Throughout the summer I'll be writing up each of the 34 players who played for the University of Minnesota under Tubby Smith. Why Tubby? Because it's the most recent era that's over. If this goes well perhaps I'll go back and do Monson as well. I'll be looking at any player who played at Minnesota under Tubby at some point, even if it was just a year. And I will be considering their entire Gopher career, so guys who started under Monson or finished under Pitino will have their whole career considered, but anyone who transferred in or out is only evaluated on their Gopher stats. With me? Here we go:
#34 to #31 can be found here.
#26-#30 can be found here.
#21-#25 are here
#20. MAVERICK AHANMISI (2010-2014).
- Stuck around all four years, which is a positive, but never really developed into a third string point guard. Probably took more heat than anyone on this list, but you can't blame him too much because he basically got forced into more playing time than he had the talent to play. He did see his playing time dwindle from 13.3 minutes per game in his sophomore year to 10.5 as a junior and 9.6 as a senior. He ended his career shooting under 40% from the floor and with a 1.1 to 0.9 assist-to-turnover ratio. He was a late spring desperation signing and he generally played like it. But at least he tried and wasn't a whiner.
#19. JOE COLEMAN (2011-2013).
- He was a pretty important piece on Tubby's last two teams before transferring to St. Mary's when Richard Pitino came in despite having a game that would thrive in his system. He never developed an outside shot, but he excelled at getting to the rim and finding ways to score despite standing just 6-4. His amazing 29 point outburst at Illinois showed his potential, but he wasn't able to harness that consistently and now he's off to the Gaels. He played in one game last season before an injury knocked him out for the year.
#18. JAMAL ABU SHAMALA (2005-2009).
- One of the harder players to rank. He wasn't very good, but he played four years and had his moments, generally behind the 3-point line because he basically didn't do anything else. It was a special moment whenever he found himself with an open three and you just didn't care if it went in because if he was in the game when it mattered it was when the Gophers were terrible and if he was in when they were decent the game was probably out of hand already. Completely unfair to him, but for whatever reason he represents the failure of the Monson/Molinari years to me. Probably because he was actually starting at one point when things were pretty much completely off the rails. Now I can appreciate who he was, at pretty much right in the middle of this countdown seems about right.
#17. COLTON IVERSON (2008-2011).
- If you had to make a poster for guys who never developed under Tubby Smith, it would have to be a pretty big poster. But if you wanted to narrow down to two guys, Iverson is one of them. He was a so so post player for the Gophers, but once he transferred to Colorado State he turned into a monster who got himself drafted in the second round of the NBA Draft. Don't remember he became a monster because he played in a smaller conference way out west? Well he averaged 14 points and 10 rebounds a game his senior year. Those are amazing numbers. Could he have put that up in the Big Ten? Most likely not, but it's clear he was underutilized his three years as a Gopher.
#16. DEVOE JOSEPH (2008-2011).
- One of the most disappointing players of the era for me, I really thought Joseph was going to be a lights out scorer. There were times where he looked so good, but he and Tubby clearly didn't get along, both on the court (Joseph could get lost out there at times) and off (weed). Then, 8 games into his junior year he bolted after being suspended twice for an undisclosed reason (weed), apparently complaining about not getting enough playing time and shot attempts which was ridiculous. Al Nolen would get hurt later that season, which would have given Joseph all the playing time he could handle. By then he was already at Oregon, and, rather than sit out a full year to maximize his playing time, he joined the ducks for the second semester of the 2011-2012 year, which meant that in his final two years he played a grand total of just 36 games. Yeah, he ended up developing into that scorer I thought he would (averaged 16.7 points per game), but a series of poor decisions cost him a lot.
Showing posts with label Maverick Ahanmisi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Maverick Ahanmisi. Show all posts
Thursday, September 10, 2015
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Rube Roundtable, Year 3
Every year around this lull in the year, ZipsofAkron from the much smarter than mine blog From the Barn sends some Gopher related questions out to blogger types. Most years I remember to answer them. This is one of those years. My answers are below. I will post a link to his blog when he compiles all the answers from us nerds.
1) So, uh, we're down to 9 scholarship players and a Kendal Shell. Your thoughts?
1) So, uh, we're down to 9 scholarship players and a Kendal Shell. Your thoughts?
Well, it's better than 8 scholarship players and no Kendal Shell. With or without Diedhiou, they have enough non-horrible players to come up with a playable rotation, even if it means heavier than you'd like minutes for some guys. The real problem is going to come if there's foul trouble, and you know there will be foul trouble. There are going to have to be a couple new walk-ons here soon, if only to have the bodies to weather a worst case type scenario. And walk-ons are always fun in blowouts. They think they're people.
7) In the same vein, what does this program need to do to take the next step?
College basketball, in my opinion, is ruled by recruiting. A good game coach (game plan and/or in game) can help elevate a team, but the disparity in talent between the top players and the rest is insurmountable by any coach, so that's the key. Pitino has the team moving in the right direction in this arena, but the rumors of his leaving every off season to take a "better" job are only going to get louder if he continues to build the program up (or hell, as long as he doesn't burn it to the ground). In order to continue to build their talent and keep creeping up the recruit ladder they need to keep Pitino. If he is hired away, it's likely because he's had success here so they need to make a hire who can keep that going, although I'm not sure where you can find someone young and hungry enough to take this job and work that hard who is also somewhat of a known commodity based on household name recognition. So I guess the answer is to give him as many blank checks as needed so he never leaves. Pretty simple.
Coming soon: Some baseball talk. Maybe a live movie blog.
2) Last year the Gophers won the NIT. What are your expectations this year?
This has already changed three times for me. At the beginner of the year I was thinking they definitely need to make the NCAA Tournament for this season to be a success. Then, after the preseason NIT or whatever I thought this team was way too dumb to end up making the tournament and figured the season was heading for a train wreck. Now, however, Big Ten teams are dropping games left and right - at home - to terrible teams. I figure if the Big Ten is as down as it seems, and the Gophers are at least mostly taking care of business, they should be able to get to 10 conference wins and, no matter how terrible terrible terrible terrible terrible the non-conference schedule was I can't see a 10 win Big Ten team getting bounced. Thus, I believe this should be an NCAA Tournament team. I reserve the right to change this when they get their doors blown off at Purdue.
3) What do you miss most about Maverick Ahanmisi?
The angst he caused. The twitter meltdowns. The clueless threads on Gopherhole (turns out I can still find plenty of those on a myriad of other topics). By the end of his career he had turned himself into a halfway decent, albeit streaky, spot up outside shooter who deserved a chance against zones to see if he was hot. Should he ever have been allowed to dribble? No, of course not. Did he do a lot of really dumb stuff with the basketball? Yes, almost constantly. Could he play defense? Very little. Wait, what was the question again?
4) What about Gopher basketball is going to give you an ulcer this year?
Easy answer is Carlos Morris, but when you go the JuCo route a certain amount of chuckery and undisciplined ball is expected so I'll give him a pass and say Joey King, and I don't really want to say Joey King, but it's Joey King. He clearly works hard. He's got a really nice shot fake, he's a much better rebounder than he was, he's even developed himself some semblance of a post up game, a far cry from the perimeter offense only type he was when he first arrived. That's all great, but he just does some horrible things. Nobody has ever been worse in the open court, ever, and he still likes to put up a really dumb shot at least once or twice a game. He also constantly uses that shot fake to get his defender of his feet, but then doesn't do anything with that advantage (that alone is enough to give me an ulcer). Of course there's nothing he can do when he's overpowered or out-athleticked, but the mere fact that's he's basically the team's only option is ulcer-worthy as well.
5) Maryland and Rutgers are real Big Ten members. How do you feel about this from a hoopsball perspective?
I love conference expansion because I love getting a chance to see new teams and players in person, and given the traditional home non-conference schedule for this program that doesn't happen very often. I still don't understand why they can't schedule home and homes with like, Colorado or Oklahoma State, or Seton Hall or other mid-tier big conference schools, but I digress.
I like seeing new teams. I don't care about exposure or tv sets in new markets or blah blah blah, but I'm also not wrapped up in "traditional rivalries are being destroyed" or any of that stuff that always sounds like it's being yelled by an old man in a bath robe who is shaking his fist at a newspaper. New teams are fun. Maryland is fun. Rutgers exists.
6) Real talk. Are we on the up and up or is this just another foray into unmet expectations and mediocrity?
Every time one administration flops and a new coach comes in there is always plenty of blind optimism, and I'm as guilty as anyone. So far, that optimism hasn't lasted, and there's another flop and the cycle continues. I'm hoping this one is for real, because I'm hoping Richard Pitino is for real. Being mentored by Rick Pitino and Billy Donovan is about as good an education as you could ask for, and Pitino (and his staff, can't forget McHale and Kimani) are tireless workers on the recruiting trail. Their in game schemes, plays, and game plans are inventive and exciting. Mo Walker's improvement suggests they may be good at player development, which would make this staff 3-for-3 in what you need from a college coach. Monson was hamstrung by needing to rebuild a shattered program, Tubby was looking to go out in a cushy job where he could half ass it (my perception), but Pitino should be good to go. So I guess I think we're on the up and up. I'm so stupid.
College basketball, in my opinion, is ruled by recruiting. A good game coach (game plan and/or in game) can help elevate a team, but the disparity in talent between the top players and the rest is insurmountable by any coach, so that's the key. Pitino has the team moving in the right direction in this arena, but the rumors of his leaving every off season to take a "better" job are only going to get louder if he continues to build the program up (or hell, as long as he doesn't burn it to the ground). In order to continue to build their talent and keep creeping up the recruit ladder they need to keep Pitino. If he is hired away, it's likely because he's had success here so they need to make a hire who can keep that going, although I'm not sure where you can find someone young and hungry enough to take this job and work that hard who is also somewhat of a known commodity based on household name recognition. So I guess the answer is to give him as many blank checks as needed so he never leaves. Pretty simple.
Coming soon: Some baseball talk. Maybe a live movie blog.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Gophers 81, Southern Miss 73
Good win, and on to Madison Square Garden. Here are 10 things I liked and didn't like about the Southern Miss game. And it's going to be fast, because I have some sweet 16 stuff I need to ignore my real work for tomorrow.
1. Obviously the A topic here is Austin Hollins's monster game. 32 points. 6-11 from 3. 2-3 from 2. 11-11 from the line. 4 assists and 3 steals with no turnovers to boot. Plus he was as active as I can ever remember seeing him, just running all over the court especially without the ball which is a place he can disengage from a game from time to time. Great going away game from Austin in his final game at the Barn and I'm glad he got to have a huge moment in front of the home crowd after he's been beaten up pretty hard by a certain segment of fans (*cough* gopherhole). A good well rounded player who cares as much about defense as offense is always a nice luxury to have and although I wouldn't call him a Gopher legend (he's no Stan Gaines) he will be sorely missed next season. I'd slot him somewhere below Damian Johnson and above Travarus Bennett. Pretty good spot to be in.
2. The other A topic should be the freaking horrible announcers and actually all around production by ESPN. Good lord are Dan Dakitch and whoever the other guy was terrible. How many times did they get Austin and Andre Hollins confused? And every time the Gophers had the ball all they could talk about was how the Gophers needed to get Austin the ball, even though I'm positive they meant Andre because they had no idea he wasn't 100% because I don't think - no, I know - neither of them has seen a Gopher game this year. Then what happens? The show a graphic to show Austin's great stats and the picture is Andre. Good lord we could have expected this in year 1 with both of them, but it's year 3. I was surprised, however, they never mentioned that they are brothers. Odd.
3. Great job handling pressure......until the last two minutes. The Gophers turned the ball over 10 times which for them I would consider good. But two of the ten came in the last two minutes and it felt like a lot more because the Gophers suddenly seemed all panicky. Southern Miss is a big time turnover creating team, which makes the overall numbers very impressive. I said they'd have to take care of the ball to win and they did. If they had played like this more often, well, we probably wouldn't have any more Gopher ball to watch, but we'd all be a lot happier with the season.
4. Someone in the middle of the zone - unstoppable. Against that matchup zone, and really any zone, is getting someone in the middle of the zone, right about the free throw line, and getting them the ball. Tonight it was usually either Joey King (more on him later) or Elliot Eliason there - when someone was there - and almost every time they got the ball either King hit a jumper or King or Eliason were able to find an open shooter, and the team was actually hitting open shots tonight so everybody was all smiling and stuff. Sadly, far too often nobody bothered to get in the middle, which is like why not? I would love to have some kind of breakdown of points per possession when they got a touch in the middle vs. not. One led to easy shots, the other a ton, and a mean a ton, of contested long jumpers and three pointers. Just some terrible shots tonight. Some great offense too. Schizo team, as usual.
5. The rebounding and defense kind of sucked. A 14-4 edge on the offensive rebounds is not very good, and letting Southern Miss shoot over 50% on twos is not ideal. No reason to harp on this, because it's been a season long theme, luckily tonight their offense was good enough to overcome it. Moving on.
6. This Mavsurgence is not real. Mav has made some headlines after scoring 21 in the first round game against High Point, but that was High Point. Since then he's come back to normal but is at least hitting his shots which is really his only role or should be. Tonight he had a possession where he basically like, kicked the ball away from himself and then fell down. It felt like a metaphor for something, but I'm not sure what.
7. Joey King is good? Seriously, is he? I hated him at first, he slowly won me over, but after scoring 15 points tonight that makes four straight games in double figures, which I'm told is the first time he's done that in his career, I'm wondering if he's actually good. Like, starting Big 10 caliber good? He looked awfully good as the middle guy against the zone, he's started to get better from three without relying on it, he's gone from zero post moves to something like 0.8 post moves, and just, stopped being such a tit. I can't believe I might be a fan. Not what I was expecting.
8. Dre Hollins is still broken. He's shooting like shit, yes at 6-38 in his last four games (not a misprint) but other than a down tick because he can't get to the rim as easily as he used to that's not what I'm talking about. There were two plays tonight that made it crystal clear he doesn't have the burst he did before he hurt his ankle. One was a run out where he had one of those one on two breaks but the two are out of position so you generally take it right at the rim and he tried but was turned back because he was too slow and the other was a trap towards the end of the game that he usually would be able to dribble out of with his quickness but was unable to. It makes this win (and the last one) even more impressive by the Gophers doing it with a best player who is max at 90% of his capability. Hopefully he's all back next year.
9. I am far too excited about Mo Walker next year. I can't get over about how good he's been since his breakout against Ohio State. He's learned to trust his body and can just bull his way into lay-ups, even against good defenders. He's got a semi decent jumper out to about 16 feet, and he can pass the ball very well for a man his size. If he adds 1-2 post moves other than his jump hook and the drop step lower your shoulder he could end up nearly unstoppable. Generally I don't trust college kids to work all that hard because I remember being a college kid, but this is a guy who lost 60 pounds or whatever, I can see him busting his ass to add a dream shake and a fall away or something. So excited. Unreasonably so.
