RandBall: As transfer portals close, Gophers basketball is thriving

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As fun as it was to see the progress of Durkin as part of the Iron Five, I still feel like he’s a guy who comes off the bench on a tournament-caliber team. With the guys we signed, I don’t see we’re bringing in anyone that moves him out of the starting lineup. That’s a worry for me.

In general this feels like a Moneyball experiment in that Medved is wagering he can get contributions from 4 guys who were written off at other P5 schools. I’m nervously optimistic.
 

howeda7 said:
Last year we had two returning players and only one had played any minutes the previous season. This year we have five returning players, including 3 starters. We're clearly in a better place than one year ago.
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I would agree that stability and experience wise we are in better shape than a year ago. With Tyson being a surprise very good player last year it remains to be seen, at least in my opinion, if the team will be a lot better. I hope so.
 

FritoPendejo said:
As fun as it was to see the progress of Durkin as part of the Iron Five, I still feel like he’s a guy who comes off the bench on a tournament-caliber team. With the guys we signed, I don’t see we’re bringing in anyone that moves him out of the starting lineup. That’s a worry for me.

In general this feels like a Moneyball experiment in that Medved is wagering he can get contributions from 4 guys who were written off at other P5 schools. I’m nervously optimistic.
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I'm still hopeful we can hit a point where Durkin can be a 6th man because I agree that feels like the perfect role for the kind of player he is. Instant offense off the bench.

To me it all hinges on Grady and Groves. If one of them can earn a starting spot then you could run out a lineup of Asuma, Evans, (Grady or Groves), JCJ, Kordel with Durkin, Grove, the guy who doesn't start out of Grady/Groves, and Shinholster as key reserves. That is a pretty solid 9 and doesn't even account for the true freshman who may or may not be ready to play right away.

Going to be fun to see how it all plays out. Also can't rule out a late portal add for additional depth. Lots of guys out there looking for new homes still.
 


GophersInIowa said:
I don't think it matters much if Durkin is a starter or comes off the bench. He's likely a 28-32 MPG guy regardless.
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I think Durkin is a guy who could give us 10 points in 20 minutes of PT if we work him into the right slots. I love having a guy that can come in at the right time and give you a couple swish threes.

Right now there are a lot of guys in the mix who could change how we view things several months from now. Last year when we got Tyson, there were widely varying opinions on how much impact he would have to whether he would start.

We really don't know how good Grady, Groves, Anderson, Tomes, Mpoyi or Kordel will be. Recall Cam Christie. He was ranked right around where Anderson is- maybe a tad higher, but with the same calling card- great shooter. Odds are, a few of these guys are really going to surprise us in a good way. The more of them we have, the better the competition for playing time.
 
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MNVCGUY said:
1) It is going to be interesting to see how this portal class works out. My guess is that Niko feels good about the base that is in place so he felt he could roll the dice on high upside guys without proven track records in college.

2) Going into this off season I felt like we had to go find our go to guy in the portal for next year but the more I thought about it the more it feels like that guy may already be here in the form of JCJ who if he takes another step in development can quickly move up among the league leaders in scoring and rebounding.

3) As long as Evans follows the trend of UNC duds doing well for us we will just need decent production from the new faces to have a solid roster next year that should be able to make the NCAA tournament.
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1) "Roll the dice on high upside guys" is a plausible interpretation. After the first three commits, I sensed that Niko was using the portal with an eye toward future year contributions more than immediate year contributions. He may also believe (correctly I would say) that he has a long leash.

2) I like JCJ a lot but I don't see him being among the league leaders in scoring and rebounding. He's a good player but he's not a particularly efficient scorer, the way he plays takes him away from the basket often, and he's also foul prone which limits his minutes.

3) "As long as Evans follows the trend of UNC duds doing well for us" You know, I'm really sick of reading this sentiment. I think Evans will be a decent starter but his history doesn't suggest that he will be a Tyson replacement. The Gophers averaged 68 points in conference games last season. That was 16th in the league for conference games only. Part of that undoubtedly was due to the team's very slow pace but the two players we lost accounted for 31 of those 68 points.
 

TwistingMyMelon said:
3) "As long as Evans follows the trend of UNC duds doing well for us" You know, I'm really sick of reading this sentiment. I think Evans will be a decent starter but his history doesn't suggest that he will be a Tyson replacement.
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Honest question, have you been seeing people say he is a Tyson replacement? I have not gotten that impression from the board. I like him as a Willis replacement, who is a better scheme fit for Niko. I am hoping his year here looks similar to sophomore year at CSU: 11 pts, 3 ast, highly efficient 3PT shooting (41% at CSU) and excellent FT% (85%). Chansey Willis's 46% FT in a small sample was very bad for your lead guard.

I am expecting Tyson's scoring to be replaced by us not having 100% of our points scored by our 5 starters. Not shockingly, last year we were 361st (out of 362) in bench scoring. Our bench players scored 237 points all year. In his last year at CSU, his bench scored 412 points. Looking forward to seeing Nolen Anderson see some minutes,

I'm also expecting growth from our returning starters. My money is on Asuma to make the leap but who knows could be JCJ or Durkin.

