***OFFICIAL RUTGERS VS MINNESOTA BIG TEN TOURNAMENT IN-GAME THREAD!!!***

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Bad Gopher said:
When you see the guy swish that beautiful spinning hook shot with his left hand and then clank two free throws...it makes no sense at all.
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Rewatch the freethrows. The ball is spinning like it is the earth in orbit. Watch his guide hand and where keeps it. When he shoots the freethrows it is like he's going to try spin the ball on his finger rather than shoot it in the basket. His rotation makes his shot different everytime he shoots it on his freethrows.
 

Bad Gopher said:
A strong talent grab is a realistic expectation of this program. In general, Minnesota ought to be able to recruit top-100 talent, especially now that they have exceptional coaching and development to recruit to. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Richard Pitino is the only Gopher coach in the last 55 years to not sign a 5-star or equivalent recruit. It's not an impossible dream. Also, Niko takes 3-star (Roddy) and 4-star (Clifford) recruits and sends them to the NBA.
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Well, Pitino had Marcus Carr, Daniel Oturu, Jordan Murphy and Amir Coffey who have similar NBA experiences as well.
Isaiah Washington played basketball for St. Raymond High School for Boys in The Bronx, a borough of New York City. On August 26, he shared most valuable player (MVP) honors at the Elite 24 All-American Game after scoring 36 points. As a senior, he averaged 26 points and six assists per game. Washington scored a season-high 54 in a 91–83 loss to Cardinal Hayes High School. He finished his career as St. Raymond's all-time leading scorer with 1,410 points, surpassing Darryl Bryant, and was Mr. New York Basketball, becoming the fourth point guard to ever win the award.
Washington was a consensus four-star recruit and the highest rated New York point guard in the 2017 class. He committed to play college basketball for Minnesota over offers from several other NCAA Division I programs.

Isaiah Washington was not a 5 star but a close equivalent.
Jelly Fam info from the internet..

Donovan Dent and JT Toppin from New Mexico and Pitino will have NBA experiences.
3 star Nate Mason was awfully good for the Gophers. Jamal Mashburn was a Top 100 recruit for Pitino and the Gophers and a two year leading scorer for New Mexico.

Tubby Smith signed one 5-star recruit during his tenure at Minnesota (2007–2013), forward Royce White. Although considered a top talent, White never actually played for the Gophers. Other notable, highly-rated recruits under Smith included top-100 prospects Andre and Austin Hollins, and Minnesota native Joe Coleman.
AND, Ben Johnson signed Dennis Evans who also didn't play for the Gophers.
University of Minnesota men’s basketball coach Ben Johnson landed a major recruiting milestone with 5-star center Dennis Evans (Class of 2023), who was considered the program's biggest commitment in nearly 20 years. Other notable, high-level prospects under Johnson include 4-star guard Cameron Christie and 4-star guard Isaac Asuma.
Near as I can figure Niko has not recruited any 5 stars in his 12 years of head coaching.
 
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60's Guy said:
Well, Pitino had Marcus Carr, Daniel Oturu, Jordan Murphy and Amir Coffey who have similar NBA experiences as well.
Isaiah Washington played basketball for St. Raymond High School for Boys in The Bronx, a borough of New York City. On August 26, he shared most valuable player (MVP) honors at the Elite 24 All-American Game after scoring 36 points. As a senior, he averaged 26 points and six assists per game. Washington scored a season-high 54 in a 91–83 loss to Cardinal Hayes High School. He finished his career as St. Raymond's all-time leading scorer with 1,410 points, surpassing Darryl Bryant, and was Mr. New York Basketball, becoming the fourth point guard to ever win the award.
Washington was a consensus four-star recruit and the highest rated New York point guard in the 2017 class. He committed to play college basketball for Minnesota over offers from several other NCAA Division I programs.

Isaiah Washington was not a 5 star but a close equivalent.
Jelly Fam info from the internet..

Donovan Dent and JT Toppin from New Mexico and Pitino will have NBA experiences.
3 star Nate Mason was awfully good for the Gophers. Jamal Mashburn was a Top 100 recruit for Pitino and the Gophers and a two year leading scorer for New Mexico.

Tubby Smith signed one 5-star recruit during his tenure at Minnesota (2007–2013), forward Royce White. Although considered a top talent, White never actually played for the Gophers. Other notable, highly-rated recruits under Smith included top-100 prospects Andre and Austin Hollins, and Minnesota native Joe Coleman.
AND, Ben Johnson signed Dennis Evans who also didn't play for the Gophers.
University of Minnesota men’s basketball coach Ben Johnson landed a major recruiting milestone with 5-star center Dennis Evans (Class of 2023), who was considered the program's biggest commitment in nearly 20 years. Other notable, high-level prospects under Johnson include 4-star guard Cameron Christie and 4-star guard Isaac Asuma.
Near as I can figure Niko has not recruited any 5 stars in his 12 years of head coaching.
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You are not going to sign 4 and 5 stars coaching at CSU, Drake or Furman. Niko will get us talent.
 

