This team has no toughness.

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Costa Rican Gopher

Costa Rican Gopher

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I know they're just college players, but I don't care right now. This team has no balls, especially the guys up front. I've posted many times about what I call the "stare down forward", which is the guy on our team that will get nose-to-nose with the toughest guy on their team in a stare down and not blink. It's best if the guy can play, but it's not a requirement. Richard Coffey, Randy Carter, Courtney James, Miles Tarver, Zach Puchtel, Jason Stamper, Trevor Mbakwe, et al. If their toughest player smashed our star player, our guy would get right in his face. Then maybe, 'accidentally' throw an elbow to the chops and not apologize. Maybe drop their star as he drove the hoop the next time down and not help him up, etc. Well, we don't have anyone like that right now and that's what we need more than anything right now.

Which one player would you want on your side in a dark alley? Elliot is the only big we have who even pretends to be aggressive and he's got talent/confidence issues. Mo is tough as rice paper. Buggs is a clown. Joey's a flat foot. Morris is a string bean. The little I've seen of Bakary, he's a finesse guy too. Dre's way too nice. Lil Dre is scrappy, but he's tiny. I guess Nate Mason would be the one guy I'd want with me in that dark alley. That says a lot about this team though that I'd go with a true Freshman guard who's 6'2" over anyone else. There's just no physical toughness, no mental toughness, no swagger, no fire, no... arrrgh!
 

I wouldn't take Mo in a street fight, he might not be strong enough to keep his fists clinched to throw a punch. I also wouldn't take EE since he would wildly throw punches and he would have no clue who he was swinging at,q..after that the picking gets real slim...
 

It's not about being tough guys. You also have to be good. They are an undersized team that turns the ball over and doesn't shoot free throws well, a recipe for losing just about every time on the road in the B1G. It's about basic competence, not staring contests.
 

jamiche said:
It's not about being tough guys. You also have to be good. They are an undersized team that turns the ball over and doesn't shoot free throws well, a recipe for losing just about every time on the road in the B1G. It's about basic competence, not staring contests.
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Disagree. You need someone on your team who's not a complete sissy. This is the B1G.
 

This is on the seniors; silly turnovers by each of them during the critical part of the game. So tired of seeing Mo getting stripped 2 or 3 times a game when he unnecessarily brings the ball down low. Mo got a good chewing out by Mason on the pass that he missed which resulted in a foul by Nate on the other end
 


jamalo said:
This is on the seniors; silly turnovers by each of them during the critical part of the game. So tired of seeing Mo getting stripped 2 or 3 times a game when he unnecessarily brings the ball down low. Mo got a good chewing out by Mason on the pass that he missed which resulted in a foul by Nate on the other end
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That plus Hollins turnover (maybe a Joey turnover in there too cannot remember) made the game. Cannot have those two making those types of plays.
 

Broken down to it's simplest form. This team does not cherish every possession. The turnovers they make lead to games being lost. Somehow each and every player needs to learn the motto of Coach John Wooden: "Play quick, but play under control."
 


Winasota Gopher said:
That plus Hollins turnover (maybe a Joey turnover in there too cannot remember) made the game. Cannot have those two making those types of plays.
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To me, the Hollins turnover is emblematic of the current season. Literally a hand-off to the opposing player; that to me put the nail in our coffin. Dre is better than that.

I have to say, this Michigan team did not inspire any fear. Not sure if that is more of a reflection on our talent level or our lack of leadership on the court. Same thing with Purdue; should be 2-2 if we have the leadership to finish games against below average teams on the road
 



jamalo said:
This is on the seniors; silly turnovers by each of them during the critical part of the game. So tired of seeing Mo getting stripped 2 or 3 times a game when he unnecessarily brings the ball down low. Mo got a good chewing out by Mason on the pass that he missed which resulted in a foul by Nate on the other end
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I think Mo may be back on the weed.
 


I wish he would begin Bogarting the ball more.
 

Gopherlady and I both agreed, we'd go anywhere with J'son Stamper including a dark alley!
I'm not in favor of violence, but I loved the way he stared at the guy he'd knocked to the floor.
 



