Gophers Lose. Sports are stupid.

I was just going to toss out a couple tweets, but this is probably slightly longer than a tweet, although it won't be the huge word vomit type I post I used to litter this blog with.  Couple things I didn't like about the game, besides the soul crushing loss.

-  The pick and roll.  It flat out didn't work, and they went to it over and over and over and over and over again.  The Spartans hard hedged/doubled the ball-handler every single time, and I can't remember a single time the roller got the ball.  I haven't rewatched because I'm not a weirdo, but it's bizarre that they never hit the roller on a single pick and roll.  Even if Michigan State covered the roller with help defense perfectly there should have been a skip pass that was memorable.

The only success they had with the pick and roll was when the ball handler would go the opposite way from the pick and get to the rim.  I do remember this working with more than one of the guards a few times, but the success rate was just overall brutal.  The team needs to switch things up, and use the pick and roll maybe to start the play, but with some kind of pick/screen action away from the ball to kick start things.  This offense flat out did not work against the Spartans defense.

-  Partially because of the bad offense, and partially because they screwed up like, every single fast break, the assists dropped off in this game.  11 assists on 20 made baskets, or 55%, below their season number of 62% (after this game).  May not seem like much of a drop, but the prior games were 73%, 69%, 71%, and 72% and it seemed like the offense was humming.  So this game was a bit of a fucking record scratch.

-  Where was Springs?  He played 17 minutes but I swear I hardly saw him in the second half or overtime.  I now he's not the greatest, but he's shown he can light it up.  If he's off he has little value and shouldn't play, but he only took two shots and the one he made was a bit of a tough one on a real quick catch and shoot.  On a night where the offense mostly sucked, maybe giving your streakiest shooter more of a chance is a good idea?

-  Reggie Lynch.  Cut the shit.  11 minutes due to constant - CONSTANT - foul trouble.  He's the most game changing player on this team and the team is totally different on both ends of the floor when he's in the game.  Eleven god damn minutes.  Knock it off.  Bakary Konate has turned into a much better back-up than I expected, and he actually did a nice job on whoever that fat guy was who kept scoring, but Lynch is the most important player on this team.  Eleven minutes.  Stop being dumb.

-  I think that's it.  I thought both plays at the end of games with chances to win were fine.  Shots didn't go in.  Free throws sucked, and if we counted up the number of missed front ends of 1-and-1s maybe I'd feel different, but they shot 68.9% in this game, basically their season number (69.2%) and the overall college basketball number (69.6%).  The real problem was the terrible second half offense.  Be more interesting.  And cut the shit with the weave to start every possession.  It's not doing anything but wasting time.

10 Things I Liked and Didn't Like from the Puerto Rico Tip Off

I didn't get to see much of the tournament this weekend.  The first two games happened while I was at work, and the third I missed because on account of being at a bar that didn't have the game on because grrr football, so most of these impressions are coming from flashes of the first two games and looking at box scores and advanced metrics.  Let's just say that coming out of there 1-2 with the only win over lowly Missouri State in a game they almost blew is not an encouraging sign for this season. Ugh.

1.  The Rebounding.  Oh god, the rebounding.  We were pretty well tipped off when Southwest Minnesota State or whoever outrebounded the Gophers in their exhibition game, but man oh man it is not pretty.  They were outrebounded in all three games, and their rebound rates on both sides of the ball are north of the top 225 in NCAA, and they have yet to play a real good opponent.  This is a really, really bad thing.  It's not surprising with the personnel they have, but might be worse than I thought.  Jordan Murphy's defensive rebounding rate is the only one on the entire roster to crack the Top 500 of all NCAA players.

2.  I'm kinda worried Kevin Dorsey can't shoot.  This can be worked around because he is so, so, so good at attacking the rim, but I'm a little worried here.  I know it's easy to point at 2-15 and yell about how he can't hit the broadside of a rim, and that's stupid because sample size and all that, but it's more how he missed.  I'm pretty sure I saw at least one airball, and a couple more that were just, yuck.  Hopefully this gets a little better as the year and career go on, because I love the way he goes to the rim, and a broken jumper makes that more difficult.

