I'm taking my kids to the Gopher game tomorrow. I just now realized that I have no idea who they're playing, that's how checked out I am this year. That's kind of the reason I haven't written a post game post in a while. I watch the games, I take notes like usual, then the Gophers self combust and lose the game in some kind of disheartening way and I really don't want to write. There's a limited amount of times one can write about the number of poor decisions this team makes, although I am starting to think I may need to write a post addressing Pitino's in game coaching because I have some questions. Anyway, it's more fun to write about a team that isn't the Gophers, so hold on a minute while I look up who they play and write the preview for...............Nebraska!
Nebraska, eh? I'm pretty sure the Gophers already played these guys, let me check how they did. Just kidding I already know they lost because they always lose. Looks like I didn't write a preview or a recap of that one, probably because that was when I was still all checked out and angry and stuff. I remember that one though because I was in the car for the end for some reason and was listening and heard "Hollins misses a three. Morris rebounds. He misses a three. Hollins rebounds, over to Mathieu. Mathieu misses a three. Times up." That was fun. I asked my dad when I got to his house if any of them were good looks and he said two of them were. So it was another stupid loss that probably shouldn't have been. God what a horrid year.
Anyway, Nebraska is still basically a two-man squad with the terrible Terran Petteway and bricklayer Shavon Shields. The two combine for 35.6 points per game, which is huge because Nebraska scores like 60 points per game because they can't shoot at all and play at a snail's pace. The two have also combined for 531 field goal attempts which is a terrifying percentage of the team's total of 1,016. If ever a team was screaming to be triangle and two'd it's this one, and it would actually be hilarious to watch Petteway try to deal with that because man is he ever wreckless.
The guy has a higher usage rate than anyone else in the conference and a top 10 mark in the entire country, yet his offensive rating is below every Gopher other than Bakary Konate. Watching him is awesome if you love chuckers (and who doesn't?) because he'll just shoot whenever and wherever with little regard to anything going on around him. He's not a true chucker because he does hit a little bit too many of them and his assist rate is good, but his turnover rate is in Joey King territory and he just forces the action in some hilarious ways. If the Gophers can speed Nebraska up, easier said than done, there should be at least a handful of laugh out loud moments.
Then there's Shields, who loves to shoot long jumpers. He hits 22% on his threes so letting him shoot is probably a good idea. He's much better on 2-pointers at 55%, but just 43% on jump shots so, you know, let the guy shoot and stuff but keep him out of the lane. Also keeping him off the free throw line would be a good idea since he's an 83% free throw shooter. Actually both Shields and Petteway get to the line a lot, so another good strategy would be not fouling.
Nebraska has some other guys too but they're boring and I'm boring myself over here. Looking forward to watching Petteway be crazy in person, and hoping for a Gopher win so maybe we'll get to watch someone fun like Oregon or Tennessee in person in the NIT. Gophers projected for a #1 seed!!
Minnesota something, Nebraska something slightly smaller.
Showing posts with label Preview. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Preview. Show all posts
Friday, January 30, 2015
Thursday, January 8, 2015
Game Preview: Gophers vs. Michigan
This probably seems like a weird time to come back. The Gophers are now 0-3 on the Big Ten Season and at this point the only decent wins they can point to are an almost blown win against an ok Georgia team and a win at Wake Forest that we still aren't sure if it's a decent win or a throwaway win. The team's best player is pretty much in the tank and may or may not be still or newly hurt and the team depth seems to be getting shallower by the minute. A gritty effort was proven to not be enough, and the team continued the tradition of screwing up end of game possessions, dropping a heart breaker that would have been enough to restore some optimism to the fan base. It's not a wonderful time to be a fan.
But you know what? Kind of it is. The loss to Purdue basically told me everything I needed to know about what kind of team and year this was going to be (and this isn't hindsight, I said so in the preview) so, after a mini-breakdown or tantrum or hiatus or whatever term you prefer, I returned to watch the game against Ohio State with zero expectations, other than expecting the Buckeyes to win. With lowered expectations comes lower stress levels and in a strange way more of an enjoyable viewing experience. So after the Buckeye loss instead of being angry about another missed opportunity, I was pleased they hung in there and more of an "aw shucks would have been nice to get that one." That's not being happy with a moral victory, it's simply accepting reality. There was almost no way they were going to win that game - Ohio State is about 50 times better than they are - and it would take something miraculous to make the NCAA Tournament. Once you accept that, it makes this year much easier to swallow.
So with that out of the way, let's move on to Saturday's game at Michigan. The Wolverines have had some much celebrated issues this year - the losses to NJIT and Eastern Michigan - and, well, we still don't really know what's up with Michigan this year. They started strong with wins over decent Syracuse and Oregon and hung tight with Villanova and everything looked like they'd be ok. Then came those two horrible losses followed by an absolute drubbing by Arizona. Since then they've won an overtime home game against Illinois, lost at Purdue, and lost at Penn State. So who really knows what's up with this team? I lean towards lower middle tier Big Ten team with very little shot at teh NCAA Tournament, so this should be a pretty even match up.
The bad news is the Wolverines really take care of the ball, and in particular they rarely have it stolen away - the Gophers #1 move. The good news is they aren't particularly good at anything else. This isn't one of the great shooting teams of the past few years, although they sure do like to chuck the three. Of all Wolverine 3-point attempts so far this year, 43.5% of them have been three pointers, and the team makes 35.9% which is a good, but not great number. Guards Caris LeVert (39%) and Derrick Walton (29%) and wing Zak Irvin (35%) all have over 50 3-point attempts already on the year, and all are capable of putting up either a 5-7 or 1-7 performance. They rely on those three heavily, and all play 33-35 minutes per game, scoring about 60% of the team's points. Getting the three to put the ball on the floor and take contested 2-pointers would be an excellent strategy, rather than letting them find open threes. Anyone helping on a driver off a perimeter shooter should be benched immediately (that includes Spike Albrecht, who doesn't have the volume but hits 40% and needs an open shot to score).
After those four nobody else plays more than 19 minutes per game and you may have noticed those four are all perimeter players so you may be asking "does this mean Michigan is weak inside" and the answer is a resounding yes. The only size on the team comes from three freshmen - 6-7 Kam Chatman, 6-9 Mark Donnal, and 6-9 Ricky Doyle and although the three have been better than I expected (combined 50 minutes, 16 points, 9 rebounds per game) they still aren't much of an inside presence. They don't block any shots (Michigan is 335th in the country in block rate) or grab any offensive rebounds (322nd), though they do protect the defensive glass well overall (40th). Mo Walker should (SHOULD!) be in line for a pretty big game.
All-in-all to me it looks like a pretty even matchup, and that includes the Wolverines' home court advantage. The Gophers should be able to feast inside, while Michigan will have plenty of chances to hit outside shots. I think if the Gophers let the pressure of being 0-3 get to them, they'll do stupid things and miss open shots. If they're relaxed and playing ball, they'll win. This one's on Pitino.
And I still believe.
Minnesota 69, Michigan 66
But you know what? Kind of it is. The loss to Purdue basically told me everything I needed to know about what kind of team and year this was going to be (and this isn't hindsight, I said so in the preview) so, after a mini-breakdown or tantrum or hiatus or whatever term you prefer, I returned to watch the game against Ohio State with zero expectations, other than expecting the Buckeyes to win. With lowered expectations comes lower stress levels and in a strange way more of an enjoyable viewing experience. So after the Buckeye loss instead of being angry about another missed opportunity, I was pleased they hung in there and more of an "aw shucks would have been nice to get that one." That's not being happy with a moral victory, it's simply accepting reality. There was almost no way they were going to win that game - Ohio State is about 50 times better than they are - and it would take something miraculous to make the NCAA Tournament. Once you accept that, it makes this year much easier to swallow.
So with that out of the way, let's move on to Saturday's game at Michigan. The Wolverines have had some much celebrated issues this year - the losses to NJIT and Eastern Michigan - and, well, we still don't really know what's up with Michigan this year. They started strong with wins over decent Syracuse and Oregon and hung tight with Villanova and everything looked like they'd be ok. Then came those two horrible losses followed by an absolute drubbing by Arizona. Since then they've won an overtime home game against Illinois, lost at Purdue, and lost at Penn State. So who really knows what's up with this team? I lean towards lower middle tier Big Ten team with very little shot at teh NCAA Tournament, so this should be a pretty even match up.
The bad news is the Wolverines really take care of the ball, and in particular they rarely have it stolen away - the Gophers #1 move. The good news is they aren't particularly good at anything else. This isn't one of the great shooting teams of the past few years, although they sure do like to chuck the three. Of all Wolverine 3-point attempts so far this year, 43.5% of them have been three pointers, and the team makes 35.9% which is a good, but not great number. Guards Caris LeVert (39%) and Derrick Walton (29%) and wing Zak Irvin (35%) all have over 50 3-point attempts already on the year, and all are capable of putting up either a 5-7 or 1-7 performance. They rely on those three heavily, and all play 33-35 minutes per game, scoring about 60% of the team's points. Getting the three to put the ball on the floor and take contested 2-pointers would be an excellent strategy, rather than letting them find open threes. Anyone helping on a driver off a perimeter shooter should be benched immediately (that includes Spike Albrecht, who doesn't have the volume but hits 40% and needs an open shot to score).
After those four nobody else plays more than 19 minutes per game and you may have noticed those four are all perimeter players so you may be asking "does this mean Michigan is weak inside" and the answer is a resounding yes. The only size on the team comes from three freshmen - 6-7 Kam Chatman, 6-9 Mark Donnal, and 6-9 Ricky Doyle and although the three have been better than I expected (combined 50 minutes, 16 points, 9 rebounds per game) they still aren't much of an inside presence. They don't block any shots (Michigan is 335th in the country in block rate) or grab any offensive rebounds (322nd), though they do protect the defensive glass well overall (40th). Mo Walker should (SHOULD!) be in line for a pretty big game.
All-in-all to me it looks like a pretty even matchup, and that includes the Wolverines' home court advantage. The Gophers should be able to feast inside, while Michigan will have plenty of chances to hit outside shots. I think if the Gophers let the pressure of being 0-3 get to them, they'll do stupid things and miss open shots. If they're relaxed and playing ball, they'll win. This one's on Pitino.
And I still believe.
Minnesota 69, Michigan 66
Monday, January 5, 2015
Game Preview: Gophers vs. Ohio State
Because the schedule says they have to the Gophers are going to play Ohio State on Tuesday night and they are going to get killed. The Gophers do one thing well on defense - create turnovers - and they suck at everything else. Well the Buckeyes don't really turn the ball over and they shoot the ball at an incredible rate if you prefer the ball going in the basket. They hit 41% from three and 58% from two which rounds out to the third best shooting team in the entire country by effective field goal percentage. Does this really sound like a team the Gophers beat?
Did you watch these guys the last two games? Unfortunately I did, other than the 10 minute stretch I fell asleep during the Maryland game because I was really sick. So sick I couldn't even drink. Oof. Anyway, the Gophers press the shit out of you and try to create turnovers and when it works it's glorious. When it doesn't, however, there are open shots all over the place and you have to hope the other team misses more than they should. That's not going to happen against Ohio State.
The Buckeyes have three guys in the top 254 in the country in effective field goal percentage. D'Angelo Russell shoots the ball so much he'd be a great chucker if he didn't make everything, Sam Thompson decided he is in fact not Rodney Williams 2.0 and has decided to make a ton of shots, and Marc Loving defied my prediction and is, in fact, awesome at making the ball go in the hole.
Six of the other seven guys who play would actually also all rank in the top 254 if they played and/or shot more. Amir Williams, Jea'Sean Tate, Trey McDonald, and Anthony Lee make everything they shoot because they know what shots they should take, Kam Williams is some kind of deadeye shooter, and Keita Bates-Diop is 6-7 and shoots 62% from two and 44% from three. The one guy who is a little bit of a suspect shooter is Shannon Scott the world's greatest defender who is one of the few guards in the conference who could shut down Dre Mathieu and who has a world class assist rate because he's really good at setting up all these good shooters for easy shots.
Pretty simple equation for this one. Gophers give up a ton of easy shots, Ohio State hits all easy shots. The Gophers would have to score a ton to keep this one close, but Ohio State has no real defensive weaknesses so I'm not seeing how that happens. Short of the Gophers creating a ton of turnovers, which not even Louisville could do against these guys, this is a bloodbath.
Ohio State 80, Minnesota 56.
Thursday, September 4, 2014
It's Football Time!
It's that time of the year again. The time where oversized humanoid types put on ineffective padding and run into each other over and over again at full speed - Yes, football. Although I generally deal with more elegant sports like baseball and basketball here, I do like to dip my tow into the football waters once in a while because hey, more clicks and also because I really like predicting things since I'm almost always right. So why not a quick look at the Vikings and the NFL, and then a preview of this weekend's Gopher football game since I'll be in attendance. I'm not sure who they're playing but I'll look that up later.
So the Vikings. The state's favorite squadron. What are the betting expectations for the Vikings this NFL season? (look for the best odds from Sportbet.com). Sportbet has the over/under for wins at 6.5, and if I'm a betting man, and I am, I'm going for the over (cautiously). Matt Cassell is boring, and far more boring than my guy Teddy Bridgewater, but he is a competent QB which is a major upgrade from your guy Christian Ponder. Cordarrelle Patterson is supposed to do that thing everyone says and become good, and don't forget Greg Jennings didn't just forget how to be a major league receiver, it's just Ponder did things like throw the ball into the ground and throw the ball into the ground again. Cassell tends to do things more like throwing the ball in the air. That's a plus. And of course if Bridgewater ever gets to start the Vikings will start putting up 50+ points per game, but that's a given.
A lot of people seem to be excited about an upgraded defense, which makes sense, since the team is going from a defensive minded coach to a defensive minded coach and somehow this new one is better than the old one I guess. I don't know. Personally, I'm more excited about the personnel changes. I mean, these guys have some sweet names: Captain Munnerlyn is one of the best names in the league, and Linval Joseph isn't that far behind except that he's slower now after getting shot. Really though those guys are upgrades, Anthony Barr has looked good this preseason, Harrison Smith is healthy, and Sharrif Floyd should be better because he can't be worse. Plus Xavier Rhodes is awesome.
