Will Mason start ahead of Hollins at some point this year?

Will Mason replace Hollins in starting lineup?

  • Yes

    Votes: 7 11.9%

  • No

    Votes: 52 88.1%
  • Total voters
    59
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Otis

Otis

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I could see this happening. Hollins is not the same guy he has been and Mason has been shooting better and is a better defender. Maybe playing against the second unit woud help Andre get his mojo back.

Cause if he isn't scoring he isn't much of an asset.
 

It would make sense, but no way it happens. I could see him starting for Morris, and then going with a bigger front court, but not for Hollins.
 

Otis said:
I could see this happening. Hollins is not the same guy he has been and Mason has been shooting better and is a better defender. Maybe playing against the second unit woud help Andre get his mojo back.

Cause if he isn't scoring he isn't much of an asset.
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Does it matter. Between the 4 guards they need to fill up 120 minutes. The guy playing the best will likely get 35, next two get around 30 and the guy struggling the most will get 25.
 

Winasota Gopher said:
Does it matter. Between the 4 guards they need to fill up 120 minutes. The guy playing the best will likely get 35, next two get around 30 and the guy struggling the most will get 25.
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Who gives the team the best chance to win should be on the court.It does matter who starts as it send a message to the rest of the team. I would start Mason based on his play. He has earned it. Hollins was a very good Gopher, but his play has diminished. I do not think Pitino will make the change but in my opinion he should. Also, for future recruits, when they see they can play and even start based on performance is a major incentive.
 

Mason should start. I'm just unsure of who should sit, Morris or Hollins. Both of them got beat really bad playing defense this past game though I think Morris lost us the game with all of those back door cuts he kept giving up.
 


It only happens if Dre is even more hobbled than he already is and is unable to play. Hollins is absolutely one of our 5 best players and he needs to be on the court when healthy.
 

Gold Vision said:
It only happens if Dre is even more hobbled than he already is and is unable to play. Hollins is absolutely one of our 5 best players and he needs to be on the court when healthy.
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And he should start every game because if he is hot shooting, you need to find out real early on whether or not you can ride him all game. Like I said before, I think this is a moot point, Mason is going to get big minutes as a freshman, sell that to a recruit. It's not like Mason is being held back by Hollins getting the start. Should Mason start over Morris in games where we can go smaller? I see that as more of a possibility, and it making more sense.

Mason is not infallible either, he didn't guard Russell the whole 2nd half, although when he did I thought he did a marvelous job, and he also had a couple defensive brake downs that I recall. He also is not at all aggressive on the offensive end. Deandre, Andre and Nate switched almost every other possession. They stayed fresh which was an intriguing gameplan and it worked.
 

Mason should come off the bench and play as many minutes as needed. You can't sub him for Morris for any length of time because we get too small considering that our power forward is zero rebound Joey King. Hollins can shoot lights out when he gets going and he draws a ton of defensive attention- makes it tougher to double Mo. Anyone with the idea of benching Hollins is not thinking straight. All that said Mason is going to be a great player here. If we had more rebounding I'd play three small guards and start him over Morris- but we don't.


By the way - Mason is 7-23 shooting in the three Big Ten games....
 

bga1 said:
Mason should come off the bench and play as many minutes as needed. You can't sub him for Morris for any length of time because we get too small considering that our power forward is zero rebound Joey King. Hollins can shoot lights out when he gets going and he draws a ton of defensive attention- makes it tougher to double Mo. Anyone with the idea of benching Hollins is not thinking straight. All that said Mason is going to be a great player here. If we had more rebounding I'd play three small guards and start him over Morris- but we don't.


By the way - Mason is 7-23 shooting in the three Big Ten games....
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BUT HE'S SOOOO EFFECTIVE because Andre Hollins is struggling Mason HAS to be better!!??! RIGHT? RIght?!?!?!?!

LOUDER!!!!
 




Winasota Gopher said:
BUT HE'S SOOOO EFFECTIVE because Andre Hollins is struggling Mason HAS to be better!!??! RIGHT? RIght?!?!?!?!

LOUDER!!!!
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If you think Mason is shooting poorly, you probably shouldn't look at Andre's stats.

I mean, unless you think 6-32 is something to brag about.

At least Mason plays defense and has a future ahead of him.

It's funny that your sarcasm is actually truth.
 

Just stop. Have some respect for a kid that is a good guy and has been one of our best players for his first three years.

And Mason has a bright future, but he's not the star (yet) that many of you are making him out to be.

The same people hating on Hollins will be the ones talking about how much they miss him when we have a bad game next season.
 

afurry91 said:
If you think Mason is shooting poorly, you probably shouldn't look at Andre's stats.

I mean, unless you think 6-32 is something to brag about.

At least Mason plays defense and has a future ahead of him.