3.  Speaking of which, this offense is way too 3-point dependent.  Over 40% of their attempts so far this year are from three, and although that kind of offense can work it's a dramatic uptick from the 33% last year.  Not to mention last year they could actually shoot, hitting almost 38% compared to 34% this year.  Nate Mason will be better than his 29% so far and Dorsey likely isn't a sub 20% shooter, but Carlos Morris, Joey King, and Charles Buggs aren't going to keep hitting at this high of a percentage either.  Plus, again, the caliber of competition so far says they shouldn't have to depend on the 3, and should instead be going to the rim.  Unless something changes this is only going to get worse once conference play starts, which means they'll probably get one cool awesome upset win when everyone is hot, but a whole lot of losses.

4.  Terrible 3-point defense.  Again.  The Gophers have always struggled defending the three for whatever reason and so far are again.  Looking back the last time they ranked in the top 100 in the country against the three was 2008.  2008!  Last year they ranked 287th, this year so far 275th.  That is bad.  The one positive I see is that they're actually limiting the number of threes opponents shoot for the first time under Pitino, with opposing teams taking just 32% of their attempts from three, a number that was over 35% in both of his first two years and every Tubby year, so maybe that's a positive trend.  Or maybe teams are just attacking a gooey soft defense.  Too soon to tell, but they are at least playing pretty good two-point defense.

5.  Bakary Konate is better than I expected.  Now, this is still a very, very fragile compliment given that he is indeed still raw and is kind of a foul machine, but I was impressed by two things.  I saw a legit jump hook.  Not a raw goofy one like if you ask a high school wrestler to shoot one, but a real, good looking shot.  I remember being so stunned by it that I don't even remember if it went in.  Also, his free throws are gorgeous.  Great form, nice high arc, just perfect.  He's only 5-9 this year but whatever, that's fine.  He's further along than I expected him to be.  The Gophers are still screwed for this year, but I am pleasantly intrigued.  His rim protection numbers also look good with a Top 100 block rate in the country right now, but I don't recall seeing any blocks of his so I won't comment further.

6.  Carlos Morris may yet be the death of me.  Every once in a while Morris does something smart and in control.  And I do mostly love him on the defensive end because he balances out his lapses and mistakes by getting a lot of steals.  However, "Morris floater in the lane" might be my least favorite sentence ever because he just does not have that shot.  I knew this year would be nuts because he was going to be asked to be a big part of the offense.  I guess I had hoped we'd see a different Morris, and I suppose if he continues to hit threes at a 43% clip you can deal with a lot of mistakes.  Also he's taking the ball to the rim more than last year, so that's good too.  Look at me, I'm talking myself into Carlos Morris!  This is gonna be a great year!

7.  This is a young team, and a young coach.  Duh, of course, but it's good to keep reminding myself that when Pitino switches up defense to a half court trap for no good reason and the defense gets torched after regular old man to man was doing a good job against Missouri State.  With so many young players and youngish guys playing heavy minutes for the first time and the variety of defenses Pitino likes to run it's no wonder at times the defense looks like a rec league team of 5th graders running around.  This is a year for patience and waiting, which is kind of frustrating considering it's Year 3 of the Pitino era, but at the same time the way the roster was constructed you could see this year looming, and unless he hit on a huge recruiting class this year was pretty much earmarked as rough.  Something good better happen next year though, because he's got that big time class.

8.  Nate Mason is going to be a star.  He played pretty crappy in the tournament overall and so far is showing a disturbing propensity to foul so far this year, but much like Carlos Morris passes the eye test for reckless crazy, Mason passes the eye test for totally under control future star.


And I could only come up with eight things and I kind mailed in the last one so I guess that's as good as you're gonna get.  Up next is Omaha, a terrible team the Gophers ought to beat by double digits.  Their only win this season against a D-1 team was in overtime against a UMKC team the Gophers beat by 18, and one of their losses was to Santa Barbara, their only win so far this year.  They did hang with Colorado and lost by just five, so maybe they aren't completely terrible, but they shoot 23.6% from three, so maybe they are.   The most worrisome thing is so far this year they've given up a lot of three pointers, but done a good job and teams are hitting a super low percentage, so that's bad considering the Gophers love to shoot threes and are horrible at it.