In his second year at CSU where he was able to recruit his guys, they had 4 guys in double figures and the leader was Stevens and Carvacho at 13 apiece, Roddy at 11, and Thistlewood at 10, and I'm guessing our season looks a bit more like that.

But who knows, I made this same prediction that the scoring would be balanced last year I think and then Tyson exceeded my already optimistic expectations for him.
 
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eker0016 said:
Honest question, have you been seeing people say he is a Tyson replacement? I have not gotten that impression from the board. I like him as a Willis replacement, who is a better scheme fit for Niko. I am hoping his year here looks similar to sophomore year at CSU: 11 pts, 3 ast, highly efficient 3PT shooting (41% at CSU) and excellent FT% (85%). Chansey Willis's 46% FT in a small sample was very bad for your lead guard.

2) I am expecting Tyson's scoring to be replaced by us not having 100% of our points scored by our 5 starters. Not shockingly, last year we were 361st (out of 362). Our bench players scored 237 points all year. In his last year at CSU, his bench scored 412 points. Looking forward to seeing Nolen Anderson see some minutes,

3) I'm also expecting growth from our returning starters. My money is on Asuma to make the leap but who knows could be JCJ or Durkin.

In his second year at CSU where he was able to recruit his guys, they had 4 guys in double figures and the leader was Stevens and Carvacho at 13 apiece, Roddy at 11, and Thistlewood at 10, and I'm guessing our season looks a bit more like that.

But who knows, I made this same prediction that the scoring would be balanced last year I think and then Tyson exceeded my already optimistic expectations for him.
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Good post!

1) Not in those exact words, more by way of accentuating one similarity between them: Tyson took a dip at UNC and Evans took a dip at UNC. Tyson was an accomplished scorer in both of his years at Belmont though and was the league's rookie of the year as a freshman and 2nd team as a soph. Evans is not bad and I expect he will be a decent scorer but I don't expect anything close to Tyson.

2) I would say that's quite likely but it almost would have to be because our bench for most of last year was either one or two lightly recruited freshmen (one of them did much better than I thought he would).

3) As enjoyable as Durkin was once he got on a roll, his weaknesses really were exposed against Baylor. He had a defender right in is face by the time he caught the ball and had to resort to moving way beyond the 3-point line to get off a shot. I don't know what to think about Asuma. He's a solid two-way player but I don't know yet whether he will take that next step. I think JCJ can go further but I don't know how much further.
 

TwistingMyMelon said:
1) "Roll the dice on high upside guys" is a plausible interpretation. After the first three commits, I sensed that Niko was using the portal with an eye toward future year contributions more than immediate year contributions. He may also believe (correctly I would say) that he has a long leash.

2) I like JCJ a lot but I don't see him being among the league leaders in scoring and rebounding. He's a good player but he's not a particularly efficient scorer, the way he plays takes him away from the basket often, and he's also foul prone which limits his minutes.

3) "As long as Evans follows the trend of UNC duds doing well for us" You know, I'm really sick of reading this sentiment. I think Evans will be a decent starter but his history doesn't suggest that he will be a Tyson replacement. The Gophers averaged 68 points in conference games last season. That was 16th in the league for conference games only. Part of that undoubtedly was due to the team's very slow pace but the two players we lost accounted for 31 of those 68 points.
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1 - I do think Niko has an eye to the future with these signings but I think he also understands that in this current landscape you can't bank on guys staying so I have to believe he thinks these guys can help in 26-27.

2 - JCJ finished 33rd in points and 14th in rebounds last year. With even just a small jump in both scoring and rebounding he would quickly jump into the top 20 in scoring and top 10 in rebounding. He may not get all the way to Tyson's 20 a game but wouldn't take much for him to go to 16 a game and as Eker pointed out in his post, we may not have a direct Tyson replacement but we will almost certainly get more from the bench.

3 - That kind of bleeds into #3. My comment about Evans was not to say that he was going to be the Tyson replacement just that he will hopefully follow the trend of struggling at UNC but doing really well here in the way Garcia and Tyson both did. For Evans that mean getting back to double digit points and racking up assists.

Tyson and Reynolds were huge parts of the offense last year, in large part because they had to be with the lack of bench, the injury to JCJ later in the year and the offensive limitations of Grove and Shinholster as young players still figuring things out. Good chance in the upcoming season that we don't have one player dominate the scoring the way Tyson did but we are much more balanced across the roster and get a lot more from our bench......because we will actually have one :)
 



GophersInIowa said:
I don't think it matters much if Durkin is a starter or comes off the bench. He's likely a 28-32 MPG guy regardless.
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I know this is knit picking but id prefer he be a 22-28 minute guy! That means we have quality starters. And Grove a 16-21 minutes! Im assuming wed go JCJ, Kordel, Grady , Evans and Assuma or Nelson Grove. Durkin and Grayson Groves off the bench with Nelson and Mpoyel getting 8-12 or 13 minutes. Maybe then with more depth and fresher legs we'd play higher pressure defense!
 