What's realistic for the Vikings? If Cassell starts all year they'll be somewhere around 8-8. If Bridgewater starts they'll win every game he plays, up to 15-2 and a Super Bowl victory.
Other quick NFL hits:
So the Vikings. The state's favorite squadron. What are the betting expectations for the Vikings this NFL season? (look for the best odds from Sportbet.com). Sportbet has the over/under for wins at 6.5, and if I'm a betting man, and I am, I'm going for the over (cautiously). Matt Cassell is boring, and far more boring than my guy Teddy Bridgewater, but he is a competent QB which is a major upgrade from your guy Christian Ponder. Cordarrelle Patterson is supposed to do that thing everyone says and become good, and don't forget Greg Jennings didn't just forget how to be a major league receiver, it's just Ponder did things like throw the ball into the ground and throw the ball into the ground again. Cassell tends to do things more like throwing the ball in the air. That's a plus. And of course if Bridgewater ever gets to start the Vikings will start putting up 50+ points per game, but that's a given.
A lot of people seem to be excited about an upgraded defense, which makes sense, since the team is going from a defensive minded coach to a defensive minded coach and somehow this new one is better than the old one I guess. I don't know. Personally, I'm more excited about the personnel changes. I mean, these guys have some sweet names: Captain Munnerlyn is one of the best names in the league, and Linval Joseph isn't that far behind except that he's slower now after getting shot. Really though those guys are upgrades, Anthony Barr has looked good this preseason, Harrison Smith is healthy, and Sharrif Floyd should be better because he can't be worse. Plus Xavier Rhodes is awesome.
What's realistic for the Vikings? If Cassell starts all year they'll be somewhere around 8-8. If Bridgewater starts they'll win every game he plays, up to 15-2 and a Super Bowl victory.
Other quick NFL hits:
- The Panthers will be terrible
- The Cardinals will be the surprise breakout team, led by Michael Floyd and Andre Ellington
- Dallas will be a complete dumpster fire, but they'll give up so many points that Dez Bryant will have a career year and one of the best receiving years in history
- Atlanta will be a playoff team with a bounce back year from Matt Ryan
- The Eagles will regress badly
- The Packers will be annoyingly good and probably make the Super Bowl
- The Colts will win the Super Bowl
- Cleveland will win 3 games or less
- Derek Carr will win Rookie of the Year
- C.J. Spiller will re-breakout.
- Matthew Stafford will have even more weapons, put up even better stats, and still somehow screw the Lions into a 6-win season
- Ryan Tannehill will become a top 10 type QB
All of this will come true.
Now onto the college game, which is also fun! And the internet tells me our beloved Gopher footballers are going up against the Middle Tennessee State Blue Raiders. Whoa that sounds scary! And they're 1-0! And they won 61-7 last week! Are the Gophers doomed? Is their run to the BCS playoffs over before it really even starts? No. MTSU beat Savannah State who once had something like a 60-game losing streak in basketball so they're probably terrible in football too. Let's look at these "Blue" "Raiders" a little more carefully, but keep in mind I'm only looking at stats like some kind of nerd who lives in his mom's basement because I have to admit I have never seen MTSU play football. Nor have I heard of anyone on their team. Seriously if you want a "real" "preview" I'd check out Still Got Hope, who are back and cranking out some seriously awesome Gopher football love (they're the kind of nerds who go watch practice, so you know it's detailed info).
Last season the Blue Raiders went 8-4 including 6-2 in the Sun Belt, probably, and made the Armed Forces Bowl where they lost to Navy 24-6. They played two real teams and lost to North Carolina by 20 and BYU by 27. So far the intimidation level is low to quite low. Which I suppose it should since the Gophers are favored by 16.
Last year they ranked 83rd in passing offense, 31st in rushing offense, and 62nd in total offense. That's some good running, boys, but a bad passing attack may be worse as their QB has moved on to do something else. They do have both of their top RBs and one of their top WRs back, but not having a thrower guy back and replacing him with a guy who completed 45% of his passes last year is not a positive. This new guy, Austin Grammer (Kelsey's son), did play well against Savannah completing 15 of 17 for 250 yards, but I assume those DBs were basically played by folding chairs so whatevs. The running backs are worth looking at since the two returnees (Jordan Parker and Reggie Whatley) both had over 650 yards last season and they added a new guy, Tony Rowland, who split carries with those two in their first game. Rowland and Whatley are both tiny (5-7) so they're both probably really fast, and Parker is built like a real running back so he's probably good and stuff. I'd keep my eye on those guys.
Defensively they ranked 26th in passing yards allowed and 107th in rushing yards allowed, which is good for Minnesota because they hate passing anyway and would rather have one of their 20 running backs or their QB who is built like a grizzly bear and throws with similar accuracy to run down your face and smash into you over and over again. Maybe their biggest strength last season was turnover margin, where they finished 12th in the country at a +12. Their two safeties picked off 8 passes between the two of them last year and they're both back, so probably still not a good idea to throw the ball.
Basically both teams suck at passing and are good at running. Whoever stops the other team from running the ball well will win and that should probably be the Gophers. Plus all this running and stuff probably means the under 52.5 is kind of money. So let's do this. Just as the Gopher basketball crushed the hopes and dreams of the Middle Tennessee basketball team in the NIT two years ago, so now will these Gophers crush MTSU's dream of a National Championship.
Gophers 28, Blue Raiders 10.
Monday, March 24, 2014
Game Preview: Gophers vs. Southern Miss
So the Gophers are still playing. In all the NCAA gambling and brackets and game watching I kind of forgot about them, and didn't even realize they were playing St. Mary's until mid second half, and when I switched over I still paid more attention to the Wichita/Kentucky game I was streaming on the ipad. I know, I'm a great blogger. So they are still playing, and that's good, and on Tuesday night they'll welcome Southern Miss to the Barn with the winner heading to Madison Square Garden for the NIT Final Four. Joy.
With all the good teams having fled Conference USA, Southern Miss is probably the jewel of the (severely weakened) conference, having won 20+ games in each of the last five years and making the NCAA Tournament as a 9 seed in 2012 as an at-large before losing to Kansas State. This year's squad has gone 29-6 overall and was 13-3 in Conference USA, losing to Louisiana Tech in the conference tournament semi-finals. To get here the Golden Eagles beat Toledo at home and Missouri on the road with that win over Mizzou one of their most impressive this season. They also beat NCAA team North Dakota State as well as quality opponent Georgia State in non-conference, and had a season sweep of LA Tech but that's basically it as far as good victories go with the rest coming against a shitty conference or really bad teams out of conference. This is not a juggernaut, but the win over Missouri is significant.
Looking at the stats, Southern Miss has four major strengths: they cause a lot of turnovers, they grab a lot of offensive rebounds, they pass well, and they get to the free throw line a lot. Their weaknesses are not shooting or defending shots very well, giving up a lot of assists, fouling a lot, and allowing an absolutely absurd amount of three pointers. I haven't seen So Miss play this year, but this statistical profile is basically textbook for a team that plays an aggressive high pressure zone (Syracuse's profile is similar). I also know that Southern Miss employs a full court press pretty much at all times, though I don't know if it's regular man-to-man or if there is a lot of trapping. The game comes down to:
5-11 senior point guard Neil Watson is probably the leader of the team, averaging 10.7 pts and 3.9 assists per game. He put up 18 points and 7 assists against Missouri, so he seems to be doing the whole I'm a senior and I don't want my career to be over yet thing. He only takes 16% of his shots at the rim so he's a clear jump shooter, but he does it well hitting 40% of his twos and 37% of his threes. He also hit 92% of his free throws this year, and buried with Missouri with four threes (on 9 attempts).
If Watson is the leader on the perimeter then 6-5 forward Michael Craig is the leader in the paint, leading the team in both scoring (11.5) and rebounding (7.6). His range doesn't extend too far, but he's an excellent scorer in the lane for somebody that short. He's their go to scorer and is an excellent passer out of the post - something to watch for.
Their other three main players are 6-7 senior Daveon Boardingham (9.9ppg/4.8rpg and a terrible name), former Temple transfer and 6-5 junior Aaron Brown (10.0ppg/4.3rpg), and 6-0 senior Jerrold Brooks (9.7ppg/2.5apg). Man they have a lot of upperclassmen. Boardingham is the closest thing they have to a center and leads the team with a whole 1.0 block per game, Brown is probably the scariest of these three just because he can score in a variety of ways and has had a few explosive games this year, and Brooks is their big time three point shooter (along with Watson) though he did hit just 33% this season.
Other than that they have some bit parts, one of which is our former good buddy Chip Armelin. Armelin played just 13.4 minutes per game this year (actually slightly less than his last year with the Gophers) and averaged 4.7ppg and 1.9rpg. In general he looks to be the same kind of player he was back then, although he's gotten much more efficient with his two pointers, hitting 60% this year compared to 46% back in 2012 mainly due to attacking the basket more. He's also turning it over more than he did back then, but that could be a product of the system. He's also nabbing more steals but again, product of the system. Anyway, I'm happy to see Chip back. I always had high hopes for him. It will be interesting to see what happens next season with four seniors departing Southern Miss, and Chip will have to step in to a bigger role.
It boils down to this being one of the more easy games to analyze that I can remember. The Golden Eagles are a decent team who can score, but a lot of their offense is predicated on getting turnovers and offensive rebounds, things the Gophers can control or limit. Offensively there's a clear blue print to beating Southern Miss - move the ball and knock down open shots. It's all about if the Gophers can execute. I'm not exactly sure why, but I have a bad feeling.
Southern Miss 70, Minnesota 65
With all the good teams having fled Conference USA, Southern Miss is probably the jewel of the (severely weakened) conference, having won 20+ games in each of the last five years and making the NCAA Tournament as a 9 seed in 2012 as an at-large before losing to Kansas State. This year's squad has gone 29-6 overall and was 13-3 in Conference USA, losing to Louisiana Tech in the conference tournament semi-finals. To get here the Golden Eagles beat Toledo at home and Missouri on the road with that win over Mizzou one of their most impressive this season. They also beat NCAA team North Dakota State as well as quality opponent Georgia State in non-conference, and had a season sweep of LA Tech but that's basically it as far as good victories go with the rest coming against a shitty conference or really bad teams out of conference. This is not a juggernaut, but the win over Missouri is significant.
Looking at the stats, Southern Miss has four major strengths: they cause a lot of turnovers, they grab a lot of offensive rebounds, they pass well, and they get to the free throw line a lot. Their weaknesses are not shooting or defending shots very well, giving up a lot of assists, fouling a lot, and allowing an absolutely absurd amount of three pointers. I haven't seen So Miss play this year, but this statistical profile is basically textbook for a team that plays an aggressive high pressure zone (Syracuse's profile is similar). I also know that Southern Miss employs a full court press pretty much at all times, though I don't know if it's regular man-to-man or if there is a lot of trapping. The game comes down to:
- Taking care of the ball. High pressure zone and full court press are terrifying for the Gophers considering how the turnover bug has reared it's head at times this year. The Gophers have played games where they take phenomenal care of the ball and others where they seem to be intentionally giving it away. They will need to do the former to win this game. On the flip side, Southern Miss is really good at giving the ball away, and hopefully the Gophers can ratchet up the pressure to take advantage.
- Rebounding. Southern Miss is an outstanding rebounding team and as we know the Gophers are.....challenged, in that area. Creating turnovers and forcing missed shots are meaningless if the other team just gets another crack at it with an offensive board. This is Southern Miss's biggest strength, and probably the #1 key to the game. The Gophers are a bigger team than the Golden Eagles, so this should be doable with effort and proper technique.
- Creating fouls while avoiding them. Southern Miss loves to get to the line and they get there a ton, even if they aren't very good at foul shots. With only two real big men, it's imperative at least one if not both of Eliason and Walker stay out of foul trouble. On the other side Southern Miss really only goes 6-7 guys deep, so getting any of them in foul trouble, and as a team they commit a lot of fouls, could help stretch their bench further than they want to go.
- Hitting shots. An aggressive zone can be easily defeated by good ball movement and hitting open shots. 35.1% of points scored against Southern Miss this year have come via three-pointer, the 3rd highest percentage in the country. Related, opponents scored off an assist on 63.5% of their baskets, also the 3rd highest percentage in the country. It's obvious what you need to do to beat this team, it's just a matter of doing it.
5-11 senior point guard Neil Watson is probably the leader of the team, averaging 10.7 pts and 3.9 assists per game. He put up 18 points and 7 assists against Missouri, so he seems to be doing the whole I'm a senior and I don't want my career to be over yet thing. He only takes 16% of his shots at the rim so he's a clear jump shooter, but he does it well hitting 40% of his twos and 37% of his threes. He also hit 92% of his free throws this year, and buried with Missouri with four threes (on 9 attempts).
If Watson is the leader on the perimeter then 6-5 forward Michael Craig is the leader in the paint, leading the team in both scoring (11.5) and rebounding (7.6). His range doesn't extend too far, but he's an excellent scorer in the lane for somebody that short. He's their go to scorer and is an excellent passer out of the post - something to watch for.
Their other three main players are 6-7 senior Daveon Boardingham (9.9ppg/4.8rpg and a terrible name), former Temple transfer and 6-5 junior Aaron Brown (10.0ppg/4.3rpg), and 6-0 senior Jerrold Brooks (9.7ppg/2.5apg). Man they have a lot of upperclassmen. Boardingham is the closest thing they have to a center and leads the team with a whole 1.0 block per game, Brown is probably the scariest of these three just because he can score in a variety of ways and has had a few explosive games this year, and Brooks is their big time three point shooter (along with Watson) though he did hit just 33% this season.
Other than that they have some bit parts, one of which is our former good buddy Chip Armelin. Armelin played just 13.4 minutes per game this year (actually slightly less than his last year with the Gophers) and averaged 4.7ppg and 1.9rpg. In general he looks to be the same kind of player he was back then, although he's gotten much more efficient with his two pointers, hitting 60% this year compared to 46% back in 2012 mainly due to attacking the basket more. He's also turning it over more than he did back then, but that could be a product of the system. He's also nabbing more steals but again, product of the system. Anyway, I'm happy to see Chip back. I always had high hopes for him. It will be interesting to see what happens next season with four seniors departing Southern Miss, and Chip will have to step in to a bigger role.