Should be fun.

Game Preview: Gophers vs. Wake Forest

This Wake game just sucks.  Really sucks.  It's a total no win, big loss situation.  Wake Forest is not a very good team and they just lost at home to a horrendous Delaware State club so they shouldn't be scary.  That also means a win against them will mean nothing for their March hopes, and a loss will be a big black mark.  They'll be on the road, where they're always shaky, against an ACC opponent with one very strong skill (they're one of the best rebounding teams in the country and tops overall on not allowing offensive rebounds) in a game they can't afford to lose.  Doesn't seem fair.  They're going to be a 5 point favorite in a game where a loss is a major resume killer.  Sucks.  So I guess yeah just win.

The reason the Deacons control the boards mainly lies with the talents of 6-9 junior forward Devin Thomas, who 4th in the country in defensive rebounding percentage, grabbing 36% of all opponent missed shots when he's on the floor, adding up to 10.3 rebounds per game.  He's not a huge scorer (11.7ppg) but he's capable, having put up 19 against Arkansas, the best defensive team Wake has faced this year.  He mainly hangs around the bucket and is shooting 51% this year and he'll be a handful for Eliason and Walker to handle.  He also excels at getting to the line, drawing over 7 fouls per 40 minutes and having taken nearly as many free throws as field goals on the season.  I seriously doubt both, if any, of those two can avoid hacking away so that means we may see a hearty dose of Bakary Konate.  Sink or swim, kid, sink or swim.

The other Demon Deacon who deserves his own call out is Codi McIntyre-Miller, and not just because he spells his first name with an I.  He's a bit of an odd duck as a 6-3 guard who doesn't shoot 3-pointers (just 7 attempts this year), but's still managed to average 11.3 points per game this year though on 39% shooting.  He's the play maker and point guard for the team, though his assist numbers have taken a bit of a tumble this year and his turnovers have jumped up a bit.  The best news of all is that he's taking over 30% of his team's shots when he's on the floor with an eFG% of 39% and you know what that means - CHUCKER ALERT!  Always fun.

Behind those two there's a mishmash of 7 other guys who play 13 or more minutes per game, but none really standout.  Mitchell Wilbekin (6.9ppg, 1.6spg), brother of Scottie, is the other starting guard and a plus defender and the team's top three point threat (44% on about 4 attempts per game).  Cornelius Hudson (7ppg, 4.3rpg) starts on the wing and he's another great rebounder on this team, and Michael Crabtree's brother.  Down low Darius Leonard starts next to Thomas (6.6ppg, 3.4rpg).  He's not scary, though if it goes as expected and Joey King ends up guarding him who knows.  Off the bench Wake gets some scoring pop from 6-10 freshman Konstantinos Mitoglou (8.1ppg and 5.6rpg in just 18.1mpg) and 6-1 junior guard Madison Jones (7.1ppg, 2.9apg), another point guard who doesn't shoot threes.  There's a bunch of other guys here but Danny Manning mixes and matches a lot of guys, trying to find a workable and winning combination.  The seven I touched on here are the ones who should really impact the game.

Overall, Wake is a pretty bad team.  But they have a couple of big advantages:  They are a much better rebounding team than the Gophers and could end up getting a ton of o-boards while allowing Minnesota to grab zero of them, and they get to the line regularly and that's been the Gophers major weakness.  On the flippity flop, the Gophers create a ton of turnovers and Wake has been really sloppy with the ball this year, and even better most of their turnovers are coming via the steal and the Gophers are rocking the thefts this year.  Neither team can shoot though both share the ball well, so that's a push.  The way I see it, if you look at the four factors most highly correlated with winning basketball, there's one push (shooting), one where the Gophers have the edge (turnovers), and two go to Wake (rebounding, free throws). Add in Wake having home court and I struggle to see this going well for Minnesota.  Someone push the panic button.