It's funny that your sarcasm is actually truth.
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But its not like it's the night and day difference that some on here are making it out to be. I'm on board that Mason is a solid player and is rising, and to have expectations of him doing anything more offensively in his first couple B1G 10 games is outlandish. I just think that the idea of starting Mason for Hollins nets nothing, they both are going to play a large volume of minutes and their performances have quite similar.
 



JimmyJamesMD said:
Just stop. Have some respect for a kid that is a good guy and has been one of our best players for his first three years.

And Mason has a bright future, but he's not the star (yet) that many of you are making him out to be.

The same people hating on Hollins will be the ones talking about how much they miss him when we have a bad game next season.
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I don't disagree with those sentiments. Besides, if Andre Hollins is healthy he has to play big minutes on this team. There really aren't other alternatives.

As far as missing a Hollins, I freely admit to missing Austin Hollins but I've been feeling that way since he graduated and I've been very consistent about that despite a few good games from Morris. I knew that losing his defense and leadership would hurt.
 

You can see Hollins is hurt. He needs a solid week off. Agree, Morris is killing us on defense. He is yards better on ball defense then off the ball defense. He would be better suited man to man versus
Pitinos 2-1-2 matchup.zone.
 


Anyone who was at the game should be able to see Hollins' foot clearly is bothering him. He's not moving very well.

Even so, if someone needs to come off the bench it's Morris. Gets roasted on defense with all the back cuts, and I don't like the body language I saw last night. Appears to pout quite a bit. He has a chance to be a good player, but I wouldn't have a problem if Pitino started a 3-guard offense of Mathieu, Hollins & Mason along with Mo and Joey. Give Morris the "spark off the bench" role.
 

Better hope not. Need Hollins playing a lot & playing well to make tourney.
 

Andre's had a couple bad games. For the season overall his FG% and 3FG% are fine. Give him more than 3 games into the B1G season before we anoint him a bench player.

I love Nate Mason. LOVE the kid. He also got burned on a bad back cut in the last few minutes last night.

We don't have a savior. We need all our guards to play better and shoot better to win in this league.

Beat Michigan!
 


SelectionSunday said:
Anyone who was at the game should be able to see Hollins' foot clearly is bothering him. He's not moving very well.

Even so, if someone needs to come off the bench it's Morris. Gets roasted on defense with all the back cuts, and I don't like the body language I saw last night. Appears to pout quite a bit. He has a chance to be a good player, but I wouldn't have a problem if Pitino started a 3-guard offense of Mathieu, Hollins & Mason along with Mo and Joey. Give Morris the "spark off the bench" role.
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Morris has issues for sure, but I don't see how you avoid starting him if you insist on a three guard offense. What Pitino should try a little more often is a three forward offense off the bench (Elliot, Bakary, and Buggs/King). That lineup worked reasonably well in nonconference when it was tried and it could result in Morris playing less and the other three guards getting a few more breathing minutes especially considering that at least one of DeAndre or Andre seems to pick up a second foul fairly early in the half.
 

fryguy22 said:
Andre's had a couple bad games. For the season overall his FG% and 3FG% are fine. Give him more than 3 games into the B1G season before we anoint him a bench player.

I love Nate Mason. LOVE the kid. He also got burned on a bad back cut in the last few minutes last night.

We don't have a savior. We need all our guards to play better and shoot better to win in this league.

Beat Michigan!
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I would have agreed with you prior to the OSU game, but watching his growth this year and how he is playing something isn't right. He is also giving off smoke signals commenting on criticism and ignoring it stating he "knows who he is for this team." Where there is smoke there tends to be fire.

Andre is slumping and is trending noticeably in comparison to previous years. Based on advance saber metrics Mason is statistically performing in a trend that matches Hollins finest year.

Andre Hollins Offensive Rating this Year: 105.5
Andre Hollins Defnesive Rating this Year: 94.6

In comparison to --

Nate Masons Offensive Rating this Year: 116.9
Nate Masons Defnesive Rating this Year: 87.4

Over the course of the preseason and beginning of the B1G season the tend to be somewhat equal giving and taking offensively and defensively. Let's look at the conference ratings for a recent sampling of performance.

Andre Hollins Offensive Rating this Conference Year: 71.2
Andre Hollins Defnesive Rating this Conference Year: 108.2

In comparison to --

Nate Masons Offensive Rating this Conference Year: 92.9
Nate Masons Defnesive Rating this Conference Year: 108.7

So statistically — I know it doesn't tell a whole story — our offense and defense has performed better when Nate Mason has been on the floor. Mason has been able to be as effective or more effective with the team on the floor with 20 less playing minutes in conference games.

Personally watching Hollins there are a couple issues that I have identified. One is that something is bothering him physically. It could be the turf toe, it could be his ankle or generally he is cramping up during the game. Yesterday it looked like he was battling cramping more so then the others.

