins do), so it was just an unfortunate situation, not something Reid Travis "intentionally set up because he doesn't care about other human being's feelings and is a total prick" which is something I actually read that a presumed adult wrote.
Being pissed at a 17 year old kid for not picking your favorite school, particularly when he picks a place like Stanford, is ludicrous. Say damn it, and move on. Speaking of moving on, with one more scholarship still available for 2014 the Travis decision means Richard Pitino is still going to have to work the recruiting trail. Also, by the way, anybody who blames Travis going to Stanford on Pitino is completely clueless. FACT. Anyway, here are some of the options still available for 2014:
1. SF Josh Cunningham - Top 150 type who is more athlete than basketball player, but has the traits where he could blossom in the right system, and that would include Pitino's. Gophers seemed to cool on him which led to him cooling on them or the other way around? Looking like he's pretty strongly towards Bradley, but would he re-think it if a Big Ten team got involved?
2. PF Abdoulaye Gueye - A pretty skilled, but still raw, big man. His combination of size and athleticism has certainly gotten him noticed, even if he's not shooting up rankings or anything. When Memphis is involved (they've offered) you know something is going right. Probably the #1 guy (not counting Vaughn) right now for Pitino.
3. C Anas Osama Mahmoud - His recruiting seems to be going awfully slowly right now, but now that he's moved to Florida from Egypt and stands seven feet tall you know he's going to draw interest. Louisville is involved, which is interesting not just for the father vs. son angle but also because if Louisville's looking at him it's probably worth exploring for the Gophers. I can't find much information on this guy, but from what I can tell he's really tall and really skinny, and there are a lot of respectable schools on him. Ok sounds good.
4. SG Delshon Strickland - Back court is awfully crowded at this point, but due to Strickland being from Holy Angels you never know if the team might go after a local kid to fill that last scholarship. Currently holds offers from Auburn and Miami, so he's no slouch, even if he isn't highly rated. Interested to see if he has a big senior year if the Gophers look to grab him in the Spring, assuming Vaughn is a no go.
5. C Fred Iduwe - Pure project with size and leaping ability but very raw basketball skills seeing as he pretty much just picked up a basketball yesterday. Naturally the mind drifts towards Gorgui Dieng, but Dieng was a lot more skilled than your typical African import, spent time at Huntington Prep which is a basketball factory, and was highly sought by a lot of big time programs. Iduwe would be a complete flier.
Of course, the ideal option would be for Rashad Vaughn to actually decide to become a Gopher. There's also the option to hang on to that scholarship and bank it to 2015, when Pitino has had over a year to hopefully work his magic on that class. I think I'd prefer that option over anybody other than Vaughn.
- As far as the game goes, it seemed like it was going to be a pretty bad night. First the Travis thing, then just before the game it was reported that Wally Ellenson wouldn't play due to a verbal issue with Pitino (later denied by Pitino) and Mo Walker had been suspended six games due to a violation of University policy (confirmed). It was like, what else can go wrong today? And then everyone remembered it was Lehigh and all was well as the Gophers smoked fools 81-62. Some thoughts:
* This may have been by design, but the offense seemed really scatter shot with very little structure, which I realize is kind of the point in transition but to me it seemed to carry on longer than it should have once they got into the half court. I need to pay more attention to this next game.
* The Hollins brothers are going to be everything this year. They're both just so good and so skilled. They won't be the top two scorers in every game, but they're almost certain to be the top two scorers in average by the end of the season.
* The Honey Gopher (Dre Mathieu) is going to help Dre Hollins out huge this year by allowing him to play off the ball more. Without having to always be the one setting up the offense Hollins will have chances to go down on the block or the wing and have a play actually ran for him to get a shot - something that did work well against Lehigh when they tried it. His assists may be down from last year (and it's not going to help his NBA aspirations to play anything but pure point) but he might very well end up leading the Big Ten in scoring.
* Speaking of Mathieu, he is just so fast and attack-y I can't help but love him. He has a tendency to attack when he probably shouldn't (perhaps because he just don't care?) and that will lead to some very ugly turnovers but also some easy baskets where it looks like there shouldn't be one. I like a point guard who sometimes says F it and forces the action, and while Dre H. has some of it, Drizzy has a whole lot of it.
* Double double for Elliot Eliason with 11 pts and 17 rebs, and I don't care if it was against a team without a real front court it still counts. I can now count Eliason along with the two Hollinses as the three players I don't worry about at all this season. Eliason is what he is, and while he's never going to make an all conference team or get an NBA tryout, he's going to bust his ass and be a serviceable (maybe slightly better) Big Ten center. And I'm totally happy with that.
* Joey King led the team in scoring with 20, and although he did absolutely nothing to allay my fears about him (1 freaking rebound?!!?!?), I now see where he may have a place on the team. Every team is better off when they have an instant offense type off the bench (this is what the T-Wolves are sorely lacking) and King and his love of the outside shot could provide this. If there was some way to then sub him out for somebody else to play defense that would be great.
* Not sure what to make of Malik Smith. He's shown me absolutely nothing so far, but I suspect he's a better player than that and is still trying to find his role, no longer being the alpha dog. I'm sure it'll come in time, and he'll probably end up practically single handedly winning a game with his three point shooting. Of course he'll probably shoot them out of at least one game too, but say la vee.
* Maverick will be fine as a shooter off the bench. He should never be allowed to dribble. Like Willie Mays Hayes in Major League, Mav should have to do push ups any time he puts the ball on the floor.
* Oto is a tough one. He seems to alternate between competence and pants shitting panic. He seems to still have a serious confidence problem carrying over from last season where the basket had a lid on it for him. If the coaches and his teammates can help him get over what ever that mental block is I think he can be pretty good in this offense. If they can't, he'd be worthless in even a pick-up game at the Y.
* Charles Buggs has really long arms. Also, I was wrong to be so excited about him.
- Lastly, I won't act like I'm some football diehard because I'm not, but this gopher football thing is really freaking cool. I've been going to games for my entire life, usually 2-3 a year and that's never wavered so I've paid my dues enough to enjoy the hell out of this. I mean, a legit chance at the Gator Bowl? The freaking Gator Bowl? That is amazing. And they're actually fun to watch too. I mean, they run plays and stuff and have players who can like, do things. It's really great.
Friday, November 8, 2013
Monday, November 4, 2013
Reid Travis Update
Normally when I do a Gopher hoops recruiting round-up I try to make sure to cover several players at once, but let's be honest after the signings of Josh Martin, Nate Mason, and Carlos Morris there's only one story in town and that's Reid Travis, the guy who is going to be making his decision this Friday at 3:30. As usual when my head is spinning and there's too much to make sense of, I will do this in list form. Here is the story so far:
1. Reid Travis, from De La Salle, is part of the big 3 of Minnesota's 2014 class along with Tyus Jones (definitely not a Gopher) and Rashad Vaughn (could still be, but won't decide until Spring most likely). He is ranked as the 45th best player in the class by 247sports, with a composite industry ranking of the 35th best player. He's ranked 23rd by ESPN and the 5th best PF in the class. He seems lukewarm on the Gophers.
2. Exit Tubby, enter Richard Pitino. Reports surface of Travis visiting campus and practice regularly. According to 247sports he's taken five unofficials to the Minnesota campus since Pitino's hiring. My dad, who attended De La Salle, is elected to their Hall of Fame (go dad!). While there, he takes the opportunity to asked Coach Thorsen about Travis. Thorsen tells him that since Pitino has been hired Reid has gotten very interested in the U and they're very much in the mix.
3. Travis cuts his list to his Final Four - Minnesota, Gonzaga, Stanford, and Duke.
4. Despite being on campus all the time, for unofficials and just hanging around, when Travis starts taking his official visits he includes the Gophers. Not long after his official to Minnesota, he drops Gonzaga from his list. Because of Travis's standing as an excellent student who takes academics very seriously, Duke and Stanford are generally considered the favorites, although nobody is dismissing the Gophers (also an excellent academic school, if not on par with the other two).
5. Travis announces he will be making his decision on November 8th at De La Salle. This leads some to speculate he's going to be a Gopher because why would he announce in front of a bunch of hometown people if he's just going to break their hearts? This is a poor assumption because, off the top of my head, Harrison Barnes announced he was going to UNC over Iowa State (and others) in the Ames High School gym.
6. A top 100 recruit, Michael Humphrey, commits to Stanford. The Travis family quickly informs media that this will have no affect on Reid's decision. Stanford remains in the mix.
7. Rumors begin to swirl that Duke may be out of the mix. Two gopherhole.com posters claiming to have sources (GuyFawkes and another poster who I can not find now but I think might have been die hard Gopher and if somebody can point me to the post I will give proper credit) both claim that Duke is out of the mix, and it's between the Gophers and Stanford. Message board rumors need to be taken with a large grain of salt, however both were saying the same thing and both are long time posters at the message board and not johnny come latelys who appeared to pop up to cause trouble or dick around.