Wake Forest 64, Minnesota 60.

Louisville 81, Gophers 68

Say la vee.  Anyone expecting the Gophers to win was probably a raging homer so this doesn't really come as a surprise, and they kept it from a being a blowout against a Final Four contender so that's a positive.  It's tough to get a true read on a game like tonight since there were one million fouls called and Louisville made free throws and the Gophers didn't, but there's still some things we can learn.  Here are 10 things I liked and didn't like about the Louisville game, with the caveat that this opponent was probably the best team the Gophers will face all season.

1.  Dre Hollins looked good.  Or should I say Andrew Hollins, which is what the pregame announcer called him during lineups.  Dre led the team with 22 points, and more importantly did it by getting to the rim as well as jump shots which was a slight concern I still had.  He took six threes versus nine twos which is a better ratio of 2s to 3s than he's had in his career and a sign that maybe he's decided attacking the rim is the way to go, which it is.  He hit a couple of floaters in the lane which is a shot I don't remember him having in his repertoire before and is a positive.  It also looks like he'll be playing strictly off the ball this year with Mathieu and Mason doing the ball handling.  This might be a negative for his NBA potential, but a definite positive for the Gophers and should lead to more and better scoring chances coming off picks.

2.  Mo Walker has a chance to be a real force.  Man did he look good.  Like basically every Gopher who matters he spent a chunk of the game in foul trouble so his numbers were maybe suppressed a bit (10 pts, 4 rebs on 5-7 shooting) but he is tough when he's in the paint.  A nice drop step and a nice looking lefty jump hook that could become a nice pet move, and his footwork combined with his size make it really hard for a defender to get into, and even more stay into, a good guarding position.  I'm getting ahead of myself here, but there's a chance Walker has become the type of player you can't defend one-on-one.  We won't know until he plays legit competition again which is in like a month, but I'm extremely positive on Mo right now.

3.  Nate Mason is legit. He was probably pressed into more minutes than Pitino (Richard not Rick) would like due to foul trouble (I guess) but the kid looked like a player.  He was a little shaky with the ball early which made me think he was a nervous freshman in a big spot, but he quickly overcame that and flashed some high level skills and a tremendous amount of confidence.  His first collegiate bucket came taking the ball basically coast-to-coast including a stutter step move that allowed him to blow right by quality defender Wayne Blackshear, and he's good enough already on the defensive end to stick with Chris Jones - or at least as well as anybody can.  He had five rebounds in 20 minutes, which is tremendous for a guard, and after some free throw troubles settled down to hit 6-10 on the night.  If he can give you that kind of defense and rebounding and continue getting to the line he's going to be an absolute steal for the Gophers.

4.  It's ok to play guys with more fouls than you'd like earlier than you'd like when needed.  I HATE THIS.  It's not just our Pitino to be sure since most coaches follow the sit down a guy with 2 fouls in the first half mantra, but it's not necessary.  When the offense has completely stagnated because your top two shot creators in Mathieu and Morris are both on the bench with two fouls you need to get them back in before Louisville goes on a 15-2 run.  I recognize it's prudent to try to keep your best players from becoming disqualified and not being around for crunch time, but sometimes it's more important to take a chance so maybe you can get to crunch time in a competitive position.  Ugh.

5.  Montrezl Harrell is ridiculous.  How unfair was it when Harrell hit that three pointer as the first basket of the game?  I practically did a double take.  Harrell's game was always pretty much paint oriented, but I guess he worked his ass off to become a jump shooter and man that just isn't fair.  He went 3-4 from three and hit at least one other jumper, all in addition to complete dominating the glass and the paint on his way to a 30 point, 7 rebound night.  Granted, the Gophers don't have anyone who can match up with him as the only guy who could maybe do it physically is a freshman and everyone else is either too small (King) or too slow (Walker and Eliason), but he certainly took advantage.  Then again, there aren't too many players who can match up with him in the nation period.  He could very well be the best player in the country.  Super impressive.