It boils down to this being one of the more easy games to analyze that I can remember. The Golden Eagles are a decent team who can score, but a lot of their offense is predicated on getting turnovers and offensive rebounds, things the Gophers can control or limit. Offensively there's a clear blue print to beating Southern Miss - move the ball and knock down open shots. It's all about if the Gophers can execute. I'm not exactly sure why, but I have a bad feeling.
Southern Miss 70, Minnesota 65
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Hoops Preview: Gophers vs. Wofford
Fresh off a nice test against Coastal Carolina, the Gophers get what should be an easy victory on Thursday with Wofford coming to the Barn. Simply put, the Terriers are terriable. They're 1-2 this season with their only victory over something called the Emory & Henry College Wasps, which is a sweet team nickname but it's a Division III team. They lost to a horrible Georgia team by 20, and were beaten by Iona by 19. They're 283rd in offensive efficiency and 165th in defensive. They shoot 23% from three, never get to the free throw line, and let their opponents rebound over half of their own misses. You could say it's interesting that Wofford is the second slowest team in all of college ball, but that's not interesting it's super boring and the Gophers already proved slow teams don't really bother them by beating better slow teams already. No, Wofford is terrible and the Gophers should win with ease.
But guess what? Karl Cochran.
Cochran is Wofford's junior guard who absolutely loves the ball the way Tom Hanks did in that movie with the volleyball. He plays just slightly over half the game, so that's a bummer, but when he's in he takes 41% of the shots for his team, and uses 36% of the possessions (meaning 36% of the time he's on the floor the possession ends with his shot or turnover). The former ranks 7th in the country this year, the latter 14th. Last season he ranked 2nd and 8th. Even his freshman year he led the team in shot %. Simply put, this guy is a straight chucker.
Even better? He's shooting 37% this year after hitting 36% last season. His three point percentage this year is 21% (3-14) and he was just 31% for his career coming in. He's also managed to forget how to make a free throw, seeing as he's 1-7 this year after being north of 70% for his career. Despite being fourth in minutes played, with about 75% the minutes of the other three guys, he leads the team in field goal attempts. Last season he had 20+ shot attempts in a game eight times including a game with 26 and one with 27, put up a 1-11 and a 2-16 night, and had more than double the shot attempts for the season of all his teammates except one.
I love this guy. He wears #2. I can't wait to watch him, and neither can you.
Minnesota 75, Wofford 48
But guess what? Karl Cochran.
Cochran is Wofford's junior guard who absolutely loves the ball the way Tom Hanks did in that movie with the volleyball. He plays just slightly over half the game, so that's a bummer, but when he's in he takes 41% of the shots for his team, and uses 36% of the possessions (meaning 36% of the time he's on the floor the possession ends with his shot or turnover). The former ranks 7th in the country this year, the latter 14th. Last season he ranked 2nd and 8th. Even his freshman year he led the team in shot %. Simply put, this guy is a straight chucker.
Even better? He's shooting 37% this year after hitting 36% last season. His three point percentage this year is 21% (3-14) and he was just 31% for his career coming in. He's also managed to forget how to make a free throw, seeing as he's 1-7 this year after being north of 70% for his career. Despite being fourth in minutes played, with about 75% the minutes of the other three guys, he leads the team in field goal attempts. Last season he had 20+ shot attempts in a game eight times including a game with 26 and one with 27, put up a 1-11 and a 2-16 night, and had more than double the shot attempts for the season of all his teammates except one.
I love this guy. He wears #2. I can't wait to watch him, and neither can you.
Minnesota 75, Wofford 48
Monday, November 18, 2013
Game Preview: Gophers vs. Coastal Carolina
Excellent win for our Golden Gophers over the weekend, beating Richmond 74-59 on the road. Winning a road game against a quality opponent. I'm not sure where exactly where Richmond will land this year - currently in the top 100 in RPI (mostly meaningless right now) and they did beat Belmont who just beat North Carolina (although the transitive property is mostly worthless outside of math). In any case, beating a decent mid-major on the road is always a positive sign, and closing with a 19-2 run after trailing in the second half is an excellent sign for a team that wasn't known as the type of team that often battled back when the chips were down in the past. I won't comment on individual players since the game conveniently wasn't on TV, but it's nice to see that Malik Smith hit a few threes (3-7) and the Hollins brothers are just pure studs.
Up next is Coastal Carolina, and although the ratings say they're pretty terrible (kenpom has them at 242) they've played a couple of decent teams pretty tightly this year and they do present a new type of challenge to the Gophers than they've seen so far. The Chanticleers (mmmmm......pizza) are 1-2 so far with their sole win over non D-I Guilford, but their two losses were both close games to teams with tournament aspirations (72-63 vs. Akron, 72-70 vs. Ole Miss). It's a tough team to get a true read on right now - are they an upper tier low-major squad or just more schedule fodder - but they will present a new challenge: defense, and big men.
So far every team the Gophers have played has the same basic profile: decent guards, zero big men with experience/skills, slow paced, and middling or worse defense. Coastal Carolina lost both their excellent guards from last year's team, has plenty of returning size, is known for their defense, and is always looking to speed things up. Should be interesting. Maybe.
Not to say the Chanticleers don't have any guards, given that their top 3 scorers so far this year are perimeter players in freshman Elijah Wilson (15.0 ppg), returnee Warren Gillis (11.0 ppg), and Juco transfer Josh Cameron (9.3 ppg). Coach Cliff Ellis usually ends up with an offense dominated by guards, and despite the new faces this year is no exception. The three dominate the shot attempts put up by the team, although none of them shoot the ball particularly well. None of the three have an effective fg% greater than 44%, and combined they've shot 9-35 from three this year. Expect these three to shoot early and often, but as you could imagine when your three main shooters are not very good at shooting, Coastal Carolina's offense has been downright putrid this year (ranked #317 in offensive efficiency).
Where the Chanticleers can make things interesting is on the defensive end. They like to play a 1-2-1-1 full court defense that creates turnovers, and it's something that works - they rank 75th in the country in creating turnovers this season after ranking 61st last year. They have four players ranked in the top 330 in the country in steal percentage, so it'll be imperative the Gophers take care of the basketball and probably that Maverick stays off the floor altogether. The Gophers have done well taking care of the basketball so far this season, a welcome change, but this will be their first true test against a team looking to create turnovers.
One major advantage the Gophers have had against their opponents this year is rebounding, as they've basically been crushing teams on the boards. That may change against CC, who held their own with Akron and actually out rebounded Ole Miss, which isn't easy to do when you're throwing up a whole mess of bricks when you try to shoot. The Chanticleers rebound hard as a group, with five guys averaging 4.7 boards per game or more, and what's more interesting to me is that there are several big guys who get limited minutes but manage to put up decent rebounding numbers. Against a bigger team like Minnesota, these guys may get more of a chance. 6-10 El Hadji Ndienguene (7.3 rpg) and 6-5 Michael Enanga (5.3 rpg) are the main big guys, but look for 6-5 Colton Ray-St. Cyr (5prg in 18 mins), 6-7 Tristian Curtis (5.0 rpg in 13 mins), 6-8 Uros Ljeskovic (3.0 rpg in 10 mins), and 6-10 Kyle Buffkin (2.0 rpg in 9 mins) to all get some run. Ndienguene (6.3 ppg) and Enanga (9.3 ppg) are the only real offensive threats out of the group and both shoot a very high percentage, although they don't get a chance to shoot much. Enanga can step out and hit the three.
It's an interesting match-up and a fun one, just because this game should look significantly different than any of the others the Gophers have played. Both teams will look to speed the game up and create turnovers, and both are capable, but the main difference is Carolina turns the ball over a ton all on their own, while the Gophers have handled themselves well this year. I expect the difference in turnovers will more than make up for any loss of extra rebounding possessions due to the Chanticleers size, and unless those three guards suddenly get hot the Gophers should be able to handle this game without too much difficulty, and it should be fun to watch.
Minnesota 90, Coastal Carolina 68
BRING ON CIRCUS BALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Up next is Coastal Carolina, and although the ratings say they're pretty terrible (kenpom has them at 242) they've played a couple of decent teams pretty tightly this year and they do present a new type of challenge to the Gophers than they've seen so far. The Chanticleers (mmmmm......pizza) are 1-2 so far with their sole win over non D-I Guilford, but their two losses were both close games to teams with tournament aspirations (72-63 vs. Akron, 72-70 vs. Ole Miss). It's a tough team to get a true read on right now - are they an upper tier low-major squad or just more schedule fodder - but they will present a new challenge: defense, and big men.
So far every team the Gophers have played has the same basic profile: decent guards, zero big men with experience/skills, slow paced, and middling or worse defense. Coastal Carolina lost both their excellent guards from last year's team, has plenty of returning size, is known for their defense, and is always looking to speed things up. Should be interesting. Maybe.
Not to say the Chanticleers don't have any guards, given that their top 3 scorers so far this year are perimeter players in freshman Elijah Wilson (15.0 ppg), returnee Warren Gillis (11.0 ppg), and Juco transfer Josh Cameron (9.3 ppg). Coach Cliff Ellis usually ends up with an offense dominated by guards, and despite the new faces this year is no exception. The three dominate the shot attempts put up by the team, although none of them shoot the ball particularly well. None of the three have an effective fg% greater than 44%, and combined they've shot 9-35 from three this year. Expect these three to shoot early and often, but as you could imagine when your three main shooters are not very good at shooting, Coastal Carolina's offense has been downright putrid this year (ranked #317 in offensive efficiency).
Where the Chanticleers can make things interesting is on the defensive end. They like to play a 1-2-1-1 full court defense that creates turnovers, and it's something that works - they rank 75th in the country in creating turnovers this season after ranking 61st last year. They have four players ranked in the top 330 in the country in steal percentage, so it'll be imperative the Gophers take care of the basketball and probably that Maverick stays off the floor altogether. The Gophers have done well taking care of the basketball so far this season, a welcome change, but this will be their first true test against a team looking to create turnovers.
One major advantage the Gophers have had against their opponents this year is rebounding, as they've basically been crushing teams on the boards. That may change against CC, who held their own with Akron and actually out rebounded Ole Miss, which isn't easy to do when you're throwing up a whole mess of bricks when you try to shoot. The Chanticleers rebound hard as a group, with five guys averaging 4.7 boards per game or more, and what's more interesting to me is that there are several big guys who get limited minutes but manage to put up decent rebounding numbers. Against a bigger team like Minnesota, these guys may get more of a chance. 6-10 El Hadji Ndienguene (7.3 rpg) and 6-5 Michael Enanga (5.3 rpg) are the main big guys, but look for 6-5 Colton Ray-St. Cyr (5prg in 18 mins), 6-7 Tristian Curtis (5.0 rpg in 13 mins), 6-8 Uros Ljeskovic (3.0 rpg in 10 mins), and 6-10 Kyle Buffkin (2.0 rpg in 9 mins) to all get some run. Ndienguene (6.3 ppg) and Enanga (9.3 ppg) are the only real offensive threats out of the group and both shoot a very high percentage, although they don't get a chance to shoot much. Enanga can step out and hit the three.
It's an interesting match-up and a fun one, just because this game should look significantly different than any of the others the Gophers have played. Both teams will look to speed the game up and create turnovers, and both are capable, but the main difference is Carolina turns the ball over a ton all on their own, while the Gophers have handled themselves well this year. I expect the difference in turnovers will more than make up for any loss of extra rebounding possessions due to the Chanticleers size, and unless those three guards suddenly get hot the Gophers should be able to handle this game without too much difficulty, and it should be fun to watch.
Minnesota 90, Coastal Carolina 68
BRING ON CIRCUS BALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Hoops Preview: Gophers vs. Richmond
Now we learn. Home wins over Lehigh and Montana were nice, but expected even if the final margin were bigger than I had anticipated. Going to Richmond, a team with NCAA bid aspirations, is going to tell us a lot about this Gopher team right now. Not just because of the step up in class of the competition, but also the whole first road test thing. Richmond does sit at 2-0, but neither win was particularly impressive (by 2 over Delaware, by 8 over Belmont) so although the Spiders are the best team the Gophers have seen this year, Minnesota can, and should, win this game.
Richmond only loses one starter from last season's CBI team, but looks significantly different anyway. The starter they lost was Darien Brothers, their leading scorer, and their top post threat, Derrick Williams (not that Derrick Williams) has been battling injuries most of the season and has been able to play just 15 mostly ineffective minutes per game. The bench is thin, and, like the other Gopher opponents' main strength lies in their guards.
It starts for the Spiders with Cedrick Lindsay, who's leading the Spiders in points (17.5 per), assists (3.5), and steals (3.0). He's not much of a three point shooter but will take it when open, but Lindsay scores most of his points creating his own shot, usually a jumper. Richmond runs a modified Princeton offense, which means a ton of back cuts and off the ball screens, but the guards have a lot of freedom to make something happen on their own and this is what Lindsay will do. If the Gopher guards can stick on him and not give him high percentage looks it will be tough for Richmond to get anything going.
Also starting on the perimeter for the Spiders are junior shooting guard Wayne Sparrow and likely 6-5 wing Trey Davis. Sparrow has really stepped up his three point shooting this year with an average of five attempts per game after averaging less than 2 the last two seasons, but unfortunately for Richmond he can't really shoot hitting just 10% this year and 29% last season. He does rebound well for his position, and overall Richmond is a pretty solid rebounding team. Davis is good in that regard as well, leading the team with 10 per game. He's not much of an offensive weapon but if the Gophers forget about him he could kill them on the boards.
Up front with Williams hobbling the job of big guys has fallen to 6-8 sophomore Terry Allen (no not that Terry Allen) who has responded in a big way, averaging 14 & 8 after putting up just 4 & 4 a year ago. He's quickly developed into one of their go to guys on offense. Next to him is Alonzo Nelson-Ododa who gives the Spiders a defensive presence. At 6-9 he's versatile enough to lead the team in blocks with 2.0 per game (and led the team last season at 1.8) and also chips in with 1.5 steals per game. Like Davis he's not a focal point of their offense, but can get going on the boards and does have the ability to score when necessary.