60's Guy said:
Well, Pitino had Marcus Carr, Daniel Oturu, Jordan Murphy and Amir Coffey who have similar NBA experiences as well.
Isaiah Washington played basketball for St. Raymond High School for Boys in The Bronx, a borough of New York City. On August 26, he shared most valuable player (MVP) honors at the Elite 24 All-American Game after scoring 36 points. As a senior, he averaged 26 points and six assists per game. Washington scored a season-high 54 in a 91–83 loss to Cardinal Hayes High School. He finished his career as St. Raymond's all-time leading scorer with 1,410 points, surpassing Darryl Bryant, and was Mr. New York Basketball, becoming the fourth point guard to ever win the award.
Washington was a consensus four-star recruit and the highest rated New York point guard in the 2017 class. He committed to play college basketball for Minnesota over offers from several other NCAA Division I programs.

Isaiah Washington was not a 5 star but a close equivalent.
Jelly Fam info from the internet..

Donovan Dent and JT Toppin from New Mexico and Pitino will have NBA experiences.
3 star Nate Mason was awfully good for the Gophers. Jamal Mashburn was a Top 100 recruit for Pitino and the Gophers and a two year leading scorer for New Mexico.

Tubby Smith signed one 5-star recruit during his tenure at Minnesota (2007–2013), forward Royce White. Although considered a top talent, White never actually played for the Gophers. Other notable, highly-rated recruits under Smith included top-100 prospects Andre and Austin Hollins, and Minnesota native Joe Coleman.
AND, Ben Johnson signed Dennis Evans who also didn't play for the Gophers.
University of Minnesota men’s basketball coach Ben Johnson landed a major recruiting milestone with 5-star center Dennis Evans (Class of 2023), who was considered the program's biggest commitment in nearly 20 years. Other notable, high-level prospects under Johnson include 4-star guard Cameron Christie and 4-star guard Isaac Asuma.
Near as I can figure Niko has not recruited any 5 stars in his 12 years of head coaching.
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Dennis Evans was as much of a 5-star player as me. That young man was grossly overrated.
 



bga1 said:
You are not going to sign 4 and 5 stars coaching at CSU, Drake or Furman. Niko will get us talent.
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The argument is Pitino didn't sign 5 stars at Minnesota. Medved and Pitino both coached in the Mountain West for four seasons. Richard took over a woeful program. Niko was established at CSU and beat Richard both games in year one. Year 2 - they split. Year 3 - they split regular season and Richard won by 13 in the conference tournament. Year 4 - Richard won both matchups by a total of 30 points...both coaches went to the NCAA Tournament that year. So the last 3 years Richard was 5 and 2 vs Niko head to head.
What's my point? Richard can coach....he is not woeful...it bothers me when people trash him for his ability to coach.
Richard needed to move on from Minnesota. Happy Niko is our coach.
 

kg21 said:
they still need a massive upgrade in talent.
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I mean sure, who couldn't...but do we really?

Niko's track record consistently shows teams that start slowish, gel, and are a force to be reckoned with come March.

Where would this team have been with a healthy JCJ, Willis, and Vaihola?

Shit...if even JCJ was healthy and playing like he had been, I liked our odds of making serious noise in this BTT.

What this team accomplished with 5.5 players over the last month is nothing short of remarkable. Losing to Rutgers last night sucked but it doesn't take any shine off the season for me.
 

book said:
Game turned when Grove got two foul shots and missed and then we didn’t score with the free possession and of course Rutgers scored
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And the (obvious) missed Rutgers kick. No idea how the refs didn't see that.
 





60's Guy said:
We finished 11th in the Big Ten...we pretty much all marvel the accomplishment.
We sit in this area of the standings and lower a lot. It is not going to be easy to do better next year.
Here is what pisses me off...Wisconsin is pretty similar to us for recruiting advantages, geography, money etc...yet in the last 25 years these are their Big Ten finishes:
5 Big Ten Titles
4 2nd's
3 3rd's
8 4th's
2 5th's
1 6th
and twice they were lower than that in 25 years. Top 4 20 times! Gophers once!

Minnesota in those 25 years? Richard Pitino finished 4th once for our highest place in the standings in the last 25 years. Pitino also had 2 - 7th place finishes. Tubby had two 6th's and a 7th.
Those are the recent glory days...Dan Monson gave us two 5th place finishes in 2001-02 and 2004-05, plus a 7th in 2002-03.
The other 16 years? 1-8th, 4-9's, 3-10's, 2-11's, 2-12's, 3-13's and 1-14th place finish.
Wisconsin twice in 25 years below 6th place ... Minnesota 20 times in 7th or below !!! 1- 4th, 2 5th's, 2-6th's are the highs for Minnesota.
So, Niko has a hill to climb...it doesn't happen often at Minnesota that we finish top 6. It's probably harder to do with 18 teams than it was with 10, 11, 14 teams.
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Citing conference finishing place isn't a useful metric considering all of those coaches were around when the B1G had varying number of teams.

Let's use conference winning % or records.