6.  Carlos Morris is going to be an adventure.  When I wrote after the UMD exhibition game I said that Morris looks like he believes he can score on every position, but that I meant that in a good way.  I still hold that same sentiment, even after an off game.  He shot just 3-9 in this one and took some horrendous shots along the way, not to mention forcing drives where they weren't going to work.  It's hard as hell going from JuCo defenders and UMD to Louisville so it wasn't a surprise watching Morris struggle, but a big key to the season might be if Morris can adjust his game to be a more efficient and effective scorer against better defenses.  The Gophers still need his ability to create offense, but he just has to do it in the flow of the offense, transition or half court.  And no more contest long twos.

7.  Crappy long 2-point jumpers are not how you win games.  A lot of this is due to Louisville's stellar defense, but man did the Gophers take a lot of crappy shots.  When the Gophers got out in transition and ran they did fine, but in the half court it was pretty brutal.  The worst was when Mathieu, Walker, and Morris were all on the bench with two fouls in the first half (the horror!) and the Gophers simply could not initiate any kind of offense.  Hollins came around in the second half just fine, but in the first he was very passive (I actually made the note "Hollins passive" but the second half wiped it out) and there was just no offense going on at all.  Seemed more like a Tubby offense than a Pitino offense, but I suppose it doesn't really matter what you draw up if nobody can get inside that damn defense.  Though it would be nice to at least work the ball around a bit rather than throwing that crappy long 2 up with 20 seconds left on the shot clock (*coughMorriscough*).

8.  Josh Martin and Bakary Konate had rough intros to college ball.  Granite, making your debut in a modified aircraft hanger in stifling hot weather in a foreign country against one of the best teams in the country is probably pretty tough, but yikes.  They only played 10 total minutes, but in that time managed a couple of turnovers, a few bad fouls, several horrible defensive rotations, and Konate put up the single worst shot of the night by throwing up a half contested 18.5 foot jumper that shockingly didn't go in.  I'm not worried about either freshmen as I'm sure they'll be fine against normal, human teams, I'm just saying it wasn't pretty.  Even if it's understandable ugly is still ugly.  Like a chick hit in the face with a frying pan.

9.  The free throws, my god the free throws.  The Gophers ended up hitting 20 of 33 free throws which is a horrible 61%, and they only got to that number by getting hot at the end.  In a game with one billion fouls called it was maddening every time the Gophers got a chance at the line to help narrow the gap and ended up clanging away two free points again and again and yes I'm looking at you Nate Mason.  I think the team was 8-18 at one point, and even if I'm making that up it was something similarly horrible to that.  I'm sure it's stupid for a middle aged white nerd sitting on his couch to say how easy free throws are, but I'm going to anyway because I hit 83% in my high school career.  I guess what I'm saying is, I probably could have played division I high major college ball.  Probably.

10.  I don't know what to say about Joey King.  He clearly tries hard.  He's changed himself from a perimeter obsessed mincing nancy to someone who does his best to be a real life power forward, and that's really admirable.  He tries to bang around in the lane, tries to be a big time rebounder, gives it his all defensively, and has actually become a halfway decent scorer in the lane, and he still has his not horrible jumper.  He really tries, but man there are times when his physical limitations are just glaring, like against Louisville.  Anyone the Cardinals ran out there just ran and jumped circles around King, or pushed him around, or in the case of Harrell did all three.  I've stopped hating him, but man it can be tough to watch when he's just getting brutalized and there's nothing he can do about it.


All in all the Gophers stuck pretty close with a Final Four contender and didn't roll over and die when it would have been pretty easy to just give up.  I don't know how anyone can't be happy with that.  Now we move on.  Three games this week, but only Western Kentucky in the home opener Tuesday night is likely to put up any kind of fight.  Then comes the big Thanksgiving tournament in New York, where they'll play St. John's and either Georgia or Gonzaga.  Need to go 1-1 at worst.

I'll try to get a preview up for WKU, but no promises.  I will not be doing a preview for Bernard Pierce or Mildred Pierce or whatever.  I do have some standards.

Welcome aboard, Zach Lofton and Bakary Konate!