8. Kevon Looney, at top 20 national recruit and one of the top PFs in the country, commits to UCLA over Duke. The Blue Devils gain a little bit of traction on Reid again (according to 247's Crystal Ball, a useful tool to see where the national winds are blowing).
9. This tweet from Evan Daniels comes out today:
When asked for more, he said this:
10. It is announced that Travis will be attending the Gopher exhibition game tonight, just four days before he makes his decision official. Not necessarily indicative of anything, but certainly not bad news.
11. Not long after, this tweet comes out from the Gopher Report
@D1Circuit, which has something to do with Travis's AAU team or something responds with this:
12. This tweet comes out:
I don't know if this is standard practice, but it certainly isn't a bad sign.
13. The one and only GopherLady, Nadine Babu, tweets:
14. Many chants are busted out at the exhibition game of "We Want Reid."
15. National recruiting media starts to make a run at Travis to the Gophers, and it stands at 34% Gophers vs. 66% Duke, with 5 of the last 6 predictions going to Minnesota.
Is that everything? Did I miss something? Man I tell you this is rough. With the access you can get to recruiting experts via twitter and message boards it's almost too much to take when a recruit of Travis's' caliber starts to look like he might come to your favorite team. Program changer? Not in my opinion simply because I think it's too early in Pitino's tenure for that, but this would be huge and a great way to kick off his first recruiting class. I am going to play way, way too much attention to twitter the rest of the week.
1. Reid Travis, from De La Salle, is part of the big 3 of Minnesota's 2014 class along with Tyus Jones (definitely not a Gopher) and Rashad Vaughn (could still be, but won't decide until Spring most likely). He is ranked as the 45th best player in the class by 247sports, with a composite industry ranking of the 35th best player. He's ranked 23rd by ESPN and the 5th best PF in the class. He seems lukewarm on the Gophers.
2. Exit Tubby, enter Richard Pitino. Reports surface of Travis visiting campus and practice regularly. According to 247sports he's taken five unofficials to the Minnesota campus since Pitino's hiring. My dad, who attended De La Salle, is elected to their Hall of Fame (go dad!). While there, he takes the opportunity to asked Coach Thorsen about Travis. Thorsen tells him that since Pitino has been hired Reid has gotten very interested in the U and they're very much in the mix.
3. Travis cuts his list to his Final Four - Minnesota, Gonzaga, Stanford, and Duke.
4. Despite being on campus all the time, for unofficials and just hanging around, when Travis starts taking his official visits he includes the Gophers. Not long after his official to Minnesota, he drops Gonzaga from his list. Because of Travis's standing as an excellent student who takes academics very seriously, Duke and Stanford are generally considered the favorites, although nobody is dismissing the Gophers (also an excellent academic school, if not on par with the other two).
5. Travis announces he will be making his decision on November 8th at De La Salle. This leads some to speculate he's going to be a Gopher because why would he announce in front of a bunch of hometown people if he's just going to break their hearts? This is a poor assumption because, off the top of my head, Harrison Barnes announced he was going to UNC over Iowa State (and others) in the Ames High School gym.
6. A top 100 recruit, Michael Humphrey, commits to Stanford. The Travis family quickly informs media that this will have no affect on Reid's decision. Stanford remains in the mix.
7. Rumors begin to swirl that Duke may be out of the mix. Two gopherhole.com posters claiming to have sources (GuyFawkes and another poster who I can not find now but I think might have been die hard Gopher and if somebody can point me to the post I will give proper credit) both claim that Duke is out of the mix, and it's between the Gophers and Stanford. Message board rumors need to be taken with a large grain of salt, however both were saying the same thing and both are long time posters at the message board and not johnny come latelys who appeared to pop up to cause trouble or dick around.
8. Kevon Looney, at top 20 national recruit and one of the top PFs in the country, commits to UCLA over Duke. The Blue Devils gain a little bit of traction on Reid again (according to 247's Crystal Ball, a useful tool to see where the national winds are blowing).
9. This tweet from Evan Daniels comes out today:
Reid Travis, who is ranked No. 40 overall in the calls of 2014, will decide this week. Minnesota or Stanford?
— Evan Daniels (@EvanDanielsFOX) November 4, 2013
When asked for more, he said this:
I believe that Reid Travis is deciding between Minnesota & Stanford. RT @DukeOfHoops how about Duke?
— Evan Daniels (@EvanDanielsFOX) November 4, 2013
10. It is announced that Travis will be attending the Gopher exhibition game tonight, just four days before he makes his decision official. Not necessarily indicative of anything, but certainly not bad news.
11. Not long after, this tweet comes out from the Gopher Report
@GopherHole has a thread on the first thing people will do if @Reid_Travis_22 commits http://t.co/ZPp1vkFbqd #WeNeedReid
— The Gopher Report (@TheGopherReport) November 4, 2013
@D1Circuit, which has something to do with Travis's AAU team or something responds with this:
@TheGopherReport @GopherHole Big things coming...
— D1 Circuit (@D1Circuit) November 4, 2013
12. This tweet comes out:
@RyanJamesMN @RyanBurnsGI shadowing two classes this week at the Carlson school as well
— Derek Satter (@drsatter) November 4, 2013
I don't know if this is standard practice, but it certainly isn't a bad sign.
13. The one and only GopherLady, Nadine Babu, tweets:
After talking to my sources, I have a good feeling (for the 1st time) that Reid Travis will commit to the #Gophers.
— Nadine Babu (@NadineBabu) November 4, 2013
14. Many chants are busted out at the exhibition game of "We Want Reid."
15. National recruiting media starts to make a run at Travis to the Gophers, and it stands at 34% Gophers vs. 66% Duke, with 5 of the last 6 predictions going to Minnesota.
Is that everything? Did I miss something? Man I tell you this is rough. With the access you can get to recruiting experts via twitter and message boards it's almost too much to take when a recruit of Travis's' caliber starts to look like he might come to your favorite team. Program changer? Not in my opinion simply because I think it's too early in Pitino's tenure for that, but this would be huge and a great way to kick off his first recruiting class. I am going to play way, way too much attention to twitter the rest of the week.
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Big Ten Preview
Here we are on the eve of the Gophers kicking off their exhibition season. Given that, here is a bunch of words that will serve as my official Big Ten preview. I already talked about the Big Ten like a hundred years ago, and here's a post where I kind of talk about NCAA basketball this year in general, so this will be the capper on the trilogy of posts that form my NCAA preview this year. Man, I feel like I'm writing an epic or something. Everybody knows the best things come in trilogies. I dare you to find something other than Twilight that proves this wrong. Indiana Jones tried to make a fourth something and it bombed. Trilogies are the best, ergo, I am the best. Here are my thoughts, teams in order of my predicted finish.
1. MICHIGAN STATE SPARTANS. It's almost unfair. The Spartans return Keith Appling, Gary Harris, Denzel Valentine, Branden Dawson, and Adreian Payne this year. That's at least three NBA players. For me, Michigan State is the top team in the Big Ten by a pretty wide margin, and I think they're the second best team in the entire country (behind Louisville).
If you check out kenpom.com, you'll see the Spartans finished as the ninth best team last year according to his metrics. Every team in front of them is experiencing some pretty major roster turnover from last season (with the exception of Louisville), while Sparty loses only Derrick Nix and conveniently still have Payne to just stick right in there. Plus what was Nix's main contributions? Rebounding on both ends of the floor and making high percentage shots. Well Michigan State as a team is great at rebounding and makes a high percentage of their shots, so it's not like they're losing somebody who single-handedly changed their team like DeShaun Thomas. Plus with Izzo as their coach you know they'll just get better as the year goes on. It's just not fair. Of course, Keith Appling is the kind of player who can burn down a season pretty much by himself so I guess we have that going for us. Which is nice.
2. OHIO STATE BUCKEYES. Even though the Buckeyes only lose one player from last season (unless you count Evan Ravenel as a person, which I don't) but at the same time you could argue that they lost more than any other team in the conference because DeShaun Thomas. Not only did he take a ton of his team's shots (30th most of any player in D-1 by percentage) but he was very efficient as well, leading the team in offensive rating by a pretty good amount. Now he's gone, possibly in the NBA but I couldn't be bothered to look it up, but in any case he gone.
So now Ohio State is made up of a ton of formerly highly rated recruits who have been deferring to Thomas, two new freshman (both top 65 recruits by ESPN of course, this is Ohio State after all not some shit box program), and the Wes Ellsbury Eckstein Welker Punto of college basketball Aaron Craft. Seriously, who is going to lead the team in scoring this year? Any of Craft, Lenzelle Smith, Sam Thompson, LaQuinton Ross, Shannon Scott, Amir Williams, or Kameron Williams could end up leading the team and it wouldn't be a surprise. Actually, watch Kameron Williams because he's basically the new DeShaun Thomas but shorter and skinnier. He's definitely never seen a shot he didn't like. Plus look at this guy, tell me he doesn't look like a chucker:
Doesn't he kind of look like Pauly D.? Come on, you know you see it. And Pauly D. would definitely be a chucker if he was a basketball player. I'm also going to assume J-Woww is still hot even though I haven't watched that show in like 3 years.