10. Why not win it I guess. The NIT mostly sucks. It's hard to care about, you play mediocre teams who you have no idea whether they're at all interested, and many of the games run up against NCAA games and as such go unwatched. But hell, as long as you're stuck in it you might as well win it, right? And wins over St. Mary's and Southern Miss are nice wins you can build on? I don't know. The Gophers are still playing, and god help me I'm still watching. Let's hope they win two more.
1. Obviously the A topic here is Austin Hollins's monster game. 32 points. 6-11 from 3. 2-3 from 2. 11-11 from the line. 4 assists and 3 steals with no turnovers to boot. Plus he was as active as I can ever remember seeing him, just running all over the court especially without the ball which is a place he can disengage from a game from time to time. Great going away game from Austin in his final game at the Barn and I'm glad he got to have a huge moment in front of the home crowd after he's been beaten up pretty hard by a certain segment of fans (*cough* gopherhole). A good well rounded player who cares as much about defense as offense is always a nice luxury to have and although I wouldn't call him a Gopher legend (he's no Stan Gaines) he will be sorely missed next season. I'd slot him somewhere below Damian Johnson and above Travarus Bennett. Pretty good spot to be in.
2. The other A topic should be the freaking horrible announcers and actually all around production by ESPN. Good lord are Dan Dakitch and whoever the other guy was terrible. How many times did they get Austin and Andre Hollins confused? And every time the Gophers had the ball all they could talk about was how the Gophers needed to get Austin the ball, even though I'm positive they meant Andre because they had no idea he wasn't 100% because I don't think - no, I know - neither of them has seen a Gopher game this year. Then what happens? The show a graphic to show Austin's great stats and the picture is Andre. Good lord we could have expected this in year 1 with both of them, but it's year 3. I was surprised, however, they never mentioned that they are brothers. Odd.
3. Great job handling pressure......until the last two minutes. The Gophers turned the ball over 10 times which for them I would consider good. But two of the ten came in the last two minutes and it felt like a lot more because the Gophers suddenly seemed all panicky. Southern Miss is a big time turnover creating team, which makes the overall numbers very impressive. I said they'd have to take care of the ball to win and they did. If they had played like this more often, well, we probably wouldn't have any more Gopher ball to watch, but we'd all be a lot happier with the season.
4. Someone in the middle of the zone - unstoppable. Against that matchup zone, and really any zone, is getting someone in the middle of the zone, right about the free throw line, and getting them the ball. Tonight it was usually either Joey King (more on him later) or Elliot Eliason there - when someone was there - and almost every time they got the ball either King hit a jumper or King or Eliason were able to find an open shooter, and the team was actually hitting open shots tonight so everybody was all smiling and stuff. Sadly, far too often nobody bothered to get in the middle, which is like why not? I would love to have some kind of breakdown of points per possession when they got a touch in the middle vs. not. One led to easy shots, the other a ton, and a mean a ton, of contested long jumpers and three pointers. Just some terrible shots tonight. Some great offense too. Schizo team, as usual.
5. The rebounding and defense kind of sucked. A 14-4 edge on the offensive rebounds is not very good, and letting Southern Miss shoot over 50% on twos is not ideal. No reason to harp on this, because it's been a season long theme, luckily tonight their offense was good enough to overcome it. Moving on.
6. This Mavsurgence is not real. Mav has made some headlines after scoring 21 in the first round game against High Point, but that was High Point. Since then he's come back to normal but is at least hitting his shots which is really his only role or should be. Tonight he had a possession where he basically like, kicked the ball away from himself and then fell down. It felt like a metaphor for something, but I'm not sure what.
7. Joey King is good? Seriously, is he? I hated him at first, he slowly won me over, but after scoring 15 points tonight that makes four straight games in double figures, which I'm told is the first time he's done that in his career, I'm wondering if he's actually good. Like, starting Big 10 caliber good? He looked awfully good as the middle guy against the zone, he's started to get better from three without relying on it, he's gone from zero post moves to something like 0.8 post moves, and just, stopped being such a tit. I can't believe I might be a fan. Not what I was expecting.
8. Dre Hollins is still broken. He's shooting like shit, yes at 6-38 in his last four games (not a misprint) but other than a down tick because he can't get to the rim as easily as he used to that's not what I'm talking about. There were two plays tonight that made it crystal clear he doesn't have the burst he did before he hurt his ankle. One was a run out where he had one of those one on two breaks but the two are out of position so you generally take it right at the rim and he tried but was turned back because he was too slow and the other was a trap towards the end of the game that he usually would be able to dribble out of with his quickness but was unable to. It makes this win (and the last one) even more impressive by the Gophers doing it with a best player who is max at 90% of his capability. Hopefully he's all back next year.
9. I am far too excited about Mo Walker next year. I can't get over about how good he's been since his breakout against Ohio State. He's learned to trust his body and can just bull his way into lay-ups, even against good defenders. He's got a semi decent jumper out to about 16 feet, and he can pass the ball very well for a man his size. If he adds 1-2 post moves other than his jump hook and the drop step lower your shoulder he could end up nearly unstoppable. Generally I don't trust college kids to work all that hard because I remember being a college kid, but this is a guy who lost 60 pounds or whatever, I can see him busting his ass to add a dream shake and a fall away or something. So excited. Unreasonably so.
10. Why not win it I guess. The NIT mostly sucks. It's hard to care about, you play mediocre teams who you have no idea whether they're at all interested, and many of the games run up against NCAA games and as such go unwatched. But hell, as long as you're stuck in it you might as well win it, right? And wins over St. Mary's and Southern Miss are nice wins you can build on? I don't know. The Gophers are still playing, and god help me I'm still watching. Let's hope they win two more.
Friday, January 24, 2014
Game Preview: Gophers vs. Cornhuskers
Nebraska is not a great team. Depending on your definition, they may not even be a good team. They have, after all, lost six of their last seven games and hold only a win over Miami as anything remotely quality outside of conference play. Nebraska, however, is certainly not the shitty team we've become accustomed to. Of their last seven games only two were at home and many were against quality opponents, and the two home games resulted in a win over Ohio State (you can decide how much that is worth right now) and a near win over Michigan (1-pt loss where Nebraska had two chances to win). This isn't going to be an easy walk over for the Gophers, especially with Andre Hollins almost certainly on the shelf.
On paper the key to this game will be if the Gophers stick to the offensive game plan of dribble penetration and getting the ball to the big guys on the block. Nebraska really only has one decent interior defender in Leslee Smith (6-8 junior). Their only other "big" is 6-10 Walter Pitchford, and he's more of one of them perimeter types. As a result, Nebraska blocks very few shots and their overall interior defense is terrible. Even with Hollins out, Dre Mathieu should be able to get into the paint for his suddenly unstoppable jumper and both Eliason and Mo Walker should be able find success when they get the ball down low.
Of course, Tim Miles will know this, and Tim Miles is smart, so the real key to the game will be Gopher perimeter shooting. Nebraska is mainly a man-to-man team, but they played almost exclusively zone against Ohio State and it led to a victory, so I fully expect to see it on Sunday. On the season the Gophers aren't exactly lighting it up from three at 35.4%, and you take Dre Hollins out of the equation and they're hitting just 34%. The Gophers will have to hit enough shots to get Nebraska to open up that gooey soft inside. Malik Smith can't be off, Austin Hollins has to hit at least a couple of shots, and I'm even going to say Maverick (you know he'll get some PT) will have to hit a shot or two. If Minnesota can hit from the outside this could be a rout, but that's a pretty damn big if.
Nebraska's offense is not very good, but neither is the Gopher defense. Unless Nebraska gets hot from three, which could happen but isn't particularly likely (although Ray Gallegos is still there, *shudder*), they're going to put up 65ish points. The Gophers just have to score more, and they'll need some 3-balls to do it.
Gophers 74, Nebraska 65
On paper the key to this game will be if the Gophers stick to the offensive game plan of dribble penetration and getting the ball to the big guys on the block. Nebraska really only has one decent interior defender in Leslee Smith (6-8 junior). Their only other "big" is 6-10 Walter Pitchford, and he's more of one of them perimeter types. As a result, Nebraska blocks very few shots and their overall interior defense is terrible. Even with Hollins out, Dre Mathieu should be able to get into the paint for his suddenly unstoppable jumper and both Eliason and Mo Walker should be able find success when they get the ball down low.
Of course, Tim Miles will know this, and Tim Miles is smart, so the real key to the game will be Gopher perimeter shooting. Nebraska is mainly a man-to-man team, but they played almost exclusively zone against Ohio State and it led to a victory, so I fully expect to see it on Sunday. On the season the Gophers aren't exactly lighting it up from three at 35.4%, and you take Dre Hollins out of the equation and they're hitting just 34%. The Gophers will have to hit enough shots to get Nebraska to open up that gooey soft inside. Malik Smith can't be off, Austin Hollins has to hit at least a couple of shots, and I'm even going to say Maverick (you know he'll get some PT) will have to hit a shot or two. If Minnesota can hit from the outside this could be a rout, but that's a pretty damn big if.
Nebraska's offense is not very good, but neither is the Gopher defense. Unless Nebraska gets hot from three, which could happen but isn't particularly likely (although Ray Gallegos is still there, *shudder*), they're going to put up 65ish points. The Gophers just have to score more, and they'll need some 3-balls to do it.
Gophers 74, Nebraska 65
Friday, January 17, 2014
Gophers 63, Ohio State 53
I had really hoped the Gophers would manage to snag one win out of this brutal four game stretch, and here it is - so now I hope they can get two. Sure, this win loses a little bit of luster since it was Ohio State's third straight loss, but they're going to be fine and this will still end up as a big time signature win at the end of the year.
Once again, 10 things I liked and didn't like about the game:
1. I never thought I'd type this sentence this season, but the Gophers dominated the inside. How good was Eliason yesterday? No, his footwork is never going to make you think of Olajuwon, but he's managed to harness his post up game into something good enough to at least make defenses pay attention to him, and his rebounding and defense have been absolutely top notch this year to the point where he has a legitimate case as Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year if they hadn't already decided to give it to Aaron Craft before the season started. Also have to mention Mo Walker last night, who did more good for this team in a 60 second span than he has the rest of his career combined. I knew Ohio State had some issues in the paint but Amir Williams is Rickert-soft, and the Gophers bigs made the Buckeyes pay.
2. The half-court offense was top notch. I said the Gophers would need to take advantage in transition if they were going to try to compete, but once again it shows why I'm not a coach and instead just write about basketball while drunk. I was concerned the Gophers would do that thing where they rely on the 3-ball in the half court and with OSU's perimeter defense that was never going to work. Well it didn't work as they made just 3, but they didn't rely on it either, shooting only 14. Instead they worked the ball around, were more patient than I can remember this team being - ever - and found good shots to where they shot 64% on two-point shots. 64%!!!! That's insane. Great game.
3. I don't think I'll ever feel comfortable with the power forward spot. Oto had a decent game, and I do like that he seems to have become the dude on the team who won't take any shit from anybody (something about having an Eastern Europeaner as the "enforcer" feels right), but it seems just about impossible for me to feel comfortable when he's in the game. What's worse, is that I actually audibly groan when he's taken out because King is even worse. I guess what I'm saying is, screw you NCAA for not giving us our Buckles (averaging 13 and 9 for FIU).
4. The defensive game plan was solid too. The pressure was soft with little to no trapping, which is a good plan against Craft and Shannon Scott if you're going to insist on pressing at all (and we know Pitino does) and half court was strictly zone, forcing the Buckeyes to beat you from the outside. I mentioned in my preview that this was a good plan, and it worked well with solid rotations in most cases and good overall fundamental defense. Their was a bit of an issue with LaQuinton Ross getting the ball at the free throw line and being able to score from there (he had 22) but they didn't let Craft or Scott beat them with penetration for the most part and the rebounded very well. Excellent game on both ends, both in planning and execution.
5. Craft and Scott are as good as advertised defensively. For all the hype I still came away impressed. Very quick feet, fundamentally sound, and both have about the quickest hands I can remember seeing. They also both have the basketball smarts to "jump routes" for lack of a better term, and each did it with success last night. I was also impressed with Craft's ability to go over a screen but slip between his man and the screener so he doesn't give up any ground. One other thing I noticed was that when the man they're guarding picks up the ball to pass sometimes rather than jump at him they'll jump back to try to get into the passing lane from close up, not every time, but it's not something I can recall seeing many guards do.
6. Daquein McNeil has clearly jumped Maverick in the rotation. Once again McNeil got the playing time that could have gone to Ahanmisi, and it's clear at this point that Pitino prefers the freshman. Could simply be he knows neither of them is great now, but McNeil figures into his future plans while Mav is gone after this season. McNeil certainly looks every bit the part of a freshman playing in the Big Ten for the first time, but to be fair most of the time so does Maverick. All I know is Dawger thinks it should be Mav, which pretty much tells me that going with McNeil in those spots is the absolute right move.
7. I have no idea what's going on with Austin Hollins. He did finally seem to snap out of his funk or whatever when he got his own rebound off a missed free throw and put it back in, later making a couple more FTs and getting a key steal, but he just looked lost out there for much of this game and really outside of the Purdue game hasn't been much of a factor in Big Ten play - or at least not a positive factor. At this point he seems to be having trouble with basic skills like dribbling and catching, and it's really weird. I don't know if it's a confidence issue or what, but given that Pitino seems to have raised the confidence level of pretty much every other player that seems unlikely. I'm going to chalk it up to he's pressing a bit given it's his senior year, and assume at some point the real Austin Hollins comes back. That would be helpful.
8. Did you ever think a late signing, 5-9 Juco point guard would be this good? I know I didn't, but thank god for the Honey Gopher who has clearly taken the point guard position over and allowed Dre Hollins to move to the #2, a move that helps the team immensely. There was a string there in the second half when it looked like Ohio State might be making a move, but Mathieu hit a couple of short jumpers in order to keep the Gophers ahead - as big as Mo's big stretch was, Mathieu's might have been even bigger. His assist to Dre to hit that monster three towards the end of the game was a thing of beauty, and a sign of a perfect match of player to coach as, in reality, the best move may have been to slow things down and run clock, but Mathieu has the freedom to run and create, and it worked to perfection. He's one of the most fun players to watch I can remember in a while. If you ever hear anyone say that Honey Gopher needs to slow down or play more in control I'm going to need you to hit them in the face with a shovel. Please. I don't ask you for much.
9. Turnovers remain an issue. 18 turnovers and a 29% turnover rate is absolutely horrendous, and pulling out a win despite those numbers just shows how well every other facet of the game went for the Gophers last night. In their five Big Ten games the Gophers are turning the ball over 21.8% of the time, dead last in the conference. This might be skewed a bit because the Gophers have already played the top two defenses in the conference in Michigan State and Ohio State, but no doubt this is a major concern.