Speaking of ability to score, Richmond has a major weapon coming in off the bench in 5-8 Kendall Anthony, who is pure instant offense as a sixth man, averaging 11.5 per game this year after putting up 11.5 last season in the same role. He's very much a chucker who never saw a shot he didn't like, but unlike most players in that mold he also takes very good care of the basketball and rarely turns it over. He's struggled with his shot a bit this year, but if he gets going he can score a ton of points in a hurray. He's also Richmond's only really reliable three-point shooter, so it's imperative the Gophers don't let him get going.
The way I see this game happening the biggest key is going to be the Gophers' half court defense. Richmond doesn't turn the ball over much, so even though the press may create more turnovers than usual odds are that the Spiders will have plenty of opportunities to run their offense. If Minnesota is able to not get lost on the plethora of back cuts they'll see and can keep the guards out of the lane it'll push Richmond outside and they'll end up shooting a lot of long 2s and three-pointers. Given that they're not a particularly good shooting team, this is good for the Gophers. They're also not a good rebounding team, so the Gophers should be able to control the boards.
The alternative is they get shredded by the Princeton offense (wouldn't be the first team that's happened to) and Richmond gets a ton of easy baskets. The Gophers' offense is good enough against a so-so Princeton defense to still make it a game or even win if this happens, but it's going to be a lot easier and more fun if they can shut down the Spiders. I'm betting it happens.
Minnesota 71, Richmond 62.
Richmond only loses one starter from last season's CBI team, but looks significantly different anyway. The starter they lost was Darien Brothers, their leading scorer, and their top post threat, Derrick Williams (not that Derrick Williams) has been battling injuries most of the season and has been able to play just 15 mostly ineffective minutes per game. The bench is thin, and, like the other Gopher opponents' main strength lies in their guards.
It starts for the Spiders with Cedrick Lindsay, who's leading the Spiders in points (17.5 per), assists (3.5), and steals (3.0). He's not much of a three point shooter but will take it when open, but Lindsay scores most of his points creating his own shot, usually a jumper. Richmond runs a modified Princeton offense, which means a ton of back cuts and off the ball screens, but the guards have a lot of freedom to make something happen on their own and this is what Lindsay will do. If the Gopher guards can stick on him and not give him high percentage looks it will be tough for Richmond to get anything going.
Also starting on the perimeter for the Spiders are junior shooting guard Wayne Sparrow and likely 6-5 wing Trey Davis. Sparrow has really stepped up his three point shooting this year with an average of five attempts per game after averaging less than 2 the last two seasons, but unfortunately for Richmond he can't really shoot hitting just 10% this year and 29% last season. He does rebound well for his position, and overall Richmond is a pretty solid rebounding team. Davis is good in that regard as well, leading the team with 10 per game. He's not much of an offensive weapon but if the Gophers forget about him he could kill them on the boards.
Up front with Williams hobbling the job of big guys has fallen to 6-8 sophomore Terry Allen (no not that Terry Allen) who has responded in a big way, averaging 14 & 8 after putting up just 4 & 4 a year ago. He's quickly developed into one of their go to guys on offense. Next to him is Alonzo Nelson-Ododa who gives the Spiders a defensive presence. At 6-9 he's versatile enough to lead the team in blocks with 2.0 per game (and led the team last season at 1.8) and also chips in with 1.5 steals per game. Like Davis he's not a focal point of their offense, but can get going on the boards and does have the ability to score when necessary.
Speaking of ability to score, Richmond has a major weapon coming in off the bench in 5-8 Kendall Anthony, who is pure instant offense as a sixth man, averaging 11.5 per game this year after putting up 11.5 last season in the same role. He's very much a chucker who never saw a shot he didn't like, but unlike most players in that mold he also takes very good care of the basketball and rarely turns it over. He's struggled with his shot a bit this year, but if he gets going he can score a ton of points in a hurray. He's also Richmond's only really reliable three-point shooter, so it's imperative the Gophers don't let him get going.
The way I see this game happening the biggest key is going to be the Gophers' half court defense. Richmond doesn't turn the ball over much, so even though the press may create more turnovers than usual odds are that the Spiders will have plenty of opportunities to run their offense. If Minnesota is able to not get lost on the plethora of back cuts they'll see and can keep the guards out of the lane it'll push Richmond outside and they'll end up shooting a lot of long 2s and three-pointers. Given that they're not a particularly good shooting team, this is good for the Gophers. They're also not a good rebounding team, so the Gophers should be able to control the boards.
The alternative is they get shredded by the Princeton offense (wouldn't be the first team that's happened to) and Richmond gets a ton of easy baskets. The Gophers' offense is good enough against a so-so Princeton defense to still make it a game or even win if this happens, but it's going to be a lot easier and more fun if they can shut down the Spiders. I'm betting it happens.
Minnesota 71, Richmond 62.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Game Preview: Gophers vs. Buckeyes
Well that Iowa game was certainly demoralizing. I think anybody who was holding out hope, like I have to admit I was, that that rough stretch was simply that - a rough stretch - can now stop holding out hope, whatever that means. After looking like world beaters to begin the year, the Gophers are now 3-7 in their last ten with those three wins all coming at home versus a terrible Nebraska team, a last second miracle win over Iowa, and a lucky OT win versus Wisconsin. Gross. The weaknesses (turnovers, outside shooting) have continued to be weaknesses while one of the team's biggest strengths (defense) has disappeared. Combine that with the team's continued inability to generate offense versus a zone (seriously, have you ever seen anything worse than that last Iowa game) and the Gophers have turned from a sleeper Final Four candidate to a team that will crawl into the NCAA Tournament based on strong computer numbers and a hot start. I cannot wait to bet against them in the first round. BOATLOADS. And it's too bad too, because Ohio State is a vulnerable team.
There's nothing bad here in Ohio State's record. Their only home losses have been to Indiana and Kansas and they do have a nice home win over Michigan that they almost blew, but over their last 8 games they only thing resembling a good win is at home over Wisconsin, and they're coming off an absolutely embarrassing blowout loss in Madison. If they were facing a good team that played good defense, this could be a good spot for an upset. Alas.
The reason I think the Buckeyes are a vulnerable team is that their offense is basically DeShaun Thomas. They play great defense (believe it or not Aaron Craft is actually not overrated) but if a team could find a way to limit Thomas (and good luck because the only times he's scored less than 16 in a game this year were blowout wins for OSU) they'd have a shot because nobody else is a reliable scorer. Ohio State has a ton of great athletes, but none are very effective scorers and there is nobody who can score on the block as Evan Ravenel, Trey McDonald, and Amir Williams are more defense and rebounding at this point (well, Ravenel is a senior so I guess this is as good as it gets for him) so neither would require any doubling. LaQuinton Ross and Lenzelle Smith are big and athletic but are pretty raw wing players, while Aaron Craft can't shoot, Sam Thompson is an athlete more than a scorer (think Rodney), and Shannon Scott is a very good guard but not a scorer.
The way to beat OSU is actually pretty simple - have a dominant inside presence with good wing defense and you'll be in the game (at least on the defensive side of the ball). The Gophers should have that. Mbakwe, Williams, and Elliason shouldn't require any help when the Buckeye big guys get the ball down low, so the perimeter defense shouldn't have to scramble to cover open shooters (and Thomas, Scott, Ross, and Smith can all hit the three). There should be zero doubling at all, and at absolutely no time should Austin Hollins (or Williams) leave Thomas - EVER. Unfortunately we've seen this play out too many times, and somehow the Gophers will still manage to leave shooters open time after time.
And, as much as there is a good blueprint on taking down Ohio State, there's an even easier one for beating Minnesota - play zone, which the Buckeyes will early and often.
Ohio State 70, Minnesota 51
There's nothing bad here in Ohio State's record. Their only home losses have been to Indiana and Kansas and they do have a nice home win over Michigan that they almost blew, but over their last 8 games they only thing resembling a good win is at home over Wisconsin, and they're coming off an absolutely embarrassing blowout loss in Madison. If they were facing a good team that played good defense, this could be a good spot for an upset. Alas.
The reason I think the Buckeyes are a vulnerable team is that their offense is basically DeShaun Thomas. They play great defense (believe it or not Aaron Craft is actually not overrated) but if a team could find a way to limit Thomas (and good luck because the only times he's scored less than 16 in a game this year were blowout wins for OSU) they'd have a shot because nobody else is a reliable scorer. Ohio State has a ton of great athletes, but none are very effective scorers and there is nobody who can score on the block as Evan Ravenel, Trey McDonald, and Amir Williams are more defense and rebounding at this point (well, Ravenel is a senior so I guess this is as good as it gets for him) so neither would require any doubling. LaQuinton Ross and Lenzelle Smith are big and athletic but are pretty raw wing players, while Aaron Craft can't shoot, Sam Thompson is an athlete more than a scorer (think Rodney), and Shannon Scott is a very good guard but not a scorer.
The way to beat OSU is actually pretty simple - have a dominant inside presence with good wing defense and you'll be in the game (at least on the defensive side of the ball). The Gophers should have that. Mbakwe, Williams, and Elliason shouldn't require any help when the Buckeye big guys get the ball down low, so the perimeter defense shouldn't have to scramble to cover open shooters (and Thomas, Scott, Ross, and Smith can all hit the three). There should be zero doubling at all, and at absolutely no time should Austin Hollins (or Williams) leave Thomas - EVER. Unfortunately we've seen this play out too many times, and somehow the Gophers will still manage to leave shooters open time after time.
And, as much as there is a good blueprint on taking down Ohio State, there's an even easier one for beating Minnesota - play zone, which the Buckeyes will early and often.
Ohio State 70, Minnesota 51
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Game Preview: Gophers vs. Illinois
I had this preview mostly already written. I knew Illinois played Indiana tonight and that could change things, but every time I checked the score Indiana seemed to have the game in hand, so I felt comfortable assuming that was a loss for the Illini. Then, all of a sudden I'm seeing highlights and, spoiler alert, it turns out Illinois wins on a defensive breakdown by Indiana at the buzzer. So damn. I'm going to keep the final paragraph because it is still relevant, but the rest is going in the virtual trash. Mostly because I'm pretty lazy and don't want to re-write something.
It's simple: the Gophers win this game unless Illinois gets hot from three, which is something they can do and have done this year. The easiest way for them to get hot is to get a bunch of open looks, something the Gophers have struggled with in the past. The easiest way for them to get a bunch of open looks is by getting the ball inside and then kicking it back out and moving it around the perimeter. You know how to avoid that? NO DOUBLE TEAMS. Look at that team. Not a single post-up threat unless they use Brandon Paul to post up a guard, and in that case I still say just let him shoot. NO GOD DAMN DOUBLE TEAMS IN THE POST. If I see one single guard double down on a post-up I'm going to storm the court and murder Goldy because why not?
NO DOUBLING THE POST.
Gophers 75, Illinois 64
It's simple: the Gophers win this game unless Illinois gets hot from three, which is something they can do and have done this year. The easiest way for them to get hot is to get a bunch of open looks, something the Gophers have struggled with in the past. The easiest way for them to get a bunch of open looks is by getting the ball inside and then kicking it back out and moving it around the perimeter. You know how to avoid that? NO DOUBLE TEAMS. Look at that team. Not a single post-up threat unless they use Brandon Paul to post up a guard, and in that case I still say just let him shoot. NO GOD DAMN DOUBLE TEAMS IN THE POST. If I see one single guard double down on a post-up I'm going to storm the court and murder Goldy because why not?
NO DOUBLING THE POST.
Gophers 75, Illinois 64
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Game Preview: Gophers vs. Hawkeyes
Not a ton to say about the Nebraska game. It was nice to see the Gophers cruise to an easy win and nicer to see Rodney Williams look like the good Rodney Williams again, but it was obvious from the opening tip that Nebraska isn't nearly in the same class as the Gophers and, as such, it's tough to take too much away from that game other than the wheels haven't completely come off this season. Still, breaking a four game losing skid is always a positive, so there's that I suppose. Really a home game against Nebraska couldn't have come at a better time. Hopefully they can continue playing well against Iowa on Sunday, because the Hawkeyes are a significantly better team than Nebraska.
They come in to the game at 14-7 and 3-5 in conference play and they do have some pretty good wind and, if it wasn't for an absolutely brutal non-conference strength of schedule (#320) they'd probably actually be looking at the bubble for the NCAA Tournament. One of those conference wins was over Wisconsin and they swept the other two Iowa schools (Northern and State). Their problem is they haven't beaten anyone else - at all. They've lost to every other decent team they've played (with near miss wins at Carver-Hawkeye against both Indiana and Michigan State) and padded that record by beating up on bad teams with a win over Gardner-Webb as their next best win. The NCAA dream probably died when they lost in OT to Purdue on Sunday, but this is certainly a team the Gophers should beat since they're a much better squad.
One thing that plays in the Gophers' favor is that Iowa likes to run and keep games at a fast pace. The Hawkeyes play at the 46th fastest pace in the country and although the Gophers aren't necessarily a big-time running team because I think Tubby Smith would yell at everyone if they fast breaked too much, they do tend to have success in transition because of their athletic advantage over most teams. Not to mention their struggles against Northwestern and Wisconsin, who rank 321st and 355th in tempo, so staying away from those long, slow, boring half-court games is a good idea. Iowa will shoot early and shoot often, and with them ranking 9th in the conference in shooting (by effective FG%) and the Gophers back to playing solid defense (one can hope) that should lead to plenty of rebounds, which bodes well for Minnesota.
Looking at the awesome site hoop-math.com (thank you JF at From the Barn for showing me this), the Gophers take 16% of their shots following a rebound within the first 10 seconds of the shot clock, meaning a fast break off the miss or on the secondary break. Their effective field goal percentage is also the highest of all situations that occur at least 5% of the time. The Gophers are going to need to take advantage of as many transition opportunities as they can because once in the half court Iowa's defense is stingy, particularly on 2-point jump shots where they rank 14th in the country in Opponent's FG%.
