As Malik Goes, So Goes the Gophers

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LesBolstad

LesBolstad

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People are making this way more complicated than it is. If Malik is hitting, this squad can play with anyone. If he's not, it exposes the teams flaws. He's been in a brutal slump and needs to start hitting 3's if the Golden Gopher are to win another game. I wonder if he's questioning his transfer to this icebox from FLA.
 


It's not that simple. This is a flawed defensive team that struggles on the defensive glass that has also struggled lately hitting shots and turning it over to much.

Malik scored 29 in a loss to Nebraska and 14 at UW. He scored 1 in our win at NU and 7 in our IU win. There are way more issues than our 4th guard's shooting woes.
 

Smith averages 7.5 points a game in our six conference wins and 9.3 in our nine conference losses.
 



Gold Vision said:
It's not that simple. This is a flawed defensive team that struggles on the defensive glass that has also struggled lately hitting shots and turning it over to much.

Malik scored 29 in a loss to Nebraska and 14 at UW. He scored 1 in our win at NU and 7 in our IU win. There are way more issues than our 4th guard's shooting woes.
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Agree that it's not that simple. Smith's slump also coincides with slumps of Elliot, Austin and Andre (injury + slump). That's a lot of slumps. The big problem with the Smith slump is that when it is going badly he keeps shooting and uses a lot of possessions.
 

bga1 said:
Agree that it's not that simple. Smith's slump also coincides with slumps of Elliot, Austin and Andre (injury + slump). That's a lot of slumps. The big problem with the Smith slump is that when it is going badly he keeps shooting and uses a lot of possessions.
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I'd call Elliot and Austin "coming back down to earth" rather than a slump. We all knew deep down that Elliot was not even close to the best big man in the Big Ten as Pitino crowned him. We just didn't want to believe it. We expected more out of Austin because of the hot streak he went on last season from 3 point range. We don't have 60% of our starting 5 in a "slump." They call that a bad basketball team.

But I do agree with most in that Malik's disappearing act is not costing us games.
 


Gold Vision said:
It's not that simple. This is a flawed defensive team that struggles on the defensive glass that has also struggled lately hitting shots and turning it over to much.

Malik scored 29 in a loss to Nebraska and 14 at UW. He scored 1 in our win at NU and 7 in our IU win. There are way more issues than our 4th guard's shooting woes.
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There has been a complete breakdown in execution in the second half the last two games, goes way beyond a few missed shots by one player.

They haven't been running much the last month even when they might have an opportunity to do it, if Mathieu is not on the court they don't run at all.
 



Just think, if Malik hits an open 3 in the corner against Purdue we aren't sweating out these last few games quite as much. He has been flat out awful lately. If he starts out hot you play him quite a bit, if not then McNeil deserves to play over him.
 

LesBolstad said:
People are making this way more complicated than it is. If Malik is hitting, this squad can play with anyone. If he's not, it exposes the teams flaws. He's been in a brutal slump and needs to start hitting 3's if the Golden Gopher are to win another game. I wonder if he's questioning his transfer to this icebox from FLA.
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I am glad that you used your favorite word that you used to use after each loss last year, "brutal". Now, if we get bga1 to say what he doesn't like about Richard, these posts can be identical to the previous seasons' :)
 

Agree...Smith has lost hid mojo and nobody has picked up the slack. Oto was playing reasonably well and hitting some shots he needed to hit. Now he couldn't put the ball in the Atlantic Ocean. EE is back to questioning every call
against him instead of doing the things to help the team. High ankle sprains are killers. You can see it is affecting his
elevation/quickness. Marquise Gray high sprain affected him for 6 months even carrying into the NFL combines.
Winning 2 out 3 to get to the dance will be tough.
 

afurry91 said:
We all knew deep down that Elliot was not even close to the best big man in the Big Ten as Pitino crowned him.
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A good example of why cameras do not belong in locker rooms every second of every day, IMHO.
 



GopherJake said:
A good example of why cameras do not belong in locker rooms every second of every day, IMHO.
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Agreed. Pitino is trying to build EE’s confidence and congratulate him for a well-played game. Instead it is bulletin board material for other teams and Elliot gets asked about it and reminded of it whenever he doesn't play well.
 