10. An NCAA bid now becomes a very reasonable goal. The Gophers are now 14-4 and 3-2 in conference play, with an RPI of 26 and SoS of 13 (per ESPN), and two wins already over RPI Top 25 teams (Ohio State, Florida State) - those are some pretty awesome numbers, and based on the fact that the SoS will probably go up rather than down and the RPI is so good right now, I'll say nine Big Ten wins gets the Gophers in. Simple math says that means six more victories. These games are there for the taking: @Nebraska, Northwestern, @Northwestern, Illinois, Indiana, and Penn State. Those games will likely see the Gophers favored, and those are your six wins right there. There is also Purdue on the road which is certainly winnable. If the Gophers win all those they're in. If they lose one and win at Purdue they're in. And if they manage to win any of the other games, any at all, any other major upset, and it would take a pretty bad collapse to keep them out.
So, you know. Let's not do that.
Once again, 10 things I liked and didn't like about the game:
1. I never thought I'd type this sentence this season, but the Gophers dominated the inside. How good was Eliason yesterday? No, his footwork is never going to make you think of Olajuwon, but he's managed to harness his post up game into something good enough to at least make defenses pay attention to him, and his rebounding and defense have been absolutely top notch this year to the point where he has a legitimate case as Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year if they hadn't already decided to give it to Aaron Craft before the season started. Also have to mention Mo Walker last night, who did more good for this team in a 60 second span than he has the rest of his career combined. I knew Ohio State had some issues in the paint but Amir Williams is Rickert-soft, and the Gophers bigs made the Buckeyes pay.
2. The half-court offense was top notch. I said the Gophers would need to take advantage in transition if they were going to try to compete, but once again it shows why I'm not a coach and instead just write about basketball while drunk. I was concerned the Gophers would do that thing where they rely on the 3-ball in the half court and with OSU's perimeter defense that was never going to work. Well it didn't work as they made just 3, but they didn't rely on it either, shooting only 14. Instead they worked the ball around, were more patient than I can remember this team being - ever - and found good shots to where they shot 64% on two-point shots. 64%!!!! That's insane. Great game.
3. I don't think I'll ever feel comfortable with the power forward spot. Oto had a decent game, and I do like that he seems to have become the dude on the team who won't take any shit from anybody (something about having an Eastern Europeaner as the "enforcer" feels right), but it seems just about impossible for me to feel comfortable when he's in the game. What's worse, is that I actually audibly groan when he's taken out because King is even worse. I guess what I'm saying is, screw you NCAA for not giving us our Buckles (averaging 13 and 9 for FIU).
4. The defensive game plan was solid too. The pressure was soft with little to no trapping, which is a good plan against Craft and Shannon Scott if you're going to insist on pressing at all (and we know Pitino does) and half court was strictly zone, forcing the Buckeyes to beat you from the outside. I mentioned in my preview that this was a good plan, and it worked well with solid rotations in most cases and good overall fundamental defense. Their was a bit of an issue with LaQuinton Ross getting the ball at the free throw line and being able to score from there (he had 22) but they didn't let Craft or Scott beat them with penetration for the most part and the rebounded very well. Excellent game on both ends, both in planning and execution.
5. Craft and Scott are as good as advertised defensively. For all the hype I still came away impressed. Very quick feet, fundamentally sound, and both have about the quickest hands I can remember seeing. They also both have the basketball smarts to "jump routes" for lack of a better term, and each did it with success last night. I was also impressed with Craft's ability to go over a screen but slip between his man and the screener so he doesn't give up any ground. One other thing I noticed was that when the man they're guarding picks up the ball to pass sometimes rather than jump at him they'll jump back to try to get into the passing lane from close up, not every time, but it's not something I can recall seeing many guards do.
6. Daquein McNeil has clearly jumped Maverick in the rotation. Once again McNeil got the playing time that could have gone to Ahanmisi, and it's clear at this point that Pitino prefers the freshman. Could simply be he knows neither of them is great now, but McNeil figures into his future plans while Mav is gone after this season. McNeil certainly looks every bit the part of a freshman playing in the Big Ten for the first time, but to be fair most of the time so does Maverick. All I know is Dawger thinks it should be Mav, which pretty much tells me that going with McNeil in those spots is the absolute right move.
7. I have no idea what's going on with Austin Hollins. He did finally seem to snap out of his funk or whatever when he got his own rebound off a missed free throw and put it back in, later making a couple more FTs and getting a key steal, but he just looked lost out there for much of this game and really outside of the Purdue game hasn't been much of a factor in Big Ten play - or at least not a positive factor. At this point he seems to be having trouble with basic skills like dribbling and catching, and it's really weird. I don't know if it's a confidence issue or what, but given that Pitino seems to have raised the confidence level of pretty much every other player that seems unlikely. I'm going to chalk it up to he's pressing a bit given it's his senior year, and assume at some point the real Austin Hollins comes back. That would be helpful.
8. Did you ever think a late signing, 5-9 Juco point guard would be this good? I know I didn't, but thank god for the Honey Gopher who has clearly taken the point guard position over and allowed Dre Hollins to move to the #2, a move that helps the team immensely. There was a string there in the second half when it looked like Ohio State might be making a move, but Mathieu hit a couple of short jumpers in order to keep the Gophers ahead - as big as Mo's big stretch was, Mathieu's might have been even bigger. His assist to Dre to hit that monster three towards the end of the game was a thing of beauty, and a sign of a perfect match of player to coach as, in reality, the best move may have been to slow things down and run clock, but Mathieu has the freedom to run and create, and it worked to perfection. He's one of the most fun players to watch I can remember in a while. If you ever hear anyone say that Honey Gopher needs to slow down or play more in control I'm going to need you to hit them in the face with a shovel. Please. I don't ask you for much.
9. Turnovers remain an issue. 18 turnovers and a 29% turnover rate is absolutely horrendous, and pulling out a win despite those numbers just shows how well every other facet of the game went for the Gophers last night. In their five Big Ten games the Gophers are turning the ball over 21.8% of the time, dead last in the conference. This might be skewed a bit because the Gophers have already played the top two defenses in the conference in Michigan State and Ohio State, but no doubt this is a major concern.
10. An NCAA bid now becomes a very reasonable goal. The Gophers are now 14-4 and 3-2 in conference play, with an RPI of 26 and SoS of 13 (per ESPN), and two wins already over RPI Top 25 teams (Ohio State, Florida State) - those are some pretty awesome numbers, and based on the fact that the SoS will probably go up rather than down and the RPI is so good right now, I'll say nine Big Ten wins gets the Gophers in. Simple math says that means six more victories. These games are there for the taking: @Nebraska, Northwestern, @Northwestern, Illinois, Indiana, and Penn State. Those games will likely see the Gophers favored, and those are your six wins right there. There is also Purdue on the road which is certainly winnable. If the Gophers win all those they're in. If they lose one and win at Purdue they're in. And if they manage to win any of the other games, any at all, any other major upset, and it would take a pretty bad collapse to keep them out.
So, you know. Let's not do that.
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Gophers 84, Montana 58
Well that couldn't have gone much better. Montana is a step up from Lehigh and will be in the running for an NCAA bid (by winning the Big Sky, not at-large) and the Gophers simply crushed them. The press hassled Montana from the get go and helped the Gophers jump out to a big lead they'd never relinquish. The Gophers (still questionable, imo) front court was able to destroy the Grizzlies on the glass 45-29. Although the rebounding margin should be celebrated too excessively given that Montana is a horrendous rebounding team, for the Gophers it is definitely a step in the right direction. The Gophers also unleashed the three, which will likely end up being a big part of their offense, and hit 11 of 25. Much of the Gophers success this year will be determined by their ability to create turnovers with the press while limiting their own, being competitive on the glass, and being able to hit the outside shot. I'd say this game was an A+.
Player-by-Player:
Dre Hollins - simply a star. He looks like he's taking his game to another level, and he's a rare player who can score from three, taking it to the rim, or with a mid-range jumper and can do all efficiently. His free throw shooting will be a huge asset this year with the new rules continually putting driving guards at the line. The addition of Mathieu makes him even better because he can play off the ball and run off of screens.
Dre Mathieu - I love watching him play. He may get himself in a little too deep driving the ball from time-to-time, but that's just his mentality - he gets the ball and looks to drive. His excellent vision is going to create a lot of open shots for teammates, and he's so fast he should be able to get to the line quite a bit simply by taking it right at his defender and creating contact before they can get out of the way.
Austin Hollins - I have a feeling these three are going to be talked about a lot this year. Austin continues to have a clear sense of purpose, confidence, and leadership, and when he needed to help out in the paint he just went ahead and grabbed 10 rebounds. Very much a senior year Damian Johnson type of feel to him right now in terms of leadership and just rising to the occasion.
Elliott Eliason - He's starting to develop and almost adequate offensive game, and his defense and rebounding are absolutely crucial to this team as the only real post presence (we'll see about Mo when he's back). Even when his numbers aren't there (they were last night with 8 boards and 5 blocks), he alters enough shots and takes up enough space to make the defense much better. Whenever Eliason is in foul trouble it is going to be a very big deal.
Oto Osenieks - Hit two threes and grabbed six rebounds and finished without a single turnover. You can actually see his confidence starting to return after the combination of a horrible year and Tubby somehow reduced him to worthless. I said before the year started that if he could find his shot he would be able to thrive in the type of system Pitino is going for, and although he isn't nearly there yet he's moving in the right direction.
Joey King - Still drives me crazy, but at least he dialed back the perimeter stuff and attempted six two point shots compared to just one three point shot. Managed just two rebounds in 15 minutes, and one of them was tipped out to him on the perimeter. Also clapped for himself when he made a shot.
Malik Smith - Any time someone is described as a streaky shooter you know what you're getting, and right now Smith isn't looking impressive at just 3-11 while doing absolutely nothing else on the court. I assume at some point the buckets will start falling and he'll probably basically win a game for the Gophers single handedly. At least that's the hope.
Maverick Ahanmisi - I don't even know what to write about Mav anymore. He's questionable with the ball, passable defensively, rebounds well for his position, and can knock down an open shot. Rinse, repeat.
Wally Ellenson - I have no idea why he's on the team other than as a ploy to try to get his brother to commit here. Amazing athlete without much skill. Loves to shoot.
All in all, I'm very encouraged by that game as I expected the Gophers to struggle, at least a little bit, before ending up with a low double-digit win. I certainly didn't expect them to nearly win by 30. Everything went right that game, but things get a lot tougher this weekend with a trip to Richmond. The Spiders are a step up from Montana (I like the first three game opponent difficulty progression quite a bit) and being on the road is always dicey. After tonight, confidence is high, however when I write my later this week I suspect I will talk myself out of it.
Player-by-Player:
Dre Hollins - simply a star. He looks like he's taking his game to another level, and he's a rare player who can score from three, taking it to the rim, or with a mid-range jumper and can do all efficiently. His free throw shooting will be a huge asset this year with the new rules continually putting driving guards at the line. The addition of Mathieu makes him even better because he can play off the ball and run off of screens.
Dre Mathieu - I love watching him play. He may get himself in a little too deep driving the ball from time-to-time, but that's just his mentality - he gets the ball and looks to drive. His excellent vision is going to create a lot of open shots for teammates, and he's so fast he should be able to get to the line quite a bit simply by taking it right at his defender and creating contact before they can get out of the way.
Austin Hollins - I have a feeling these three are going to be talked about a lot this year. Austin continues to have a clear sense of purpose, confidence, and leadership, and when he needed to help out in the paint he just went ahead and grabbed 10 rebounds. Very much a senior year Damian Johnson type of feel to him right now in terms of leadership and just rising to the occasion.
Elliott Eliason - He's starting to develop and almost adequate offensive game, and his defense and rebounding are absolutely crucial to this team as the only real post presence (we'll see about Mo when he's back). Even when his numbers aren't there (they were last night with 8 boards and 5 blocks), he alters enough shots and takes up enough space to make the defense much better. Whenever Eliason is in foul trouble it is going to be a very big deal.
Oto Osenieks - Hit two threes and grabbed six rebounds and finished without a single turnover. You can actually see his confidence starting to return after the combination of a horrible year and Tubby somehow reduced him to worthless. I said before the year started that if he could find his shot he would be able to thrive in the type of system Pitino is going for, and although he isn't nearly there yet he's moving in the right direction.
Joey King - Still drives me crazy, but at least he dialed back the perimeter stuff and attempted six two point shots compared to just one three point shot. Managed just two rebounds in 15 minutes, and one of them was tipped out to him on the perimeter. Also clapped for himself when he made a shot.
Malik Smith - Any time someone is described as a streaky shooter you know what you're getting, and right now Smith isn't looking impressive at just 3-11 while doing absolutely nothing else on the court. I assume at some point the buckets will start falling and he'll probably basically win a game for the Gophers single handedly. At least that's the hope.
Maverick Ahanmisi - I don't even know what to write about Mav anymore. He's questionable with the ball, passable defensively, rebounds well for his position, and can knock down an open shot. Rinse, repeat.
Wally Ellenson - I have no idea why he's on the team other than as a ploy to try to get his brother to commit here. Amazing athlete without much skill. Loves to shoot.
All in all, I'm very encouraged by that game as I expected the Gophers to struggle, at least a little bit, before ending up with a low double-digit win. I certainly didn't expect them to nearly win by 30. Everything went right that game, but things get a lot tougher this weekend with a trip to Richmond. The Spiders are a step up from Montana (I like the first three game opponent difficulty progression quite a bit) and being on the road is always dicey. After tonight, confidence is high, however when I write my later this week I suspect I will talk myself out of it.
Saturday, October 19, 2013
Notes from #RaiseTheBarn Scrimmage
I attended the open scrimmage on Friday night, sort of, and these are some impressions I came away with. Keeping in mind it's an officiated scrimmage so it's kind of tough to get a true read on everything, I had to leave at halftime because WonderbabyTM (who is now 5 if you can believe that) hates fun, and I had to manage potty breaks, popcorn, and Mello Yello so take these for what it's worth.
- The seniors look extremely confident, as seniors tend to before a breakout year. As such I feel confident predicting a true breakout year for Austin Hollins. He's never been a shrinking violet or anything (that's a thing, right?) but he was carrying himself with a little bit of swagger out there, and I love it. Going to be a big year. As for Maverick, he is carrying himself with a lot more confidence as well. I have no idea what that might mean, but I'm guessing it's either going to be real good, a total disaster, or mean very little change at all. I'm out on a limb here.
- Mo Walker looks like a completely different person. I'm serious, he looks completely different. He looks like a normal human being instead of a fat one, like when Jack Black lost all that weight for a little while and still wasn't funny. I tried to watch him to see if there was a difference in his agility or athletic ability, and although I was pretty distracted I didn't notice anything different at all which sucks. I always thought Mo had a good amount of potential, mainly because he was a very good passing big man as a freshman which generally bodes well for overall skills, but whether it was the knee injury or just how he always was the lack of athletic ability is a major anchor, as it were. Hopefully something changes, because otherwise gross.
- On that note, power forward is going to be a serious, serious problem. I can already tell Joey King is going to drive me absolutely crazy. He rarely steps inside the three point line on offense, doesn't appear to have either the strength, instincts, or drive to be a great rebounder, and I don't think he's big or strong enough to play defense in the Big Ten. Maybe worse, against the press tonight twice he helped break it and then committed the major fundamental mistake of picking up his dribble right after he crossed half court, leading to a another trapping situation, and a turnover one of the times. That kind of shit isn't going to fly. I'm very nervous for the Joey King era.