The Gophers' 2014 recruiting class is now complete (probably) with the recent signings of Zach Lofton (who almost certainly won't be eligible until 2015) and Bakary Konate, who join Gaston Diedhiou, Josh Martin, Carlos Morris, and Nate Mason to make up Richard Pitino's first official recruiting class.  It's not an amazing class by any means, with 247sports ranking it 9th in the Big Ten (this doesn't include Lofton since he's a transfer from Illinois State) but it's a dramatic shift in personnel traits.  All five of the freshmen are extremely athletic and should be able to get up and down the court.  Make no mistake - this team is changing.

Konate, who ranks as the 182nd best player and 15th best center by 247sports, is originally from Spain, and most recently played at Sunrise Christian Academy in Kansas.  Louisville had offered earlier, however Konate's academics weren't in order and the Cardinals moved on.  The Gophers swept in and grabbed him over Texas A&M, Tulane, and Creighton, foregoing any other visits other than to Minnesota because he says he knew this is where he wanted to be.  So that's cool.  Konate still needs to take the SAT and get a good enough score to gain admission to Minnesota, but his coach says that shouldn't be a problem.  Which is exactly what he has to say.

Hopefully it isn't an issue, because Konate sounds like he's going to be fun.  He's big, strong, and super athletic and he does two really fun things - blocks shots and hits outside jumpers.  He's a true center at 6-11, and although they say he's not super polished on the block the fact that he can step out and hit 2s and even 3s adds a nice wrinkle.  The one big weakness they say is that he's not as strong in the lower body as he is in the upper, which could get him pushed around in the Big Ten, but if Pitino can get Mo Walker to lose weight, hopefully he can get Konate to gain weight.  He's a great pick up this late.  Not much video out there, but here's him dunking against a D-I team.




Zach Lofton, originally from Columbia Heights, is transferring in from Illinois State.  It's said he'll be applying for a waiver to play right away next season, but he doesn't really have any good reasons for one so it's unlikely.  Of course, this being the NCAA who the hell knows what they'll decide.  Once Lofton decided to leave the Illinois State program he didn't look at anybody other than the Gophers, hoping they'd make him an offer.  They did, and despite a lot of whining and questioning from rubes at Gopher Hole, I think this is an excellent signing.

Lofton scored 11.3 points per game for the Redbirds last season (he also spent a year at a JuCo), which would normally have fans very excited, but his .339 shooting percentage including .292 from three has some fans up in arms about how he "sucks" and using a scholarship for three years is "a waste" and how the Gophers should get someone better (because everyone is just clamoring to transfer here).  Perhaps fans are scarred by the whole Malik Smith thing (small school volume shooter with iffy percentages), but this is a very different situation.  I promise.

For one thing, Malik Smith was a three point shooter and that's basically it.  His final year at FIU he took 71% of his shots from behind the 3-point line and only 12% at the rim.  Lofton took 52% from behind the arc and 19% at the rim last season - those are marked differences.  Smith went a little more extreme with the Gophers at 78% and 10%, but even if Lofton shifts more towards a 3-point shooter role (I don't expect this to happen) he would probably wind up with similar splits as Dre Hollins last year, a vastly different type of player than Malik Smith.

Watching the video on him (see below) some of his shot selection is cringe-worthy but he's also light years ahead of Malik in terms of athleticism.  I also don't see Pitino giving Lofton the same green light he game Smith given that they don't have a past relationship.  Illinois State was also a very young team which may have played a part as well.

The other thing people are all pantie bunched about is that he had some disciplinary issues and missed the final 3 games of the Redbirds' season.  Unless you're the kind of person who wants your players' all squeaky clean I don't see why this should bother you.  He was a little bit immature but it was clear this whole thing came about because of a bad relationship with his coach and there are two other players transferring out as well, both of whom played in every game last season, which tells me maybe the clash isn't because Lofton is some kind of bad seed.  There were also four transfers out the prior season, the current coach's first.