Pitino had 8-10 season (NIT champs) 11-7 season and a 9-11 season (2019, won a tourney game)

Tubby had two 9-9 seasons and an 8-10 season (2013 team which won a tourney game).

Monson went 10-6 in 2005, 9-7 in 2002, 8-8 in 2003 (looks better on paper than we remember).

It's been too long. We are on the right track with Niko...
 




MaxyJR1 said:
Rutgers had the ability to take what they learned in their loss a couple weeks ago and prepare a better game plan this time around. Had we won last night I'm thinking UCLA would have been much better prepared that last time around. Northwestern played us way back at New Years, so we were a completely different team the second time around. Indiana had a great plan against the zone as well. Teams make shots against the zone, we were in trouble.
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This.

Indiana was so well prepared for our zone the 2nd time around, as was Rutgers last night. as badly as I wanted us to win last night, UCLA likely would've diced us up tonight.

It's hard to win games in the Big Ten, especially with 5.5 players!
 

60's Guy said:
Richard can coach....he is not woeful...it bothers me when people trash him for his ability to coach.
Richard needed to move on from Minnesota. Happy Niko is our coach.
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Pitino can get talent (not depth, but top end talent), and is a funny sarcastic quipster for the media. As an actual coach and program builder, meh he was proven to be sorely lacking at this level. Fear he will get found out at Xavier.

Niko has a great personality as well, but is a ball coach's ball coach. X's and O's he runs circles around Richard.
 

Zeppelin Gopher said:
This.

Indiana was so well prepared for our zone the 2nd time around, as was Rutgers last night. as badly as I wanted us to win last night, UCLA likely would've diced us up tonight.

It's hard to win games in the Big Ten, especially with 5.5 players!
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Yes, it is hard to win with 5.5 players...we do have a half a dozen healthy guys on the bench. Problem is they aren't very good and we'd perform worse if they played. More talent 1 through 10, if not 15, is the answer. But seems hard to do...coaches don't want 15 guys who are capable of playing...so how many is the right number? It ain't 9 or 10 because with injuries you get to 5.5 too frequently. But, pretty regularly the last 5 can't play at any where near the same level.
 

Zeppelin Gopher said:
Pitino can get talent (not depth, but top end talent), and is a funny sarcastic quipster for the media. As an actual coach and program builder, meh he was proven to be sorely lacking at this level. Fear he will get found out at Xavier.

Niko has a great personality as well, but is a ball coach's ball coach. X's and O's he runs circles around Richard.
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So, you dismiss the 5 and 2 head to head on equal footing advantage for Richard? Or is it you just like Niko's offense better?
1000% I agree on Richard and depth at Minnesota....he was better about it at New Mexico.
His two best guys got hurt in the summer at Xavier and missed the entire season.
 

Bad Gopher said:
He's not the first 5-star flop in history, and he won't be the last.
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But this one seemed fairly easy to see. You could argue he still has value and it's not his fault he got labeled a 5 star.
 


60's Guy said:
But this one seemed fairly easy to see. You could argue he still has value and it's not his fault he got labeled a 5 star.
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OK, so you saw it and posted that thought here when he signed? Good on you!
 




60's Guy said:
View attachment 43108View attachment 43109
Those are just a couple after he committed 3-4 years ago.
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I always joked with my circle that there are 4-Star recruits and then there are Gopher 4-stars. The other team gets a 4* that lives up to the rating.

Case & Point: Former Pitnio recruit Tre' Williams was a 4* (you may not even remember him). Terrance Shannon Jr. was ranked a few spots behind him and was also a 4*.

Dennis Evans would have been the perfect "cherry on top" Gopher 5* in the history of 5-star recruits.
 

topos said:
I always joked with my circle that there are 4-Star recruits and then there are Gopher 4-stars. The other team gets a 4* that lives up to the rating.

Case & Point: Former Pitnio recruit Tre' Williams was a 4* (you may not even remember him). Terrance Shannon Jr. was ranked a few spots behind him and was also a 4*.

Dennis Evans would have been the perfect "cherry on top" Gopher 5* in the history of 5-star recruits.
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Wasn't Tre Williams another Gopher player's cousin?


Edit: Never mind. He and Jalen Suggs were very close and referred to each other as cousins.
 

60's Guy said:
Yes, it is hard to win with 5.5 players...we do have a half a dozen healthy guys on the bench. Problem is they aren't very good and we'd perform worse if they played.
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What team are you talking about? We only had Shinholster and a couple of healthy walk-ons in the bench.
 


topos said:
I always joked with my circle that there are 4-Star recruits and then there are Gopher 4-stars. The other team gets a 4* that lives up to the rating.

Case & Point: Former Pitnio recruit Tre' Williams was a 4* (you may not even remember him). Terrance Shannon Jr. was ranked a few spots behind him and was also a 4*.
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I remember him well. I was very happy when he transferred. He played 5 years of college ball and had only one fair one: his 5th year with Tulane. He had a career .455 True Shooting Percentage and a career Player Efficiency Rating of 7.6, both terrible.
 

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