I can't wait to watch this guy. I love chuckers when they aren't on my team.
3. WISCONSIN BADGERS. I've written too much about Wisconsin already, which you can see if you click on the two links above, but I can't help but be really high on them this year as much as it pains me. I think their starting guards are absolutely perfect for Bo's system this year. His boring, boring system of boring opponents to death by being so boring. Then add in Sam Dekker, who brings a level of athleticism and ability the Badgers haven't had since, geez, maybe Devin Harris, and there's a whole new wrinkle to the offense. The biggest knock on the Badger offense, besides being so boring, is they get over reliant on the 3-point shot and don't penetrate the lane at times. Well Dekker can solve all that by being unguardable.
Yes, there are a million questions about the front court, but if Bo Ryan is good at anything, besides being boring and looking ugly and acting like a baby, it's getting seldom used, little regarded big white guys to suddenly be productive and efficient when needed. Plus Nigel Hayes may be in position to contribute as a freshman, and he led the team in rebounding in their exhibition against UW-Platteville. Yes, I hated writing every word of this.
4. MICHIGAN WOLVERINES. People seem to think Michigan is going to be really, really good this year and I suppose that might end up being true, but I think they're more of a good not great team. I mean, it's a pretty big deal to lose your two starting guards to the NBA, especially when they pretty much dominated the ball all the time. Going from Tre Burke to one of Spike Albrecht, Caris LeVert, or a freshman is going to be a bit startling, even if Derrick Walton is one of the top PGs incoming this year.
I know there's some good talent back but is this really a top 10 team? Nik Stauskas is just a shooter (a very good one) and Mitch McGary is a rebounder/dunker guy (a very good one). Where's the playmaker who makes this an elite team gonna come from? If Glenn Robinson makes that leap or freshman SF Zak Irvin is a game changer right away (and the PG situation works out) they could certainly end up meeting these preseason expectations, but that's too many unknown variables for me to be really confident in Michigan this year. So yeah. I'm also guessing that off all this predictions this is the one that's going to make me look really stupid at the end of the year. Possibly Penn State too. You'll see why.
5. IOWA HAWKEYES. The trendy pick for not just Big Ten sleeper but national sleeper, and why not seeing as how they basically have the same team from last year and they were very, very good the second half of the season making it all the way to the NIT Championship game. Last year Iowa was pretty good at just about everything except shooting where they were just dreadful, ranking 308th in the NCAA in 3-point percentage. That's pretty much going to decide just how good they can be, and with the same team back things don't look great, but they do everything else well enough that I think 5th is just about right.
One major problem from last year, and the reason they didn't make the NCAA tournament most likely, is their non-conference schedule was shit. It left their RPI somewhere in the 70s and it's awfully damn hard to get an at-large bid with an RPI up there (and a SoS somewhere in the mid-100s). Well, they went ahead and made the exact same screw-up. They have their typical game against Iowa State, play Notre Dame in the B10/ACC Challenge, and they play in the Battle 4 Atlantis where they could pick up some good games, so none of that sounds too bad. Their mistake lies in scheduling way too many schools that could be in the 300s for RPI and zero other teams that have even an outside shot to crack the top 100. And yes, if this sounds familiar it should because the Gophers did the same damn exact thing and I don't want to talk about it.
One semi-helpful thing with looking at the Hawkeyes is they've already played six exhibition games this season thanks to their August trip to Europe (they went 5-1 with a loss to the great Hyeres-Toulon Basket team. I found box scores for five of the games, and they shot 32% for the trip from three, which is a slight uptick from last year but at the same time they were playing exhibition games against Europeans who were probably plucked from the local YMCA if they have those in Europe. Also this Peter Jok guy? The one newcomer this year for Iowa? Holy cow what a gunner. He took 31 threes in the five games to lead the team, and was either hot (4-8 and 4-7) or really not (1-4, 1-5, 1-7). Pretty ballsy for a freshman, but he and Josh Oglesby might be the keys for Iowa as the guys most likely to provide the outside shooting they need. Either way one thing is for certain: Iowa smells like shit.
6. INDIANA HOOSIERS. Indiana, like Michigan, is another team I feel is getting a little bit too much national love based on how gutted they are to last season. They do bring in a hell of a recruiting class (four ESPN Top 100 guys) and they actually complement what they bring back, but I guess, again like Michigan, I'm just hesitant to throw my opinion behind a team with so many questions. Besides the four new guys you've got Yogi Ferrell who can't shoot, Will Sheehey who is kind of a spaz, and a bunch of guys who played very limited minutes last year.
Obviously Tom Crean's hair is recruiting it's ass off so it's probably stupid to dismiss this team with that many ESPN Top 100 guys still hanging around. Along with those new 4 and Ferrell there are two others from last year, so yeah this team is talented I guess. The good news though is they seem to be losing out on recruits all of a sudden. Top 100 guy James Blackmon Jr. had committed but backed out, and they've lost out at the last minute on Top 100s Theo Pinson, Goodluck Okonoboh, and Devin Robinson. Hopefully this means that recruits are figuring out what a huge piece of crap Tom Crean is. Because it's true. [After I wrote this part Blackmon re-committed to Indiana. I stand by my theory that Tom Crean sucks as a human.]
7. PENN STATE NITTANY LIONS. This is the team,
outside the Gophers, I'm having the hardest time ranking, and I think,
like the Gophers, it's because my emotions keep getting in the way.
See, I love guys like Tim Frazier and want them to do well. When Talor
Battle was at Penn State (and no, this is not some kind of Penn State
phenomenon) I desperately wanted him to do well and carry his team to
the NCAA tournament - which he did only to be beaten by some Temple
jerks. Obviously putting them 7th, and I think this is pretty much
their ceiling, means I don't think Frazier is going to make it, but if
he's 100% back and everything gels perfectly they could do it.
It would have helped if that jerk Jermaine Marshall wouldn't have transferred and deserted Frazier, but with him (Frazier) out all of last season with that knee injury at least that meant everybody else who is back got to gain some valuable experience scoring the ball, mostly D.J. Newbill, but overall there just isn't enough here outside of Frazier to really have faith in this team. Ross Travis is a heck of a rebounder and the Gophers could definitely use him, but hopefully they'll end up with a different Travis instead (Reid Travis announces Nov 8 with a final three of Duke, Stanford, and Minnesota - have faith).
8. MINNESOTA GOPHERS. I'm honestly a little concerned I have them too high - yes, too high - but what can I say optimism is flowing through my veins right now (and it's a really weird feeling, like that one time I woke up not hungover). But of course that optimism is tinged by reality and pessimism that I cannot escape, and I just don't think there's enough in the front court here to really be even a middle-tier Big Ten team this year.
You've got three guys who are more perimeter guys, a high jumper who is probably way too small to pull it off, and a guy who yes, lost a bunch of weight, but has dealt with knee issues so who knows what you're going to get? Eliason is the only known commodity, and I think he's just fine as a Big Ten center, but if he's in foul trouble who knows what you're going to get? Not to mention you still need to find a starting 4 man out of this group of unknowns, and I don't have a particularly good feeling about any of them. The guard play should be top notch and that alone will keep them in a lot of games, and you just know there's a night here where all the 3-pointers are dropping and they shoot like 14-24 and knock off one of the top teams, but that's not going to be reliable enough to count on night after night. I hope I'm wrong, but I see the upside here as a bubble team. Here's hoping they make it.
9. ILLINOIS FIGHTING ILLINI. Hey you know what's cool about Illinois? Besides nothing? They're another team who has already played an exhibition game this season, and since there are tons of questions about how the team's going to shake out maybe we can learn a little something from that box score. Such as how Tracy Abrams, the point guard, led the team in shot attempts. Oh what an Illinois thing. Seriously, Chester Frazier must be rolling in his grave looking at the line of shoot first point guards who have populated that back court since he graduated. Well the line is just two, but they've both been extra annoying so it seems longer.
This was going to be a rough year in Illinois either way, but losing out on Ahmad Starks (transfer from Oregon State, going for the ole "closer to home" waiver - denied) is going to hurt since he averaged 10 pts per game last season. It's always tough to figure out how a team will shake out with so many newcomers (I count 2 transfers (+Starks) and five freshmen) but I'm pretty sure most of these guys suck. Could they make some noise later in the season after they've had time to play together for a while? No.
10. NORTHWESTERN WILDCATS. This is a team that for some reason, probably because I like the dudes at Sippin' on Purple, I kept wanting to rank higher but then I slapped myself in the face and looked closer and was like gross. After being right on the verge of that elusive first ever NCAA bid for a couple years, they took a step back last season (a Drew Crawford injury will do that) and finished 13-19 (4-14 in conference) and finally fired their coach. Oh, what's that? You didn't know Northwestern has a new basketball coach well you should since he's a former Dukie which means it's all anybody can talk about.
