STrib: No preseason love for Gophers hoops: No picks better than 10th in Big Ten

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BleedGopher

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per Marcus:

The highest predicted finish right now for the Gophers is 10th by Street & Smith/Sporting News magazine, which officially hit newsstands Tuesday. Lindy’s Sports and Athlon Sports, already available in stores, picked the Gophers to finish 11th and 12th, respectively. There were no Gophers on All-Big Ten preseason teams, either.

Louisville’s a popular Final Four pick. But the team that ended the Cardinals season in March is picked to reach the NIT at best. That might frustrate Gophers fans, who flocked to Des Moines in force to see just how much their team outplayed Louisville. The Cardinals do return a lot, though.

There are bright spots for the Gophers in preseason annuals.

A small picture of sophomore center Daniel Oturu is featured on the top right corner of the Sporting News/Street & Smith college basketball regional cover. Former Pittsburgh guard Marcus Carr is also among the impact transfers to watch (although Athlon used junior forward Eric Curry's picture for Carr). Pitino isn't featured among the coaches on the hot seat.

It was much easier for magazines to pick the Gophers as a bottom-half Big Ten team, because of so much unknown. Seven newcomers are the most for the program since 2004-05. They also have no returning All-Big Ten players after Coffey decided to leave early for the NBA.

Oturu and sophomore Gabe Kalscheur, the U’s two returning starters, aren’t getting the same preseason hype as players who made the All-Big Ten freshmen team last season. Is that fair? Oturu and Kalscheur were snubbed IMO. They together led all Big Ten freshmen in several categories.

http://www.startribune.com/no-prese...-picks-better-than-10th-in-big-ten/560596302/

Go Gophers!!
 

I would bet we finish much higher all day long in Vegas!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 


I did read an article that had surprisingly predicted the Gophers to finish 8th in conference, but that seemed to be due to the writer being very down on teams 9-14 and not necessarily because they were high on the Gophers. Every other article has picked them as 10th or worse. As the article above states, the Gophers have a bunch of newcomers and not many writers are going to take the time required to research all teams in conference for pre-season pick article.
 



A 6th-8th place finish is very realistic this season if all goes well
 

You guys are much more optimistic than me this year.
 


It's possible they could go 9-11 again and still finish 10th.
 



GopherBlood666 said:
A 6th-8th place finish is very realistic this season if all goes well
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6th-8th if all goes well, very interesting . If all goes well, everyone plays their role, we get great coaching in year 7 i would expect no worse than third. 10th is a titanic failure with this roster. After all the fan base on here, for the most part thinks we have great players.
 

If everything goes well sure, I was trying to be a little more realistic and got hammered which I don't understand. Besides the Top 4 teams this league is up for grabs. The gophers are more athletic, deeper, and versatile than last year. They were 2 possessions away from being 11-9 with basically 6 players. I think it is reasonable to think they can improve upon that.
 

You never know. That's why we play the games. On paper though, this is not a very good Gopher team. Anyone dreaming of a similar season to last year, is in for a let down. My .02
 

Last season was saved by Kalscheur and Oturu in my opinion. We didn't have a great formula for success, basically had to hope that Murphy and Coffey had big games and that no starters got in foul trouble. They were great players with no supporting cast. Our roster is well rounded and has smart players for this season. Players like dupree mcbrayer who had no business starting will not be asked to out play their roles where we are left hoping they actually do something good in the 35 minutes a game that they would never otherwise be playing if we had any depth. The starting lineup should have a high IQ and has more college basketball experience than they are getting credit for, I feel like I did about the team in 2016-2017 that actually had a winning conference record. The bench should be much better as well with a variety of players that can actually add something to the game. Maybe not hurt but at least he is not usually a negative impact.
 



I don't want to make any predictions because I haven't seen this group play, but if Pitino could not get above .500 in conference play with Jordan and Amir last year it is really hard to see him doing it this year. I think people forget how many times Jordan Murphy saved this team from really embarrassing losses ( ex: he had 19 points and 21 rebounds to sneak out a home win over Penn State last year) and how tough he will be to replace. Coffey was the only wing on the roster who could get his own shot.