Looking at Iowa's players they go nine deep and most of them have some redeemable skill, but Roy Marble and Aaron White are the guys to watch out for. Actually, I'm not worried about White to be honest. He's gonna be overwhelmed by Mbakwe and I expect he'll struggle mightily for most of the game since he does most of his scoring deep in the paint. Marble is the guy to watch, because he is truly talented and can score from anywhere on the floor. He's an excellent shooter from both 2 and 3, handles the ball well, and because he's 6-6 with guard skills he can usually rise up and get that jumper off over smaller guards. The Gophers have the luxury of putting Austin Hollins on him, and they damn well better, who should be able to help pester him and make it tougher to get that shot off, but if Joe Coleman ends up on him at any time well let me tell you that is not going to end well for Minnesota no sir.
The rest of the squad is pretty much a mixed bag. A couple of freshmen (Mike Gesell and Anthony Clemmons) start in the back court with Clemmons the distributor and Gesell the shooter with another freshmen in Adam Woodbury starting at center next to White. At this point Woodbury is pretty much a good rebounder and good shot blocker but has little to no offense game. Off the bench they go with Josh Oglesby (the supposed shooter who can't shoot), Melsahn Basabe (who showed so much promise as a freshman but has stagnated the last two seasons), and Eric May and Zach McCabe who have been around forever but I still couldn't tell you who was who. One of them is taller than the other one. They also have a guy who rarely plays named Christopher Rickert who may or may not be related to Rick Rickert. I'm not going to check so let's just say he's his cousin.
Anyway, although Iowa is certainly a step up in class from Nebraska, they still aren't the kind of team the Gophers should have trouble with whether you think they're just not that good, or think they just hit a bump in the road. I'm leaning towards the latter.
Minnesota 82, Iowa 62.
They come in to the game at 14-7 and 3-5 in conference play and they do have some pretty good wind and, if it wasn't for an absolutely brutal non-conference strength of schedule (#320) they'd probably actually be looking at the bubble for the NCAA Tournament. One of those conference wins was over Wisconsin and they swept the other two Iowa schools (Northern and State). Their problem is they haven't beaten anyone else - at all. They've lost to every other decent team they've played (with near miss wins at Carver-Hawkeye against both Indiana and Michigan State) and padded that record by beating up on bad teams with a win over Gardner-Webb as their next best win. The NCAA dream probably died when they lost in OT to Purdue on Sunday, but this is certainly a team the Gophers should beat since they're a much better squad.
One thing that plays in the Gophers' favor is that Iowa likes to run and keep games at a fast pace. The Hawkeyes play at the 46th fastest pace in the country and although the Gophers aren't necessarily a big-time running team because I think Tubby Smith would yell at everyone if they fast breaked too much, they do tend to have success in transition because of their athletic advantage over most teams. Not to mention their struggles against Northwestern and Wisconsin, who rank 321st and 355th in tempo, so staying away from those long, slow, boring half-court games is a good idea. Iowa will shoot early and shoot often, and with them ranking 9th in the conference in shooting (by effective FG%) and the Gophers back to playing solid defense (one can hope) that should lead to plenty of rebounds, which bodes well for Minnesota.
Looking at the awesome site hoop-math.com (thank you JF at From the Barn for showing me this), the Gophers take 16% of their shots following a rebound within the first 10 seconds of the shot clock, meaning a fast break off the miss or on the secondary break. Their effective field goal percentage is also the highest of all situations that occur at least 5% of the time. The Gophers are going to need to take advantage of as many transition opportunities as they can because once in the half court Iowa's defense is stingy, particularly on 2-point jump shots where they rank 14th in the country in Opponent's FG%.
Looking at Iowa's players they go nine deep and most of them have some redeemable skill, but Roy Marble and Aaron White are the guys to watch out for. Actually, I'm not worried about White to be honest. He's gonna be overwhelmed by Mbakwe and I expect he'll struggle mightily for most of the game since he does most of his scoring deep in the paint. Marble is the guy to watch, because he is truly talented and can score from anywhere on the floor. He's an excellent shooter from both 2 and 3, handles the ball well, and because he's 6-6 with guard skills he can usually rise up and get that jumper off over smaller guards. The Gophers have the luxury of putting Austin Hollins on him, and they damn well better, who should be able to help pester him and make it tougher to get that shot off, but if Joe Coleman ends up on him at any time well let me tell you that is not going to end well for Minnesota no sir.
The rest of the squad is pretty much a mixed bag. A couple of freshmen (Mike Gesell and Anthony Clemmons) start in the back court with Clemmons the distributor and Gesell the shooter with another freshmen in Adam Woodbury starting at center next to White. At this point Woodbury is pretty much a good rebounder and good shot blocker but has little to no offense game. Off the bench they go with Josh Oglesby (the supposed shooter who can't shoot), Melsahn Basabe (who showed so much promise as a freshman but has stagnated the last two seasons), and Eric May and Zach McCabe who have been around forever but I still couldn't tell you who was who. One of them is taller than the other one. They also have a guy who rarely plays named Christopher Rickert who may or may not be related to Rick Rickert. I'm not going to check so let's just say he's his cousin.
Anyway, although Iowa is certainly a step up in class from Nebraska, they still aren't the kind of team the Gophers should have trouble with whether you think they're just not that good, or think they just hit a bump in the road. I'm leaning towards the latter.
Minnesota 82, Iowa 62.
Monday, January 28, 2013
Game Preview: Minnesota vs. Nebraska
I've called several games this year "must wins" for various reasons: The Michigan State game was a "must win to prove you're a good team", the Michigan game was a "must win to prove you're elite", and the Wisconsin game was "must win to prop back up fan hopes." This Nebraska game is another must win, but this time it's a "must win to salvage the season." I still think this is a very good team and normally Nebraska at home should be an easy one, but there are a lot of bad things swirling around this team and sometimes when things go south they go south in a big way.
The team's lost four straight, including probably the most embarrassing loss in Tubby Smith's time here. The players are regressing with Rodney Williams turning into a jump shooter and Dre Hollins playing out of control more than usual. Tubby's assigning all the blame for the skid to his players and they're noticing. Tubby seems distant during and after games, like he's not really even coaching. The players seem a bit out of it as well, probably because of this. Now these are all observations from someone who doesn't see this team day-to-day so I could be way off, but I'm catching a whiff of some major issues. This Nebraska game can either dispel those concerns and we can worry about the Gophers getting a good seed, or it can confirm them and we can start reading Bubble Watch again this year.
Looking at Nebraska, there's no doubt whatsoever that losing to the Huskers would be an unmitigated disaster because this is a bad team. Their best win this year is probably their home win over Northwestern, and they balance that out with losses to Kent State and UTEP, along with a bunch of more understandable losses. The overall schedule is actually pretty good (8th best SOS in the country) but the problem is not only have they not beaten anybody but there haven't even been any close calls - a six point loss to Sconnie in the Kohl Center is the closest they've come. Mainly they just get blown out - Creighton (by 22), Oregon (22), Ohio State (26), and Illinois (20) have all blown out the Huskers this year, while a nine point home loss to Purdue is the only other loss they have where they've even kept the final margin in the single digits. Yeah, Nebraska is battle tested, but they've also failed spectacularly every time.
Playerswise they just don't measure up. Andre Almeida is interesting because he's 6-11 and weighs 314 lbs. (and honestly that might be light), but he also only plays 15 minutes per game because he's too big and he might be hurt or something, I didn't look it up. Their leading scorer is Dylan Talley, a 6-6 wing who is one of your classic "do it all" types and they have additional size with Brand Ubell who runs 6-10 234 and averages 12 & 7, and they supplement with some outside bombing from Rey Gallegos, who averages 8 three point attempts per game but hits a sad 29% of them. They don't have a point guard (only Talley averages more than 2.5 assists per game) and only Talley would start on many of the other Big 10 teams. Tim Miles is an oustanding coach and he's already improved recruiting in Lincoln, but they aren't there yet.
The Gophers should roll. Nebraska can't hang with them - or shouldn't be able too. The only way the Gophers lose is if it's true that the wheels have come completely off this season. I'm not ready to believe that yet when we're talking about the second best Gopher team of my lifetime. I think they'll be some scary moments tomorrow, but eventually the Gophers reassert themselves and I can breath again.
Gophers 68, Nebraska 56
The team's lost four straight, including probably the most embarrassing loss in Tubby Smith's time here. The players are regressing with Rodney Williams turning into a jump shooter and Dre Hollins playing out of control more than usual. Tubby's assigning all the blame for the skid to his players and they're noticing. Tubby seems distant during and after games, like he's not really even coaching. The players seem a bit out of it as well, probably because of this. Now these are all observations from someone who doesn't see this team day-to-day so I could be way off, but I'm catching a whiff of some major issues. This Nebraska game can either dispel those concerns and we can worry about the Gophers getting a good seed, or it can confirm them and we can start reading Bubble Watch again this year.
Looking at Nebraska, there's no doubt whatsoever that losing to the Huskers would be an unmitigated disaster because this is a bad team. Their best win this year is probably their home win over Northwestern, and they balance that out with losses to Kent State and UTEP, along with a bunch of more understandable losses. The overall schedule is actually pretty good (8th best SOS in the country) but the problem is not only have they not beaten anybody but there haven't even been any close calls - a six point loss to Sconnie in the Kohl Center is the closest they've come. Mainly they just get blown out - Creighton (by 22), Oregon (22), Ohio State (26), and Illinois (20) have all blown out the Huskers this year, while a nine point home loss to Purdue is the only other loss they have where they've even kept the final margin in the single digits. Yeah, Nebraska is battle tested, but they've also failed spectacularly every time.
Playerswise they just don't measure up. Andre Almeida is interesting because he's 6-11 and weighs 314 lbs. (and honestly that might be light), but he also only plays 15 minutes per game because he's too big and he might be hurt or something, I didn't look it up. Their leading scorer is Dylan Talley, a 6-6 wing who is one of your classic "do it all" types and they have additional size with Brand Ubell who runs 6-10 234 and averages 12 & 7, and they supplement with some outside bombing from Rey Gallegos, who averages 8 three point attempts per game but hits a sad 29% of them. They don't have a point guard (only Talley averages more than 2.5 assists per game) and only Talley would start on many of the other Big 10 teams. Tim Miles is an oustanding coach and he's already improved recruiting in Lincoln, but they aren't there yet.
The Gophers should roll. Nebraska can't hang with them - or shouldn't be able too. The only way the Gophers lose is if it's true that the wheels have come completely off this season. I'm not ready to believe that yet when we're talking about the second best Gopher team of my lifetime. I think they'll be some scary moments tomorrow, but eventually the Gophers reassert themselves and I can breath again.
Gophers 68, Nebraska 56
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.
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Game Preview: Gophers vs. Wolverines
When I saw this part of the Gopher schedule (@Illinois, @Indiana, Michigan) I said the Gophers would need to win at least one to prove they were as good as I thought, and anything beyond that would be a bonus. Now that they got the first one out of the way early and proved themselves to be on equal footing (or at least close) to Indiana (on the road no less), I'm having trouble looking at this Michigan game as anything other than a "must win." Not a "must win" for the season of course, but I really, desperately, want the Gophers to have that game that truly announces they're a legit Final Four contender. I know the Illinois game was close, although it's lost some shine after they were stomped by terrible Wisconsin, and on the strength of the overall season and the win over Michigan State and second half against Indiana the national media refers to them as a Final Four contender all over the place, but I want more. I don't want this to be a Final Four contender upstart type team, I want them to go into the tournament with people picking them to go to the Final Four all over the place. I want an elite team. The schedule really thins out after this with four games the Gophers will almost certainly be favored in (@Northwestern, @Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Iowa - although @Wisconsin is never easy), and that is why I really, really want them to win this Michigan game. Their next chance for a real big win isn't until they go to East Lansing on February 6th.
That being said of course, this is going to be an extremely difficult game for the Gophers. If college basketball is won and lost with the back court, Michigan is in great shape because they may have the best back court in the country with Trey Burke, Tim Hardaway, and Nik Stauskas.
Burke is a national player of the year candidate and the best point guard in the country. He's the rare point guard who excels as a distributor (7.1 assists per game, tops in the Big 10) but who also scores in bunches (18 per, 3rd). He can do this because he's almost unguardable. He shoots a very high percentage as a guard (52%) because he's able to get easy transition buckets and assists since Michigan simply just does not allow offensive rebounds to their opponents (#2 in the country). In the half court he can hit the open shot and is also quick enough to beat most other guards and get into the lane, either getting or finding teammates for easy shots. He's similar to Andre Hollins in that they both really like the step back jumper after getting the defender off balance, and it will be imperative that the Gophers force Burke to settle for long jumpers rather than let him get into the lane the way Ferrell and Oladipo did on Saturday. I'll say again, keeping Burke out of the lane is the #1 key on Thursday. Easier said than done, but if the Gopher defense is as good I think it is they should be up for the task.
When Burke drives the other two set up on the wing. Hardaway has really tightened up his shot selection this year and it's helped him reach career highs in scoring (16.1) and shooting percentage (both 2s and 3s). The percentage of his attempts that come from three has dropped each year as he's learned not to settle for the contested 3-pointer (which was something you could always count on), and he's about as athletic as it comes when he's running the floor (not Rodney Williams athletic, but human athletic). Another reason Hardaway may be more judicious with his three-point attempts is he's not needed there as much anymore, because Stauskas has come in as the least heralded of the three Michigan freshman and ended up leading them in scoring (12.7) by being the dead-eye shooter Beilein loves. Stauskas is hitting 51% of his three-point attempts while leading the conference in makes . With so many weapons for Michigan (Burke, Hardaway, and Glenn Robinson) it's easy for teams to lose track of Stauskas when he spots up, particularly in transition, and he makes them pay. He's hit a three in every game this year other than their loss to Ohio State on Sunday, and the last time he hit fewer than two in a game was November. Finding Stauskas and limited to two or fewer made three pointers is probably key #2 for this game.
If Minnesota has a clear advantage it's in the paint, where Trevor Mbakwe and Rodney Williams will match up with Glenn Robinson and Jordan Morgan (and Mitch McGary). Robinson is 6-6 and 210 and is probably better suited to be on the wing, but he's more comfortable in close (he's not that different than Rodney was last year). He's another major reason why Michigan ranks #1 in offensive efficiency this year (he shoots 59%), and he's one of only two "good" offensive rebounders on the Wolverines, so keeping him off the glass will be imperative. Morgan is the other good offensive rebounder Michigan has (he's about on par with Williams), and although he does little else than set picks and grab boards he has the size and strength to battle Mbakwe, although looking at their match-ups from two seasons ago Mbakwe averaged 15 and 9 while Morgan failed to grab a rebound in the game at Williams so maybe that's not as much of a concern.
