Another great game

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BigGopherFan

BigGopherFan

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Minnesota played very well tonight and continues to be exciting and fun to watch. What a team! I didn't see this level of play and routine dominance coming without TM. But let's be very very careful for our next game. NDSU is a good team and will play their guts out at the Barn. This is their biggest non league game by far. With B1G games right ahead, this could be a serious trap. I

Anyway, I am seriously impressed with this squad. There appears to be so many weapons. Every player seems to be accepting their individual roles beautifully. Welch is legit, Rodney does it all, Ralph is high percentage, Coleman is quick, Austin is complete and Oto can shoot. And that's just part of the unit. And let's not forget Tubby. I've been as harsh on him as anyone but right now, he is pushing all the right buttons. These guys look motivated and in tune with a concrete gameplan. Stay tuned, we are about to find out what this team is really made of....
 

agree overall. Other non-shooting aspects of Oto's game are a bit scary at the moment, though
 


I will spoil your group hug about playing a great game. The Gophers shot great tonight and that was the difference. Good shooting can make up for a lot of deficiencies.

Way too many TO's and they got beat often on the dribble penetration. Not good. But the D help was good. CM played poorly the last half of the second quarter which allowed MN to make that 24-6 run.
 

Bayfieldgopher said:
I will spoil your group hug about playing a great game. The Gophers shot great tonight and that was the difference. Good shooting can make up for a lot of deficiencies.

Way too many TO's and they got beat often on the dribble penetration. Not good. But the D help was good. CM played poorly the last half of the second quarter which allowed MN to make that 24-6 run.
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A lot of deficiencies? That's a stretch. The TOs will cost them in close games though.

24 assists on 27 field goals. After the first 5 minutes the offense was really moving well.

Those guards were quick, no doubt. We also had 8 blocks with help D. They limited them to 35 percent shooting.

Crushed them on the boards despite RS3 only having 1.
 


Positives - Great team shooting and great all around game by Mav. He is a player I don't like to see play much, but if he can continue to rebound and control the ball he will see floor time.

Some people I talked to thought Rodney played bad, but I thought it was an all around OK game for him. He continues to get rebounds, help others get rebounds, and cause disruptions on D. Props to him.

Negatives-
Wayyyy to many turnovers. I think Julian is great, but he needs to value ball security. I like that Tubby wants him at the 2, with Mav/Andre at the one, for some reason I don't trust Julian in the open court as much.

C'mon Ralph! Offensively I though he was fine. He made baskets when he should and had a couple nice passes out of double teams. But on the defensive side and rebounding we need more!! Rodney is better at those two things and he's shorter. Too many times does the ball go near him and he doesn't aggressively go at it. I have more faith with Elliot in there, I love the kids effort. He can't do as much offensively, but we will need those rebounds come big ten time.
 

captain.hindsight said:
Positives - Great shooting and great all around game by Mav. He is a player I don't like to see play much, but if he can continue to rebound and control the ball he will see floor time.

Some people I talked to thought Rodney played bad, but I thought it was an all around OK game for him. He continues to get rebounds, help others get rebounds, and cause disruptions on D. Props to him.

Negatives-
Wayyyy to many turnovers. I think Julian is great, but he needs to value ball security. I like that Tubby wants him at the 2, with Mav/Andre at the one, for some reason I don't trust Julian in the open court as much.

C'mon Ralph! Offensively I though he was fine. He made baskets when he should and had a couple nice passes out of double teams. But on the defensive side and rebounding we need more!! Rodney is better at those two things and he's shorter. Too many times does the ball go near him and he doesn't aggressively go at it. I have more faith with Elliot in there, I love the kids effort. He can't do as much offensively, but we will need those rebounds come big ten time.
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Ralph did look terribly slow tonight. Apparently his calf was cramping. 1 board in 18 minutes is terrible.
 

I like how the guys are playing with confidence and don't let TO's bother them. FT shooting is coming around as well which is huge. Chip is 6 of 9 the last three games! If CM could have finished on their dribble penetations, it would have been a much closer game.
 

CM didn't finish many of its dribble drives because of our length inside. Overall, the Gophs are playing very solid defense in the paint and against the mid-range j's. We still can't defend the 3, but if we shoot like we did tonight that won't hurt us as much as it could otherwise. The biggest concern is the turnovers, imo. We have got to get that corrected!

Overall, I am quite pleased that we are sitting at 11-1. These guys don't usually win pretty, but they are mentally tough and gritty. I like our chances to win 9-10 in the B1G and get into the tourney with an at large bid.
 



Great guard play - concerned about our post play.
 

moved the ball well.. almost no bad shots.... but this was not a very athletic/long team we faced.. but it was great to see all the 3's dropping... Oto's release is a bit of a worry.. a bit too slow for big10 defenses..
 

My two favorite plays of the game:

1) Rodney gets the ball from an out of bands play and promptly knocks down a mid-range baseline jumper.
2) Chip is given the ball behind the arc, pump fakes, takes two steps up and drains a long 2.

I wasn't expecting either of these shots to go in and was pleasantly surprised. If either of these guys can start to make these shots with any consistency, that would be great.
 

As I noted in my post-game recap tonight, the emphasis was getting as many players involved as possible. No one hit more than five shots, but the Gophers have been consistently shooting above 50 percent over the last few games, making it difficult for any opponent to stop them.

By the way, this is my first post to GopherHole. I've covered the women's basketball team for a couple years and attended my first men's game on Saturday when they defeated St. Peter's. I'm hoping to expand my coverage to include both teams as I get more comfortable in my role as a reporter.

And if you're wondering about my interest in the Gophers, I graduated from Minnesota in 2009 with a degree in journalism :)

Looking forward to meeting new faces!
 



My take on the game:

You know the one thing we really need? A Trevor Mbawke-type player.
 






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