But I don't want to talk about that even though it's kind of interesting that we should see Northwestern playing in a whole new way. I'm more interested in wondering how good their back court might be if Crawford is fully healed and all good again and stuff. The one good thing about his injury last year was it allowed Reggie Hearn to step forward and thrive, and he actually put up nearly identical numbers to what Crawford did before he got hurt. Should be a pretty dynamic back court, plus they have that little lesbian still running around running point.
11. PURDUE BOILERMAKERS. Well, Purdue has A.J. Hammons, a guy named Basil Smotherman, and a guy (Travis Carroll) whose nickname is "Tacos" because of an auto-correct mistake on a scoreboard. That's pretty much all the positives. Maybe this freshman Kendall Stephens could end up being pretty good. And I suppose they do have two guys with the last name Johnson which means they could nickname themselves Johnson & Johnson, which is catchy. Not Tacos catchy, but still catchy.
I'm not really sure what's going on here with Purdue lately. If this season goes the way I'm expecting that'll make a second straight sub-par season and a second straight year missing the NCAA Tournament after making it six straight years (2 Sweet Sixteens). Looking at this year's freshman class and who is on the hook for 2014 there isn't really much of an impact here. In fact, Painter hasn't brought in anything resembling an impact class since that crazy Moore/Johnson/Hummel/Martin quartet, and that was back in 2007. Does this mean we're witnessing the slow death of Purdue basketball? Yes.
12. NEBRASKA CORNHUSKERS. I wrote about 11 teams, took my kids trick-r-treating, and boy am I tired. Yet here is Nebraska staring me right in my stupid face. I think we all believe that at some point Tim Miles will get Nebraska turned around and at least making them competitive. This is not that year.
After finishing 5-13 last season they return just two starters and I wouldn't exactly say the "Nebraska recruiting hot bed thing" hasn't started yet so ouch. Top returner is mad bomber Ray Gallegos (no relation to Mike Gallego) who led the Big Ten with 271 three-point attempts, but made just 30.6% of them. Remember how Gallegos went 6-9 from three against the Gophers at the Barn? Yeah, that didn't happen all that often. This Shavon Shields guy might be ok and they have a bunch of transfers coming in, most notably Terran Petteway from Texas Tech (that's the opposite of exciting), Florida transfer Walter Pitchford (whose name reminds me of Kevin Pickford who was that cool guy who was gonna throw the party in Dazed and Confused so I already like him) and guard Tai Webster out of New Zealand. According to some Webster would have been a top 50 type recruit if he came up through the AAU system and is an absolute steal for Miles. So maybe Nebraska will provide some excitement this year. Beyond just when we kicked their football asses!!!! SKI U MAH!!!!!
 |
| Big fan of this behavior |
1. MICHIGAN STATE SPARTANS. It's almost unfair. The Spartans return Keith Appling, Gary Harris, Denzel Valentine, Branden Dawson, and Adreian Payne this year. That's at least three NBA players. For me, Michigan State is the top team in the Big Ten by a pretty wide margin, and I think they're the second best team in the entire country (behind Louisville).
If you check out kenpom.com, you'll see the Spartans finished as the ninth best team last year according to his metrics. Every team in front of them is experiencing some pretty major roster turnover from last season (with the exception of Louisville), while Sparty loses only Derrick Nix and conveniently still have Payne to just stick right in there. Plus what was Nix's main contributions? Rebounding on both ends of the floor and making high percentage shots. Well Michigan State as a team is great at rebounding and makes a high percentage of their shots, so it's not like they're losing somebody who single-handedly changed their team like DeShaun Thomas. Plus with Izzo as their coach you know they'll just get better as the year goes on. It's just not fair. Of course, Keith Appling is the kind of player who can burn down a season pretty much by himself so I guess we have that going for us. Which is nice.
2. OHIO STATE BUCKEYES. Even though the Buckeyes only lose one player from last season (unless you count Evan Ravenel as a person, which I don't) but at the same time you could argue that they lost more than any other team in the conference because DeShaun Thomas. Not only did he take a ton of his team's shots (30th most of any player in D-1 by percentage) but he was very efficient as well, leading the team in offensive rating by a pretty good amount. Now he's gone, possibly in the NBA but I couldn't be bothered to look it up, but in any case he gone.
So now Ohio State is made up of a ton of formerly highly rated recruits who have been deferring to Thomas, two new freshman (both top 65 recruits by ESPN of course, this is Ohio State after all not some shit box program), and the Wes Ellsbury Eckstein Welker Punto of college basketball Aaron Craft. Seriously, who is going to lead the team in scoring this year? Any of Craft, Lenzelle Smith, Sam Thompson, LaQuinton Ross, Shannon Scott, Amir Williams, or Kameron Williams could end up leading the team and it wouldn't be a surprise. Actually, watch Kameron Williams because he's basically the new DeShaun Thomas but shorter and skinnier. He's definitely never seen a shot he didn't like. Plus look at this guy, tell me he doesn't look like a chucker:
Doesn't he kind of look like Pauly D.? Come on, you know you see it. And Pauly D. would definitely be a chucker if he was a basketball player. I'm also going to assume J-Woww is still hot even though I haven't watched that show in like 3 years.
I can't wait to watch this guy. I love chuckers when they aren't on my team.
 |
| That's a beer bong coming in from the right side there. |
Yes, there are a million questions about the front court, but if Bo Ryan is good at anything, besides being boring and looking ugly and acting like a baby, it's getting seldom used, little regarded big white guys to suddenly be productive and efficient when needed. Plus Nigel Hayes may be in position to contribute as a freshman, and he led the team in rebounding in their exhibition against UW-Platteville. Yes, I hated writing every word of this.
 |
| This seems like a lot of teeth. |
I know there's some good talent back but is this really a top 10 team? Nik Stauskas is just a shooter (a very good one) and Mitch McGary is a rebounder/dunker guy (a very good one). Where's the playmaker who makes this an elite team gonna come from? If Glenn Robinson makes that leap or freshman SF Zak Irvin is a game changer right away (and the PG situation works out) they could certainly end up meeting these preseason expectations, but that's too many unknown variables for me to be really confident in Michigan this year. So yeah. I'm also guessing that off all this predictions this is the one that's going to make me look really stupid at the end of the year. Possibly Penn State too. You'll see why.
 |
| I still hate Iowa, but this is a good argument it it's favor |
One major problem from last year, and the reason they didn't make the NCAA tournament most likely, is their non-conference schedule was shit. It left their RPI somewhere in the 70s and it's awfully damn hard to get an at-large bid with an RPI up there (and a SoS somewhere in the mid-100s). Well, they went ahead and made the exact same screw-up. They have their typical game against Iowa State, play Notre Dame in the B10/ACC Challenge, and they play in the Battle 4 Atlantis where they could pick up some good games, so none of that sounds too bad. Their mistake lies in scheduling way too many schools that could be in the 300s for RPI and zero other teams that have even an outside shot to crack the top 100. And yes, if this sounds familiar it should because the Gophers did the same damn exact thing and I don't want to talk about it.
One semi-helpful thing with looking at the Hawkeyes is they've already played six exhibition games this season thanks to their August trip to Europe (they went 5-1 with a loss to the great Hyeres-Toulon Basket team. I found box scores for five of the games, and they shot 32% for the trip from three, which is a slight uptick from last year but at the same time they were playing exhibition games against Europeans who were probably plucked from the local YMCA if they have those in Europe. Also this Peter Jok guy? The one newcomer this year for Iowa? Holy cow what a gunner. He took 31 threes in the five games to lead the team, and was either hot (4-8 and 4-7) or really not (1-4, 1-5, 1-7). Pretty ballsy for a freshman, but he and Josh Oglesby might be the keys for Iowa as the guys most likely to provide the outside shooting they need. Either way one thing is for certain: Iowa smells like shit.
 |
| Indiana was surprisingly lacking in pictures. |
Obviously Tom Crean's hair is recruiting it's ass off so it's probably stupid to dismiss this team with that many ESPN Top 100 guys still hanging around. Along with those new 4 and Ferrell there are two others from last year, so yeah this team is talented I guess. The good news though is they seem to be losing out on recruits all of a sudden. Top 100 guy James Blackmon Jr. had committed but backed out, and they've lost out at the last minute on Top 100s Theo Pinson, Goodluck Okonoboh, and Devin Robinson. Hopefully this means that recruits are figuring out what a huge piece of crap Tom Crean is. Because it's true. [After I wrote this part Blackmon re-committed to Indiana. I stand by my theory that Tom Crean sucks as a human.]
 |
| I like her she seems smart. |
It would have helped if that jerk Jermaine Marshall wouldn't have transferred and deserted Frazier, but with him (Frazier) out all of last season with that knee injury at least that meant everybody else who is back got to gain some valuable experience scoring the ball, mostly D.J. Newbill, but overall there just isn't enough here outside of Frazier to really have faith in this team. Ross Travis is a heck of a rebounder and the Gophers could definitely use him, but hopefully they'll end up with a different Travis instead (Reid Travis announces Nov 8 with a final three of Duke, Stanford, and Minnesota - have faith).
