B1G Game 13: Gophers host Michigan (2-14-18)

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Not pretty, but Gophers get to 20 wins. Take care of Indiana and Illinois and whoever's up first in the B1G tourney (where they're looking pretty good for a double-bye after this game) and we can hope they're on the right side of the bubble.
 

After they switched back to a man-to-man (or woman-to-woman in this case), they played much better defensively, especially on that final sequence in which they were all over Flaherty. In fact, that was probably the best defensive sequence I've seen the women's team play in several years. Glad to see they have the ability to pressure in a straight-up situation rather than simply relying on the 2-3 zone of years past.

Admittedly, I haven't seen much of the women this year, but they seem to be playing more man defense this year. Guessing that has helped a bunch in close games this year.
 

Well done. Can we get Stollings to coach both basketball teams?
 

MRJ said:
After they switched back to a man-to-man (or woman-to-woman in this case), they played much better defensively, especially on that final sequence in which they were all over Flaherty. In fact, that was probably the best defensive sequence I've seen the women's team play in several years. Glad to see they have the ability to pressure in a straight-up situation rather than simply relying on the 2-3 zone of years past.

Admittedly, I haven't seen much of the women this year, but they seem to be playing more man defense this year. Guessing that has helped a bunch in close games this year.
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Big W ! Looks like we had more FT's and they outrebounded us. Their D was definitely better tonight. I hope they can keep this rolling and win the games against the teams we should beat. Would be really special to beat MD.
 


Nice win. Gophers got contributions from a lot of players. Wagner shot the ball really well. Hubbard with a solid game on both ends of the court...17 points and 7 assists. Bell wasn't able to get to the hoop as easily as she did in recent games, but she was good defensively the entire game and came to life offensively in the second half. Edwards with 13 points and a solid game. Bello with some key plays late in the game...rebounds, baskets, and free throws. Gophers caught a break when Munger got in first half foul trouble. Gophers did a nice job of defending Thome with some double-team defense. Johnson of Michigan had played 47 minutes all year and she scored 19 points against the Gophers tonight. Wagner and Flaherty had similar games, I thought, and both ended up with 26 points. Pitts didn't shoot the ball as well as she normally does, but she ended up with 10 points and 12 boards. I'm hoping that the Gophers can continue their stretch of good basketball against Maryland. A win against the Terps and then one of the last two against Indiana or Illinois should put the Gophers in a good position for an NCAA bid. I read somewhere on this board that Charlie Creme (sp?) had the Gophers as one of the first four out going into the game. It will be interesting to see how that changes after the win tonight. His reason for not including the Gophers in the current tourney field was poor strength of schedule. It's hard to disagree with him on that. The Gophers' non-conference schedule was an embarrassment. I'm not sure who was responsible for setting up that schedule, but that was a huge mistake, including scheduling a West Coast game in San Diego after an East Coast game in D.C. three days earlier. Either way, Stollings has to take some heat for the strength of schedule, as it's her program and I'm sure she approved the schedule. On a more positive note, this current group of Gophers seems to have good chemistry. They really seemed to enjoy playing in front of the home crowd tonight. The Gophers were one of the few teams in the BIG that didn't have off-season transfers, and it seems that Stollings deserves some credit for that. OK, enough rambling. Go Gophers!
 

What a fun night at Williams. Minnesota took an 45-35 lead saw it dwindle to 5 at the half and then Michigan and Flaherty came out on fire. Minnesota weathers the Wolverine run and then outplays them the rest of the way. The Gophers kept getting down the lane for layups. Bell often got there directly but they also turned Thome's hedging against her and dribbled around her before driving to the bucket. Resume builders are fun.

Oddities: Dunston often guarded Bell and when the Gophers played zone; Wagner or Bello guarded Flaherty. I think during the last five minutes Minnesota only used Bello at the post.

The Gophers wore pink, again. I assume we will see the pink uni's again on Sunday.


NUMBERS OF THE NIGHT. Minnesota with 5 turnovers and 12 steals. Michigan with 16 turnovers and 1 steal.



Minutes Played (Starters Bolded)

40 Wagner
40 Hubbard
38 Bell
31 Pitts
24 Edwards
15 Bello
10 Fernstrom
2 Brunson
 

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Bello and Hubbard open the gap.
 

