BIG Game 15: Gophers @ Badgers, Feb 15th!

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we are back to not running a lot of sets for GG.. loved that play right before half that was a great play for GG.. also seems like GG kind of in a 3 point shooting slump.. but go feed her down low, she is really good posting up guards..
 
















EaganGopher22 said:
Fun 3 quarters to watch without the anxious 3rd quarter. Great road win. Nice to see Christian play and score in front of family and friends. GG had a good game even if not scoring at a high rate. Really hoping that this version of Braun continues.
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Looks like Makena Christian on 15 minutes shot three 3s and made one for 3 points. Made both free throw attempts. One defensive rebound. One steal.

She was an elite rebounder in high school.

I didn't watch closely. I wonder how her defense was. She potentially is really good, nice size for a wing guard type.

Her shooting hasn't been good the past several games, unsure what to expect. Assume this was a decent stepping stone game????
 

Another well executed defensive game plan. Cleaned up the turnovers and suddenly the offense looks good again. It's funny that when the offense was suffering from execution and poor shooting issues from everybody but Tori and GG, it was a crap offense. Now, that players are executing it better and Braun, Hart and Battle are finishing more efficiently, the offense is fine. If you've been paying attention, Coach P hasn't really changed anything, the players are just doing it better..

A note to the person complaining about not running plays for GG. Other than out of bounds plays, how many set plays for specific players to you believe they actually run during the course of a game?

I'll give you a hint. Very few. This is a motion offense that is designed to make sure you get a post touch, from which we can either shoot or pass back out to a shooter. The other thing about many motion with post option offenses is that they are often penetrate and dish oriented as well. The idea being that if I can't pass to the post, maybe you can penetrate and if you're cut off, dish to the post or back out. GG has recently found her offense by penetrating or by cutting to the lane and getting a pass. Read and React. And of course, if the penetration is being cut off, move the ball from side to side, in and out, draw the defense to an area and look for a cutter away from the action. Very few specific play calls for a specific player in a motion offense. More like specific actions to open an area of the court for whichever player ends up there after all the passes, screens and rotations. It's why you recruit to get players who can do a lot of different things, so that it doesn't matter who starts the action and who ends up finishing the action, as long as it's an open look. It's a read and react offense. The beauty of it is, if a defense is designed to stop your best shooter, know and practiced against most of those plays, and if you can't get that shooter open and are now kinda screwed, well, just keep moving the ball around ideally, one of your other shooters comes open in the same spot.. If you've noticed, teams have made a concentrated effort to run out on GG if she's on the perimeter. With a motion offense, just keep running, penetrating, cutting, passing and one of our other shooters will end up open or in a position to create something for themselves.

When people complain about not running enough plays for a specific player, it just shows that they aren't aware of what the Gophers offensive strategy and philosophy is. Although I'm not smart enough to actually design a motion offense with different actions depending on what you see, I've watched enough college practices and talked to enough coaches to get an idea of what many of them are trying to do and why.
 

WinMinGophers! said:
Looks like Makena Christian on 15 minutes shot three 3s and made one for 3 points. Made both free throw attempts. One defensive rebound. One steal.

She was an elite rebounder in high school.

I didn't watch closely. I wonder how her defense was. She potentially is really good, nice size for a wing guard type.

Her shooting hasn't been good the past several games, unsure what to expect. Assume this was a decent stepping stone game????
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I think her defense is a work in progress. She's a freshman, so getting all the intricacies to be instinctive has probably been her major hold up. That and when you've got 8 solid players that you already trust, minutes are tough to come by. Guessing that's part of the issue with Holloway as well. The fact that she's getting some more time during crucial parts of games shows that she's starting to pick things up in practice over the past month, which earns you more playing time earlier in games.
 

Chico Gopher said:
Another well executed defensive game plan. Cleaned up the turnovers and suddenly the offense looks good again. It's funny that when the offense was suffering from execution and poor shooting issues from everybody but Tori and GG, it was a crap offense. Now, that players are executing it better and Braun, Hart and Battle are finishing more efficiently, the offense is fine. If you've been paying attention, Coach P hasn't really changed anything, the players are just doing it better..

A note to the person complaining about not running plays for GG. Other than out of bounds plays, how many set plays for specific players to you believe they actually run during the course of a game?

I'll give you a hint. Very few. This is a motion offense that is designed to make sure you get a post touch, from which we can either shoot or pass back out to a shooter. The other thing about many motion with post option offenses is that they are often penetrate and dish oriented as well. The idea being that if I can't pass to the post, maybe you can penetrate and if you're cut off, dish to the post or back out. GG has recently found her offense by penetrating or by cutting to the lane and getting a pass. Read and React. And of course, if the penetration is being cut off, move the ball from side to side, in and out, draw the defense to an area and look for a cutter away from the action. Very few specific play calls for a specific player in a motion offense. More like specific actions to open an area of the court for whichever player ends up there after all the passes, screens and rotations. It's why you recruit to get players who can do a lot of different things, so that it doesn't matter who starts the action and who ends up finishing the action, as long as it's an open look. It's a read and react offense. The beauty of it is, if a defense is designed to stop your best shooter, know and practiced against most of those plays, and if you can't get that shooter open and are now kinda screwed, well, just keep moving the ball around ideally, one of your other shooters comes open in the same spot.. If you've noticed, teams have made a concentrated effort to run out on GG if she's on the perimeter. With a motion offense, just keep running, penetrating, cutting, passing and one of our other shooters will end up open or in a position to create something for themselves.