So you have a coach with 7 players transferring out since he got the job.  Hard for me to not give Lofton the benefit of the doubt, and even if he did act like kind of a dick (he did) who really cares?  Who cares about the 3 game suspension?  When Mo Walker was basically carrying the team did anyone give a shit about his early season suspension?  These things happen, and as long as the player stays eligible I don't really give a crap.  If he's acting up and being a general shithead I trust Pitino can handle it.  He's a completely worthwhile signee and in his first season he'll have a chance to step in and be a big offensive cog for the team considering both Dres will be gone.  I'm baffled by the people who are upset about this.  Well, I guess I'm not, actually.  I've pretty much come to expect it.

Season's Over

I guess I haven't posted in a while and you've probably been sad about it and cried a lot.  For that I suppose I'm sorry.  I've been busy and tired and quite lazy. 

So late congratulations to the Gophers on winning the NIT.  It sucks to be in the NIT, but if you get stuck there you might as well win the damn thing.  No, this is not better than a loss in the First Four as far as being a fan or program-wise, but hey, a bunch of kids worked their asses off, got to spend some time in the NYC, and won a championship for themselves.  Awesome for them, and although I doubt it helps recruiting it probably doesn't hurt to play two games in MSG on ESPN.  Great seeing Austin Hollins win MVP or MOP or whatever too after playing great, especially because somewhere around early mid-season some of the looney tune fans around here (gopherhole) were calling for him to be benched.  Because they're super rational you see.

Meanwhile Joey King reminded us that off the bench scoring guy is probably his upside, not his downside, and Dre Hollins told us the reason he didn't look healthy the second half of the year was because he wasn't healthy the second half of the year. Malik Smith managed to hit a couple of shots to close out his career, Oto Osenieks came back for an encore, and Maverick still fell down a lot.  Mo and Elliott continued to look like two halves of an excellent player, and DeAndre Mathieu looked like a contender for Big 10 Player of the Year next season.  Fun end to the year, even if I only watched 1.5 games of the entire NIT.  Sorry.

So close the books on 2013-2014, and I'd probably give the season a B.  I didn't expect this team to make the NCAA Tournament and they came awfully damn close, then closed with a strong run through the NIT.  It pains me to think that it's likely they were 1 win away from an NCAA bid and that the win could have come at any time, including at home against shitty Illinois.  Of course, it's also possible that even with that win they could have gotten snubbed which would really sting.  Good season based on preseason expectations, but slightly poor season based on mid-season feelings.  Sounds like a B.

Now we move on to Pitino Year 2.  It's a pretty solid roster.  The guards should be outstanding with Dre Hollins (hopefully healthy) and Mathieu forming one of the better back courts in the conference, if not the country and likely, I think, solid back-ups in Daquein McNeil who looked pretty good as a freshman and will be a year older and freshman Nate Mason.  Losing both true 3s in Austin Hollins and Malik Smith will sting, but JuCo swingman Carlos Morris can hopefully fill those shoes.  King and Charles Buggs are the returning PF, but freshman Josh Martin already has a Big 10 body so should be able to give minutes, if nothing else, and hopefully more.  Center will be the same two headed monster but with another year stronger, wiser, and hopefully better.

Plenty of questions and holes, but that describes most teams at this point, and having your starting back court and center position rock solid is a good start.  Plus the Gophers have three open scholarships for next season right now.  One of them is supposed to be filled by Djuan Piper, according to the rumors, and it was supposed to happen tonight.  It sounds like his decision has been pushed to tomorrow (Thursday) and according to the rumors it's either because of academic issues or second thoughts.  Neither is good. He's ranked #147 by 247sports now and is a damn sight better than anything else the Gophers are going to pluck from the high school ranks this late - Spring recruiting can get rough (Mav -> hi!) and Piper and Bakary Konate, who I need to write up at some point, look like about it.

Of course, the great thing about the Gophers' position is they have space and they have needs, and with the transfer happy NCAA culture these days (which I enjoy) a graduate transfer PF or shooter guy would make a whole ton of sense for both parties.  A lot of names are starting to surface and there are a lot more sure to come, not to mention non-grad transfers who could hope to get waivers or just sit a year before playing.  The Gophers have a lot of flexibility with the roster for next season, and there's no way they're done yet.  This should be fun.