- Believe it or not, the PF who looked the best tonight was Oto-matic. I won't say he seemed confident because he didn't, but he didn't look like a shell of a person like he did most of last season. I actually saw him make a 3-pointer which I think is more than he made all last season, and I saw him get an offensive rebound which may have been the only one a Gopher got tonight (seriously rebounding and inside play is going to be a major, major deal). I'm not saying he looked great, just that he looked the best of all the PF candidates. So scary.
- The other PF candidates, Wally Ellenson and Charles Buggs were less than inspiring. Ellenson is crazy athletic and not remotely shy about trying to score or flying around, all of which are promising, while Buggs, well, Buggs isn't what I hoped Buggs would be. I thought he could be the long, range-y, semi-athletic big guy with a good perimeter shot in the mold of KG, Hakim Warrick, and JaJuan Johnson. Yeah my bad. He still has plenty of time to turn into something like that, but he's not there yet. No, he is not.
- Dre Hollins was pretty much in coast mode, which I'm cool with considering he's the best player on the team (OR IS HE?!?!?!?!). Nothing wrong with letting everyone else get involved in a thing like this where it doesn't count. When he did decide to take over a couple of times, he scored. So we cool.
- It was sweet to see a little bit of offensive innovation, if by innovation you mean things pretty much every other team was doing besides the Gophers. If you think back to the Tubby Smith era, you'll remember that the Gophers ran 3 plays: Flex, 3-man weave 30 feet from the hoop, and pass the ball sluggishly around the perimeter until the shot clock runs out. I was a fan of none of these plays, for the record. Anyway, I noticed three things: they actually ran a pick-and-roll, while running said pick-and-roll there was another screen to free a shooter at the same time (2 plays in one!!), and the 3-man weave happened but it was far closer in and looked more like the dribble drive thing Calipari loves so much. If nothing else, seeing these plays made me weep with joy until WonderbabyTM asked me if I was crying and I was like "no it's really dusty in here" and then she was like "no it's not" and then I was like "shut up, you can't even spell."
- Those who are aware of my crippling obsession over Rico Tucker have pointed out to me that Dre Mathieu sounds an awful lot like him and fully expect me to fall in love all over again like it's just that easy to go from guy to guy. Well I did so shut up, no slut shaming allowed on this blog. He's just like Rico Tucker if Rico was slightly less athletic but had played two years of Juco with a coach who knew how to reign him in and teach him to play in control instead of playing for a coach who had no idea what to do with an all-world talent who needed to be harnessed.
Mathieu is super fast, but he uses it as a weapon rather than looking like my kid trying to play Mario Kart on 150cc. He kind of reminded me of Phil Pressey, formerly of Missouri, but where Pressey was always looking to use his penetration skills (like me with your mom) to set up somebody else (which is good) Mathieu is generally looking to score (also good). He strikes me as a nearly perfect 6th man to help jump start the offense. Of course if he keeps scoring a billion points all the time it's going to be tough to keep him out of the starting lineup. Or my dreams.
- The other newcomers probably deserve to be talked about just so I can give my spot on impressions. Malik Smith shot about a million three pointers and missed all of them, but that's ok I guess because he's a shooter or something. Obviously I'm not dumb enough to judge a shooter on one scrimmage so we'll just see what we see I guess. I noticed nothing else about him. Daquein still doesn't have a second A in his name and I saw him hit a three-pointer and that was pretty much it. In retrospect this note is pretty much worthless, but seeing as I don't believe in retrospect it's staying.
- The press was interesting to me. It kind of looked like a good ole fashioned diamond press, but the off guy of the three at the front never left his man to guard the most obvious pass recipient - the guy who passed it in from out of bounds. I watch a ton of college hoops, obvs, but have never really paid a ton of attention to the Xs and Os of the press so I don't know if this is a thing now or what, but I'm not familiar with it. And like an old man with a Tivo I'm uncomfortable with things I don't understand. Now, in a way it's kind of genius because in theory most teams make their shitty ball handling power forward throw it in, so if you just trap the PG and make that dude bring it up and trap him when he picks up his dribble right after crossing half court (Joey King -> hi) it could work out well. I'm very interested to see how this goes.
- Overall the team seemed much more uptempo, did a lot more trapping of many varieties on defense, and was more varied on offense. Again, I know it's a stupid scrimmage but they looked pretty good. I would say that they're going to get killed on the boards and by teams who are talented in the front court because they quite literally only have one guy who can play post defense or rebound, but because of the way the team is constructed they'll probably pull off at least one upset because they have so many guys who can score on the perimeter and shoot the 3. Some game they'll go like 14-24 from three and knock off Michigan or something. It should be fun. And horribly maddening.
- The seniors look extremely confident, as seniors tend to before a breakout year. As such I feel confident predicting a true breakout year for Austin Hollins. He's never been a shrinking violet or anything (that's a thing, right?) but he was carrying himself with a little bit of swagger out there, and I love it. Going to be a big year. As for Maverick, he is carrying himself with a lot more confidence as well. I have no idea what that might mean, but I'm guessing it's either going to be real good, a total disaster, or mean very little change at all. I'm out on a limb here.
- Mo Walker looks like a completely different person. I'm serious, he looks completely different. He looks like a normal human being instead of a fat one, like when Jack Black lost all that weight for a little while and still wasn't funny. I tried to watch him to see if there was a difference in his agility or athletic ability, and although I was pretty distracted I didn't notice anything different at all which sucks. I always thought Mo had a good amount of potential, mainly because he was a very good passing big man as a freshman which generally bodes well for overall skills, but whether it was the knee injury or just how he always was the lack of athletic ability is a major anchor, as it were. Hopefully something changes, because otherwise gross.
- On that note, power forward is going to be a serious, serious problem. I can already tell Joey King is going to drive me absolutely crazy. He rarely steps inside the three point line on offense, doesn't appear to have either the strength, instincts, or drive to be a great rebounder, and I don't think he's big or strong enough to play defense in the Big Ten. Maybe worse, against the press tonight twice he helped break it and then committed the major fundamental mistake of picking up his dribble right after he crossed half court, leading to a another trapping situation, and a turnover one of the times. That kind of shit isn't going to fly. I'm very nervous for the Joey King era.
- Believe it or not, the PF who looked the best tonight was Oto-matic. I won't say he seemed confident because he didn't, but he didn't look like a shell of a person like he did most of last season. I actually saw him make a 3-pointer which I think is more than he made all last season, and I saw him get an offensive rebound which may have been the only one a Gopher got tonight (seriously rebounding and inside play is going to be a major, major deal). I'm not saying he looked great, just that he looked the best of all the PF candidates. So scary.
- The other PF candidates, Wally Ellenson and Charles Buggs were less than inspiring. Ellenson is crazy athletic and not remotely shy about trying to score or flying around, all of which are promising, while Buggs, well, Buggs isn't what I hoped Buggs would be. I thought he could be the long, range-y, semi-athletic big guy with a good perimeter shot in the mold of KG, Hakim Warrick, and JaJuan Johnson. Yeah my bad. He still has plenty of time to turn into something like that, but he's not there yet. No, he is not.
- Dre Hollins was pretty much in coast mode, which I'm cool with considering he's the best player on the team (OR IS HE?!?!?!?!). Nothing wrong with letting everyone else get involved in a thing like this where it doesn't count. When he did decide to take over a couple of times, he scored. So we cool.
- It was sweet to see a little bit of offensive innovation, if by innovation you mean things pretty much every other team was doing besides the Gophers. If you think back to the Tubby Smith era, you'll remember that the Gophers ran 3 plays: Flex, 3-man weave 30 feet from the hoop, and pass the ball sluggishly around the perimeter until the shot clock runs out. I was a fan of none of these plays, for the record. Anyway, I noticed three things: they actually ran a pick-and-roll, while running said pick-and-roll there was another screen to free a shooter at the same time (2 plays in one!!), and the 3-man weave happened but it was far closer in and looked more like the dribble drive thing Calipari loves so much. If nothing else, seeing these plays made me weep with joy until WonderbabyTM asked me if I was crying and I was like "no it's really dusty in here" and then she was like "no it's not" and then I was like "shut up, you can't even spell."
- Those who are aware of my crippling obsession over Rico Tucker have pointed out to me that Dre Mathieu sounds an awful lot like him and fully expect me to fall in love all over again like it's just that easy to go from guy to guy. Well I did so shut up, no slut shaming allowed on this blog. He's just like Rico Tucker if Rico was slightly less athletic but had played two years of Juco with a coach who knew how to reign him in and teach him to play in control instead of playing for a coach who had no idea what to do with an all-world talent who needed to be harnessed.
Mathieu is super fast, but he uses it as a weapon rather than looking like my kid trying to play Mario Kart on 150cc. He kind of reminded me of Phil Pressey, formerly of Missouri, but where Pressey was always looking to use his penetration skills (like me with your mom) to set up somebody else (which is good) Mathieu is generally looking to score (also good). He strikes me as a nearly perfect 6th man to help jump start the offense. Of course if he keeps scoring a billion points all the time it's going to be tough to keep him out of the starting lineup. Or my dreams.
- The other newcomers probably deserve to be talked about just so I can give my spot on impressions. Malik Smith shot about a million three pointers and missed all of them, but that's ok I guess because he's a shooter or something. Obviously I'm not dumb enough to judge a shooter on one scrimmage so we'll just see what we see I guess. I noticed nothing else about him. Daquein still doesn't have a second A in his name and I saw him hit a three-pointer and that was pretty much it. In retrospect this note is pretty much worthless, but seeing as I don't believe in retrospect it's staying.
- The press was interesting to me. It kind of looked like a good ole fashioned diamond press, but the off guy of the three at the front never left his man to guard the most obvious pass recipient - the guy who passed it in from out of bounds. I watch a ton of college hoops, obvs, but have never really paid a ton of attention to the Xs and Os of the press so I don't know if this is a thing now or what, but I'm not familiar with it. And like an old man with a Tivo I'm uncomfortable with things I don't understand. Now, in a way it's kind of genius because in theory most teams make their shitty ball handling power forward throw it in, so if you just trap the PG and make that dude bring it up and trap him when he picks up his dribble right after crossing half court (Joey King -> hi) it could work out well. I'm very interested to see how this goes.
- Overall the team seemed much more uptempo, did a lot more trapping of many varieties on defense, and was more varied on offense. Again, I know it's a stupid scrimmage but they looked pretty good. I would say that they're going to get killed on the boards and by teams who are talented in the front court because they quite literally only have one guy who can play post defense or rebound, but because of the way the team is constructed they'll probably pull off at least one upset because they have so many guys who can score on the perimeter and shoot the 3. Some game they'll go like 14-24 from three and knock off Michigan or something. It should be fun. And horribly maddening.
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Game Preview: Gophers vs. Northwestern
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| The Gophers play the Wildcats......again |
The Gophers play the Northwestern Wildcats, again, and since the last time they squared off not all that much has changed - other than reconfiguring our expectations for this Gopher team. Since the last game the Gophers have gone 1-2 with then impressive win at Illinois and losses to Indiana and Michigan - certainly understandable, however the team had stretches of poor play that have taken some of the luster off the early season success. Northwestern has gone 2-2, winning at Penn State and Illinois (thus the "then impressive win" when the Gophers won in Champaign) and losses and home losses to Iowa (by 20!!) and Indiana. Basically, the Gophers are maybe a little worse than what we thought last time, and Northwestern is a little better, if only because Reggie Hearn is healthier. I will admit it - I'm concerned.
I probably shouldn't be. Minnesota still ranks as the 7th best team in the country by kenpom's advanced metrics while Northwestern is 88th. Pomeroy projects the Gophers to win 70-61 with an 82% chance of coming out with a victory, and the Gophers seemingly have solved the Northwestern zone, and with Drew Crawford done for the year they're a little lacking in the offensive weapons department. I get it. But I'm also a lifelong Minnesota fan, and all those years watching not only the Gophers but the Vikings and Twins have me programmed to expect disappointment. How "Minnesota" would it feel to have them lose this game? I don't like feeling this way, but it's just the way I am. I'm a bipolar fan - high ups, and low downs. Anyway, if the Gopher team is who I thought they were they should still take this, as long as they don't turn it over 25 times.
Which, just so you know, is actually in the realm of possibility. Although kenpom ranks them as the 6th most efficient offensive team in the country that's a function of good shooting and great offensive rebounding (where they still rank #1, grabbing an astounding 47.9% of their misses, more than 5% higher than the second best team (Colorado State (Colton Iverson - hi!!))), because they still can't take care of the ball to save their lives. The Gophers turn the ball over on 21.9% of their possessions, 247th in the country. No other top ten offensive team turns it over more than 18.8% of the time or ranks outside the top 100. It's ludicrous.
I'm not going to do duplicate work, so instead I'll direct you to From the Barn's post where he breaks down the nerd stats on turnovers - it's pretty cool. My most favorite part is how Maverick Ahanmisi turns the ball over on 31% of the possessions when he's in the game. Only Denzel Valentine of Michigan State and Benny Parker of Nebraska are worse in the Big 10. The result of FTB's work is it's abundantly clear, even if it wasn't already, that the turnover problem is the one thing keeping the Gophers from reaching the potential we thought they had, but this far into the season it's time to start wondering if they can turn it around. Bottom line: STOP DOING THAT!!
I do, however, have a suggestion and hopefully someone can call or email or skype Tubby and tell him. Did you ever see that movie The Program with Willie Mays Hayes and that alcoholic quarterback and James Caan and the steroid guy Lattimer and a super hot Kristy Swanson? Well remember when Darnell Jefferson had fumbling issues and Caan gave him a football to carry around all the time and the other football players were supposed to try to knock it out of his hands and then if the ball was returned to Caan by anyone other than Jefferson he'd have to do laps or pushups or get in an Iron Maiden or something? Well Tubby needs to do that with every single player on this team, and open the competition to everyone on campus and if anybody loses their ball they have to spend two hours in a locked room with the guy who thinks it's cool to dress up as Goldy and act like a complete moron at games, or take a sauna with Mo Walker. It's our only hope.
The team is still plenty good enough to win the next four (@ NW, @ Wisconsin, vs. Nebraska, vs. Iowa) even if they keep the ball safe at a Lindsay Lohan's hoo-ha level (LiLo jokes played out? Never, I say!), but if they want to be a truly great team - and I believe they can - they have to stop with this sloppiness. I think we can all agree my proposal would solve everything. I should probably step in and coach, too.
Oh, and if you want a rundown on Northwestern's players just read the linked thing above from last game or my preview from the last game since it just happened like a week ago.
Minnesota 66, Northwestern 58.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Wisconsin is Hitler
Just got back from the game. I'm not even going to attempt to make this an organized post. Just a bunch of thoughts. So away we go for fun times.