I wonder if they could recruit someone from the FB team to join the team as a walk-on for the rest of the season. I'm sure some of the Gopher D-linemen or LB's played BB in HS. Like those guys Purdue always used to have who were 6-10, 260lbs, and went right from college to being a masked wrestler.
 

tinyarch said:
Broken down to it's simplest form. This team does not cherish every possession. The turnovers they make lead to games being lost. Somehow each and every player needs to learn the motto of Coach John Wooden: "Play quick, but play under control."
Click to expand...

So, so true.
 

Costa Rican Gopher said:
I know they're just college players, but I don't care right now. This team has no balls, especially the guys up front. I've posted many times about what I call the "stare down forward", which is the guy on our team that will get nose-to-nose with the toughest guy on their team in a stare down and not blink. It's best if the guy can play, but it's not a requirement. Richard Coffey, Randy Carter, Courtney James, Miles Tarver, Zach Puchtel, Jason Stamper, Trevor Mbakwe, et al. If their toughest player smashed our star player, our guy would get right in his face. Then maybe, 'accidentally' throw an elbow to the chops and not apologize. Maybe drop their star as he drove the hoop the next time down and not help him up, etc. Well, we don't have anyone like that right now and that's what we need more than anything right now.

Which one player would you want on your side in a dark alley? Elliot is the only big we have who even pretends to be aggressive and he's got talent/confidence issues. Mo is tough as rice paper. Buggs is a clown. Joey's a flat foot. Morris is a string bean. The little I've seen of Bakary, he's a finesse guy too. Dre's way too nice. Lil Dre is scrappy, but he's tiny. I guess Nate Mason would be the one guy I'd want with me in that dark alley. That says a lot about this team though that I'd go with a true Freshman guard who's 6'2" over anyone else. There's just no physical toughness, no mental toughness, no swagger, no fire, no... arrrgh!
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Cosign. I'd take Mason. Maybe Konate and GD are those guys, but they're not skilled enough to play in the BIG yet.
 

Moonlight said:
Gopherlady and I both agreed, we'd go anywhere with J'son Stamper including a dark alley!
I'm not in favor of violence, but I loved the way he stared at the guy he'd knocked to the floor.
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Actually a dark alley is statistically one of the safest places to be. Most drivebys
are on street corners or pool halls, and we all know what happens at nightclubs at closing time.
 

The 2006 team turned (in a relative sense) when the put Zach Puchtel into the line-up. That's literally all he was. And it worked. They don't have that. The only one that even strikes me as a possibility is Konate or Diedeau.
 

Costa Rican Gopher said:
Disagree. You need someone on your team who's not a complete sissy. This is the B1G.
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Most stare downs happen at home when your team is ahead. These guys aren't "sissies." They are undersized, turnover prone and can't make free throws ( inexcusable). If they made free throws at a normal rate they are 2-2 and it's a different story.
 

jamiche said:
These guys aren't "sissies." They are undersized, turnover prone and can't make free throws ( inexcusable). If they made free throws at a normal rate they are 2-2 and it's a different story.
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Yes, I would say that their problems are more like the Tin Man's and the Scarecrow's than the Cowardly Lion's.
 

Even if they make free throws we're still a soft team that's not going anywhere this year. We live and die by the jump shot. We have no toughness, no rebounding, no rim protectors and no physical presence playing in the most rugged conference in basketball.
 

Serious question: have we won a game where we have trailed at any point in the second half? If I remember correctly, all of our wins were against weak out of conference opponents where we absolutely ran away with it (with the exception of Georgia, who we were in a position to run away with it, then tried to give it away like the Purdue and Michigan games but ran out of time before we could complete the collapse). Conversely, there was at least one point in the second half where we looked to be in control in three of our 6 losses. We haven't managed to battle back to win once or prevail in any kind of back and forth slug fest, and we've crapped away leads several times, that's a major toughness issue for a team.
 

Haven't read a good "tough-guy" thread in quite a while.

Kudos to all the non-sissies who participated
 

More concerning to me is the lack of on-court intelligence of most of the players. The range of mistakes being made really show how dumb they play down the stretch. Mo, Joey, Little Dre, Morris, Elliot, and Hollins all had incredibly damaging mistakes that ranged from being lazy (Mo not blocking out) to just downright stupid (Hollins and Joey passing it to the defenders and Little Dre passing it to the fans). Gotta fix that.
 

bleedsmaroonandgold said:
Serious question: have we won a game where we have trailed at any point in the second half?
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Furman was a very tight game for most of the second half. They had a number of one and two point leads and they led 72-71 with about four minutes left after one of their guys hit a 3 pointer. But they never got any breathing room and I guess our guys never doubted they could win that one.
 