A couple more notes: Gophers missed 10 free throws...22 of 32 from the line. Gophers 5 turnovers and 18 assists. Thome 4 of 12 from the field; Pitts 2 of 8. Iggy mentioned Thome's hedging on defense. Although the Gophers occasionally took advantage of this, they certainly could have done it more often. And, yes, I didn't expect to see Bello guarding Flaherty down the stretch, but she did a good job of that. Although the Gophers gave up a lot of points, I thought they were solid defensively, except for a few lapses. One of the things I've noticed about the Gophers is they have a good mixture of guards who can shoot from the outside or get to the hoop. Wagner, Hubbard, and Pitts can all hit threes. Bell, Wagner, and Hubbard can all put the ball on the floor and get to the basket. And Bell, Wagner, and Hubbard can also hit mid-range jumpers. They're not an easy team to defend.
 



http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools...stgame_quotes/postgame_quotes_20180215aaa.pdf

Stollings post-game:

On being able to bounce back from Michigan’s 18‐0 run between the second and third quarters:
“I think [we] are relentless. We have a lot of experienced players on our team that went through a very tough schedule last year and they know that you’ve got to stay in the play, stay in the game, and stay in the moment. You can’t get too high and you can’t get too low. They jumped on us in that third quarter but we never wavered. We called timeout and we came out of it and we never wavered. We mixed up our defenses a little bit down the stretch and we just piece‐by‐piece got back into it. We got back into it with our defense on rebounding and great decisions offensively. Katelynn Flaherty got in major foul trouble and she had to try and manage that, she then picked up her fourth foul. We were calling Gadiva’s [Hubbard] number there and she had a couple great drives late in the fourth quarter that were really key for us going against Flaherty knowing she didn’t want to foul.”


On managing to put up 93 points against Michigan:
“It is two teams that really like to go, both of us like to transition. They are holding teams to 61 points, we put up 93 because one of our plans coming into the game was to challenge them with our foot speed on the perimeter. We thought our guard foot speed was superior and we really wanted to challenge them on drives and see how they handled that and who was going to help on the drive. If they didn’t get there we wanted to take the layup and if they did help we wanted to make passes out to our shooters. The first half there were more passes out, second half there were more layups. It just becomes a chess game at that point, but we thought we had superior foot speed on the line at the perimeter.”
 

https://www.michigandaily.com/section/womens-basketball/michigan-trouble-after-loss-minnesota

Kim Barnes Arico:

“They went to that box-and-one early where they were face-guarding Kate,” said Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico. “At halftime, we felt like we were okay, even without her not scoring a lot because she had six assists and she was really moving the ball and finding them for high percentage shots.”

“I thought we ran out of gas a little bit,” Barnes Arico said. “We had some critical turnovers late. They made the plays they had to down the stretch and we did not.”

“I thought (Johnson) did a great job of moving without the basketball and was able to get some easy buckets just because of her movement,” Barnes Arico said.

“We’ve been trying to stay really positive,” Barnes Arico said. “We talked about our seniors and juniors — Jillian (Dunston), Kate and Hallie — they need to make those plays down the stretch.”
 

Seems strange to be thinking that a #23 ranked team could be a bubble team, but Michigan has only one BIG game remaining and that's against Maryland. If they lose that game, they fall to 9-7 in conference play and maybe a sixth place finish. If they lose the first game of the BIG tourney, I'm guessing that they'll be headed to the WNIT. Many people are thinking that only 4 or 5 BIG teams will make it to the NCAA tourney.
 

Ignatius L Hoops said:
https://www.michigandaily.com/section/womens-basketball/michigan-trouble-after-loss-minnesota

Kim Barnes Arico:

“They went to that box-and-one early where they were face-guarding Kate,” said Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico.“ At halftime, we felt like we were okay, even without her not scoring a lot because she had six assists and she was really moving the ball and finding them for high percentage shots.”
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Man, I should give pre-game advice more often.

I thought Carlie did a great job shadowing Flaherty in the first half. She only scored 7 pts. They seemed to go away from that in the second half. Flaherty doesn’t need much space to take the three and she was deadly.

Maryland has more players that can hurt the Gophers. They have 6 players averaging double digit scoring. It’s gonna be like Justice League vs Justice League. If you had to pick a Batman and Robin, it’d be Charles and Christinaki.

They have tall guards. I remember the Gophers seemed to be bothered by the height and defense of Nebraska. Charles goes 6’1. Christinaki and Iesha (not so) Small go 6’. The Gophers have taller centers. It’s nice that the Gophers can go two deep at 6’5. Maybe they can exploit that against Maryland. I loved how Edwards was loudly demanding the ball and coming through last night. She seems to really want to be a part of the success.

Confroy is the biggest three point threat, so if you need to give someone special attention at the three point line, she’d be the one. Hopefully she’ll have an off night but the Gophers may have to help with that cause. Confroy shoots .429 from three in volume. Charles and Small don’t take a lot of threes.
 



tripledouble said:
Seems strange to be thinking that a #23 ranked team could be a bubble team, but Michigan has only one BIG game remaining and that's against Maryland. If they lose that game, they fall to 9-7 in conference play and maybe a sixth place finish. If they lose the first game of the BIG tourney, I'm guessing that they'll be headed to the WNIT. Many people are thinking that only 4 or 5 BIG teams will make it to the NCAA tourney.
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...except rankings don’t figure much, if at all (?) into NCAA selection criteria. And the Wolverine SOS and RPI issues are nearly as bad as the Gophers’. In fact, has anyone else noticed that MN’s projected RPI, with a loss to MD and wins over IN and IL, is 48? Not a recipe for getting a bid. They may have to beat the Terps or rely on head-to-head over other bubble teams like Purdue and Michigan.
 

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