1. I hate Wisconsin. I mean I really hate everything about Wisconsin. I hate their stupid team, and their stupid players, and their stupid evil coach, and their stupid fans, and their stupid cheese obsession. The only good things about Wisconsin are Spotted Cow Brewery and that you can play craps there. Honestly if the ground opened up and swallowed the entire state (sans Turtle Lake) in a giant fire of aids the world would be a better place. And the fans, oh my god. Yes, you're allowed to cheer for your team when you're visiting another arena, but you are not allowed to stand up and yell, "Yes Jordan Taylor!" after every made basket and draw attention to yourself in a way that would be obnoxious even if you were rooting for the home team, and especially not if you're going to where some gay tie-dyed t-shirt that apparently says Wisconsin on it like some kind of dirty hippy.
2. The last play. I completely agree that putting the ball in Andre Hollins's hands was the right call. He had been the best player for the Gophers the entire second half and deserved to have that chance. What I don't understand was the time out called in order to have him go 1-on-1 with four guys standing still. Give him a pick, or, when he first makes his move, run a screen away from the ball somewhere, because Hollins going against Taylor is rarely going to work. Taylor is one of the best defenders in the league (although Snacks disagreed with the rebuttal "nuh uh") so they're not going to double to help. The whole success of the isolation drive comes either from the dribbler beating his man and either getting to the rim or drawing the defense and finding and open man. Calling the timeout gave Wisconsin's evil coach a chance to drill into his players brains (literally? maybe) to not leave their men, and even though Sconnie's players are dumb, like all good Nazis they're great at following orders.
Hollins had a great game. He stood up to Jordan Taylor and several times got the better of him, especially on the defensive end. It was a breakout game for a possible future star and he was extremely fun to watch. But at this point in their respective careers he's not going to beat Taylor very often. He's just not, especially with nothing else going on away from the ball and the team being completely dependent on him to create the offense. Plus, why call a timeout to call that play when you could just as easily yell "Andre go 1-on-1 when the shot clock gets down to 8 seconds." Calling the timeout just gave the Dr. Robotnik a chance to remind his drones to stay home (note I haven't watched the last play because I'd rather have Jon Lovitz piss directly into my eyeballs, but if anybody doubled at all it came super late). That "play" was just never going to work.
The best chance they had was when they were stalling and running the clock and Taylor switched onto Rodney Williams. Someone has to recognize that, whether it's Rodney himself, Hollins, or Tubby (especially him) and get Williams's ass into the paint. At worst you end up with a slightly scrambling Wisconsin defense as they figure out who should be where, at best you end up with a mismatch and get Rodney the ball, in a game where he was practically unguardable because Wisconsin is slow and are assholes. But nobody saw it, there was no real play called, Dre did his best in a tough situation, and that was that.
3. It's easy to think about the bad, but there was some good at least, beyond even Hollins and Williams having really good games, and the big call-out for me was the defense. Yes, Wisconsin hit too many three pointers, but after their 3-3 start they went just 6-20 and that included a couple of prayers by Taylor and Gasser that really shouldn't have gone in. They played good, physical defense and against a physical team and got the better of them most of the time, especially Hollins. To use a stupid, annoying phrase that idiotic announcers overuse but fuck it I can't think of anything better right now, they punched the bully in the mouth and the bully well, didn't fall down because Sconnie still won, but they definitely held their own. This point would feel way better if the Gophers had managed to eek out the win.
Which brings me to another positive, which is the comeback - failed yes, but still, they did fight back. Also I just realized I'm talking about a moral victory and I really don't want to do that so let's move on from that part now. Instead I'll just mention that the Barn was rockin' and the crowd did a great job. It was funny because we were talking about Williams Arena before the game and wondering if a young kid who had never been there would be impressed. And after the game we realized the problem with the Barn isn't the Barn, it's that the product has been so stale and mediocre the atmosphere just wanes of it's own volition. Put a good product out there and the place rocks and there's no better place to be in college basketball except like Cameron and Phog Allen and you know, sweet places like that.
4. Speaking of volition, I heard both Spencer and whoever that other idiot is mention that the Gophers should have had momentum going into overtime but I disagree. When they blew their chance at the regulation I sure as shit didn't think, "they got this." It was more like, "that was their shot, now we're hosed."
5. And not to get back to the negative but what do you expect from me, but the Gophers were just awful in OT. The offense degraded into playground ball where whoever has it just puts their head down and heads to the basket consequences be damned, and I'm sorry but the Gophers seem to be missing a guy like Hot Sauce or Half Man Half Amazing or Skip to my Lou. The Gophers did a great job taking the ball to the rack in the flow of the offense all game, but lost their rhythm in OT.
6. Sobieski vodka is the goods. Nostrovia! Also Maverick Ahanmisi has no business being on the court in a Big 10 game. Chances I go to the game Tuesday: 10%.
7. Oh, and forgot to mention that Ralph's OVER/UNDER on sportsbook.com for points + rebounds tonight was 11.5. That is absolutely embarrassing for a senior 7-foot starter on a major college team. AND HE DIDN'T CLEAR THE OVER. If he had accepted my facebook friend request I'd totally defriend him right now.
1. I hate Wisconsin. I mean I really hate everything about Wisconsin. I hate their stupid team, and their stupid players, and their stupid evil coach, and their stupid fans, and their stupid cheese obsession. The only good things about Wisconsin are Spotted Cow Brewery and that you can play craps there. Honestly if the ground opened up and swallowed the entire state (sans Turtle Lake) in a giant fire of aids the world would be a better place. And the fans, oh my god. Yes, you're allowed to cheer for your team when you're visiting another arena, but you are not allowed to stand up and yell, "Yes Jordan Taylor!" after every made basket and draw attention to yourself in a way that would be obnoxious even if you were rooting for the home team, and especially not if you're going to where some gay tie-dyed t-shirt that apparently says Wisconsin on it like some kind of dirty hippy.
2. The last play. I completely agree that putting the ball in Andre Hollins's hands was the right call. He had been the best player for the Gophers the entire second half and deserved to have that chance. What I don't understand was the time out called in order to have him go 1-on-1 with four guys standing still. Give him a pick, or, when he first makes his move, run a screen away from the ball somewhere, because Hollins going against Taylor is rarely going to work. Taylor is one of the best defenders in the league (although Snacks disagreed with the rebuttal "nuh uh") so they're not going to double to help. The whole success of the isolation drive comes either from the dribbler beating his man and either getting to the rim or drawing the defense and finding and open man. Calling the timeout gave Wisconsin's evil coach a chance to drill into his players brains (literally? maybe) to not leave their men, and even though Sconnie's players are dumb, like all good Nazis they're great at following orders.
Hollins had a great game. He stood up to Jordan Taylor and several times got the better of him, especially on the defensive end. It was a breakout game for a possible future star and he was extremely fun to watch. But at this point in their respective careers he's not going to beat Taylor very often. He's just not, especially with nothing else going on away from the ball and the team being completely dependent on him to create the offense. Plus, why call a timeout to call that play when you could just as easily yell "Andre go 1-on-1 when the shot clock gets down to 8 seconds." Calling the timeout just gave the Dr. Robotnik a chance to remind his drones to stay home (note I haven't watched the last play because I'd rather have Jon Lovitz piss directly into my eyeballs, but if anybody doubled at all it came super late). That "play" was just never going to work.
The best chance they had was when they were stalling and running the clock and Taylor switched onto Rodney Williams. Someone has to recognize that, whether it's Rodney himself, Hollins, or Tubby (especially him) and get Williams's ass into the paint. At worst you end up with a slightly scrambling Wisconsin defense as they figure out who should be where, at best you end up with a mismatch and get Rodney the ball, in a game where he was practically unguardable because Wisconsin is slow and are assholes. But nobody saw it, there was no real play called, Dre did his best in a tough situation, and that was that.
3. It's easy to think about the bad, but there was some good at least, beyond even Hollins and Williams having really good games, and the big call-out for me was the defense. Yes, Wisconsin hit too many three pointers, but after their 3-3 start they went just 6-20 and that included a couple of prayers by Taylor and Gasser that really shouldn't have gone in. They played good, physical defense and against a physical team and got the better of them most of the time, especially Hollins. To use a stupid, annoying phrase that idiotic announcers overuse but fuck it I can't think of anything better right now, they punched the bully in the mouth and the bully well, didn't fall down because Sconnie still won, but they definitely held their own. This point would feel way better if the Gophers had managed to eek out the win.
Which brings me to another positive, which is the comeback - failed yes, but still, they did fight back. Also I just realized I'm talking about a moral victory and I really don't want to do that so let's move on from that part now. Instead I'll just mention that the Barn was rockin' and the crowd did a great job. It was funny because we were talking about Williams Arena before the game and wondering if a young kid who had never been there would be impressed. And after the game we realized the problem with the Barn isn't the Barn, it's that the product has been so stale and mediocre the atmosphere just wanes of it's own volition. Put a good product out there and the place rocks and there's no better place to be in college basketball except like Cameron and Phog Allen and you know, sweet places like that.
4. Speaking of volition, I heard both Spencer and whoever that other idiot is mention that the Gophers should have had momentum going into overtime but I disagree. When they blew their chance at the regulation I sure as shit didn't think, "they got this." It was more like, "that was their shot, now we're hosed."
5. And not to get back to the negative but what do you expect from me, but the Gophers were just awful in OT. The offense degraded into playground ball where whoever has it just puts their head down and heads to the basket consequences be damned, and I'm sorry but the Gophers seem to be missing a guy like Hot Sauce or Half Man Half Amazing or Skip to my Lou. The Gophers did a great job taking the ball to the rack in the flow of the offense all game, but lost their rhythm in OT.
6. Sobieski vodka is the goods. Nostrovia! Also Maverick Ahanmisi has no business being on the court in a Big 10 game. Chances I go to the game Tuesday: 10%.
7. Oh, and forgot to mention that Ralph's OVER/UNDER on sportsbook.com for points + rebounds tonight was 11.5. That is absolutely embarrassing for a senior 7-foot starter on a major college team. AND HE DIDN'T CLEAR THE OVER. If he had accepted my facebook friend request I'd totally defriend him right now.
Friday, November 18, 2011
An Ugly Win is still a Win I Guess
Well that was pretty ugly. 23 turnovers against Fairfield certainily isn't going to warm the cockles of my black heart, but at least the Gophers won. And, in a very weird way, they also impressed me which is probably like me being a serial killer's mom and being impressed because that one time he didn't kill someone, but nevertheless, they did impress me with this win. Fairfield is a good, well an ok, team, and on a day when the Gophers offense was completely terrible they were able to use some good defense, a trap that they FINALLY broke out, and some absolutely insane free throw shooting, to grind out a win that looked far easier than it really was.
The most impressive stat, I think in the history of ever, was the Gophers shooting 27-31 from the free throw line and outscoring the Stags in that regard by 12 points. If the Gophers shoot their usual 60%, this is a 1-point game which, obviously, could end up going either way, so you really can't down play the significance of that performance which I'm going to assume is a school record. Now, Trevor Mbakwe and Andre Hollins were 25-27 of that so it's not like the whole team magically got better, but hey, it's a win.
Other observations:
- Tubby finally pressed, even if it was mostly the man press where you get the dribbler to turn his back and then double when he can't see it coming. Even though it worked a couple of times I'd still really like to see some kind of diamond trap or half-court trap or something like that. The team is allegedly athletic enough where they should be able to pull it off. At least there's some progress here.
- Ralph Sampson was simply dreadful on the offensive end. I think the last person who had that many balls go through their hands in one night was Jenna Jameson. That being said, it was very positive to see him continue to work hard and hustle on defense when he wasn't getting burnt. So yeah, overall I thought this was a pretty rough game by Ralph, but I'm encouraged because he never seemed to go into a funk and disappear - you knew there was a 7-footer out there the whole time. Baby steps, to be sure, but he's doin' the work.
- Rodney had one absolutely gorgeous offensive highlight reel dunk, and one spectacular blocked shot. Which, it could be said, is his season average. One amazing play on each end of the court surrounded by a whole lot of filler. The fact that he doesn't even bother to look for his shot anymore tells me all I need to know.
- Andre Hollins showed some flashes of potential again, and getting to the line 9 times is a definite positive, but he's still a little too out of control at times which is a bit surprising since he's a coach's kid. Still though, he has an awful lot of Russell Westbrook in him, which is fantastic if harnessed properly and Rico Tuckeresque if it's not. I'm betting on the former. In any case, this point guard mess doesn't look like it's sorting itself out, because.....
- Maverick Ahanmisi is the best pure point guard on this team. That doesn't mean he ranks high in the pure point guard ratings of the world or anything and I'm still not sure he could even score on a date with your mom with a box of wine and a Blu-ray copy of The Notebook, but he has some court vision - something that I haven't really seen too much of from either of the other two guards just yet other than a couple of isolated incidents. Mav had two excellent passes, one one a break that bounced off Ralph Sampson's hands like it was toxic, and another pass on a pick-and-roll where he did that thing you see nba guards do all the time where they throw the bounce pass to the roller - between the two defenders - before the guy is even 100% open and hasn't even turned around yet. Consider my interest level in young Maverick tweaked.
- Julian Welch had a play that absolutely, completely summed up his defensive abilities of quick hands/slow feet. At one point he knocked the ball away from his man, nearly picking him clean but simply knocking it away and making the dude run back to the halfcourt line to recover the ball. After picking the ball up, his man proceeded to blow right past Welch and into the lane. Super quick hands, really slow feet. It'll be interesting to see how that all plays out.
- Oto Osenieks was probably my favorite player last night, simply because he finally showed why he's known as a shooter. I said after one or more of the other games that if you're a "shooter" you need to "shoot" whenever you have an opening, and Oto was deferring too much. Finally, last night, he didn't do that and he asserted himself and hit a couple of big threes. Of course, he didn't bother with a heat check, which is really lame and dumb because anytime somebody makes two straight threes they owe it to themselves, their teammates, and the fans to chuck it up the next time they have even the smallest opening. Silly freshman. Next time Oto, chuck away.
- Obviously Trevor was the star, and Austin Hollins played with his usual quiet efficiency (although the four turnovers are a bit troubling). Chip was too quiet, Elliason was meaningless and slow, Ingram still has potential, and Joe Coleman is an absolutely terrible defender. None of these things are different than any other game (except that one decent game Chipper had), so they aren't really worth elaborating on. And neither is the next game against Mt. St. Mary's, because the final score is going to be like 95-8.
The most impressive stat, I think in the history of ever, was the Gophers shooting 27-31 from the free throw line and outscoring the Stags in that regard by 12 points. If the Gophers shoot their usual 60%, this is a 1-point game which, obviously, could end up going either way, so you really can't down play the significance of that performance which I'm going to assume is a school record. Now, Trevor Mbakwe and Andre Hollins were 25-27 of that so it's not like the whole team magically got better, but hey, it's a win.
Other observations:
- Tubby finally pressed, even if it was mostly the man press where you get the dribbler to turn his back and then double when he can't see it coming. Even though it worked a couple of times I'd still really like to see some kind of diamond trap or half-court trap or something like that. The team is allegedly athletic enough where they should be able to pull it off. At least there's some progress here.