Watching Ohio St slam home uncontested dunk after dunk made me angry. Watching their Freshman rack up 25 1st half points and talk trash the whole time made me even angrier. Watching him slam home the monstrous dunk as went into half pissed me off even more. That fact that none of our guys seemed to take any of this personally made me write them off as gutless. It's a contact sport, we play in the most physical conference and damn it, we don't just let another team come in and push us around, especially a Freshman. Coffey, Carter, Tarver, James, Puchtel, Stamper, Mbakwe, any of those guys would have given that Freshman something to think about the next time he drove the lane or opened his yap.
 

Costa Rican Gopher said:
That fact that none of our guys seemed to take any of this personally made me write them off as gutless. It's a contact sport, we play in the most physical conference and damn it, we don't just let another team come in and push us around, especially a Freshman. Coffey, Carter, Tarver, James, Puchtel, Stamper, Mbakwe, any of those guys would have given that Freshman something to think about the next time he drove the lane or opened his yap.
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Relax, will you. You sound like some fool in the midst of road rage. The freshman you are referring to noted how physical the Gophers were with him in the second half and the announcers noted the same thing during the game. A good policy is to not let your rage for opposing teams exceed that of your own players. Whatever the Gophers' problems, racking up flagrant fouls isn't likely to be the cure.
 

Costa Rican Gopher said:
I know they're just college players, but I don't care right now. This team has no balls, especially the guys up front. I've posted many times about what I call the "stare down forward", which is the guy on our team that will get nose-to-nose with the toughest guy on their team in a stare down and not blink. It's best if the guy can play, but it's not a requirement. Richard Coffey, Randy Carter, Courtney James, Miles Tarver, Zach Puchtel, Jason Stamper, Trevor Mbakwe, et al. If their toughest player smashed our star player, our guy would get right in his face. Then maybe, 'accidentally' throw an elbow to the chops and not apologize. Maybe drop their star as he drove the hoop the next time down and not help him up, etc. Well, we don't have anyone like that right now and that's what we need more than anything right now.

Which one player would you want on your side in a dark alley? Elliot is the only big we have who even pretends to be aggressive and he's got talent/confidence issues. Mo is tough as rice paper. Buggs is a clown. Joey's a flat foot. Morris is a string bean. The little I've seen of Bakary, he's a finesse guy too. Dre's way too nice. Lil Dre is scrappy, but he's tiny. I guess Nate Mason would be the one guy I'd want with me in that dark alley. That says a lot about this team though that I'd go with a true Freshman guard who's 6'2" over anyone else. There's just no physical toughness, no mental toughness, no swagger, no fire, no... arrrgh!
Click to expand...

Yup, but I believe coach Pitino already identified the problem after last season. And Mason and Morris are probably the only two candidates we have. Mathieu has turned into a whiner.
 

tinyarch said:
Broken down to it's simplest form. This team does not cherish every possession. The turnovers they make lead to games being lost. Somehow each and every player needs to learn the motto of Coach John Wooden: "Play quick, but play under control."
Click to expand...

It's: "Be quick, don't hurry" But close enough...
 

Costa Rican Gopher said:
Watching Ohio St slam home uncontested dunk after dunk made me angry. Watching their Freshman rack up 25 1st half points and talk trash the whole time made me even angrier. Watching him slam home the monstrous dunk as went into half pissed me off even more. That fact that none of our guys seemed to take any of this personally made me write them off as gutless. It's a contact sport, we play in the most physical conference and damn it, we don't just let another team come in and push us around, especially a Freshman. Coffey, Carter, Tarver, James, Puchtel, Stamper, Mbakwe, any of those guys would have given that Freshman something to think about the next time he drove the lane or opened his yap.
Click to expand...

Seriously? Because I saw our guards work their butts off in the 2nd half to completely shut down Russell. I'd say they took it personally. I have to say I disagree with your whole "tough guy" argument. This team just isn't very good and they lack confidence right now. Would committing a few hard fouls change that? Probably not. Winning a few games would. This schedule is a tough way to start the conference season and when you combine that with a few key players going through a slump you're going to get an 0-4 start. What I don't see is a lack of effort, I still think they care. The sky isn't falling for me yet.
 

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