Wow, what a disaster. I mean, I think we all knew this season was going to be a struggle, but I don’t know if anyone actually saw an 0-10 start to the conference season within the realm of possibility. Come on, even Rutgers wins by accident some of the time. What makes it really strange is that it wasn’t like the Gophers were overmatched in the non-conference season. Yes, they lost to the entire state of South Dakota, but they still hung with Temple and Oklahoma State, and actually beat Clemson, who looks like a tournament team. You thought they would at least stumble into a couple conference victories. Instead, it’s 25-point blowouts at home against Northwestern.
It’s a weird season in the sense that the team is going to look 75% different at this time next year. In fact, it’s almost silly to even consider this a real season. Most of the team’s best frontcourt players are sitting due to transfer rules and two recruits who will play right away aren’t even enrolled at the school yet. That’s four impact players that aren’t seeing court time. Imagine if Bakary Konate was replaced right now with Reggie Lynch? That’s why it’s so important to see guys like Nate Mason and Jordan Murphy starting to get it, even if it isn’t resulting in victories. They’ll actually be around next year.
Now, can you take a team that might not even win 9 games this season and turn it into a relevant squad? That’s the career-defining question Richard Pitino will be faced with next year. That’d certainly be quite the turnaround.
GOOD: I think we’re starting to actually see some growth
6-16 overall, 0-10 in the conference. How can there be any silver linings at this point in the season, right? Well, there aren’t many, I’ll admit that much. HOWEVER, after basically bottoming out as a program with back-to-back 25-point losses to fellow crap factories Nebraska and Northwestern, the Gophers have actually strung together some decent games against good competition. Consider that in their last five games they’ve lost by a total of 27 points, which is about five points per game. That’s not too shabby considering where they were. Of course, it’s all relative, since even a good game from this team means a close loss (or an OT gut punch from Illinois). But I digress.
More importantly, future leaders of the team are starting to find a rhythm. Nate Mason is legitimately tearing it up, with four straight 15+ point games, including a sexy double-double with assists against Purdue. Jordan Murphy basically just needs to find a way to stay on the court in spite of himself. And, while I know it was just one game, the fact that Kevin Dorsey proved that he can actually score 21 points in a game is notable. Don’t forget that he’s a 4-star recruit.
That’s about all the enthusiasm I can muster for an 0-10 team at this point.
BAD: So many freshman moments
Coming into the season we knew it was going to be a struggle and it was unfair to expect such a young team to come in and just “get it.” Now, we didn’t expect it to be this bad, but with an inexperienced team comes moments where inexperience rears its ugly head. Those have been on full display in the latest stretch of winnable games, and it’s painful to have some many narrow losses when actual wins were well within reach.
Consider the Illinois game, where the team simply gave away the game in the final minute after being in control for most of the second half. Panic and emotion sets in, a couple things fall the wrong way and, poof, a loss. Same with the second Indiana game. The team fights back from a double-digit deficit and actually takes a lead, only to let bonehead behavior completely seal a loss. These things come with the territory of a team still learning the ropes, but it doesn’t make it any easier to swallow. A dumb loss is still a dumb loss any way you slice it.
INTERESTING: Free throws and victories
It’s always easy to go back after the fact and say, “well, if they woulda just made their free throws they could’ve added eight more points on the scoreboard and won the game. After all, they’re called FREE throws, har har.” To be fair, no team makes 100% of its free throws, so that argument is stupid. But there’s definitely validity to making MORE free throws and having that affect the outcome of the game.
The Gophers rank 10th in the Big Ten in free throw percentage, shooting just under 70% from the line (Maryland is first at 76%, for comparison). However, the Gophers have been atrocious from the line the last three games, shooting in the 50s in three straight. Not only is that just plain awful, it has actually cost them a couple potential wins. If you normalize the free throw percentages in the last three games to their team average of 70%, that adds 4 points to the score against Purdue, and 2 to the Illinois score. Looking back, that ties the game against Purdue and wins the game against Illinois.
It’s usually a waste of breath to analyze what could have happened in a game after the fact, but considering that simply shooting the team average from the line would’ve won two games for this team is frustrating.