22-23 Season Part 1 Grade

[bball_craz_31]

I figured this would be a good time to get a read on how everyone feels about the team. Their first four games were designed to give a very young team and a new team a chance to figure out some stuff. With the week off before the tournament next weekend. Team is going into week of practice at 3-1 and the weekend kicks off a streak of 5 of 6 games against power five teams. I'm guessing the team's offense, defense, and little mistakes will be magnified and these next six will really shape what expectations or ceiling this group can reach. Here are things to consider in your grading.

-Team is 3-0 at home as well as 3-0 with full roster

-Averaging 80.5 ppg and giving up 65.6 ppg

-Five players in double figures, led by Mara Braun 21.3 ppg

-Had back-to-back Conference Freshman of the Weeks (Braun and Heyer)

-Rose with three double-doubles in 4 games

-Averaging only 13.25 turnovers a game, forcing 19.75 per game

-Only five players have made a 3-pointer this season, 8 from each Mara and Katie, 3 from Heyer, 2 from Gradwell and 1 from Maggie

My personal grade is a B. probably a low-end B- to be exact. I could have justified an A if 4-0 but Mara playing or not, the NDSU loss stings. However the freshman have been fantastic, and at times Rose, Katie and Maggie all have had strong moments. I honestly don't know what to expect these next 6 games, Two tournament games on road will be a challenge but so will Wake Forest, Kentucky, and Penn State at home. Iowa... umm that one might be ugly. I'll do a team rating for team after the next 6 games as well to see the change from first four to the ramped up 6-game competition.

Feel free to vote, share your thoughts on your vote and worries/concerns or promising things you have seen. Attached is the player stats through the first four games.

 

[golden10]

The opposition has been too poor to get a good idea. The Lehigh game was wild and the NDSU game was, well, also wild... No doubt we'd be 4-0 if Braun played at NDSU, but still can't lose that game.

Things I'm looking for most against the upcoming P5 teams
- Level of freshman production continuing
- Will Czinano's driving ability and drawing fouls continue or will it lead to turnovers?
- Borowicz only took 1 shot against Presbyterian. Does she continue to try and be a facilitator instead of scorer?
- Defense to resemble Q1 at NDSU

 

[Ignatius L Hoops]

I'll go with a gentleman's "C". The next three weeks will count a lot more. We will be playing several teams with recent coaching changes and probably less talent.

Yes it is a young team with a couple or three of developing stars. But it is a young team by choice. The transfers didn't tumble into Dinkytown riding the winter wind. The coaching staff thought, or should've thought, the "vets" were going to solve some problems like: post play, off guard play, defense, three point shooting, etc. I think it's a recruiting failure of the staff; its not a failure of the veteran players who caught the blame for the loss at NDSU.

 

[Ragnor]

I'm going with a B, because overall they are doing a bit better than I expected overall.

Freshman have performed better from the start than I expected. All 3 have been fantastic, I figured at least 1 or 2 would struggle for at least part of the year if not the whole year.

Czinano has improved dramatically, much more than I expected this early in the season.

Rose has improved about as much as I hoped. She is now a solid dependable post but can improve a ton more yet.

Katie has really evolved from game one this year to the last game. The last game she focused on distributing and taking "her" shots and not forcing acrobatic shots in the lane. I hope this focus continues, on distributing and sticking to her high quality shots.

The rest of the veteran transfers have performed about as well as I expected. They will contribute but will likely not be our stars.

Their ability to play as a cohesive team is improving, it was aweful on game one and was pretty good last game with lesser competition. They showed more than I expected this early the way they battled back against Lehigh.

If the gophs can take 2 of the next 5 I will feel ok, if they take 3 I will feel pretty good. 4 or more of the next 5 will be outstanding and will put us on track for a minimum of NIT or NCAA birth. But I think that is too much to expect.

 

[Team Ball]

The opposition has been too poor to get a good idea. The Lehigh game was wild and the NDSU game was, well, also wild... No doubt we'd be 4-0 if Braun played at NDSU, but still can't lose that game.

Things I'm looking for most against the upcoming P5 teams
- Level of freshman production continuing
- Will Czinano's driving ability and drawing fouls continue or will it lead to turnovers?
- Borowicz only took 1 shot against Presbyterian. Does she continue to try and be a facilitator instead of scorer?
- Defense to resemble Q1 at NDSU

I suspect we didn't necessairly play great defense Q1 of NDSU & Presbyterian. Rather I think our opponents were shell-shocked by playing a Big 10 team. Once they got over that both teams started scoring on us.

 

[Team Ball]

I'm giving the transfers a D-. When they were brought-in I observed these players have spent the past four years proving they are not Big 10 players. No stats to speak-of. They get here and guess what--they aren't Big 10 players. If you average the stats for the four players, over a 36 minute game, here's what you get:

1.6 pts, 1.7 rebounds, 4 assists, 1.8 stls, .17 blks,

Wow! The four average a total of 54 minutes a game. That's a huge hole in the lineup.

Sorry for the negativity but this problem is hard to overlook.

 

[bball_craz_31]

Won't post an updated voting just yet as will wait for next 3-4 games but here's some updated things to think with this team.

Gophers 4-2 (only 1 game against a Power Five Team and 5 games with Braun)

Teams they have lost to combined record 14-0 (Virginia 8-0 and NDSU 6-0)

Teams they have beat combined record 7-17

There losses are by an average of 4.5 ppg (6 at NDSU and 3 at Virginia)

Wake Forest will be a nice chance as they lost at Virginia 52-72.