Two he's trying to work as a shooting guard in a transitional based offense where he was recruited by tubby to play a more traditional half court offense. I believe after the Maralynd game he has eluded to his struggles trying to conform to his role in this offense. Last night defensively he was getting burnt bad by Ohio State's D'Angelo Russel simply because of Angelo's speed. If I counted right 12-14 of Russells points came off of Andre's marking assignment on him in the first half.

Mason performed better both offensively and defensively in my opinion so far, but Mason was recruited for this kind of team dynamic.

The big positive about Andre is that he is an athlete and to consider the kind of transitions he faced in his career with the gophers — asking to be a shooting guard, then abruptly putting serious minutes in as a point guard and finally asked to take serious minutes in a shooting guard position where plays are developed by the players — is simply amazing.

I could see Pitino using a game or two to start Mason to send a message to Andre, light a fire under his butt and help him re align his target goals to compete for his position may bring out the Hollins we all know he can be which was arguably a top 35 basketball player in the NCAA.
 

I say we get Flip's shooting coach in here to work with Hollins. He's worked wonders with the Wolves. Also, maybe bring in that strength and conditioning guy from LA to work with him.
 

Halsey Hall said:
I say we get Flip's shooting coach in here to work with Hollins. He's worked wonders with the Wolves. Also, maybe bring in that strength and conditioning guy from LA to work with him.
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Sarcasm? I watched the first quarter of Monday's game and it didn't look good. At this point I don't see Andre as anything more than a catch and shoot player. If he isn't set and wide open he clanks it off the rim or can't get a shot off at all. He doesn't seem to be effective driving the lane either so isn't much help offensively until someone forgets about him. Defensively isn't good enough to keep up either.
 

Do you guys remember that 3-4 game stretch last season when Austin just SUCKED? He got soooo much hate on here: and look at how he finished the season, and how he is missed by us all. Let's give an experienced senior the benefit of the doubt for this little slump before we go overboard like we did on Austin last year, and he made us eat our words.
 

The hate for Andre on this thread is embarrassing. With friends like some of you, what Gophers need enemies?

I urge people to go back and re-watch the second half of last night's game. Andre absolutely busted his ass. He didn't have a good first half, but he was challenged at halftime and he was assigned Russell as much as anyone in that second half and he was in his shorts. And, doing it with a clear bad wheel. He drained three 3pt FGs.

I betcha he gets on a nice run of games here where he plays well. He's a streaky shooter who is currently cold. Hope he gets on a nice run soon.
 


point guard 10 said:
Do you guys remember that 3-4 game stretch last season when Austin just SUCKED? He got soooo much hate on here: and look at how he finished the season, and how he is missed by us all. Let's give an experienced senior the benefit of the doubt for this little slump before we go overboard like we did on Austin last year, and he made us eat our words.
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tjgopher said:
The hate for Andre on this thread is embarrassing. With friends like some of you, what Gophers need enemies?

I urge people to go back and re-watch the second half of last night's game. Andre absolutely busted his ass. He didn't have a good first half, but he was challenged at halftime and he was assigned Russell as much as anyone in that second half and he was in his shorts. And, doing it with a clear bad wheel. He drained three 3pt FGs.

I betcha he gets on a nice run of games here where he plays well. He's a streaky shooter who is currently cold. Hope he gets on a nice run soon.
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Agree with both of these. I thought Andre showed a lot in the second half. Can't wait for him to get on fire and calm so many people down.
 

point guard 10 said:
Do you guys remember that 3-4 game stretch last season when Austin just SUCKED? He got soooo much hate on here: and look at how he finished the season, and how he is missed by us all. Let's give an experienced senior the benefit of the doubt for this little slump before we go overboard like we did on Austin last year, and he made us eat our words.
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Yeah, I remember it and it's a point well taken. We might as well just let it play out and hope the real Hollins returns, because without that kind of contribution we're done.
 

Wozee, Great post bro!

I didn't start this cause I'm hating on Andre, he is my favorite player on the team. I started it because we need to shake things up a little and need this next victory! Heseems off by everyones account and although he had a solid second half and scored 12 pts. He has not been up to Andre standards. Mason has been performing better IMO and bringing a hot shooting senior who is motivated to get his slot back might just pay huge dividends! He could just microwave us past Michigan. I also wonder if he might play better handling the ball more like he used to in the past. I wonder how his performance metrics as primary ballhandler compare to off-guard duty.

This was just an exercise to see how to kick these guys in the butt. I also wonder if playing the athletic bigs and letting them use their five fouls would help the interior defense. I don't see how it couldn't. If Bakary or Gaston could put some players driving the lane on their butts it would help greatly.
 

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