Autin Hollins, not Malik Smith is, IMO, the biggest disappointment this year. He has an inordinate number of unforced turnovers. You can't count on him to show up other than for a high light dunk every now and then...ala Rodney Williams. His defense is just OK.
Problem is there is absolutely no one to repalce him with. He is clearly the best we have even with his flaws. Playing Oto and Joey together would be really hard to watch.
Hollins is a really good player who is playing well under his ability level and that's on Austin not Pitino. JMO
 

sec105 said:
Autin Hollins, not Malik Smith is, IMO, the biggest disappointment this year. ...His defense is just OK.
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You lost me here, chief. Austin Hollins is a great defender
 


Dig A Little Deeper Me Boy

GophersInIowa said:
Smith averages 7.5 points a game in our six conference wins and 9.3 in our nine conference losses.
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Silly- know why? A large chunk of that average was from his huge game at Nebraska. 29 points on 9-15 8-12 3's. Without that effort, Gophs get blown out.

So to break it down into PPG on wins v. losses makes no sense.

Dude, 9k posts? Really?
 


This is what you wrote:

LesBolstad said:
Silly- know why? A large chunk of that average was from his huge game at Nebraska. 29 points on 9-15 8-12 3's. Without that effort, Gophs get blown out.

So to break it down into PPG on wins v. losses makes no sense.

Dude, 9k posts? Really?
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This is what I read:

LesBolstad said:
Wah, wah, wah. I started this thread, and your thoughts run counter to my thoughts, so I will attack your post count (for a reason no one can fathom).
Click to expand...
 


LesBolstad said:
Silly- know why? A large chunk of that average was from his huge game at Nebraska. 29 points on 9-15 8-12 3's. Without that effort, Gophs get blown out.

So to break it down into PPG on wins v. losses makes no sense.

Dude, 9k posts? Really?
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And if he made just a third of his shots against Northwestern, we probably win. And if he makes that open shot at the end of the Purdue game, we win. What's you're point?

I think my numbers show exactly that "as Malik goes, so goes the Gophers" is just not true. Our biggest 3 wins this year (Wisconsin, Ohio St., and Iowa), he has averaged 8.7 points a game.

Sure it would be great if he could break out of his funk, but guys like Matheiu and the Hollins are much more important to our success in my opinion.

And I've averaged about 4.5 post per day since I joined. Anyone can check out this sight for less than 10 minutes a day and average that many. Not that I need to explain myself to someone who has to resort to making fun of my post count. Gee, I wonder why you did that.
 

GophersInIowa said:
And I've averaged about 4.5 post per day since I joined. Anyone can check out this sight for less than 10 minutes a day and average that many. Not that I need to explain myself to someone who has to resort to making fun of my post count. Gee, I wonder why you did that.
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Not to mention, GII is a top 5 poster on this site in terms of consistent rational thought and reasonable takes. Not sure why you went at his post count Les, that's just weird. We're all on the same nerdy Gopher fan forum here...
 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Since his big Nebraska game, <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23Gophers&src=hash">#Gophers</a> Malik Smith is 7 for his last 40 from three point land.</p>— GopherHole.com (@GopherHole) <a href="https://twitter.com/GopherHole/statuses/439931209662345216">March 2, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
 

LesBolstad said:
Silly- know why? A large chunk of that average was from his huge game at Nebraska. 29 points on 9-15 8-12 3's. Without that effort, Gophs get blown out.

So to break it down into PPG on wins v. losses makes no sense.

Dude, 9k posts? Really?
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Iowa is small potatoes.:cool02:
 

Go4 said:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Since his big Nebraska game, <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23Gophers&src=hash">#Gophers</a> Malik Smith is 7 for his last 40 from three point land.</p>— GopherHole.com (@GopherHole) <a href="https://twitter.com/GopherHole/statuses/439931209662345216">March 2, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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Since the Northwestern game he is 1 for 16 from 3pt, and 1 for 19 overall, that is close to a month of playing time, one would think that Mav would start seeing some court time.
 



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