As far as Michigan's bench goes the main impact guy is McGary, the 6-10, 250 lbs. freshman who was a top 5 recruit this year by pretty much everybody. He gets a good amount of minutes spelling Morgan and is not only big but an excellent athlete as well. He's still kind of figuring it out (averages only 5 ppg) but is immensely talented and is absolutely going to have a breakout game one of these days here, let's just hope it isn't this game. He's an absolute monster on the glass where his offensive and defensive rebounding percentages when he's in the game are actually are better than Mbakwe's and he averages six rebounds per game despite playing an average of just 15 minutes. He's a fouling machine (averages 6 fouls per 40 minutes) so keeping him off the floor in foul trouble is possible and preferable.
Not much here for the rest of the bench - similar to the Gophers they're very reliant on the starters and have a handful of players who can spot fill minutes (only 9 guys played against Ohio State). Spike Albrecht is the back-up point guard and Caris Levert the wing guy - both can hit threes at a pretty good clip (38% and 42%). Jon Horford is the fourth big guy off the bench, but at this point is still known more for defense than offense, and everyone else is a deep bench guy where if we see much of them on Thursday either the Gophers have done something right or something very, very wrong.
I admit, I thought the Gophers had a better chance of winning in Bloomington than they did beating Michigan, even at home. This Wolverine team legitimately might be the best in the entire country, and Burke is just ridiculous guiding that offense. They never, ever turn it over (2nd best in the country), shoot 58% from two (5th) and 39% from three (19th) with four of their top six guys shooting 52% from the floor or better and of the six guys who have taken the most three pointers five of them hit at least 37% including the #2 guy in the Big Ten. In order to win this game the Gophers are going to have to score, which is possible because Michigan isn't nearly as elite defensively as offensively (although they're still very good), but could be difficult because, as I said, Michigan simply does not allow offensive rebounds to their opponents and that's been a huge weapon for the Gophers. The good news is that Michigan has been sub-par creating turnovers this year as well as defending the two-point shot, so Minnesota should have opportunities to score plenty, and perhaps will actually take care of the ball going against an opponent who is not particularly adept at taking it.
One other interesting stat of note is that the Gophers play at a significantly faster tempo than Michigan, and they should try to push it as often as possible on Thursday. Although Michigan puts up a ton of points they do so mostly through their efficient half court offense rather than by pushing tempo and getting quick shots. It seems counter intuitive with a point guard like Burke, shooters like Stauskas and athletes like Hardaway and Robinson, but Michigan prefers not to run. So in the half court we're going to see the most efficient offense in the country against the 19th best defense. Man this game is huge.
Because Michigan's complimentary players can score so efficiently, the big key here will be for the Hollins brothers to handle Burke in one-on-one situations so the help defense doesn't get sucked in, leading to open shots. If they can limit him to a lot of long, step-back type jumpers that are contested it will go a long way to giving the Gophers the opportunity to win this game. This is Andre Hollins' chance to announce himself to the world. He's been noticed, but it's time to become a household name. Even as I started typing this I was planning on picking Michigan to win, but the more I type and the more I think the more I remember how the Gophers stormed back against Indiana in that second half. That, more than anything, showed me what kind of team this is. Then there's the Michigan State game. And the Northwestern game. And the Illinois game. This is a different team than we're used to, I'm convinced of it. Home game, versus a top team? I changed my mind. They're gonna do it.
Minnesota 77, Michigan 72.
Of course, if they get off to another horrific start all bets are off.
That being said of course, this is going to be an extremely difficult game for the Gophers. If college basketball is won and lost with the back court, Michigan is in great shape because they may have the best back court in the country with Trey Burke, Tim Hardaway, and Nik Stauskas.
Burke is a national player of the year candidate and the best point guard in the country. He's the rare point guard who excels as a distributor (7.1 assists per game, tops in the Big 10) but who also scores in bunches (18 per, 3rd). He can do this because he's almost unguardable. He shoots a very high percentage as a guard (52%) because he's able to get easy transition buckets and assists since Michigan simply just does not allow offensive rebounds to their opponents (#2 in the country). In the half court he can hit the open shot and is also quick enough to beat most other guards and get into the lane, either getting or finding teammates for easy shots. He's similar to Andre Hollins in that they both really like the step back jumper after getting the defender off balance, and it will be imperative that the Gophers force Burke to settle for long jumpers rather than let him get into the lane the way Ferrell and Oladipo did on Saturday. I'll say again, keeping Burke out of the lane is the #1 key on Thursday. Easier said than done, but if the Gopher defense is as good I think it is they should be up for the task.
When Burke drives the other two set up on the wing. Hardaway has really tightened up his shot selection this year and it's helped him reach career highs in scoring (16.1) and shooting percentage (both 2s and 3s). The percentage of his attempts that come from three has dropped each year as he's learned not to settle for the contested 3-pointer (which was something you could always count on), and he's about as athletic as it comes when he's running the floor (not Rodney Williams athletic, but human athletic). Another reason Hardaway may be more judicious with his three-point attempts is he's not needed there as much anymore, because Stauskas has come in as the least heralded of the three Michigan freshman and ended up leading them in scoring (12.7) by being the dead-eye shooter Beilein loves. Stauskas is hitting 51% of his three-point attempts while leading the conference in makes . With so many weapons for Michigan (Burke, Hardaway, and Glenn Robinson) it's easy for teams to lose track of Stauskas when he spots up, particularly in transition, and he makes them pay. He's hit a three in every game this year other than their loss to Ohio State on Sunday, and the last time he hit fewer than two in a game was November. Finding Stauskas and limited to two or fewer made three pointers is probably key #2 for this game.
If Minnesota has a clear advantage it's in the paint, where Trevor Mbakwe and Rodney Williams will match up with Glenn Robinson and Jordan Morgan (and Mitch McGary). Robinson is 6-6 and 210 and is probably better suited to be on the wing, but he's more comfortable in close (he's not that different than Rodney was last year). He's another major reason why Michigan ranks #1 in offensive efficiency this year (he shoots 59%), and he's one of only two "good" offensive rebounders on the Wolverines, so keeping him off the glass will be imperative. Morgan is the other good offensive rebounder Michigan has (he's about on par with Williams), and although he does little else than set picks and grab boards he has the size and strength to battle Mbakwe, although looking at their match-ups from two seasons ago Mbakwe averaged 15 and 9 while Morgan failed to grab a rebound in the game at Williams so maybe that's not as much of a concern.
As far as Michigan's bench goes the main impact guy is McGary, the 6-10, 250 lbs. freshman who was a top 5 recruit this year by pretty much everybody. He gets a good amount of minutes spelling Morgan and is not only big but an excellent athlete as well. He's still kind of figuring it out (averages only 5 ppg) but is immensely talented and is absolutely going to have a breakout game one of these days here, let's just hope it isn't this game. He's an absolute monster on the glass where his offensive and defensive rebounding percentages when he's in the game are actually are better than Mbakwe's and he averages six rebounds per game despite playing an average of just 15 minutes. He's a fouling machine (averages 6 fouls per 40 minutes) so keeping him off the floor in foul trouble is possible and preferable.
Not much here for the rest of the bench - similar to the Gophers they're very reliant on the starters and have a handful of players who can spot fill minutes (only 9 guys played against Ohio State). Spike Albrecht is the back-up point guard and Caris Levert the wing guy - both can hit threes at a pretty good clip (38% and 42%). Jon Horford is the fourth big guy off the bench, but at this point is still known more for defense than offense, and everyone else is a deep bench guy where if we see much of them on Thursday either the Gophers have done something right or something very, very wrong.
I admit, I thought the Gophers had a better chance of winning in Bloomington than they did beating Michigan, even at home. This Wolverine team legitimately might be the best in the entire country, and Burke is just ridiculous guiding that offense. They never, ever turn it over (2nd best in the country), shoot 58% from two (5th) and 39% from three (19th) with four of their top six guys shooting 52% from the floor or better and of the six guys who have taken the most three pointers five of them hit at least 37% including the #2 guy in the Big Ten. In order to win this game the Gophers are going to have to score, which is possible because Michigan isn't nearly as elite defensively as offensively (although they're still very good), but could be difficult because, as I said, Michigan simply does not allow offensive rebounds to their opponents and that's been a huge weapon for the Gophers. The good news is that Michigan has been sub-par creating turnovers this year as well as defending the two-point shot, so Minnesota should have opportunities to score plenty, and perhaps will actually take care of the ball going against an opponent who is not particularly adept at taking it.
One other interesting stat of note is that the Gophers play at a significantly faster tempo than Michigan, and they should try to push it as often as possible on Thursday. Although Michigan puts up a ton of points they do so mostly through their efficient half court offense rather than by pushing tempo and getting quick shots. It seems counter intuitive with a point guard like Burke, shooters like Stauskas and athletes like Hardaway and Robinson, but Michigan prefers not to run. So in the half court we're going to see the most efficient offense in the country against the 19th best defense. Man this game is huge.
Because Michigan's complimentary players can score so efficiently, the big key here will be for the Hollins brothers to handle Burke in one-on-one situations so the help defense doesn't get sucked in, leading to open shots. If they can limit him to a lot of long, step-back type jumpers that are contested it will go a long way to giving the Gophers the opportunity to win this game. This is Andre Hollins' chance to announce himself to the world. He's been noticed, but it's time to become a household name. Even as I started typing this I was planning on picking Michigan to win, but the more I type and the more I think the more I remember how the Gophers stormed back against Indiana in that second half. That, more than anything, showed me what kind of team this is. Then there's the Michigan State game. And the Northwestern game. And the Illinois game. This is a different team than we're used to, I'm convinced of it. Home game, versus a top team? I changed my mind. They're gonna do it.
Minnesota 77, Michigan 72.
Of course, if they get off to another horrific start all bets are off.
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Thursday, January 10, 2013
Game Preview: Gophers vs. Indiana Hoosiers
You mean I have to write this preview already? It feels like the Illinois game just ended. And man, what a game. The Gophers defense is absolutely ridiculous. I've never seen a team handle their rotations so well, and even Joe Coleman is looking semi-competent on that end. That defense creates so many opportunities to run, whether through turnovers or missed shots, and with the athletes they have it plays right into their strengths. Even in the half-court they're playing incredibly efficient and finding open opportunities, and with five guys who can score 20+ in any given night opposing defenses can't key on any one player or in any one area. The bench is a bit of a concern, but like Snacks pointed out to me it's really not THAT bad, it's just that the starters are so good that when the reserves are in it makes them look worse. The Gophers have gotten really strong stretches from Welch, Ahanmisi, Ingram, Oto, and Elliason this year, and when Tubby goes with that lineup they've been able to keep the margin close to what it was when they came in, giving Tubby the chance to rest the good players so they can play all or nearly all of the second half. This is awesome.
But, as the way this season goes, as long as I'd like to dwell in the happiness of this win over Illinois we move on and now face a top 5 ranked team in the country and the preseason favorite (according to Vegas) to win the whole thing in the Indiana Hoosiers.
The Hoosiers come in at 14-1, with the lone loss coming in overtime against Butler in Indianapolis in a game that went to overtime. The most interesting thing to me about those 14 wins is that they may not have a single win over an NCAA Tournament team yet. NDSU is one of the favorites to win the Summit, but not the clear favorite. Georgetown is a bubble team at best who's 0-2 in the Big East, North Carolina is heading straight for the NIT, and Iowa is going to have to pull off some major upsets (pleasegodno) to make it. Everyone else has been a creampuff.
I bring that up not to say Indiana is overrated - far from it. They've played incredibly well this year, ranking 6th in overall offense and 7th in overall defense at kenpom.com, one of only three teams (along with Duke and Florida) to rank in the top 10 in both. While the Gophers also fair extremely well in those ratings (10th & 14th) they have a couple of glaring weaknesses (turnovers and allowing offensive rebounds) while in comparison Indiana is above average in literally every single metric measured. They're an extremely good shooting team who can also put the clamps down defensively, they rebound well on both ends of the court, and they get to the line often while not putting their opponents there. They don't depend on the three-pointer but hit it with regularly when they're left open, move the ball well, and like the Gophers, have five guys who can go for 20+ on any given night and can hurt defenses in a variety of different ways. In short, this isn't Illinois or even Michigan State, this is a legit national title favorite (top 3-4 for me). It isn't going to be easy.
I don't even know where to start when it comes to individual players because there's so much, so let's just get to it.
Cody Zeller could win National Player of the Year and he'd deserve it. He's got great moves around the rim and can score with either hand going either direction and has a decent jumper out to about 15. He blocks a decent amount of shots due to his height but isn't an exceptional athlete although he's no slouch there either and can run the floor very well. He's added some strength this year but if he has a weakness it's his physicality. The best thing that could happen for the Gophers would be to have Mbakwe go right after him and knock him around on both ends of the floor, hoping they refs let a lot go, beat him up, and take him off his game. Will that work? I don't know, but it's what I'd try.
Next to Zeller is Christian Watford, who creates an interesting match-up with Rodney Williams because they're both kind of tweeners, but with different skill sets. While Williams puts up his numbers with his incredible athleticism, Watford is the exact opposite in that he gets his numbers (and the two have very similar numbers) despite being known as somewhat unathletic due to fundamentals and positioning and other nerdy things like that. The other big difference is while Rodney is a questionable (at best) jump shooter, Watford is a dead-eye from 3. The other knock on Watford is that he can lose focus and kind of tune out the game, and the Gophers best chance is for Rodney to frustrate him on the offensive end and hope he tunes out a bit and doesn't crash the offensive boards the way he usually can.
The third guy I want to point out is swingman Victor Oladipo, who might be the second best athlete in the conference (behind Rodney). Also like Rodney, when he came into college ball he was basically an athlete who played basketball, but has since morphed into a more complete player, and Oladipo is a rich man's Williams because he is a more efficient version than Williams with a good jump shot. I mean, dude, the guy is shooting 67% from the floor and 48% from three while averaging similar point and rebound per game numbers to Williams. The Gopher defense is going to have to be just as tight against Indiana as it was against Illinois because if Oladipo gets the ball with just a speck of daylight to the rim he's going to explode after it. Hopefully somebody can draw a charge or two.