- Ralph Sampson was simply dreadful on the offensive end. I think the last person who had that many balls go through their hands in one night was Jenna Jameson. That being said, it was very positive to see him continue to work hard and hustle on defense when he wasn't getting burnt. So yeah, overall I thought this was a pretty rough game by Ralph, but I'm encouraged because he never seemed to go into a funk and disappear - you knew there was a 7-footer out there the whole time. Baby steps, to be sure, but he's doin' the work.
- Rodney had one absolutely gorgeous offensive highlight reel dunk, and one spectacular blocked shot. Which, it could be said, is his season average. One amazing play on each end of the court surrounded by a whole lot of filler. The fact that he doesn't even bother to look for his shot anymore tells me all I need to know.
- Andre Hollins showed some flashes of potential again, and getting to the line 9 times is a definite positive, but he's still a little too out of control at times which is a bit surprising since he's a coach's kid. Still though, he has an awful lot of Russell Westbrook in him, which is fantastic if harnessed properly and Rico Tuckeresque if it's not. I'm betting on the former. In any case, this point guard mess doesn't look like it's sorting itself out, because.....
- Maverick Ahanmisi is the best pure point guard on this team. That doesn't mean he ranks high in the pure point guard ratings of the world or anything and I'm still not sure he could even score on a date with your mom with a box of wine and a Blu-ray copy of The Notebook, but he has some court vision - something that I haven't really seen too much of from either of the other two guards just yet other than a couple of isolated incidents. Mav had two excellent passes, one one a break that bounced off Ralph Sampson's hands like it was toxic, and another pass on a pick-and-roll where he did that thing you see nba guards do all the time where they throw the bounce pass to the roller - between the two defenders - before the guy is even 100% open and hasn't even turned around yet. Consider my interest level in young Maverick tweaked.
- Julian Welch had a play that absolutely, completely summed up his defensive abilities of quick hands/slow feet. At one point he knocked the ball away from his man, nearly picking him clean but simply knocking it away and making the dude run back to the halfcourt line to recover the ball. After picking the ball up, his man proceeded to blow right past Welch and into the lane. Super quick hands, really slow feet. It'll be interesting to see how that all plays out.
- Oto Osenieks was probably my favorite player last night, simply because he finally showed why he's known as a shooter. I said after one or more of the other games that if you're a "shooter" you need to "shoot" whenever you have an opening, and Oto was deferring too much. Finally, last night, he didn't do that and he asserted himself and hit a couple of big threes. Of course, he didn't bother with a heat check, which is really lame and dumb because anytime somebody makes two straight threes they owe it to themselves, their teammates, and the fans to chuck it up the next time they have even the smallest opening. Silly freshman. Next time Oto, chuck away.
- Obviously Trevor was the star, and Austin Hollins played with his usual quiet efficiency (although the four turnovers are a bit troubling). Chip was too quiet, Elliason was meaningless and slow, Ingram still has potential, and Joe Coleman is an absolutely terrible defender. None of these things are different than any other game (except that one decent game Chipper had), so they aren't really worth elaborating on. And neither is the next game against Mt. St. Mary's, because the final score is going to be like 95-8.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
A solid Meh.
It's always tough to really get a read on a team after their first exhibition game. It's their first time working together in a true competition, there's a lot of jitters on behalf of the young players, the competition is terrifyingly sub-par, and the coach might be trying out some new shtick. In short, it's a terrible time to evaluate a team's prospects. Which is why I'm going to ignore that. Yes, I'm going to ignore a second unit that looked like it might be the worst in Gopher history (sans Mo Walker and Julian Welch, of course). I'm going to ignore that a team we were told was a great shooting team not only didn't shoot great, but didn't really look to shoot. I'm going to ignore some truly atrocious free-throw shooting and I'm going to ignore the fact that they blocked just one shot despite being probably 6 inches taller than Bemidji at ever position (of course, Bemidji's refusal to go inside at all also had something to do with it.)
What I do think you can learn from games like tonight's is tendencies about individual players, so that's what I'm going to focus on with three caveats:
1. It's early. I'm not projecting out to the season here, just what I saw tonight.
2. The competition was terrible.
3. We left with 9 minutes to go because Snacks and the Old Man are gigantic whiny babies.
So with that said, here's what I noticed tonight in the order that I think of it:
TREVOR MBAKWE: Very tough to judge him in this kind of game against this kind of team because he's stronger, faster, quicker, and any other adjective you want to use than everybody and anybody on the other team and could score and rebound at will, but he did do a couple of things that standout and bode well for the future. The first was that he hit a 17-footer in the first half, and the second was that his free-throws looked good with a nice touch and high arch. If both of those continue (and he doesn't fall in love with the perimeter game which I'm not worried about) he could easily add 5+ points on his per game average. He's lining up for a monster year, considering there's nobody else to grab rebounds.
RALPH SAMPSON: Once a tease always a tease? I have empirical proof that this isn't true, but what about in Ralph's case? Stop me if you've heard this before: Sampson, against a team which couldn't match up with him physically, came out full of confidence and aggressiveness and lit 'em up. Still, he showcased a running hook going right and a step back jumper, both of which would be unblockable against nearly any opponent thanks to his height and wingspan. Those moves and that aggressiveness combined with his outside touch would make him a real force this year if he keeps it up. Key part of that sentence being "combined with his outside touch" rather than "abandoning any semblance of an inside game" that we've seen too many times before. Cautiously optimistic.
ANDRE HOLLINS: Extremely impressed. Every time I hear "high-school combo guard" I immediately cringe and prepare for the worst, but Hollins looked like a point guard tonight. His shooting numbers tonight weren't good by any means, but that seemed to be more of a function of shots not falling rather than being a poor shooter, but I'm more focused on his assists (8) vs. turnovers (0), and more importantly the way he just seemed completely in control of the offense - impressive for a freshman and probably the most impressive part of his night. He also had no issue pushing tempo and firing the ball ahead in transition, something Tubby has said he wants to integrate into the team more this year. Very impressed, but I guess that's to be expected considering he's the son of an NBA coach.
AUSTIN HOLLINS: I actually didn't notice him all that much, but I have a feeling that's the kind of player he's going to be - quiet, not flashy, and then suddenly you read the box score and he put up 13 points with 6 rebs, 5 assists, and 3 steals. He did hit a very nice elbow jumper curling off a screen and a nice 3-pointer off a kick from the block from I think Mbakwe. Starting to think he's going to be a very solid player, and him and his cousin are going to be a very solid back court this year. Unfortunately this is pretty much where the happy fun good news stops.
RODNEY WILLIAMS: I'm off the bandwagon, folks. He's now in Year 3 and still not showing anything resembling an offensive game, a jump shot, a perimeter game, ball-handling skills, or any kind of defensive or rebounding presence other than being a freak athlete. He's still the best athlete on the team and that will get him a couple of highlight plays each night, but his fundamentals are all out of whack, he's completely passive on offense, and his average defensive play is only because his natural ability cancels out his lack of effort and focus. I just can't do it anymore. Andy Dufresne lied. Hope isn't a good thing. It's a cancer. At least he made his free throws, so that's something.
JOE COLEMAN: A lot of struggles tonight, and I don't know how much of that to chalk up to first game jitters. Despite familial traits I'll chalk up his horrendous free throw shooting to nerves, and I'll even give him the benefit of the doubt on his apparent inability to handle the basketball. If it was just those two things I'd go ahead and pass off today as a nothing event and wait for next game to get a better handle on him. Unfortunately, however, I happen to notice things like terrible terrible terrible off-the-ball defense, and Coleman has a big ole case of it. You watch, by the end of the year he's either going to be straight benchwarmer or have his minutes severely slashed if he doesn't get this figured out. Do you think he's more of a Missouri Valley guy or a MAC guy?
CHIP ARMELIN: This guy was one of the most disappointing of the night for me, simply because he seemed neutered. Chip is not, and should not be, a rotation player. He is the guy who should either play 4 minutes per game or 20 minutes per game - much like these weirdos who were on TV at the bar before the game who were going for the world's deepest free dive and the world's longest mile-high tightrope - thrive or die. Here's what you do, you put Chipper in, let him do his crazy, Rico Tucker-lite, undisciplined but highly athletic thing, and if it's working you run with it and if it's a disaster you just sit him down next to whoever that midget was in the suit who kept wiping up sweat tonight. But tonight's version of Chip was trying to be this respectable, ball-swinging, patient, disciplined player and it was just sad and wrong. More Deshaun Thomas or Newman from Seinfeld, less boring normal guy like Chris Klein or, I don't know, David Grim?
ELLIOTT ELIASON: I fear this is more of a Kyle Sanden thing than a Jeff Hagen thing. I also think I just said his upside is Jeff Hagen. Prove me wrong, prove me wrong. There has to be more coordination there than what I saw, right? Right?
OTO OSENIEKS: For a guy who is supposed to be a shooter he turned down a couple of open looks. I don't mean he passed up a wide open three-pointer with nobody on him, but he had some space where a true shooter should have put it up - and maybe I'm comparing him to Blake Hoffarber and that's not fair obviously, but he definitely deferred too much in this game. Unless that's him, in which case he and his perm aren't going to do this team much good.
MAVERICK AHANMISI: I didn't notice him at all, and that's a bad thing in this case.
ANDRE INGRAM: I guess we'll end on a semi-positive note, because Ingram did look pretty athletic and I'm a retard for athletic players so I'm on board here. He didn't get much time since he was pretty much #11, but he did seem to make a non-negative impact when he was in, other than missing a lay-up which could happen to anybody. Like I remember when I was playing 6th grade traveling and we were playing Coon Rapids and I took the throw-in to start the second half and bolted towards the hoop and went in for a wide open lay-up and missed it and man, I was stressin'. But then it turns out I was not only bad but also dumb because I took that pass and went towards the wrong hoop and if I had made that shot it would have been two points for Coony, not us. So it's good I missed. This is a fascinating story and totally relevant to Andre Ingram and you know it.
In conclusion, this game was stupid.
What I do think you can learn from games like tonight's is tendencies about individual players, so that's what I'm going to focus on with three caveats:
1. It's early. I'm not projecting out to the season here, just what I saw tonight.
2. The competition was terrible.
3. We left with 9 minutes to go because Snacks and the Old Man are gigantic whiny babies.
So with that said, here's what I noticed tonight in the order that I think of it:
TREVOR MBAKWE: Very tough to judge him in this kind of game against this kind of team because he's stronger, faster, quicker, and any other adjective you want to use than everybody and anybody on the other team and could score and rebound at will, but he did do a couple of things that standout and bode well for the future. The first was that he hit a 17-footer in the first half, and the second was that his free-throws looked good with a nice touch and high arch. If both of those continue (and he doesn't fall in love with the perimeter game which I'm not worried about) he could easily add 5+ points on his per game average. He's lining up for a monster year, considering there's nobody else to grab rebounds.
RALPH SAMPSON: Once a tease always a tease? I have empirical proof that this isn't true, but what about in Ralph's case? Stop me if you've heard this before: Sampson, against a team which couldn't match up with him physically, came out full of confidence and aggressiveness and lit 'em up. Still, he showcased a running hook going right and a step back jumper, both of which would be unblockable against nearly any opponent thanks to his height and wingspan. Those moves and that aggressiveness combined with his outside touch would make him a real force this year if he keeps it up. Key part of that sentence being "combined with his outside touch" rather than "abandoning any semblance of an inside game" that we've seen too many times before. Cautiously optimistic.
ANDRE HOLLINS: Extremely impressed. Every time I hear "high-school combo guard" I immediately cringe and prepare for the worst, but Hollins looked like a point guard tonight. His shooting numbers tonight weren't good by any means, but that seemed to be more of a function of shots not falling rather than being a poor shooter, but I'm more focused on his assists (8) vs. turnovers (0), and more importantly the way he just seemed completely in control of the offense - impressive for a freshman and probably the most impressive part of his night. He also had no issue pushing tempo and firing the ball ahead in transition, something Tubby has said he wants to integrate into the team more this year. Very impressed, but I guess that's to be expected considering he's the son of an NBA coach.
AUSTIN HOLLINS: I actually didn't notice him all that much, but I have a feeling that's the kind of player he's going to be - quiet, not flashy, and then suddenly you read the box score and he put up 13 points with 6 rebs, 5 assists, and 3 steals. He did hit a very nice elbow jumper curling off a screen and a nice 3-pointer off a kick from the block from I think Mbakwe. Starting to think he's going to be a very solid player, and him and his cousin are going to be a very solid back court this year. Unfortunately this is pretty much where the happy fun good news stops.
RODNEY WILLIAMS: I'm off the bandwagon, folks. He's now in Year 3 and still not showing anything resembling an offensive game, a jump shot, a perimeter game, ball-handling skills, or any kind of defensive or rebounding presence other than being a freak athlete. He's still the best athlete on the team and that will get him a couple of highlight plays each night, but his fundamentals are all out of whack, he's completely passive on offense, and his average defensive play is only because his natural ability cancels out his lack of effort and focus. I just can't do it anymore. Andy Dufresne lied. Hope isn't a good thing. It's a cancer. At least he made his free throws, so that's something.
JOE COLEMAN: A lot of struggles tonight, and I don't know how much of that to chalk up to first game jitters. Despite familial traits I'll chalk up his horrendous free throw shooting to nerves, and I'll even give him the benefit of the doubt on his apparent inability to handle the basketball. If it was just those two things I'd go ahead and pass off today as a nothing event and wait for next game to get a better handle on him. Unfortunately, however, I happen to notice things like terrible terrible terrible off-the-ball defense, and Coleman has a big ole case of it. You watch, by the end of the year he's either going to be straight benchwarmer or have his minutes severely slashed if he doesn't get this figured out. Do you think he's more of a Missouri Valley guy or a MAC guy?
CHIP ARMELIN: This guy was one of the most disappointing of the night for me, simply because he seemed neutered. Chip is not, and should not be, a rotation player. He is the guy who should either play 4 minutes per game or 20 minutes per game - much like these weirdos who were on TV at the bar before the game who were going for the world's deepest free dive and the world's longest mile-high tightrope - thrive or die. Here's what you do, you put Chipper in, let him do his crazy, Rico Tucker-lite, undisciplined but highly athletic thing, and if it's working you run with it and if it's a disaster you just sit him down next to whoever that midget was in the suit who kept wiping up sweat tonight. But tonight's version of Chip was trying to be this respectable, ball-swinging, patient, disciplined player and it was just sad and wrong. More Deshaun Thomas or Newman from Seinfeld, less boring normal guy like Chris Klein or, I don't know, David Grim?
ELLIOTT ELIASON: I fear this is more of a Kyle Sanden thing than a Jeff Hagen thing. I also think I just said his upside is Jeff Hagen. Prove me wrong, prove me wrong. There has to be more coordination there than what I saw, right? Right?
OTO OSENIEKS: For a guy who is supposed to be a shooter he turned down a couple of open looks. I don't mean he passed up a wide open three-pointer with nobody on him, but he had some space where a true shooter should have put it up - and maybe I'm comparing him to Blake Hoffarber and that's not fair obviously, but he definitely deferred too much in this game. Unless that's him, in which case he and his perm aren't going to do this team much good.