It seems like the Gophers need both Carr and Ihnen to live up to the most optimistic of projections (Carr a top 5 pg in the league, Ihnen an All Freshman type guy) to just get in to the middle of the pack in the conference. That's assuming they get progression from Oturu and Kalscheur and not Sophomore slumps.
 

If I wrote for a national magazine I'd pick us 10th too. But as an optimistic Gopher fan I think we have the potential to finish much higher. But, I haven't seen well all over half the guys play...neither has most anyone.
On the flip side Richard is optimistic...in the past he has been cautious. We can "potentially" shoot much better than last year. Murphy was awesome but accommodating him did limit our flow Amir had 8 games last year where he was about as effective as he'll be this year in absentia for the Gophers...when he took games over, that guy we'll miss. But I do think most all of Amir's impact was on the offensive end and we have several potential offensive breakout possibilities on a game by game basis this year. Not the case last year.
Like some others have said, I think in addition to shooting we can be better on defense this year as a team.
I think anything below 6 will be a big disappointment for Richard. Just a gut feeling.
 

I'd say they are close to right there. Gophers might be able to sneak into that 6-8 range, and have a bubble season. That is about as good as I would expect though. Losing your 2 best players with no one impactful replacing them hurts. Yes, I know they are getting Carr, but Coffey and Murphy were 2 of the better players in the league last year.

I'd say they really need at least one of their incoming freshman to step up and Carr has to be great in order for this team to have a good season. Kalseur can't go backwards either, however, I feel he is a great candidate for a regression. Oturo should be solid and honestly dominate inside.
 

I think they look like a solid middle tier B1G team. Probably pick them 6-9 somewhere.
Lots of new guys with potential.
I expect double figure scoring from Oturu, Gabe, and Carr. Willis close.
Need Curry to comeback healthy.

Biggest wildcard is Ihnen. He could give us some of those Coffey type things on the wing if he can adjust to college basketball well.

We have to shoot it a lot better from 3 also.
 

Yeah I'm less optimistic as well...I think 9-10 range is about right based on the fact we're losing Coffey and Murphy.
 

Three Man Weave.com an does an outstanding in depth NCAA Basketball Previews for free ....Has Gophs 9
 




bga1 said:
UW= the enemy on this board. Do you get that? We don't actually like Wisconsin. So..is there a reason for that post?
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Should have added all the other misses the media had across the major conferences instead of just UW. As a example FSU was picked 5th in the ACC and won it. Picking the Gophers close to 10th is safe because that is close to our average.
 

The reason I bumped this thread is that while many of us expected the team to struggle a bit, the debate was never about whether or not we'd finish 13th.

Most of us who thought we'd finish around 10 also didn't envision Oturu turning himself into a lottery pick.

So we massively underperformed this year, even for the people who thought we'd stink.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
The reason I bumped this thread is that while many of us expected the team to struggle a bit, the debate was never about whether or not we'd finish 13th.

Most of us who thought we'd finish around 10 also didn't envision Oturu turning himself into a lottery pick.

So we massively underperformed this year, even for the people who thought we'd stink.
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I think "massively under performed" is a massive overstatement. 5th place was 4 teams at 11-9 and all are going to the tourney. If Carr gets the ball up floor against Purdue, or if they call the foul they should have, or if Stefanovic doesn't make the corner three or if Oturu doesn't miss the layup...we win. If Carr doesn't miss the one and one and Maryland doesn't sink a desperation 30 footer, we win. If Oturu makes the 1 and 1 against Iowa or anyone makes a play in the final five minutes, we win. If we get the rebound with 59 seconds left against Wisconsin, which was followed by the Pritzl three pointer, we likely win.

The difference between relative success and utter failure is a few plays over 20 games.