Those are your three main cogs, but there's plenty of other talent here as well. Jordan Hulls and Yogi Ferrell form kind of a tandem point guard duo - Hulls the steady veteran who takes care of the ball and is a great (and very smart) shooter (hits 52% from the field and three despite being a perimeter guy), and Ferrell the exciting (5.1 assists per game) freshman who is a little wild and can't hit the broad side of a barn when he shoots (32% from the floor, 24% from three). The compliment each other extremely well and both are excellent defenders, if a bit undersized. It may work to have the Gopher guards (Coleman, both Hollinses) post them up. I'm not sure what kind of post game the Gopher guards have, but given their size/strength advantage I'd love to see them try.
Lastly, the Hoosiers have a pretty talented and deep bench led by Will Sheehey who is their fourth leading scorer and a damn good athlete in his own right and also is kind of a dick. Remy Abell, Jeremy Hollowell, Derek Elston, and the recently reinstated Hanner Mosquera-Perea and Austin Etherington were all highly regarded recruits and round out the Hoosier bench with a cast that's probably better than Iowa.
Breaking it down, I really don't see any clear advantages for the Gophers. Their best bet is to play their game - tough defense, taking advantage of transition opportunities, and crashing the offensive glass - and hope a few things go their way. Hope the Gophers' physical play can intimidate and render Zeller and Watford ineffective. Hope they can play well enough to shut down Oladipo, and that they can push Indiana out of the lane and get them to settle for the same bad shots Illinois was taking (and hope Hulls doesn't hit them anyway). Hope the Gophers can stay out of foul trouble, because even though their bench is good, Indiana's is great. If anything is a weakness for the Hoosiers it's that they haven't faced a team as good as the Gophers yet, where the Gophers have already played Duke. For Indiana, Georgetown is probably as physical but isn't as skilled, while Butler is as skilled as the Gophers but isn't nearly as physical. North Carolina and Iowa both try to score in transition the way the Gophers do, but neither are on Minnesota's level.
In reality, Indiana is a X.X point favorite for a reason, and while the Gophers can probably make a real game of it at home trying to overcome Indiana's advantage at Assembly Hall (and Big Ten ref's propensity for playing to the crowd) is likely too big a task. A close game ending with a 5-8 point Indiana win is the likely outcome.
And yet.
I remember a game back in 1997. A game where a ranked Gopher team went into Assembly Hall to face a higher ranked Indiana team. Things looked bleak. The Hoosiers looked to control the game as time wound down, and it looked like another good Gopher team would just be good. Then there was a three-pointer. A steal. And then Bobby Jackson hit a three from the corner and we were headed to overtime, where the Gophers ground out a 5-point victory. And they were off. Next stop, Final Four and the best Gopher team of my lifetime. Well, maybe until now.
Minnesota 80, Indiana 76 (in OT).
But, as the way this season goes, as long as I'd like to dwell in the happiness of this win over Illinois we move on and now face a top 5 ranked team in the country and the preseason favorite (according to Vegas) to win the whole thing in the Indiana Hoosiers.
The Hoosiers come in at 14-1, with the lone loss coming in overtime against Butler in Indianapolis in a game that went to overtime. The most interesting thing to me about those 14 wins is that they may not have a single win over an NCAA Tournament team yet. NDSU is one of the favorites to win the Summit, but not the clear favorite. Georgetown is a bubble team at best who's 0-2 in the Big East, North Carolina is heading straight for the NIT, and Iowa is going to have to pull off some major upsets (pleasegodno) to make it. Everyone else has been a creampuff.
I bring that up not to say Indiana is overrated - far from it. They've played incredibly well this year, ranking 6th in overall offense and 7th in overall defense at kenpom.com, one of only three teams (along with Duke and Florida) to rank in the top 10 in both. While the Gophers also fair extremely well in those ratings (10th & 14th) they have a couple of glaring weaknesses (turnovers and allowing offensive rebounds) while in comparison Indiana is above average in literally every single metric measured. They're an extremely good shooting team who can also put the clamps down defensively, they rebound well on both ends of the court, and they get to the line often while not putting their opponents there. They don't depend on the three-pointer but hit it with regularly when they're left open, move the ball well, and like the Gophers, have five guys who can go for 20+ on any given night and can hurt defenses in a variety of different ways. In short, this isn't Illinois or even Michigan State, this is a legit national title favorite (top 3-4 for me). It isn't going to be easy.
I don't even know where to start when it comes to individual players because there's so much, so let's just get to it.
Cody Zeller could win National Player of the Year and he'd deserve it. He's got great moves around the rim and can score with either hand going either direction and has a decent jumper out to about 15. He blocks a decent amount of shots due to his height but isn't an exceptional athlete although he's no slouch there either and can run the floor very well. He's added some strength this year but if he has a weakness it's his physicality. The best thing that could happen for the Gophers would be to have Mbakwe go right after him and knock him around on both ends of the floor, hoping they refs let a lot go, beat him up, and take him off his game. Will that work? I don't know, but it's what I'd try.
Next to Zeller is Christian Watford, who creates an interesting match-up with Rodney Williams because they're both kind of tweeners, but with different skill sets. While Williams puts up his numbers with his incredible athleticism, Watford is the exact opposite in that he gets his numbers (and the two have very similar numbers) despite being known as somewhat unathletic due to fundamentals and positioning and other nerdy things like that. The other big difference is while Rodney is a questionable (at best) jump shooter, Watford is a dead-eye from 3. The other knock on Watford is that he can lose focus and kind of tune out the game, and the Gophers best chance is for Rodney to frustrate him on the offensive end and hope he tunes out a bit and doesn't crash the offensive boards the way he usually can.
The third guy I want to point out is swingman Victor Oladipo, who might be the second best athlete in the conference (behind Rodney). Also like Rodney, when he came into college ball he was basically an athlete who played basketball, but has since morphed into a more complete player, and Oladipo is a rich man's Williams because he is a more efficient version than Williams with a good jump shot. I mean, dude, the guy is shooting 67% from the floor and 48% from three while averaging similar point and rebound per game numbers to Williams. The Gopher defense is going to have to be just as tight against Indiana as it was against Illinois because if Oladipo gets the ball with just a speck of daylight to the rim he's going to explode after it. Hopefully somebody can draw a charge or two.
Those are your three main cogs, but there's plenty of other talent here as well. Jordan Hulls and Yogi Ferrell form kind of a tandem point guard duo - Hulls the steady veteran who takes care of the ball and is a great (and very smart) shooter (hits 52% from the field and three despite being a perimeter guy), and Ferrell the exciting (5.1 assists per game) freshman who is a little wild and can't hit the broad side of a barn when he shoots (32% from the floor, 24% from three). The compliment each other extremely well and both are excellent defenders, if a bit undersized. It may work to have the Gopher guards (Coleman, both Hollinses) post them up. I'm not sure what kind of post game the Gopher guards have, but given their size/strength advantage I'd love to see them try.
Lastly, the Hoosiers have a pretty talented and deep bench led by Will Sheehey who is their fourth leading scorer and a damn good athlete in his own right and also is kind of a dick. Remy Abell, Jeremy Hollowell, Derek Elston, and the recently reinstated Hanner Mosquera-Perea and Austin Etherington were all highly regarded recruits and round out the Hoosier bench with a cast that's probably better than Iowa.
Breaking it down, I really don't see any clear advantages for the Gophers. Their best bet is to play their game - tough defense, taking advantage of transition opportunities, and crashing the offensive glass - and hope a few things go their way. Hope the Gophers' physical play can intimidate and render Zeller and Watford ineffective. Hope they can play well enough to shut down Oladipo, and that they can push Indiana out of the lane and get them to settle for the same bad shots Illinois was taking (and hope Hulls doesn't hit them anyway). Hope the Gophers can stay out of foul trouble, because even though their bench is good, Indiana's is great. If anything is a weakness for the Hoosiers it's that they haven't faced a team as good as the Gophers yet, where the Gophers have already played Duke. For Indiana, Georgetown is probably as physical but isn't as skilled, while Butler is as skilled as the Gophers but isn't nearly as physical. North Carolina and Iowa both try to score in transition the way the Gophers do, but neither are on Minnesota's level.
In reality, Indiana is a X.X point favorite for a reason, and while the Gophers can probably make a real game of it at home trying to overcome Indiana's advantage at Assembly Hall (and Big Ten ref's propensity for playing to the crowd) is likely too big a task. A close game ending with a 5-8 point Indiana win is the likely outcome.
And yet.
I remember a game back in 1997. A game where a ranked Gopher team went into Assembly Hall to face a higher ranked Indiana team. Things looked bleak. The Hoosiers looked to control the game as time wound down, and it looked like another good Gopher team would just be good. Then there was a three-pointer. A steal. And then Bobby Jackson hit a three from the corner and we were headed to overtime, where the Gophers ground out a 5-point victory. And they were off. Next stop, Final Four and the best Gopher team of my lifetime. Well, maybe until now.
Minnesota 80, Indiana 76 (in OT).
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Game Preview: Gophers vs. Illinois Fighting Illini
Illinois is an awfully tough team to figure out. On one hand, they're ranked just 34th at kenpom.com using his advanced stats, so you'd tend to think the 14-2 start was a bit fluky and dismiss them as pretenders. On the other hand, however, they just spanked Ohio State by almost 20 (an overrated Ohio State, but still) and already own a road win at Gonzaga by double digits and a neutral site win over Butler by nearly 20. Those are not three wins a fluky team should have. Their losses (to Missouri on a neutral court and @ Purdue) are both acceptable as well. No clue what to make of these guys.
One thing is for certain, they're already better off than the last several seasons since they finally jettisoned world's worst coach Bruce Weber and, with Tracey Abrams emergence, they actually have a viable point guard for the first time since the good ole days of Chester Frazier. Perhaps the best thing about Abrams is that he's allowed Brandon Paul to spend more time off the ball where he's more of a natural, and it's showed as Paul has blossomed into maybe the second best scorer in the league behind DeShaun Thomas. Paul has always had a tendency to fall a bit too in love with the 3 (which seems to be Illinois' mantra this year - more on that in a minute) but can score from anywhere and excels getting to the rim. His numbers are up across the board this year and is the best perimeter players the Gophers have faced this season. If Austin Hollins is going to be the defensive stopper we think he is (and I think he is) this is his big test to prove it.
Paul is certainly a concern for the Gophers, but the entire Illinois team is dangerous because they've simply fallen completely in love with the three-pointer. They shoot an absolute ton of them (43% of their FG attempts come behind the line - 15th in the country) and make a whole bunch (hitting 36% on the year). For most of the year I figured this was totally a fluke since they were a terrible shooting team last year (just 30% from three, one of the worst marks in the nation) and it's pretty close to the same team. It's been going on a bit too long to be a total fluke, however, so perhaps there's an alternative explanation. Much as how a great coach can make his players better, perhaps a horrendous coach can suppress such simple skills as jump shooting. Much like the West Canaan Coyotes truly blossomed as a team after Coach Bud Kilmer was forced out, perhaps too these Illini merely needed to cast out Bruce Weber to suddenly all become marksmen from deep.
I don't really know the reason, but suddenly all five major contributors have turned into Ray Allen. Paul has increased a bit but you could attribute that to playing more off the ball and the "senior step up", and D.J. Richardson is actually a little bit worse, but Abrams (from 26% to 32%), Tyler Griffey (from 29% to 41%) and Joseph Bertrand (from 30% to 44%) all made the Moxon leap. Can they keep this up? Really, it depends on if you believe in the Varsity Blues theory, and that's also what's going to swing this game. The Gophers defend the three pretty well, and the other team they played that shot a lot of them at a high percentage (Richmond) they held to 4-20 shooting.
And yet Richmond is not West Canaan (more like Bainville, am I right?), and Illinois is clearly better and almost everything than Richmond. The Gophers are much better than Illinois in pretty much every way, and the Gophers are going to absolutely destroy them on the boards. There's no reason for the Gophers to lose this game, except that Illinois' big strength is what they like to call "the great equalizer" (no, not Lincoln). Illinois is going to shoot a lot of threes, and probably hit a lot of threes. Can the Gophers limit that? Can the Gophers grab 75% of their misses (they get 49.7% on the season, Illinois allows 34% - that's really bad) and just keep scoring every trip down the court? Who wins the turnover battle?
It all comes down to what you believe. There's the theory that the Gophers are a Final Four team. Then there's the theory (not directly competing but you know) that Illinois is the Varsity Blues team, and they won the title. IT ALL COMES DOWN TO WHAT YOU BELIEVE.
Minnesota 73, Illinois 68.
Yep.
One thing is for certain, they're already better off than the last several seasons since they finally jettisoned world's worst coach Bruce Weber and, with Tracey Abrams emergence, they actually have a viable point guard for the first time since the good ole days of Chester Frazier. Perhaps the best thing about Abrams is that he's allowed Brandon Paul to spend more time off the ball where he's more of a natural, and it's showed as Paul has blossomed into maybe the second best scorer in the league behind DeShaun Thomas. Paul has always had a tendency to fall a bit too in love with the 3 (which seems to be Illinois' mantra this year - more on that in a minute) but can score from anywhere and excels getting to the rim. His numbers are up across the board this year and is the best perimeter players the Gophers have faced this season. If Austin Hollins is going to be the defensive stopper we think he is (and I think he is) this is his big test to prove it.
Paul is certainly a concern for the Gophers, but the entire Illinois team is dangerous because they've simply fallen completely in love with the three-pointer. They shoot an absolute ton of them (43% of their FG attempts come behind the line - 15th in the country) and make a whole bunch (hitting 36% on the year). For most of the year I figured this was totally a fluke since they were a terrible shooting team last year (just 30% from three, one of the worst marks in the nation) and it's pretty close to the same team. It's been going on a bit too long to be a total fluke, however, so perhaps there's an alternative explanation. Much as how a great coach can make his players better, perhaps a horrendous coach can suppress such simple skills as jump shooting. Much like the West Canaan Coyotes truly blossomed as a team after Coach Bud Kilmer was forced out, perhaps too these Illini merely needed to cast out Bruce Weber to suddenly all become marksmen from deep.