MAVERICK AHANMISI: I didn't notice him at all, and that's a bad thing in this case.
ANDRE INGRAM: I guess we'll end on a semi-positive note, because Ingram did look pretty athletic and I'm a retard for athletic players so I'm on board here. He didn't get much time since he was pretty much #11, but he did seem to make a non-negative impact when he was in, other than missing a lay-up which could happen to anybody. Like I remember when I was playing 6th grade traveling and we were playing Coon Rapids and I took the throw-in to start the second half and bolted towards the hoop and went in for a wide open lay-up and missed it and man, I was stressin'. But then it turns out I was not only bad but also dumb because I took that pass and went towards the wrong hoop and if I had made that shot it would have been two points for Coony, not us. So it's good I missed. This is a fascinating story and totally relevant to Andre Ingram and you know it.
In conclusion, this game was stupid.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Weekend Review - 02.14.2011
Damn you Turtle Lake. You win this round. At least I'm killing it with BetUS’ college basketball predictions so I don't have to worry about moving into the poor house. At least not yet. Onto your college hoops report:
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. Minnesota Gophers. Wow. That was pretty awesome. Not the loss to Illinois of course, which was pretty disappointing, but I was becoming convinced this team was coming apart at the seams and that they were going to lose to Iowa, sounding the death knell on the season. Instead, they went out and beat the Hawkeyes soundly by a final margin of 62-45 in a game that wasn't even that close and was never in doubt. This tells me that the team should be good enough to hang on to their NCAA bid, and hopefully Nolen will come back in March, and then we'll just see what we'll see.
Special shout-outs to Colt Iverson, Rodney Williams, and Maverick Ahanmisi for their play last night. Iverson looked like a 6-11 point guard in his role in the middle of the Gopher offense against the Iowa zone, consistently finding the open man and helping the team get open shots. He only ended up with 1 assists but he definitely was a big reason the Gophers shot well and controlled the game. Williams took over the game for a stretch, showing the actualization of his near limitless potential, even if it was too short-lived. Finally, Ahanmisi played his best 11 minutes as a collegian, scoring 7 points, dishing 2 assists, and most importantly looking like a legitimate Big Ten point guard. I'm not sure I'm quite ready to hand over the keys to him for next season, but I'm sold on him as a backup and he might end up pretty good later in his career.
So, yeah, Iowa is a bad team and this win isn't exactly like beating an NCAA tournament team or even an NIT team, but at least we know they aren't in a death spiral here, and should most likely still end up in the dance. And then hey, who knows, am I right?
2. Xavier Musketeers. Huge week for X, which starting off with them beating an NCAA bubble team in Georgia and ended wit them reasserting their A-10 dominance by knocking off Duquesne, the team they were tied with at the top of the conference standings, and they did it at Duquesne's place - whatever it's called and actually I don't even know where Duquesne is. I'm going to guess Massachusetts. Anyway, Xavier has overcome a rough start and is starting to round into form. Either they just needed some time to adjust at the beginning of the year or they really aren't that good - it's just that the A-10 is down this year. Tread lightly.
3. Wisconsin Badgers. Giving Ohio State their first loss will get you a mention here. And now they're 9-3 in the Big Ten, have basically solidified themselves as the second best team in the conference, and are looking like they're a Sweet 16 team with upside. Great. I still hate them. Seriously, how can they be this good with guys like Tim Jarmusz, Keaton Nankivil, and Mike Bruesewitz as integral cogs? Bo Ryan is a freaking wizard. Crap. I think I accidentally realized I respect him. Still hate him though.
4. Pitt Panthers. It's a wide open year with about 15-20 legit final four contenders, and nearly every team has some pretty severe flaws that could end up knocking them out early. The one exception I've found is Pitt, a very balanced team who showed some serious moxie this week, winning on the road at both West Virginia and Villanova, the first loss for Nova at home since 2007. And they did it without leading scorer and point guard Ashton Gibbs. They're a good offensive team, a good defensive team, they score inside, they score outside, and they have great guards - everything you could want for success in March. If I didn't hate the Pitt program so much, I'd be a huge fan. Damn you Carl Krauser.
5. St. Johns Red Storm. I feel like I'm writing about these guys almost every week, but this was another monster week for the resurgent storm, dismantling UCONN at home and then winning a very big bubble implications type of game on the road at Cincinnati. I don't know exactly where they rank on the bubble and a 14-9 overall record isn't pretty, but a 7-5 Big East record with wins now over Georgetown, Notre Dame, UCONN, and Duke tells me that based on talent this is absolutely an NCAA Tournament team, and an RPI of 20 with a strength of schedule ranked #2 says the same. They still have two gimmes in home games versus DePaul and South Florida, so at minimum they should end up at 9-9 in conference play. That's got to be good enough.
WHO SUCKED
1. Northwestern Wildcats. They seem to land here almost every week, don't they? I'm not even sure what else there is to write anymore, but they're just so hard to ignore because jesus. This week they lost to a bad Michigan team by 9 after allowing 52% shooting by the Wolverines, one of the poorer shooting teams in the conference and that wasn't nearly the more embarrassing loss of the two they registered this week. They got smoked by Penn State by 24 in a game where they mustered just 41 points in a brick city effort, shooting just 18-52 and 2-21 from three. Basically they can't shoot or play defense and are 4-9 in the Big Ten, just one game out of the cellar. I'm not even sure they're a NIT team. Maybe CBI. Sorry Loretta8.
2. Syracuse Orange. Another team that seems to find it's way into this section quite a bit lately, the Orange had yet another rough week, this time dropping a home game to Georgetown and then losing on the road at Louisville. That makes them 2-6 now since starting the year at 18-0, and although they aren't really in any danger of missing the NCAA Tournament their seed has slid rapidly, going from a possible #1 to #4 in the latest bracketology. They have two guaranteed wins in their final five games (DePaul and Rutgers at home), but a quick exit from the Big East tournament could get them down to a #5 and a matchup with a dreaded 12. If they end up against a team with quick, penetrating guards they're going to be in trouble. Actually, they're pretty much screwed and I don't see any way they make it out of the first weekend alive.
3. Missouri Valley Conference. Guess which conference basically guaranteed that they won't have an at-large team this year? Assuming you aren't a retard you probably figured out I'm talking about the Missouri Valley. Wichita State, the conference leader and a team that's 20-5, lost a home game to Southern Illinois, a team that you think is good until you remember that it's actually not 2005 anymore, and Northern Iowa, the third best team in the MVC, lost to Wichita as well as Evansville, continuing a losing streak that starting last week with a loss to Drake. UNI is definitely out, while Wichita's win over the Panthers keeps them barely hanging on by a string. They would probably need to win out and then make the MVC Tournament final to have a chance. Missouri State also has a chance, but they too would need to finish very, very strong. Looking more and more like a 1-bid league this year, even with a weak bubble and expanded field.
4. Southern Mississippi Golden Eagles. The weekend loss to Memphis really puts the Eagles in a bad spot, now a full game back atop the C-USA standings of co-leaders UAB and UTEP, and with only one win this year over an RPI Top 50 team their at large chances are fading. They still have home matches against both leaders and need to win those games and take care of business against the various other conference also-rans, but road games against UCF and Tulsa aren't going to be easy. Larry Eustachy has made USM relevant again within the conference, but will need a strong finish to make them relevant on a national level.
5. Utah State Aggies. So are we just going to have zero mid-major at-larges this year? Butler, Gonzaga, and Memphis were all givens in the past but most likely will all have to win their conference tournament, and now Utah State kicked away their chance at a bid on Wednesday by losing to Idaho. It sucks that they are basically eliminated from at-large consideration since they are 23-3, but it's their own fault. Their best win out of those 23 is probably their win over Long Beach, who ranks 116 in the RPI and 101 at kenpom.com. Yes, that's right, Utah State doesn't have a single win over an RPI top 100 foe, and they've only played two (Georgetown and BYU), leading to a ridiculous strength of schedule rank of 157. They get to play St. Mary's in Bracket Busters coming up here on Saturday which will help, but this loss to Idaho (RPI 156) is extremely damaging. Like crawling through a tunnel covered with razor wire and sharks.
For those who like Twins talk stick around. I'm aiming to get a Twins post up here on Tuesday.
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. Minnesota Gophers. Wow. That was pretty awesome. Not the loss to Illinois of course, which was pretty disappointing, but I was becoming convinced this team was coming apart at the seams and that they were going to lose to Iowa, sounding the death knell on the season. Instead, they went out and beat the Hawkeyes soundly by a final margin of 62-45 in a game that wasn't even that close and was never in doubt. This tells me that the team should be good enough to hang on to their NCAA bid, and hopefully Nolen will come back in March, and then we'll just see what we'll see.
Special shout-outs to Colt Iverson, Rodney Williams, and Maverick Ahanmisi for their play last night. Iverson looked like a 6-11 point guard in his role in the middle of the Gopher offense against the Iowa zone, consistently finding the open man and helping the team get open shots. He only ended up with 1 assists but he definitely was a big reason the Gophers shot well and controlled the game. Williams took over the game for a stretch, showing the actualization of his near limitless potential, even if it was too short-lived. Finally, Ahanmisi played his best 11 minutes as a collegian, scoring 7 points, dishing 2 assists, and most importantly looking like a legitimate Big Ten point guard. I'm not sure I'm quite ready to hand over the keys to him for next season, but I'm sold on him as a backup and he might end up pretty good later in his career.
So, yeah, Iowa is a bad team and this win isn't exactly like beating an NCAA tournament team or even an NIT team, but at least we know they aren't in a death spiral here, and should most likely still end up in the dance. And then hey, who knows, am I right?
2. Xavier Musketeers. Huge week for X, which starting off with them beating an NCAA bubble team in Georgia and ended wit them reasserting their A-10 dominance by knocking off Duquesne, the team they were tied with at the top of the conference standings, and they did it at Duquesne's place - whatever it's called and actually I don't even know where Duquesne is. I'm going to guess Massachusetts. Anyway, Xavier has overcome a rough start and is starting to round into form. Either they just needed some time to adjust at the beginning of the year or they really aren't that good - it's just that the A-10 is down this year. Tread lightly.
3. Wisconsin Badgers. Giving Ohio State their first loss will get you a mention here. And now they're 9-3 in the Big Ten, have basically solidified themselves as the second best team in the conference, and are looking like they're a Sweet 16 team with upside. Great. I still hate them. Seriously, how can they be this good with guys like Tim Jarmusz, Keaton Nankivil, and Mike Bruesewitz as integral cogs? Bo Ryan is a freaking wizard. Crap. I think I accidentally realized I respect him. Still hate him though.
4. Pitt Panthers. It's a wide open year with about 15-20 legit final four contenders, and nearly every team has some pretty severe flaws that could end up knocking them out early. The one exception I've found is Pitt, a very balanced team who showed some serious moxie this week, winning on the road at both West Virginia and Villanova, the first loss for Nova at home since 2007. And they did it without leading scorer and point guard Ashton Gibbs. They're a good offensive team, a good defensive team, they score inside, they score outside, and they have great guards - everything you could want for success in March. If I didn't hate the Pitt program so much, I'd be a huge fan. Damn you Carl Krauser.
5. St. Johns Red Storm. I feel like I'm writing about these guys almost every week, but this was another monster week for the resurgent storm, dismantling UCONN at home and then winning a very big bubble implications type of game on the road at Cincinnati. I don't know exactly where they rank on the bubble and a 14-9 overall record isn't pretty, but a 7-5 Big East record with wins now over Georgetown, Notre Dame, UCONN, and Duke tells me that based on talent this is absolutely an NCAA Tournament team, and an RPI of 20 with a strength of schedule ranked #2 says the same. They still have two gimmes in home games versus DePaul and South Florida, so at minimum they should end up at 9-9 in conference play. That's got to be good enough.
WHO SUCKED
1. Northwestern Wildcats. They seem to land here almost every week, don't they? I'm not even sure what else there is to write anymore, but they're just so hard to ignore because jesus. This week they lost to a bad Michigan team by 9 after allowing 52% shooting by the Wolverines, one of the poorer shooting teams in the conference and that wasn't nearly the more embarrassing loss of the two they registered this week. They got smoked by Penn State by 24 in a game where they mustered just 41 points in a brick city effort, shooting just 18-52 and 2-21 from three. Basically they can't shoot or play defense and are 4-9 in the Big Ten, just one game out of the cellar. I'm not even sure they're a NIT team. Maybe CBI. Sorry Loretta8.
2. Syracuse Orange. Another team that seems to find it's way into this section quite a bit lately, the Orange had yet another rough week, this time dropping a home game to Georgetown and then losing on the road at Louisville. That makes them 2-6 now since starting the year at 18-0, and although they aren't really in any danger of missing the NCAA Tournament their seed has slid rapidly, going from a possible #1 to #4 in the latest bracketology. They have two guaranteed wins in their final five games (DePaul and Rutgers at home), but a quick exit from the Big East tournament could get them down to a #5 and a matchup with a dreaded 12. If they end up against a team with quick, penetrating guards they're going to be in trouble. Actually, they're pretty much screwed and I don't see any way they make it out of the first weekend alive.
3. Missouri Valley Conference. Guess which conference basically guaranteed that they won't have an at-large team this year? Assuming you aren't a retard you probably figured out I'm talking about the Missouri Valley. Wichita State, the conference leader and a team that's 20-5, lost a home game to Southern Illinois, a team that you think is good until you remember that it's actually not 2005 anymore, and Northern Iowa, the third best team in the MVC, lost to Wichita as well as Evansville, continuing a losing streak that starting last week with a loss to Drake. UNI is definitely out, while Wichita's win over the Panthers keeps them barely hanging on by a string. They would probably need to win out and then make the MVC Tournament final to have a chance. Missouri State also has a chance, but they too would need to finish very, very strong. Looking more and more like a 1-bid league this year, even with a weak bubble and expanded field.
4. Southern Mississippi Golden Eagles. The weekend loss to Memphis really puts the Eagles in a bad spot, now a full game back atop the C-USA standings of co-leaders UAB and UTEP, and with only one win this year over an RPI Top 50 team their at large chances are fading. They still have home matches against both leaders and need to win those games and take care of business against the various other conference also-rans, but road games against UCF and Tulsa aren't going to be easy. Larry Eustachy has made USM relevant again within the conference, but will need a strong finish to make them relevant on a national level.
5. Utah State Aggies. So are we just going to have zero mid-major at-larges this year? Butler, Gonzaga, and Memphis were all givens in the past but most likely will all have to win their conference tournament, and now Utah State kicked away their chance at a bid on Wednesday by losing to Idaho. It sucks that they are basically eliminated from at-large consideration since they are 23-3, but it's their own fault. Their best win out of those 23 is probably their win over Long Beach, who ranks 116 in the RPI and 101 at kenpom.com. Yes, that's right, Utah State doesn't have a single win over an RPI top 100 foe, and they've only played two (Georgetown and BYU), leading to a ridiculous strength of schedule rank of 157. They get to play St. Mary's in Bracket Busters coming up here on Saturday which will help, but this loss to Idaho (RPI 156) is extremely damaging. Like crawling through a tunnel covered with razor wire and sharks.