We didn't massively under perform, in fact we were right there in most every game except 4 that I can think of. We simply did not make the plays to finish. Call it coaching, call it players, call it luck or a combo of all but this team didn't massively under perform what we thought they would be.
 

bga1 said:
I think "massively under performed" is a massive overstatement. 5th place was 4 teams at 11-9 and all are going to the tourney. If Carr gets the ball up floor against Purdue, or if they call the foul they should have, or if Stefanovic doesn't make the corner three or if Oturu doesn't miss the layup...we win. If Carr doesn't miss the one and one and Maryland doesn't sink a desperation 30 footer, we win. If Oturu makes the 1 and 1 against Iowa or anyone makes a play in the final five minutes, we win. If we get the rebound with 59 seconds left against Wisconsin, which was followed by the Pritzl three pointer, we likely win.

The difference between relative success and utter failure is a few plays over 20 games.

We didn't massively under perform, in fact we were right there in most every game except 4 that I can think of. We simply did not make the plays to finish. Call it coaching, call it players, call it luck or a combo of all but this team didn't massively under perform what we thought they would be.
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If, if, if.

Every GD thread. BGA with the loser's lament.

"If."
 


bga1 said:
I think "massively under performed" is a massive overstatement. 5th place was 4 teams at 11-9 and all are going to the tourney. If Carr gets the ball up floor against Purdue, or if they call the foul they should have, or if Stefanovic doesn't make the corner three or if Oturu doesn't miss the layup...we win. If Carr doesn't miss the one and one and Maryland doesn't sink a desperation 30 footer, we win. If Oturu makes the 1 and 1 against Iowa or anyone makes a play in the final five minutes, we win. If we get the rebound with 59 seconds left against Wisconsin, which was followed by the Pritzl three pointer, we likely win.

The difference between relative success and utter failure is a few plays over 20 games.

We didn't massively under perform, in fact we were right there in most every game except 4 that I can think of. We simply did not make the plays to finish. Call it coaching, call it players, call it luck or a combo of all but this team didn't massively under perform what we thought they would be.
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Who on the planet would call it luck? We didn't lose on lucky shots, we got beat by teams who executed better down the stretch. If anyone calls it luck, they are delusional.

If you don't think finishing 12th in the Big 10 and 14-16 overall isn't massively underperforming, then I am shocked that you don't think Pitino should be fired. If that is a slight underperformance and within the expected results of the season and you are still happy with the coach. . . wow.

We did this all at the same time we had a break through star.

If I would have posted in that thread, Oturu will go for 20/11/2.5 on 56% shooting and we'll finish 12th in the Big 10, 14-16 overall, and we won't have any major injuries other than Curry. . . people would have laughed at me.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
Who on the planet would call it luck? We didn't lose on lucky shots, we got beat by teams who executed better down the stretch. If anyone calls it luck, they are delusional.

If you don't think finishing 12th in the Big 10 and 14-16 overall isn't massively underperforming, then I am shocked that you don't think Pitino should be fired. If that is a slight underperformance and within the expected results of the season and you are still happy with the coach. . . wow.

We did this all at the same time we had a break through star.

If I would have posted in that thread, Oturu will go for 20/11/2.5 on 56% shooting and we'll finish 12th in the Big 10, 14-16 overall, and we won't have any major injuries other than Curry. . . people would have laughed at me.
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I disagree with you on most everything there.

As to the last scenario on Oturu, you have to couple that with Gabe and Demir going on historic shooting slumps throughout the year.
 

bga1 said:
I disagree with you on most everything there.

As to the last scenario on Oturu, you have to couple that with Gabe and Demir going on historic shooting slumps throughout the year.
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I don't think any of us really knew what to expect out of Demir. If anyone expected a great player, they must've forgotten all about Brock Stull.

Your logic is pretty flawed here. You seem to be arguing that you thought Demir was going to be a good basketball player AND you still thought we'd be this bad?

Ok, I guess you don't think finishing 12th in the Big 10 and going 14-16 overall was a massive underperformance? I don't think in your world Pitino should ever be fired. It's hard to dip much lower than we are now, and if you can't even call this season a massive underperformance, it'll be almost impossible to find a scenario where that happens.
 

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