I don't really know the reason, but suddenly all five major contributors have turned into Ray Allen. Paul has increased a bit but you could attribute that to playing more off the ball and the "senior step up", and D.J. Richardson is actually a little bit worse, but Abrams (from 26% to 32%), Tyler Griffey (from 29% to 41%) and Joseph Bertrand (from 30% to 44%) all made the Moxon leap. Can they keep this up? Really, it depends on if you believe in the Varsity Blues theory, and that's also what's going to swing this game. The Gophers defend the three pretty well, and the other team they played that shot a lot of them at a high percentage (Richmond) they held to 4-20 shooting.
And yet Richmond is not West Canaan (more like Bainville, am I right?), and Illinois is clearly better and almost everything than Richmond. The Gophers are much better than Illinois in pretty much every way, and the Gophers are going to absolutely destroy them on the boards. There's no reason for the Gophers to lose this game, except that Illinois' big strength is what they like to call "the great equalizer" (no, not Lincoln). Illinois is going to shoot a lot of threes, and probably hit a lot of threes. Can the Gophers limit that? Can the Gophers grab 75% of their misses (they get 49.7% on the season, Illinois allows 34% - that's really bad) and just keep scoring every trip down the court? Who wins the turnover battle?
It all comes down to what you believe. There's the theory that the Gophers are a Final Four team. Then there's the theory (not directly competing but you know) that Illinois is the Varsity Blues team, and they won the title. IT ALL COMES DOWN TO WHAT YOU BELIEVE.
Minnesota 73, Illinois 68.
Yep.
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Game Preview: Gophers vs. Michigan State
Well, this is it. Michigan State at home is the absolute perfect test to let us know just how good this Gopher team is this year. A good, but not great, team at home. The kind of game that a Sweet 16 (or better) contender should be able to handle without much of an issue. Not that the game shouldn't be close or anything like that, just that you should always have the impression that the Gophers are the ones controlling the game and they should come out on top, and not in last second fashion. Am I crazy? Well, kenpom has the Gophers as a 6-point winner. That's about what I'd hope for/expect. But it's not going to be easy.
Mainly because these teams are almost completely mirror images of each other. Both are very good defensive teams (Minnesota 17th, Michigan State 12th in D Efficiency), with their main strength keeping teams from getting easy buckets and forcing long jump shots which translates to very good metrics against 2-point shots (Minn's opponents shoot 41% from 2, 23rd best in the country, MSU's shoot 38%, 7th best in the country). Both teams also block a lot of shots (MN ranks 7th, MSU 44th) and get a lot of steals (MN 6th, MSU 30th) and are good but not great defending the 3 (MN 77th, MSU 87th). Offensively both teams get the vast majority of their points from 2-pointers and shoot well from inside the line (MN 56th, MSU 23rd) but struggle from deep (MN 207th, MSU 223rd), crash the offensive glass big time (MN 1st, MSU 43rd) and turn the ball over way too much (MN 204th, MSU 275th). These are two incredibly similar teams. There are, however, a couple of key differences.
First, although the Gophers pound the glass on the offensive end they are weak on the defensive end, while Michigan State is outstanding on both ends of the court. The Gophers allow their opponents to grab offensive rebounds on 35.5% of their misses, a number so poor it ranks 272nd in the country. Meanwhile Sparty, led by Branden Dawson, Adreian Payne, and Derrick Nix, is one of the better teams in the nation at grabbing their misses. This is where the Gophers are most vulnerable. The last time Michigan State played a team with a similar talent level who also sucked on the defensive glass they grabbed 17 offensive rebounds against UCONN. If the Gophers allow double digit offensive rebounds to the Spartans it's going to make it tough to win - tough but not impossible, because while Sparty has one clear advantage the Gophers have two.
First - free throws. While neither team commits an atrocious amount of fouls, the Gophers excel at getting to the line while the Spartans don't. The Gophers struggle at times to make their foul shots, but they should have plenty of opportunities given their skills and Big 10 refs notorious for home cooking. They should end up getting to the line for probably double the attempts Michigan State gets - if they can make them it's going to be a significant advantage.
Second - turnovers. Both teams suck at taking care of the basketball (likely related to both teams using a scorer as their primary ball-handler and lack of a quality back-up) but while Michigan State doesn't create turnovers (143rd in the NCAA), the Gophers certainly do (29th). The Gophers cause a turnover on nearly 25% of their opponents possessions, and with nearly everybody on the Spartans outside of Gary Harris quite turnover prone the Gophers will have a heavy advantage in the extremely important turnover battle. For example, Joe Coleman is the worst Gopher on a TO per possession basis, turning the ball over 26% of the time - Michigan State has four guys worse than that. This is where the Gophers can do a lot of damage and really control the game.
PLAYERS:
PG - Keith Appling. Despite being a pretty horrendous outside shooter Appling has really stepped up and given Michigan State the scoring they needed with Draymond Green and Brandon Wood gone. He does it by being lightning quick and getting into the lane. Despite that skill set he's not much of a play maker, averaging just north of 4 assists per game but mostly by default. He's going to be quite a test for Dre Hollins to handle, and will be a good litmus test to see just how good Hollins has become.
SG - Gary Harris. Although he's second on the team in scoring (12.4 per to Appling's 14.9), Harris is the guy who really scares me. Ultra athletic but in control at all times (as evidenced by his team best turnover rate, awfully impressive for a freshman), Harris can beat you from the perimeter, in the mid-range, or getting to the rim, although his 0.9 assists per game this year tell you once he puts the ball on the floor he's likely getting his shot. As good as Austin Hollins has become as a defender it's impossible to keep a guy like Harris from getting his shots off. All you can do is force him to take bad shots, so if Harris is settling for deep jumpers early you might as well pencil this in as a Gopher W.
SF - Denzel Valentine. Another freshman like Harris, but without nearly as much polish, Valentine has been a turnover machine this year. He doesn't do anything particularly well, but he's not awful at most things either (other than you know, the turnover thing). He actually had a game where he registered 10 pts, 10 rebs, and 6 assists against a not-horrible Oakland team, but as of now he's mostly just biding his time until Harris bolts to the NBA after this year.
PF - Branden Dawson. Like Mbakwe for the Gophers, Dawson is returning just a year after destroying his knee, which Dawson did in March. Also like Mbakwe, at this point in the return you can't really tell he's recently had a major knee surgery, at least not by looking at the numbers. That being said, the plan was always for this to be Dawson's team this season after Green left. He had the pedigree, the ability, and the talent and that hasn't happened this season (averaging 9.8 pts and 6.2 rebs) so maybe it is still the knee thing. I really wish I'd paid closer attention to him the couple of times I've watched Michigan State this year.
C - Derrick Nix. If you remember Nix you remember him as a big giant fat person. He's not exactly svelte now at 6-9, 270 lbs. but compared to where he used to be it's a big improvement and his game shows the changes. He's still not a scoring machine, but he's upped his rebounding average from 3.8 per game last season to 7.8 this year and can show a scoring burst when necessary (put up 25 against Texas). He's a huge load and an excellent rebounder, and if you still have any questions about Mbakwe's knee and how "back" he is, watch him go against Nix. A healthy Mbakwe will own him.
BENCH - Two players worth mentioning: PG Travis Trice and C Adreian Payne. Trice actually gives the Spartans a quality back-up pass first point guard, but he's only played in 8 games this year since he suffered a concussion in their opener vs. UCONN. He seems to be back at this point, playing 25 minutes in Sparty's last game vs. Texas, so we can expect to see a lot of him. He's an absolutely terrible defender, and if he ends up in the game guarding Dre Hollins at any point Dre should be fined and suspended if he doesn't immediately drive to the rack. Payne is a defensive and rebounding stud who's offensive game still hasn't come together in Year 3. He shoots an incredibly high percentage because he pretty much does nothing but attempt lay-ups and dunks, but he's a great defender.
Overall, this should be a pretty good game. These teams are so similar it's going to come down to who can exploit their advantages. The Gophers are at home, I believe they're the better team, and the Fargo-Moorehead Acro Team is in town....what could possibly go wrong?
Gophers 65, Michigan State 62.
Mainly because these teams are almost completely mirror images of each other. Both are very good defensive teams (Minnesota 17th, Michigan State 12th in D Efficiency), with their main strength keeping teams from getting easy buckets and forcing long jump shots which translates to very good metrics against 2-point shots (Minn's opponents shoot 41% from 2, 23rd best in the country, MSU's shoot 38%, 7th best in the country). Both teams also block a lot of shots (MN ranks 7th, MSU 44th) and get a lot of steals (MN 6th, MSU 30th) and are good but not great defending the 3 (MN 77th, MSU 87th). Offensively both teams get the vast majority of their points from 2-pointers and shoot well from inside the line (MN 56th, MSU 23rd) but struggle from deep (MN 207th, MSU 223rd), crash the offensive glass big time (MN 1st, MSU 43rd) and turn the ball over way too much (MN 204th, MSU 275th). These are two incredibly similar teams. There are, however, a couple of key differences.
First, although the Gophers pound the glass on the offensive end they are weak on the defensive end, while Michigan State is outstanding on both ends of the court. The Gophers allow their opponents to grab offensive rebounds on 35.5% of their misses, a number so poor it ranks 272nd in the country. Meanwhile Sparty, led by Branden Dawson, Adreian Payne, and Derrick Nix, is one of the better teams in the nation at grabbing their misses. This is where the Gophers are most vulnerable. The last time Michigan State played a team with a similar talent level who also sucked on the defensive glass they grabbed 17 offensive rebounds against UCONN. If the Gophers allow double digit offensive rebounds to the Spartans it's going to make it tough to win - tough but not impossible, because while Sparty has one clear advantage the Gophers have two.
First - free throws. While neither team commits an atrocious amount of fouls, the Gophers excel at getting to the line while the Spartans don't. The Gophers struggle at times to make their foul shots, but they should have plenty of opportunities given their skills and Big 10 refs notorious for home cooking. They should end up getting to the line for probably double the attempts Michigan State gets - if they can make them it's going to be a significant advantage.
Second - turnovers. Both teams suck at taking care of the basketball (likely related to both teams using a scorer as their primary ball-handler and lack of a quality back-up) but while Michigan State doesn't create turnovers (143rd in the NCAA), the Gophers certainly do (29th). The Gophers cause a turnover on nearly 25% of their opponents possessions, and with nearly everybody on the Spartans outside of Gary Harris quite turnover prone the Gophers will have a heavy advantage in the extremely important turnover battle. For example, Joe Coleman is the worst Gopher on a TO per possession basis, turning the ball over 26% of the time - Michigan State has four guys worse than that. This is where the Gophers can do a lot of damage and really control the game.
PLAYERS:
PG - Keith Appling. Despite being a pretty horrendous outside shooter Appling has really stepped up and given Michigan State the scoring they needed with Draymond Green and Brandon Wood gone. He does it by being lightning quick and getting into the lane. Despite that skill set he's not much of a play maker, averaging just north of 4 assists per game but mostly by default. He's going to be quite a test for Dre Hollins to handle, and will be a good litmus test to see just how good Hollins has become.
SG - Gary Harris. Although he's second on the team in scoring (12.4 per to Appling's 14.9), Harris is the guy who really scares me. Ultra athletic but in control at all times (as evidenced by his team best turnover rate, awfully impressive for a freshman), Harris can beat you from the perimeter, in the mid-range, or getting to the rim, although his 0.9 assists per game this year tell you once he puts the ball on the floor he's likely getting his shot. As good as Austin Hollins has become as a defender it's impossible to keep a guy like Harris from getting his shots off. All you can do is force him to take bad shots, so if Harris is settling for deep jumpers early you might as well pencil this in as a Gopher W.
SF - Denzel Valentine. Another freshman like Harris, but without nearly as much polish, Valentine has been a turnover machine this year. He doesn't do anything particularly well, but he's not awful at most things either (other than you know, the turnover thing). He actually had a game where he registered 10 pts, 10 rebs, and 6 assists against a not-horrible Oakland team, but as of now he's mostly just biding his time until Harris bolts to the NBA after this year.
PF - Branden Dawson. Like Mbakwe for the Gophers, Dawson is returning just a year after destroying his knee, which Dawson did in March. Also like Mbakwe, at this point in the return you can't really tell he's recently had a major knee surgery, at least not by looking at the numbers. That being said, the plan was always for this to be Dawson's team this season after Green left. He had the pedigree, the ability, and the talent and that hasn't happened this season (averaging 9.8 pts and 6.2 rebs) so maybe it is still the knee thing. I really wish I'd paid closer attention to him the couple of times I've watched Michigan State this year.
C - Derrick Nix. If you remember Nix you remember him as a big giant fat person. He's not exactly svelte now at 6-9, 270 lbs. but compared to where he used to be it's a big improvement and his game shows the changes. He's still not a scoring machine, but he's upped his rebounding average from 3.8 per game last season to 7.8 this year and can show a scoring burst when necessary (put up 25 against Texas). He's a huge load and an excellent rebounder, and if you still have any questions about Mbakwe's knee and how "back" he is, watch him go against Nix. A healthy Mbakwe will own him.
BENCH - Two players worth mentioning: PG Travis Trice and C Adreian Payne. Trice actually gives the Spartans a quality back-up pass first point guard, but he's only played in 8 games this year since he suffered a concussion in their opener vs. UCONN. He seems to be back at this point, playing 25 minutes in Sparty's last game vs. Texas, so we can expect to see a lot of him. He's an absolutely terrible defender, and if he ends up in the game guarding Dre Hollins at any point Dre should be fined and suspended if he doesn't immediately drive to the rack. Payne is a defensive and rebounding stud who's offensive game still hasn't come together in Year 3. He shoots an incredibly high percentage because he pretty much does nothing but attempt lay-ups and dunks, but he's a great defender.
Overall, this should be a pretty good game. These teams are so similar it's going to come down to who can exploit their advantages. The Gophers are at home, I believe they're the better team, and the Fargo-Moorehead Acro Team is in town....what could possibly go wrong?
Gophers 65, Michigan State 62.
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