8. MINNESOTA GOPHERS. I'm honestly a little concerned I have them too high - yes, too high - but what can I say optimism is flowing through my veins right now (and it's a really weird feeling, like that one time I woke up not hungover). But of course that optimism is tinged by reality and pessimism that I cannot escape, and I just don't think there's enough in the front court here to really be even a middle-tier Big Ten team this year.
You've got three guys who are more perimeter guys, a high jumper who is probably way too small to pull it off, and a guy who yes, lost a bunch of weight, but has dealt with knee issues so who knows what you're going to get? Eliason is the only known commodity, and I think he's just fine as a Big Ten center, but if he's in foul trouble who knows what you're going to get? Not to mention you still need to find a starting 4 man out of this group of unknowns, and I don't have a particularly good feeling about any of them. The guard play should be top notch and that alone will keep them in a lot of games, and you just know there's a night here where all the 3-pointers are dropping and they shoot like 14-24 and knock off one of the top teams, but that's not going to be reliable enough to count on night after night. I hope I'm wrong, but I see the upside here as a bubble team. Here's hoping they make it.
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| The pillow says Illinois. Nice microwave. |
This was going to be a rough year in Illinois either way, but losing out on Ahmad Starks (transfer from Oregon State, going for the ole "closer to home" waiver - denied) is going to hurt since he averaged 10 pts per game last season. It's always tough to figure out how a team will shake out with so many newcomers (I count 2 transfers (+Starks) and five freshmen) but I'm pretty sure most of these guys suck. Could they make some noise later in the season after they've had time to play together for a while? No.
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| The website said these were Northwestern girls. Good enough for me. |
But I don't want to talk about that even though it's kind of interesting that we should see Northwestern playing in a whole new way. I'm more interested in wondering how good their back court might be if Crawford is fully healed and all good again and stuff. The one good thing about his injury last year was it allowed Reggie Hearn to step forward and thrive, and he actually put up nearly identical numbers to what Crawford did before he got hurt. Should be a pretty dynamic back court, plus they have that little lesbian still running around running point.
11. PURDUE BOILERMAKERS. Well, Purdue has A.J. Hammons, a guy named Basil Smotherman, and a guy (Travis Carroll) whose nickname is "Tacos" because of an auto-correct mistake on a scoreboard. That's pretty much all the positives. Maybe this freshman Kendall Stephens could end up being pretty good. And I suppose they do have two guys with the last name Johnson which means they could nickname themselves Johnson & Johnson, which is catchy. Not Tacos catchy, but still catchy.
I'm not really sure what's going on here with Purdue lately. If this season goes the way I'm expecting that'll make a second straight sub-par season and a second straight year missing the NCAA Tournament after making it six straight years (2 Sweet Sixteens). Looking at this year's freshman class and who is on the hook for 2014 there isn't really much of an impact here. In fact, Painter hasn't brought in anything resembling an impact class since that crazy Moore/Johnson/Hummel/Martin quartet, and that was back in 2007. Does this mean we're witnessing the slow death of Purdue basketball? Yes.
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| Bottom. |
After finishing 5-13 last season they return just two starters and I wouldn't exactly say the "Nebraska recruiting hot bed thing" hasn't started yet so ouch. Top returner is mad bomber Ray Gallegos (no relation to Mike Gallego) who led the Big Ten with 271 three-point attempts, but made just 30.6% of them. Remember how Gallegos went 6-9 from three against the Gophers at the Barn? Yeah, that didn't happen all that often. This Shavon Shields guy might be ok and they have a bunch of transfers coming in, most notably Terran Petteway from Texas Tech (that's the opposite of exciting), Florida transfer Walter Pitchford (whose name reminds me of Kevin Pickford who was that cool guy who was gonna throw the party in Dazed and Confused so I already like him) and guard Tai Webster out of New Zealand. According to some Webster would have been a top 50 type recruit if he came up through the AAU system and is an absolute steal for Miles. So maybe Nebraska will provide some excitement this year. Beyond just when we kicked their football asses!!!! SKI U MAH!!!!!
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Welcome Aboard, Carlos Morris
When it rains it pours or some other stupid cliche, because fresh off the signing of Nate Mason the Gophers picked up another commitment, this time from JuCo swingman Carlos Morris out of Florida. Morris was basically down to the Gophers and UAB, so this isn't really a surprise since Minnesota is like, way better than Alabama. The only minor question was if the Gophers would fill up scholarship 3 of 4 for next season given that they're still waiting on Rashad Vaughn and Reid Travis (who is announcing November 8th), but that's not really a concern because if those two dudes both want to come to the U they're going to find room one way or another.
Morris was originally ranked the #147 player in the country in the class of 2012 and other services had him even higher, so this is definitely a quality signing. He had originally signed with South Carolina (over Arkansas, Cincy, West Virginia, and a few others) but decommitted and ended up at Chipola Junior College instead for whatever reasons I don't feel like digging through google to figure out right now. I can't seem to find his stats at Chipola because apparently Junior Colleges hate sports, but according to Late Night Hoops he averaged over 13 points per game and hit over 50% from the floor (36% from three).
Morris is what sportswriters would call a "long, range-y player" and at 6-6 with elite level athletic ability he certainly has the ability to make a big impact next season. He should come in and be a big-time defender immediately (which is good since he's basically replacing Austin Hollins) and his offensive game sounds like it will fit what Pitino wants to do very well. He's a good scorer and complements that by being exactly with the basketball - according to ESPN he's a good ballhandler but not truly a point guard, more like your secondary ballhandler. If Pitino can make his system work, guys like Morris are exactly what he should be looking at.
This brings the Gopher commitment total up to 3, and although it's not the kind of group that will leave you gasping or even the level of talent Pitino was shooting for originally, I'm still pretty happy with it. 247sports has the Gophers' class ranked at #50 in the country, and with one more player to add that's pretty solid. Plus, all three players fit the profile you'd want - fast, athletic, attack the rim types who should be pretty good defensively, at least on paper. As far as his first class goes, after getting a late start due to, you know, being a new coach and all, I think he's done pretty well for himself.
As far as Reid Travis goes, well, pretty clearly that would be absolutely huge. As I mentioned he announces November 8th and I probably won't be able to sleep until that day. Pay special attention on Thursday, as Kevon Looney, the #13 overall recruit in 2014, is announcing his decision on where to attend next season. This is big, because Looney is a PF and he's got it narrowed down to Wisconsin, Duke, Florida, Tennessee, UCLA, and Michigan State, which sounds like a lot of schools but in reality it's sounding like he's pretty close to a lock for Duke. Seeing as how Travis is down to Minnesota, Duke, Stanford, and Gonzaga - also with most predicting Duke - Looney going there can only help the Gophers because, with them playing the same position, I find it unlikely Travis would end up at Duke along with Looney.
Needless to say, I really hope Mr. Looney decides to be a Blue Devil.
Oh, and Carlos Morris's nickname is Squirrel, so that's kind of cool. Welcome aboard.
Morris was originally ranked the #147 player in the country in the class of 2012 and other services had him even higher, so this is definitely a quality signing. He had originally signed with South Carolina (over Arkansas, Cincy, West Virginia, and a few others) but decommitted and ended up at Chipola Junior College instead for whatever reasons I don't feel like digging through google to figure out right now. I can't seem to find his stats at Chipola because apparently Junior Colleges hate sports, but according to Late Night Hoops he averaged over 13 points per game and hit over 50% from the floor (36% from three).
Morris is what sportswriters would call a "long, range-y player" and at 6-6 with elite level athletic ability he certainly has the ability to make a big impact next season. He should come in and be a big-time defender immediately (which is good since he's basically replacing Austin Hollins) and his offensive game sounds like it will fit what Pitino wants to do very well. He's a good scorer and complements that by being exactly with the basketball - according to ESPN he's a good ballhandler but not truly a point guard, more like your secondary ballhandler. If Pitino can make his system work, guys like Morris are exactly what he should be looking at.
This brings the Gopher commitment total up to 3, and although it's not the kind of group that will leave you gasping or even the level of talent Pitino was shooting for originally, I'm still pretty happy with it. 247sports has the Gophers' class ranked at #50 in the country, and with one more player to add that's pretty solid. Plus, all three players fit the profile you'd want - fast, athletic, attack the rim types who should be pretty good defensively, at least on paper. As far as his first class goes, after getting a late start due to, you know, being a new coach and all, I think he's done pretty well for himself.
As far as Reid Travis goes, well, pretty clearly that would be absolutely huge. As I mentioned he announces November 8th and I probably won't be able to sleep until that day. Pay special attention on Thursday, as Kevon Looney, the #13 overall recruit in 2014, is announcing his decision on where to attend next season. This is big, because Looney is a PF and he's got it narrowed down to Wisconsin, Duke, Florida, Tennessee, UCLA, and Michigan State, which sounds like a lot of schools but in reality it's sounding like he's pretty close to a lock for Duke. Seeing as how Travis is down to Minnesota, Duke, Stanford, and Gonzaga - also with most predicting Duke - Looney going there can only help the Gophers because, with them playing the same position, I find it unlikely Travis would end up at Duke along with Looney.