When people complain about not running enough plays for a specific player, it just shows that they aren't aware of what the Gophers offensive strategy and philosophy is. Although I'm not smart enough to actually design a motion offense with different actions depending on what you see, I've watched enough college practices and talked to enough coaches to get an idea of what many of them are trying to do and why.
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but at the same time don't you want one of your better shooters to get a good amount of shots, yes? that is why I wish GG would get more touches and shots.. because she is one of our better shooters and she can post up down low on smaller guards..
 

Gophers112233 said:
Amaya Battle is now TIED with Lindsay Whalen for 2nd place with 578 career assists in Gopher history.
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I've been very impressed with her overall game this year. When she gets it going, she's a load on both sides of the ball. Yeah, she has her bad moments or games, but pretty much every college player in America, even the All-Americans, have had moments or games that had fans frustrated. Things don't always go great when you've got another really good player across from you, who's main goal is to stop you from doing what you're supposed to do.
 

NCAA Tourney should be a lock now. First top 25 ranking coming up.

Beat OSU and MSU, and now you're looking at a very high seed.
 

Gophers112233 said:
but at the same time don't you want one of your better shooters to get a good amount of shots, yes? that is why I wish GG would get more touches and shots.. because she is one of our better shooters and she can post up down low on smaller guards..
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So when the other team is focusing their defense to stop your best shooter from getting a shoot, you want to force the offense in her direction and make her try and take bad shots? I've seen teams do that and watch their best shooter score an inefficient 22 and lose because they tried to force something that wasn't (by specific design) available. Or do you do what most coaches preach and take what the offense gives you. If everybody is executing in the motion offense, the defense will eventually have to start looking at your other offensive options and chances are that they'll have to play more straight up and BAM, GG will suddenly get more openings. Did you notice how Hart was getting double and triple-teamed for awhile, until we got back to getting good spacing and making some shots, and suddenly Wisconsin wasn't able to get that double/triple team on Hart fast enough to make a difference. That's what an effective motion offense will do for you.

As I've mentioned before, a decent coach with decent talent who is 100% determined to take your best player away from you, and let somebody else beat him, usually can; or at least slow that player down or change the way they attack (which GG has been very good about). You don't have to run plays for GG, she's smart enough to figure out what to do to create offense for herself. or others if she's not getting her normal looks. Unless you've got a Caitlyn Clark or Curry or Jordan on your team, I've seen it done hundreds of times.
 
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TruthSeeker said:
NCAA Tourney should be a lock now. First top 25 ranking coming up.

Beat OSU and MSU, and now you're looking at a very high seed.
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ESPN has Gophers as 6 seed now, and that was before tonight's game.
I actually like the 3 or 6 better than 4/5 as you don't likely have to face a #1 in the sweet 16 game if you get that far.
 

Chico Gopher said:
So when the other team is focusing their defense to stop your best shooter from getting a shoot, you want to force the offense in her direction and make her try and take bad shots? I've seen teams do that and watch their best shooter score an inefficient 22 and lose because they tried to force something that wasn't (by specific design) available. Or do you do what most coaches preach and take what the offense gives you. If everybody is executing in the motion offense, the defense will eventually have to start looking at your other offensive options and chances are that they'll have to play more straight up and BAM, GG will suddenly get more openings. Did you notice how Hart was getting double and triple-teamed for awhile, until we got back to getting good spacing and making some shots, and suddenly Wisconsin wasn't able to get that double/triple team on Hart fast enough to make a difference. That's what an effective motion offense will do for you.

As I've mentioned before, a decent coach with decent talent who is 100% determined to take your best player away from you, and let somebody else beat him, usually can. Unless you've got a Caitlyn Clark or Curry or Jordan on your team, I've seen it done hundreds of times.
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Totally agree! And to add a reminder….Minnesota’s all time leading scorer never played in an NCAA tournament. This team is on its 2nd longest big ten win streak ever! Spreading the ball out is working!
 

Chico Gopher said:
I think her defense is a work in progress. She's a freshman, so getting all the intricacies to be instinctive has probably been her major hold up. That and when you've got 8 solid players that you already trust, minutes are tough to come by. Guessing that's part of the issue with Holloway as well. The fact that she's getting some more time during crucial parts of games shows that she's starting to pick things up in practice over the past month, which earns you more playing time earlier in games.
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This summer will be important for her and the program. If she takes a step forward it just adds to the depth for next year. Her time will come.
 



The way it's been so hard to get ranked despite winning 6 Big Ten games in a row as of last week, I'm kind of pessimistic the committee would select us to host. It just feels like the conventional wisdom is "the Gophers are worse than they look".

I really hope we're ranked come tomorrow because the fifth best Big Ten team is definitely in the top 25 nationally. But we could also force the AP voters and the committee to take us seriously by sweeping OSU and MSU...
 


A couple notes from the telecast and former Gopher assistant Shimmy Miller. Kudos to her for admitting that Whalen and staff hadn't offered McKinney. She acknowledged that was a miss on their part. She also noted that she'd worked with Hart during Sofie's redshirt year and she'd found Hart to be an extremely hard worker, someone who really wanted to improve her game. It's nice to see that all of Sofie's work is paying off.
 

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