MTBeaudry said:
I know this is knit picking but id prefer he be a 22-28 minute guy! That means we have quality starters. And Grove a 16-21 minutes! Im assuming wed go JCJ, Kordel, Grady , Evans and Assuma or Nelson Grove. Durkin and Grayson Groves off the bench with Nelson and Mpoyel getting 8-12 or 13 minutes. Maybe then with more depth and fresher legs we'd play higher pressure defense!
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Chances are we will see a lot less zone next year if we have better depth and don't have to be as concerned about foul trouble.
 

TwistingMyMelon said:
2) I would say that's quite likely but it almost would have to be because our bench for most of last year was either one or two lightly recruited freshmen (one of them did much better than I thought he would).
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In that first handful of games before both Vaihola and Willis got hurt, we had solid bench production. Durkin and Reynolds were coming off the bench, playing 20-25 minutes per game. Reynolds actually hit double figures 3 times in those first 7 games before he became a starter. And while he was cold, Durkin was still contributing 6 ppg off the bench including a 0-5 clunker against Chicago State before he became a starter. I expect Niko will settle on a 7-8 man rotation again next year and one of Groves or Anderson will give us some scoring punch off the bench.

If Omot was healthy I really think he could have been a big contributor as well.

It was a bit concerning to see Durkin get removed from the board, hopefully Niko has a counterpunch for that next year.
 

MTBeaudry said:
I know this is knit picking but id prefer he be a 22-28 minute guy! That means we have quality starters. And Grove a 16-21 minutes! Im assuming wed go JCJ, Kordel, Grady , Evans and Assuma or Nelson Grove. Durkin and Grayson Groves off the bench with Nelson and Mpoyel getting 8-12 or 13 minutes. Maybe then with more depth and fresher legs we'd play higher pressure defense!
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Nolan Groves
 
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MNVCGUY said:
Chances are we will see a lot less zone next year if we have better depth and don't have to be as concerned about foul trouble.
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It's also really nice to know that if you want to throw in zone, just as a change of pace, or strategically, or due to foul trouble, you have a lot of returning players who have demonstrated success playing zone, and that can bring the new players up to pace more quickly.
 

I like what ive seen so far this off-season, though when all is said and done, ill evaluate Medved by whether and how much his team wins, not whether I am impressed with his recruiting.

Players from the bench of elite teams intrigue me. If we get the right ones, they have three things going for them: (1) the talent that earned them the roster spot on an elite team is still there; (2) they have seen what a winning team is like at practice and in the locker room; and (3) for the first time in their basketball career, they weren't the star, and a little humble pie can be great motivation.
 

FritoPendejo said:
As fun as it was to see the progress of Durkin as part of the Iron Five, I still feel like he’s a guy who comes off the bench on a tournament-caliber team. With the guys we signed, I don’t see we’re bringing in anyone that moves him out of the starting lineup. That’s a worry for me.

In general this feels like a Moneyball experiment in that Medved is wagering he can get contributions from 4 guys who were written off at other P5 schools. I’m nervously optimistic.
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I feel this. I am generally optimistic. I like the general direction of the retained players, the high school recruits, and the portal additions. But as I pointed out in a previous post about college experience: we currently are very thin, beyond the top 4 players (3 returners, 1 familiar with Niko). The experienced players should improve.

Those with little, to no experience, are wild cards. Some will make their way into the rotation because they are better than the other inexperienced players or because of injury, but that isn't always ideal way to win now (it is a good way to gain experience). I don't see a lot of consistent, quality contributions from that crew. I'm sure there will be games where someone will pop off for 15 points or a big will grab 10 boards, but in another game they'll grab 3 fouls in 2 minutes and ride the pine (or fall out of the rotation). There will hopefully be improvement throughout the season, which was nice to see this year. But we are putting a lot pressure on freshman and inexperience sophomores to be starters or major pieces off the bench. So my optimism for the coming season is tempered.

As was suggestion in the last week or so, Niko may still be looking to add another experienced player. To me, that would go a long way to improving the short-term success of the team. The expanded tournament field helps too.
 

FritoPendejo said:
As fun as it was to see the progress of Durkin as part of the Iron Five, I still feel like he’s a guy who comes off the bench on a tournament-caliber team. With the guys we signed, I don’t see we’re bringing in anyone that moves him out of the starting lineup. That’s a worry for me.

In general this feels like a Moneyball experiment in that Medved is wagering he can get contributions from 4 guys who were written off at other P5 schools. I’m nervously optimistic.
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This'll work itself out. One thing I've been impressed by with Medved: he's flexible and adaptable with his lineup. If you've earned playing time, you're going to get it. That hasn't been the case with past regimes.

I'll say this about Durkin: his improvement on defense made him starter quality. He proved himself as a defender. He also rebounded decently. I think he ended the season as an underappreciated total player.
 

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