Needless to say, I really hope Mr. Looney decides to be a Blue Devil.
Oh, and Carlos Morris's nickname is Squirrel, so that's kind of cool. Welcome aboard.
Friday, October 25, 2013
Welcome Aboard, Nate Mason
I'm officially committed to a University of Minnesota! Go Golphers!!!!!! #blessed
— Nate Mason (@NateMason_2) October 25, 2013
And Boom. Nate Mason Jr., a point guard out from Georgia and Maryland, committed to the Gophers Friday night, and it's a huge get for Pitino considering his burning need to secure a point guard of the future. After many painful near misses, he still ended up getting a good one.
Mason ranks as the #126 recruit according to 247sports and the #26 point guard and should be the guy to run the offense for four years. Mason chose the Gophers over Kansas State and Virginia and he also held offers from Marquette and Clemson among many others.
By all accounts Mason is lightning quick and although he plays more of a combo guard now everyone seems to believe he has the ball skills to transition to more of a pure point without a problem in college. Plus with that combo guard experience he's already learned to score and is a good jump shooter so that's always a plus. If you watch the highlight video below you'll see a kid who can already score in a whole bunch of ways and reminds me of Dre Hollins in a lot of ways. I think I'm going to like this guy a lot. Plus his nickname is "The Assassin" which is pretty sweet.
This gives the Gophers and Pitino two members of the 2014 class with Mason joining Josh Martin. The class now has a big, which was sorely needed, and a point guard, which was badly coveted, and both are highly athletic, something that's clearly a priority for Pitino. With two scholarships left to play out it will be interesting to see how the recruitment of Carlos Morris, visiting UAB this weekend, plays out. The Gophers still have a shot at both Rashad Vaughn and Reid Travis (visiting this weekend by the way), or at least so it seems, so ideally they'd fill out the final two scholarships. They're both taking their time, however, with Vaughn not planning on making a decision until Spring, so you wonder if they'd be ballsy enough to hold out that long, especially if Travis does the same.
Morris, the Juco swingman from Florida ranked as the #5 JuCo player in the country, would be a quality edition to the Gophers for 2014 and given that his twitter profile pic at one point showed him wearing a Gopher hat and that 247sports predictions have him at 100% Minnesota you have to think the Gophers have a pretty good shot at him. Would they hold him off until the figure out what's happening with Travis and especially Vaughn and risk losing him to UAB? Go ahead and sign Morris now and figure they'll deal with whatever happens down the line? Either way I'm pretty sure if Morris, Vaughn, and Travis all end up wanting to go to the U they'll find a way to fit them all in.
Right now the Gopher class is ranked 68th in the country by 247sports. It's tough to know what to make of that since it's still early enough that classes are still coming together, but since the Gophers have two more spots anyway they'll definitely rise by the time everything shakes out. And I know this - 68th may not sound that great, but it's a whole lot better than it was before tonight.
Here is THE ASSASSIN:
Monday, October 7, 2013
Gopher Hoops Recruiting Update
Things I'm thinking about while wondering why Don Mattingly would bring Clayton Kershaw out on 3-day rest for the first time in his career in a non-elimination game when he threw 124 pitches the last time out:
- Reid Travis, the stud PF from De La Salle, has decided to give the Gophers an Official visit. Although this may not seem like a big deal since he's probably been on campus and talked to Pitino like a billion times, it validates his interest as more than a courtesy, at least in my opinion. Travis had narrowed his list to Minnesota, Stanford, Duke, and Gonzaga, and after having visited or scheduling visits to the other three schools giving Minnesota a visit makes me think he's not just keeping the Gophers on the list as a courtesy to the local school as I suspect Tyus Jones is doing.
Travis has always made it pretty clear he is looking for both a great basketball experience as well as a big time education which practically makes Stanford and Duke the automatic leaders, but there's some intel out there which indicates he's a bit put off by not being the Blue Devils' number 1 choice at power forward. There's also some intel that he may be strongly favoring Gonzaga. Of course, there's also some intel (which I was able to gather myself) that since the Pitino hiring Travis has gone from "not really interested" in the U to "definitely seriously interested" in the U, and this helps validate that. Plus there's this quote, “Just a hometown feel, being able to have my family come to every game, stuff like that,” Travis said of the appeal of Minnesota. “It would be nice to have that and just be able to represent Minnesota. That definitely plays into it. I kind of play with a chip on my shoulder and I like to represent my state.”
I tend to think this recruitment is pretty wide open, and with Duke and Stanford both looking at other stud PFs it would be great if they could secure a couple commitments before Travis's decision day, whenever that may be. I also wouldn't count on the Zags, seeing as how a couple of recruiting "experts" consider them a major player here. It's still an uphill battle for the Gophers to land him, but things have just gone from "blind optimism" to "hopeful." It might sound like a minor distinction, but it's not. Keep your fingers crossed, and pay attention to the names Kevin Looney (Duke) and Michael Humphrey (Stanford) - their decisions could make all the difference.
- Carlos Morris, the Juco wing from Florida, visited last weekend and by all accounts had an excellent time - in fact, his profile picture on his Twitter account is him wearing a Gopher hat so you'd probably think the Gophers are in good shape if they want him. His other two finalists are Seton Hall and UAB, and given the glut of guards the Pirates (that's Seton Hall, dummy) have already signed this year you'd have to think it's down to the Gophers and UAB (who he's visiting coming up here soon).
Morris is ranked as the #4 JuCo player in the country, and although JuCo's can range from the awesome (Bobby Jackson, Vincent Grier) to the horrible (Devron Bostick although I don't think Tubby used him properly, Kerwin Fleming) he sounds like a pretty good player - a nice 6-5 wing with the ability to both score off the ball and create with it, and the top thing I've read is he is already an excellent defensive player. The only real concern is the whole JuCo thing and that if they sign him and the next guy I'm about to talk about that probably puts them out of the Rashad Vaughn sweepstakes, but I suppose we'll count those chickens when we get to the bridge.
- Nate Mason, a top 150 type point guard from Georgia, is yet another recruit to put the Gophers in his Final Three. He has already visited his other two finalists, Kansas State and Virginia, and will be checking out the Gophers Officially this coming weekend. He's probably more of a combo guard now, but has the skills to transform into a pure point with a good jump shot and good ball skills, not to mention his lack of size may help push him in that direction in college anyway.
Mason wasn't on the Gophers' radar when they were after Ja'Quan Newton, Josh Perkins, and their ilk, but after getting spurned by everyone they turned to Mason and with him putting them in his Final Three and taking an official to Minneapolis, it looks like the feeling is mutual. Just as Michigan State dropped in late to steal Lourawls Nairn from the Gophers, they're kind of late to party here but may be ripping him away from schools that have been involved longer. I say good - what's good for the goose is also good for the gambler.
- Lastly, PF Bonzie Colson signed with Notre Dame. Colson seemed to have some level of interest in the Gophers, and they him, but I'm pretty sure the Josh Martin signing killed that on both sides. Which is fine.
By the way, I took the Falcons in our survivor league. Currently down 17-7. Pray for me.
- Reid Travis, the stud PF from De La Salle, has decided to give the Gophers an Official visit. Although this may not seem like a big deal since he's probably been on campus and talked to Pitino like a billion times, it validates his interest as more than a courtesy, at least in my opinion. Travis had narrowed his list to Minnesota, Stanford, Duke, and Gonzaga, and after having visited or scheduling visits to the other three schools giving Minnesota a visit makes me think he's not just keeping the Gophers on the list as a courtesy to the local school as I suspect Tyus Jones is doing.
Travis has always made it pretty clear he is looking for both a great basketball experience as well as a big time education which practically makes Stanford and Duke the automatic leaders, but there's some intel out there which indicates he's a bit put off by not being the Blue Devils' number 1 choice at power forward. There's also some intel that he may be strongly favoring Gonzaga. Of course, there's also some intel (which I was able to gather myself) that since the Pitino hiring Travis has gone from "not really interested" in the U to "definitely seriously interested" in the U, and this helps validate that. Plus there's this quote, “Just a hometown feel, being able to have my family come to every game, stuff like that,” Travis said of the appeal of Minnesota. “It would be nice to have that and just be able to represent Minnesota. That definitely plays into it. I kind of play with a chip on my shoulder and I like to represent my state.”
I tend to think this recruitment is pretty wide open, and with Duke and Stanford both looking at other stud PFs it would be great if they could secure a couple commitments before Travis's decision day, whenever that may be. I also wouldn't count on the Zags, seeing as how a couple of recruiting "experts" consider them a major player here. It's still an uphill battle for the Gophers to land him, but things have just gone from "blind optimism" to "hopeful." It might sound like a minor distinction, but it's not. Keep your fingers crossed, and pay attention to the names Kevin Looney (Duke) and Michael Humphrey (Stanford) - their decisions could make all the difference.