For those who like Twins talk stick around. I'm aiming to get a Twins post up here on Tuesday.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Minnesota Gophers 83, St. Joseph's Hawks 73
Well it wasn't exactly pretty and didn't really cement the Gophers as a top 25 team, but a win is a win, a road win is always good, and not losing to a terrible terrible terrible team is even better. St. Joe's hit 9 threes to stay in the game, which is too high, but shot just 31% because they had to hoist 29 attempts just to make those 9 trey-balls. A cynic would say that St. Joe's really should have made more because they kept getting open look after open look, but are just a poor shooting team. And that's exactly what I say. The perimeter defense is still terrible, but at least they got a win. I'm going to just jump ahead to the player-by-player comments here before I get way too negative after a win. And yes, I was the kind of sucker who paid cash money so I could watch this game.
Devoe Joseph (19 pts, 3 assists, 4-6 on threes): Those of you out there who complain about him not moving the ball enough or trying to do too much on his own, I'm very sorry to tell you this, but you are idiots. He's not a point guard, he's a shooting guard being forced to play point, so naturally he's not going to be a elite distributor. He's a pure scorer, and he hit a couple of huge threes down the stretch to make sure the Gophers didn't lose this game. Once again, stop complaining about him. If you don't I will come to your house hit you in the balls with a tiny hammer.
Ralph Sampson (10 pts, 5 rebs): Pretty ugly overall for Ralph, whether because CJ Aiken is a good defender or because his dad was in attendance and sending weird satan vibes his way I couldn't tell you, but he did seem to perk up in the second half of the second half, and just in time. He hit a couple of very nice buckets late right as St. Joe's was attempting to make a run, and he still looks so insanely smooth (think Rob Thomas featuring Santana) out there, but this tendency to shrink when he finds resistance is troubling. As a freshman it's almost expected, but as a junior I'm a little bit irritated.
Rodney Williams (2 pts, 1 reb): Maybe the worst game he's played. Got in foul trouble early and ended up playing just 8 minutes. Let's move on.
Blake Hoffarber (14 pts, 3 assists, 4-6 on threes): He still leaves a lot to be desired on the defensive end - both on and off the ball - but when he came up limping after hitting a three-pointer in the first half you can bet I was holding my breath in horror (just like at the end of the Blair Witch Project, which I don't care who you are if you didn't think that was scary in the theater you're either a liar or a moron). He's just such a steadying influence on this team, not to mention he's shooting out of his head this year, and for him that's saying something. I can't get over how much he means to this team. I never, ever imagined myself saying that.
Trevor Mbakwe (12 points, 16 rebounds): Player of the game, which is something I have a feeling we're going to be saying a lot. He nearly had a double-double at half time and kind of faded a bit, and he shot a brutal 16-footer early in the game that reminded everyone why he shouldn't be wandering outside of the paint very often, but he's just such a POWER FORWARD. I love it. It's like a regular player ate one of those magic mushrooms from Mario Brothers, he's just a beast. Here's an awesome summary from the game play-by-play:
Awesome. It would have been better if he scored instead of turned the ball over, of course, but still awesome.
Maurice Walker (10 points, 5 rebs, 4 assists): The night belonged to Mo, who not only put up some excellent numbers but displayed enthusiasm and emotion (and effort) he hadn't really shown yet this year. He was demanding the ball in the post, scoring when it was there and finding open teammates when it wasn't, and then yelling, chest-pounding, and generally whooping it up out there. It was unreal from somebody who seemed disinterested a large chunk of the year thus far. Seriously it was like Taco Bell announced they were going to an all-you-can-eat business model.
Chip Armelin (4 points, 4 rebs): Not to overstate things, but this guy is amazing to watch. He never, ever stops moving, and when the Gopher offense does that stupid crap when it stagnates and everybody looks lost having a guy who likes to run from baseline-to-baseline for fun can be a major asset, and that's what he did when St. Joe's went zone. His numbers don't look all that great, but he is a major component of this team and a huge part of how well the offense plays on any given night.
Austin Hollins (6 pts, 4 assists, 4 steals): Steady. Guy is just steady, which is a major compliment for a freshman. Other than a semi-flashy steal late and perhaps one of the worst air-balled wide open three-pointers in the history of basketball he pretty much went unnoticed. Maybe it's his play, or maybe it's because I was watching a crappy internet feed while holding a screaming baby and trying to get WonderbabyTM to stop throwing Teddy Grahams at the dragons on the TV, but I just don't take much notice of him. Much like that baby I just mentioned. Dude is just steady. Like Eddie.
Colton Iverson (0 pts, 3 rebs): Outside of those statues on Easter Island that were obviously put there by aliens or time travelers, I've never seen anybody or anything so effective at just taking up space. There will be teams he just can't play against due to his physical limitations (which would be moving at relatively the same speed as those same statues), but St. Joe's ain't one of 'em.
Maverick Ahanmisi (6 pts): This is way up on the list of things I wasn't expecting to say at any point in the next four years, but Mav looked quite good out there today. Not that this is a huge bar here, but I think he already looks like a better player than Justin Cobbs. Now, we haven't gotten into conference play yet so things can change, but swapping Cobbsy for Maverick looks pretty good to me right now.
Lastly, here is the link to this week's Star Tribune Big 10 Power Poll as presented by Myron P. Medcalf. Check it out for the overall rankings.
Here is the ballot I submitted (remember this is through Tuesday's games):
1. Ohio State Buckeyes - They haven't played since the last poll, but nobody can convince me there's a better Big Ten team.
2. Michigan State Spartans - Definitely in the upper tier with Ohio State, but if this was anybody other than the Spartans with their reputation for slow starts and runs in March, I'd be very concerned with their inability to beat any top-flight teams.
3. Illiinois Fighting Illini - A very nice win over Gonzaga shows the Illini's early season struggles are behind them, they are deep and are seemingly getting better every time out - a scary proposition.
4. Purdue Boilermakers - It feels like they're struggling, but really the loss to Richmond is the only blip on their schedule. Wins last week at Virginia Tech and vs. Alabama might not be exactly marquee, but they are quality.
5. Wisconsin Badgers - It might have been a fluke, but NC State should be a bubble team at worst this year and Wisconsin throttled them by 40. Jon Leuer might very well be the best player in the conference.
6. Northwestern Wildcats - The only undefeated team in the conference other than Ohio State, Northwestern has handled their business against inferior opponents. Unfortunately the schedule is empty as can be until Big Ten play starts, so we won't really be able to get a handle on how good Northwestern is until then.
7. Minnesota Gophers - The loss to Virginia and narrow win over Cornell exposed some pretty big weaknesses in the Gophers. It's tough to say how things would look if Al Nolen wasn't hurt,
8. Michigan Wolverines - I still think people are sleeping on the Wolverines a bit. That win over Clemson is a good one, and . Darius Morris is the real deal, if they get anything out of their front court (and Jordan Morgan suddenly looks interesting) they could shock a team or two.
9. Indiana Hoosiers -The record looks nice at 7-1, but those seven wins were against teams with a combined 12 wins against Division I teams combined - not exactly murderer's row. Let's see how they fare against Kentucky on Saturday, that will let us know if we need to pay attention or not.
10. Penn State Nittany Lions - Saturday's win over Duquesne is decent, but the Nittany Lions still need to get a big win - they've whiffed against Ole Miss and Maryland so far. Sunday's game against Virginia Tech is their last chance before conference play, but getting taken to the wire by Mount St. Mary's doesn't bode well for their chances..
11. Iowa Hawkeyes - The win over Northern Iowa pulls them closer to leaving the cellar. Too bad UNI is way down this year.
Actually I'm kind of thinking this is separating itself into tiers pretty clearly. You have the Spartans and Buckeyes in a class by themselves at the top, with Illinois a half-step below. Then Purdue, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Northwestern in another tier. Below them is Michigan and Indiana, and then in a final, sad tier is Penn State and Iowa. Obviously there could be some shifting here and there, but it's pretty clear to me where the teams separate themselves from each other.
Did you know mannequins don't have a weiner?
Devoe Joseph (19 pts, 3 assists, 4-6 on threes): Those of you out there who complain about him not moving the ball enough or trying to do too much on his own, I'm very sorry to tell you this, but you are idiots. He's not a point guard, he's a shooting guard being forced to play point, so naturally he's not going to be a elite distributor. He's a pure scorer, and he hit a couple of huge threes down the stretch to make sure the Gophers didn't lose this game. Once again, stop complaining about him. If you don't I will come to your house hit you in the balls with a tiny hammer.
Ralph Sampson (10 pts, 5 rebs): Pretty ugly overall for Ralph, whether because CJ Aiken is a good defender or because his dad was in attendance and sending weird satan vibes his way I couldn't tell you, but he did seem to perk up in the second half of the second half, and just in time. He hit a couple of very nice buckets late right as St. Joe's was attempting to make a run, and he still looks so insanely smooth (think Rob Thomas featuring Santana) out there, but this tendency to shrink when he finds resistance is troubling. As a freshman it's almost expected, but as a junior I'm a little bit irritated.
Rodney Williams (2 pts, 1 reb): Maybe the worst game he's played. Got in foul trouble early and ended up playing just 8 minutes. Let's move on.
Blake Hoffarber (14 pts, 3 assists, 4-6 on threes): He still leaves a lot to be desired on the defensive end - both on and off the ball - but when he came up limping after hitting a three-pointer in the first half you can bet I was holding my breath in horror (just like at the end of the Blair Witch Project, which I don't care who you are if you didn't think that was scary in the theater you're either a liar or a moron). He's just such a steadying influence on this team, not to mention he's shooting out of his head this year, and for him that's saying something. I can't get over how much he means to this team. I never, ever imagined myself saying that.
Trevor Mbakwe (12 points, 16 rebounds): Player of the game, which is something I have a feeling we're going to be saying a lot. He nearly had a double-double at half time and kind of faded a bit, and he shot a brutal 16-footer early in the game that reminded everyone why he shouldn't be wandering outside of the paint very often, but he's just such a POWER FORWARD. I love it. It's like a regular player ate one of those magic mushrooms from Mario Brothers, he's just a beast. Here's an awesome summary from the game play-by-play:
Maurice Walker (10 points, 5 rebs, 4 assists): The night belonged to Mo, who not only put up some excellent numbers but displayed enthusiasm and emotion (and effort) he hadn't really shown yet this year. He was demanding the ball in the post, scoring when it was there and finding open teammates when it wasn't, and then yelling, chest-pounding, and generally whooping it up out there. It was unreal from somebody who seemed disinterested a large chunk of the year thus far. Seriously it was like Taco Bell announced they were going to an all-you-can-eat business model.
Chip Armelin (4 points, 4 rebs): Not to overstate things, but this guy is amazing to watch. He never, ever stops moving, and when the Gopher offense does that stupid crap when it stagnates and everybody looks lost having a guy who likes to run from baseline-to-baseline for fun can be a major asset, and that's what he did when St. Joe's went zone. His numbers don't look all that great, but he is a major component of this team and a huge part of how well the offense plays on any given night.
Austin Hollins (6 pts, 4 assists, 4 steals): Steady. Guy is just steady, which is a major compliment for a freshman. Other than a semi-flashy steal late and perhaps one of the worst air-balled wide open three-pointers in the history of basketball he pretty much went unnoticed. Maybe it's his play, or maybe it's because I was watching a crappy internet feed while holding a screaming baby and trying to get WonderbabyTM to stop throwing Teddy Grahams at the dragons on the TV, but I just don't take much notice of him. Much like that baby I just mentioned. Dude is just steady. Like Eddie.
Colton Iverson (0 pts, 3 rebs): Outside of those statues on Easter Island that were obviously put there by aliens or time travelers, I've never seen anybody or anything so effective at just taking up space. There will be teams he just can't play against due to his physical limitations (which would be moving at relatively the same speed as those same statues), but St. Joe's ain't one of 'em.
Maverick Ahanmisi (6 pts): This is way up on the list of things I wasn't expecting to say at any point in the next four years, but Mav looked quite good out there today. Not that this is a huge bar here, but I think he already looks like a better player than Justin Cobbs. Now, we haven't gotten into conference play yet so things can change, but swapping Cobbsy for Maverick looks pretty good to me right now.
Lastly, here is the link to this week's Star Tribune Big 10 Power Poll as presented by Myron P. Medcalf. Check it out for the overall rankings.
Here is the ballot I submitted (remember this is through Tuesday's games):
1. Ohio State Buckeyes - They haven't played since the last poll, but nobody can convince me there's a better Big Ten team.
2. Michigan State Spartans - Definitely in the upper tier with Ohio State, but if this was anybody other than the Spartans with their reputation for slow starts and runs in March, I'd be very concerned with their inability to beat any top-flight teams.
3. Illiinois Fighting Illini - A very nice win over Gonzaga shows the Illini's early season struggles are behind them, they are deep and are seemingly getting better every time out - a scary proposition.
4. Purdue Boilermakers - It feels like they're struggling, but really the loss to Richmond is the only blip on their schedule. Wins last week at Virginia Tech and vs. Alabama might not be exactly marquee, but they are quality.
5. Wisconsin Badgers - It might have been a fluke, but NC State should be a bubble team at worst this year and Wisconsin throttled them by 40. Jon Leuer might very well be the best player in the conference.
6. Northwestern Wildcats - The only undefeated team in the conference other than Ohio State, Northwestern has handled their business against inferior opponents. Unfortunately the schedule is empty as can be until Big Ten play starts, so we won't really be able to get a handle on how good Northwestern is until then.
7. Minnesota Gophers - The loss to Virginia and narrow win over Cornell exposed some pretty big weaknesses in the Gophers. It's tough to say how things would look if Al Nolen wasn't hurt,
8. Michigan Wolverines - I still think people are sleeping on the Wolverines a bit. That win over Clemson is a good one, and . Darius Morris is the real deal, if they get anything out of their front court (and Jordan Morgan suddenly looks interesting) they could shock a team or two.
9. Indiana Hoosiers -The record looks nice at 7-1, but those seven wins were against teams with a combined 12 wins against Division I teams combined - not exactly murderer's row. Let's see how they fare against Kentucky on Saturday, that will let us know if we need to pay attention or not.
10. Penn State Nittany Lions - Saturday's win over Duquesne is decent, but the Nittany Lions still need to get a big win - they've whiffed against Ole Miss and Maryland so far. Sunday's game against Virginia Tech is their last chance before conference play, but getting taken to the wire by Mount St. Mary's doesn't bode well for their chances..
11. Iowa Hawkeyes - The win over Northern Iowa pulls them closer to leaving the cellar. Too bad UNI is way down this year.
Actually I'm kind of thinking this is separating itself into tiers pretty clearly. You have the Spartans and Buckeyes in a class by themselves at the top, with Illinois a half-step below. Then Purdue, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Northwestern in another tier. Below them is Michigan and Indiana, and then in a final, sad tier is Penn State and Iowa. Obviously there could be some shifting here and there, but it's pretty clear to me where the teams separate themselves from each other.
Did you know mannequins don't have a weiner?
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