Gophers Lose. Sports are stupid.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4-0!

So the Gophers are 4-0.  It's probably nothing more than building up some false hope and this team's upside is still an NIT invite, but 4-0 feels good, particularly since two of the wins were against teams that aren't probably completely terrible.  With three of the next four games against teams that pose an actual challenge (Arkansas, at Florida State, vs. Vandy in South Dakota) this seems like a good time to check in.  I was at the game against Louisiana (but had my two weiner kids with me so it was hard to pay too much attention), half watched a replay of the game against UTSA on the computer while I was at work, and saw most of the St. Johns game on TV.  Needless to say, I'm clearly qualified to have opinions.  Here are some of those:


1.  I LIKE this team.  The last couple of seasons were made extra tough because there were just too many unlikable players.  I don't mean as people because I don't know any of these guys, but to watch.  From Carlos Morris to Kevin Dorsey to Bakary Konate to Gaston Diedhiou to Joey King to wondering what in the hell happened to DeAndre Matheiu it just wasn't a fun experience.  But I really like this year's team thus far.  I've always said the best college team you could put together would be four mostly interchangeable athletic guards/wings with one defensively dominant big man, and one of those wing types a go to scorer.  I'm getting way ahead of myself I know, and I don't know who will be the scorer guy, but I like this team's makeup and they're fun to watch.

2.  Reggie Lynch is amazing.  I love this guy.  Did you know he's ninth in the country in block rate right now?  That's top 10!  When is the last time the Gophers had an actual rim protector like this? Jerry Holman?  And if you watch him he's more than just a shot blocker, he has an understanding of help defense and can handle a pick and roll and has a good knack for being in the right place.  He's also got an extremely ugly hook shot that goes in once in a while, and I did see him drive to the rim once. Plus he's my son's favorite player.  Only because he wears #22, which is also Andrew Wiggins number, but still, that helps.  Big fan.

3.  Also a big fan of Dupree McBrayer this year.  He somewhere acquired some swagger, befitting his NYC point guard pedigree, and has seen an uptick in shots, shooting percentage, and scoring and his body language just screams team leader out there.  He's putting up pretty amazing numbers efficiency wise right now and doing it while still not committing turnovers which is not what usually happens when you see an increase in usage so I'm expected a bit of a regression at some point.  Still, even if the real Dupree this year is somewhere halfway between last year and what we've seen this year that's a nice leap in a sophomore season.  Plus he somehow manages to be both herky jerky and smooth at the same time, something only a lefty can do for some reason.

4.  The freshmen have looked really, really good.  In the first couple games Amir Coffey was clearly used to being able to do whatever he wanted on the court and forced a few things that don't work against college level defense, but you could see he was on a higher level than most players.  That finally all came together against St. John's with that incredible 30 point night.  He's done a good job so far balancing being the best player on the floor (if not yet technically it won't be long) with not doing too much since that first game.  Hopefully that continues.  And how good is Eric Curry?  He's the one guy on the team where I want to see him be more aggressive.  More than once he's had an opportunity to look for his own shot and just passed the ball of without even exploring that option.  Be aggressive Eric! You're good!

5.  I've been so busy raving about all our shiny new toys I haven't even mentioned the two best players from last year, Nate Mason and Jordan Murphy, and how they've continued to do what they do.  It's easy to take them for granted now while we look at what's changed from last year, but  Murphy is averaging 12 and 8 while shooting 55%, and Mason is putting up a line of 13.5 points, 5 rebounds, and 6 assists per game - those are both really good!  Both of these guys are better than they were last year, and with all the other improvements it's hard not to be optimistic.  Believe me I'm trying.

6.  Ok the one negative so far:  Akeem Springs.  Holy crap this guy is basically a cartoon character how much he completely fits the senior year transfer looking for his own shot to showcase his own value in order to hopefully have some kind of post-college basketball career.  I mean he's taking a much higher percentage of shots while he's on the floor this year than ever before and he's on a much better team now!  Chucker city.  Since he's going to be an inefficient shooting machine, we can either hate him, or embrace him as a Malik Smith kind of guy.  Since I'm in a good mood, I'll do the Malik Smith thing.  Put him in as the first guy off the bench each half.  If he's hitting - yay!  If not, bench him for the rest of the half and give his minutes to Michael Hurt or Ahmad Gilbert.  Win win.


There are a couple other potential issues like the team suddenly not creating turnovers and the usual issues defending the three pointer, but the team is 4-0.  They're 4-0 with two wins over teams who could have beaten them and they're fun to watch.  So I'm going to enjoy this for now.  Mostly because they could be 5-3 after the end of next week and we'll be back in the dumper with a horrible season looming ahead of us - again.  But I'm not going to think about that right now.  I'm having fun.

Welcome aboard, Reggie Lynch!

Center Reggie Lynch, formerly of Edina, announced he is transferring from Illinois State to the Gophers and OMG you guys.  A real, honest to go defensive force and bruising big man.  Unfortunately he has to sit out next season due to transfer rules, but come 2016-2017 this guy is going to be fun.

Lynch, 6-10 and 257 lbs., averaged 9.5 points, 5.4 rebounds, and 2.8 blocks in 22 minutes per game last season and has the speed and athleticism to run the floor in Pitino's uptempo system.  His offense is a bit of a problem considering he shot just 51% from the floor while 65% of his shots were classified as "at the rim" but his main weapon is dunking and ideally the Gophers will be able to get him his opportunities running the floor.  Here's his shot chart from shotanalytics.com, with the caveat that it only covers 7 games.

Yep, he's a dunker.

He looks to basically be a dunker, though that red dot is promising and at least he took a handful of shots on the perimeter in those 7 games, so maybe he can develop some kind of jumper.  Still, that's not really the big selling point on Lynch - he's a defender.

Lynch's 2.8 blocks per game was 14th in the nation, and on a per possession basis he was tops in the country, blocking 15.2% of all opponents shots when he was on the floor.  To put this in perspective so you know what to expect, A.J. Hammons of Purdue was 12th at 12.3%.  There will likely be some fall off moving from the Missouri Valley to the Big Ten, but Lynch's game should translate pretty given his size as long as he doesn't find himself constantly in foul trouble, which he did have some issues with.  Worth noting he had 6 blocks vs. VCU, 6 vs. UAB, and 5 vs. Wichita State in games last season.

This is a very nice get for a team with so many questions about the future front court, and a good use of one of the three (I think) remaining open scholarships, and also breaks up the recruiting classes a little.  With a bunch of guards coming in, nabbing up a nice big man who has already established himself a bit is great, and getting a true rim protector is awesome.  Fun stuff.  With two scholarships still open for 2015 I'll write up a post later this week on potential future Gophers.  I promise.