- Carlos Morris, the Juco wing from Florida, visited last weekend and by all accounts had an excellent time - in fact, his profile picture on his Twitter account is him wearing a Gopher hat so you'd probably think the Gophers are in good shape if they want him. His other two finalists are Seton Hall and UAB, and given the glut of guards the Pirates (that's Seton Hall, dummy) have already signed this year you'd have to think it's down to the Gophers and UAB (who he's visiting coming up here soon).
Morris is ranked as the #4 JuCo player in the country, and although JuCo's can range from the awesome (Bobby Jackson, Vincent Grier) to the horrible (Devron Bostick although I don't think Tubby used him properly, Kerwin Fleming) he sounds like a pretty good player - a nice 6-5 wing with the ability to both score off the ball and create with it, and the top thing I've read is he is already an excellent defensive player. The only real concern is the whole JuCo thing and that if they sign him and the next guy I'm about to talk about that probably puts them out of the Rashad Vaughn sweepstakes, but I suppose we'll count those chickens when we get to the bridge.
- Nate Mason, a top 150 type point guard from Georgia, is yet another recruit to put the Gophers in his Final Three. He has already visited his other two finalists, Kansas State and Virginia, and will be checking out the Gophers Officially this coming weekend. He's probably more of a combo guard now, but has the skills to transform into a pure point with a good jump shot and good ball skills, not to mention his lack of size may help push him in that direction in college anyway.
Mason wasn't on the Gophers' radar when they were after Ja'Quan Newton, Josh Perkins, and their ilk, but after getting spurned by everyone they turned to Mason and with him putting them in his Final Three and taking an official to Minneapolis, it looks like the feeling is mutual. Just as Michigan State dropped in late to steal Lourawls Nairn from the Gophers, they're kind of late to party here but may be ripping him away from schools that have been involved longer. I say good - what's good for the goose is also good for the gambler.
- Lastly, PF Bonzie Colson signed with Notre Dame. Colson seemed to have some level of interest in the Gophers, and they him, but I'm pretty sure the Josh Martin signing killed that on both sides. Which is fine.
By the way, I took the Falcons in our survivor league. Currently down 17-7. Pray for me.
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Just Watching some Baseball and Stuff
Bets for tonight:
Rays -115
Alex Cobb UNDER 6 Ks (BIG!)
Danny Salazar UNDER 5 Ks (BIG!)
Delmon Young UNDER 2 h+r+rbi
Cobb UNDER 96.5 pitches (MEDIUM!)
- Since you asked, yes, I do like the 2 Wildcards in each League format. I know some people hate it, but some people hate spicy food too - people are morons. Think about it like this: when there was just one Wild Card, you had 3 division winners and the WC in each league, so where's the advantage of winning your division when the WC and one of the division winners are treated exactly the same? If you were out, say, a game from the division lead with 2 games to play and had the wild card wrapped up there was no incentive to try to win it, rather rest your players and set up your rotation for the playoffs. Now? There is a HUGE advantage to winning the division - HUGE. No idea why people don't like it. You guys are all idiots.
- Speaking of things that people like, I usually don't like things that people like but I admit I'm pulling for the Pirates this year (and no, it has nothing to do with Francisco Liriano or Justin Morneau). I just think that after so many years of being terrible I'd like to see them have a nice run, just like if the Royals made it. I know Pittsburgh has had plenty of success with the Penguins and Steelers, but I don't know, such a historic franchise just being managed into the ground into an almost total failure, then rising 20 years later? It's a good story. And one us Twins fans should start to think hard about. MORE GARDY! HOORAY FOR BEING CRAPPY BUT LIKABLE! MORE RON GARDENHIRE PLEASE!
- Oh good, Salazar has it dialed up to 98. Excellent.
- My my how things have changed with the optimism regarding the Gopher basketball 2014 recruiting class. After getting mentioned by many, many top recruits and making numerous final cuts, it looks like they're going to get out with Josh Martin, who, right or wrong, dropped well out of ESPN's Top 100, and whichever of the Big 3 (if any) Pitino manages to grab. There's still plenty of time and plenty of players left to get a solid class (Carlos Morris, Nate Mason, Josh Cunningham, Bonzie Colson, etc.) but the dream days of a monster class are dead, barring scoring two of the Minnesota kids. I'm not knocking Pitino and I'm only a little disappointed, if only for myself for expecting a miracle, but it seems shooting for the stars with a brand new head coach with only a short time to recruit for the 2014 signing period may not have been the smartest thing for my mental health. It turns out obsessively refreshing Twitter on a recruit's decision day just makes you angry and tired.
There's still no reason to panic or to start worrying about Pitino as a recruiter. It isn't easy to make up ground in one off-season when most of these kids have relationships with other coaches going back years, and it's also tough to sell a program when suddenly someone like Michigan State swoops in at the last hour and steals a kid away like Pennywise the terrifying clown.
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| Yes, this is Tom Izzo. |
- I caught up on Breaking Bad in about 2 weeks just in time to watch the final 2 episodes "live" and there's no doubt in my mind it's the greatest show of all-time. I'll admit to not having watched The Wire or The Sopranos, the two shows most think of as being in the running with BB, so the only other things I have to compare it to are Lost and Game of Thrones (Comedy is a different category in my opinion, and that's a Seinfeld runaway - Simpsons would have been right there too if they ended it after like, 8-9 seasons - with Scrubs solidly in second but without the re-watchability factor of Seinfeld). Lost was right there where Breaking Bad was for 3-4 seasons and then fell completely apart, and Game of Thrones is based on books that I've read multiple times so there are no real surprises. Thus, nothing compares to Breaking Bad. Finale was pretty much perfect, and if you disagree you're mentally ill.
- Good sweet lord, is Delmon Young the greatest playoff hitter of all-time? He just hit the unhittable Danny Salazar about two billion feet out to left. I know shit like, "clutch" doesn't technically exist and stuff like that but it's hard to believe when every time you look up Delmon is back in the playoffs hitting another home run.
- Speaking of the mentally ill and Delmon Young, keeping Ron Gardenhire is still nagging at me. He's not the worst manager in history, obviously, and a lot of his issues are exacerbated by a front office and club mentality that both enables and emboldens him, but the game has passed him by. Whether you want to call him "old school" or ""stuck in his ways" depends on how generous you want to be, but he's not a forward thinker. Whether it's sac bunting all the time, loving the stolen base, the insistence at speed in the leadoff spot at the expense of getting on base, the insistence on someone who can "handle the bat" in the 2-spot at the expense of getting on base, the whole "pitch to contact" thing, the "hit to all fields" thing, the love of the scrappy white player, or his refusal to platoon players no matter how much their splits call for it, that's a lot of "advanced" strategies that he refuses to engage.
I get that the guy is probably a great clubhouse leader and I would probably pick him out of any major league manager in steak grill-off or beer chugging race, but enough is enough. Look at the teams who made the playoffs: The Rays, Indians, Pirates, and A's all use advanced metrics, defensive shifts, and platoon situations to take small payrolls and maximize their ability to win games - something the Twins could certainly use. But look at this quote from Terry Ryan,
"I don't think he likes to platoon players at all. I don't either. Put guys out there that are everyday players, then you don't have to platoon. You're always looking for players that can play 162 games, right? That's what I'm looking for. I don't go out looking for platoon players."That doesn't accomplish anything other than validate the manager's outdated philosophy and style, and explains why nothing has changed from when Jacque Jones was constantly starting despite being nearly helpless against lefties to Trevor Plouffe constantly starting despite being hapless against righties almost ten years later - he hasn't had a reason to change so why should he (oh, right, the success of the A's, Pirates, Rays, and Indians this year).
Last season, for example, the A's had Brandon Moss and Chris Carter - both of whom could crush pitchers who threw with one hand, but struggling against pitchers who threw from the other. So they put them together and ended up with 556 plate appearances and put up a line of .267/.349/.559 with 37 homers, 91 rbi, and 86 runs scored. That's basically Josh Willingham last year, except he made $7 million (and was considered a steal) while Moss and Carter combined to make about $6 million less.
At this point baseball has evolved to the point where doing things "the right way" isn't enough because "the right way" is constantly changing. For a time, building a team on solid fundamentals and not walking opponents was a winning strategy, but you need more. It's no longer a checkers match, and although chess match might be a bit much it's getting closer. Too bad the Twins just resigned a manager and still have a GM who are stuck on Connect Four.
BAM! Don't pretend you don't like that analogy.
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| Actual Picture |
- So I have early season futures (To Win World Series) on the A's (33/1), Braves (14/1), and Cardinals (23/1) so that's pretty good. Of course, I also had Twins, Royals, and D-Backs and that's pretty bad, but I'll take that 50% every time, especially since I wasn't exactly confident in either the Twins or Royals picks.
- Danny Salazar exits with 4 Ks. I'm a genius. Time to get Alex Cobb out of there.
- I just stumbled across a twitter conversation between a recruiting expert and a Gonzaga blogger, and the gist is that if that Looney kid commits to Duke before Reid Travis makes a move it's suddenly a West Coast battle between Stanford and Gonzaga. Yes, I know recruiting experts generally know only slightly, slightly more than the the general public with a few exceptions (I'll put Adam Zagoria up there) and bloggers know basically nothing, it's still not a fun read. I don't want to talk about it.
- Satellite went out again. This time the steam I found is in Spanish. Excelente!
Well the satellite's not coming back and my internet feed is apparently shit. I'm also tired and have already written too much for any mortal human to read. So I guess I'll see you guys later.
Thursday, August 15, 2013
Is Andrew Albers like, good?
Ok, let's get the obvious out the way right up front - he's had two starts, one he he lasted 8 and 1/3 innings and gave up no runs, and another was a complete game shutout. That's pretty crazy. He's just the 63rd pitcher to give up zero runs in his first two career starts, and the combined 17.1 innings is the 17th longest scoreless streak ever by a starter to begin his career, and the longest since the immortal John Hiller in 1967. Crazy, crazy stuff, especially coming from an unlikely source. Of course the downside is that the list isn't exactly full of big names (Phil Niekro and Mike Norris are probably the biggest) and some of the more recent pitchers to pull the two game thing off haven't exactly gone on to bigger things (Josh Collmenter, Vin Mazzarro, and Alex Sanabia, to name a few). So the big question - is Andrew Albers, like, good?
He was never really considered any kind of prospect, signing with the Twins as a minor league free agent after a year with the Padres' rookie ball squad and spending a season playing for Quebec in an Independent League in Canada. His minor league numbers are fantastic, however, putting up a career ERA of 2.64 and WHIP of 1.15 in 5 seasons, and while limiting walks and homers and striking out 7.7 batters per nine innings including 7.9 per at Rochester prior to being called up. Setting up like a nice diamond in the rough story, eh? And his pro results obviously have been a fantastic, but let's look at this with some nerd stats.
A fastball topping out at 87mph and a K/9 mark of 2.09 right now both scream fluke, as does being a starter who pitches from the stretch at all times (what's up with that?). Add in a BABIP of .113 and a LOB % of 100% and everything says regression to the mean is going to hit this kid and hit him really, really hard. Then again, that's what I thought after start #1, and start #2 was even better.
Now, if you aren't striking batters out, the other way to have some success is to get a ton of groundballs and not to walk anybody. His 49% ground ball rate would put him at 21st in the majors if he had enough innings. Very good. His walk rate of 1.7% would be the best in the majors, halving the 3.4% of major league leaders David Price and Adam Wainwright. Perhaps even more importantly to his success this far is when he's not getting ground balls he's not getting hit hard, with a line drive rate of just 11%, 5% better than league leader Stephen Strasburg. And, of course, he has yet to allow a fly ball to leave the yard, despite even the best pitchers usually seeing about 5% of their fly balls going out (he's only allowed 21 fly balls period, so this is one to watch). Could he sustain this? (Obviously not, but I mean something close enough to it to be a permanent fixture in the rotation)
Albers so far has thrown 58% of his pitches in the strike zone, which would be by far the highest percentage of all starting pitchers in the majors. Of those strikes, 63% have been swung at which is a pretty low rate, and he's getting nobody to chase the balls out of the zone (just 27% have been swung at). Batters are also making contact with the balls they swing at in the zone at a 94.5% rate, worse even than noted soft-tosser Bronson Arroyo. Everything about his advanced stat profile screams to me that he's getting extremely lucky so far.
That being said, I'm not going to write him off either. If he can continue to not walk anybody (likely), continue to get a lot of ground balls (pretty likely), and keep the ball in the park (less likely) he could still find some success. If he can figure out how to strike batters out, we could really have something here. I would say he's got no chance at bringing up the Ks with that fastball at this level, but his AAA numbers were good so maybe there's something back there somewhere.
I guess the answer to the question, "Is Andrew Albers like, good?" is "probably not." But note the "probably". His two starts are historically amazing, but it's likely once teams get more tape and figure him out and his luck evens out he's going to get pounded. There does, however, exist the possibility that he's one of those rare pitchers who defy the advanced metrics, as he has so far. Hope for a back-of-the-rotation mainstay who can give you a season worth of 4.00 ERA year after year. But expect worse.
OTHER TWINS NOTE WORTH NOTING: In the blockbuster Drew Butera trade the Gophers received the infamous "Player to be Named Later." That player has now been named and it's Miguel Sulbaran. Sulbaran is a lefty starter at the Dodgers' Single-A affiliate, and at just 19 years old put up some pretty solid numbers - 3.01 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, and an 85/27 K/BB ratio. He started young at 17 in rookie ball and through these years has an ERA of 3.21, WHIP of 1.19, and K/BB ratio of 206/59. Awfully good numbers for his age and level. He was actually named the #14 prospect in the Dodger system earlier this season. All this for Drew Butera? Considering getting anything other than "cash consideration" would have felt like a win, this feels like an outright steal.
GOPHER NOTE WORTH NOTING: According to a source close enough to know, since the Richard Pitino hire Reid Travis is now "seriously considering" the Gophers. I know this is sort of something everyone has kind of pieced together and some recruiting experts have said the same thing, but it was kind of cool to hear it confirmed. Plus I wanted to act all cool because I have a source. A one time only source, but a source. I'm so big time.
He was never really considered any kind of prospect, signing with the Twins as a minor league free agent after a year with the Padres' rookie ball squad and spending a season playing for Quebec in an Independent League in Canada. His minor league numbers are fantastic, however, putting up a career ERA of 2.64 and WHIP of 1.15 in 5 seasons, and while limiting walks and homers and striking out 7.7 batters per nine innings including 7.9 per at Rochester prior to being called up. Setting up like a nice diamond in the rough story, eh? And his pro results obviously have been a fantastic, but let's look at this with some nerd stats.
A fastball topping out at 87mph and a K/9 mark of 2.09 right now both scream fluke, as does being a starter who pitches from the stretch at all times (what's up with that?). Add in a BABIP of .113 and a LOB % of 100% and everything says regression to the mean is going to hit this kid and hit him really, really hard. Then again, that's what I thought after start #1, and start #2 was even better.
Now, if you aren't striking batters out, the other way to have some success is to get a ton of groundballs and not to walk anybody. His 49% ground ball rate would put him at 21st in the majors if he had enough innings. Very good. His walk rate of 1.7% would be the best in the majors, halving the 3.4% of major league leaders David Price and Adam Wainwright. Perhaps even more importantly to his success this far is when he's not getting ground balls he's not getting hit hard, with a line drive rate of just 11%, 5% better than league leader Stephen Strasburg. And, of course, he has yet to allow a fly ball to leave the yard, despite even the best pitchers usually seeing about 5% of their fly balls going out (he's only allowed 21 fly balls period, so this is one to watch). Could he sustain this? (Obviously not, but I mean something close enough to it to be a permanent fixture in the rotation)
Albers so far has thrown 58% of his pitches in the strike zone, which would be by far the highest percentage of all starting pitchers in the majors. Of those strikes, 63% have been swung at which is a pretty low rate, and he's getting nobody to chase the balls out of the zone (just 27% have been swung at). Batters are also making contact with the balls they swing at in the zone at a 94.5% rate, worse even than noted soft-tosser Bronson Arroyo. Everything about his advanced stat profile screams to me that he's getting extremely lucky so far.
That being said, I'm not going to write him off either. If he can continue to not walk anybody (likely), continue to get a lot of ground balls (pretty likely), and keep the ball in the park (less likely) he could still find some success. If he can figure out how to strike batters out, we could really have something here. I would say he's got no chance at bringing up the Ks with that fastball at this level, but his AAA numbers were good so maybe there's something back there somewhere.
I guess the answer to the question, "Is Andrew Albers like, good?" is "probably not." But note the "probably". His two starts are historically amazing, but it's likely once teams get more tape and figure him out and his luck evens out he's going to get pounded. There does, however, exist the possibility that he's one of those rare pitchers who defy the advanced metrics, as he has so far. Hope for a back-of-the-rotation mainstay who can give you a season worth of 4.00 ERA year after year. But expect worse.
OTHER TWINS NOTE WORTH NOTING: In the blockbuster Drew Butera trade the Gophers received the infamous "Player to be Named Later." That player has now been named and it's Miguel Sulbaran. Sulbaran is a lefty starter at the Dodgers' Single-A affiliate, and at just 19 years old put up some pretty solid numbers - 3.01 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, and an 85/27 K/BB ratio. He started young at 17 in rookie ball and through these years has an ERA of 3.21, WHIP of 1.19, and K/BB ratio of 206/59. Awfully good numbers for his age and level. He was actually named the #14 prospect in the Dodger system earlier this season. All this for Drew Butera? Considering getting anything other than "cash consideration" would have felt like a win, this feels like an outright steal.
GOPHER NOTE WORTH NOTING: According to a source close enough to know, since the Richard Pitino hire Reid Travis is now "seriously considering" the Gophers. I know this is sort of something everyone has kind of pieced together and some recruiting experts have said the same thing, but it was kind of cool to hear it confirmed. Plus I wanted to act all cool because I have a source. A one time only source, but a source. I'm so big time.
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