B1G Game 2: Gophers host Nebraska (12-31-17)

[Ignatius L Hoops]

Kate Cain would’ve looked good in a Gopher uniform; but with Jess Shepard moving on to South Bend starring for the Irish, Cain opted for the Huskers (0-1). Last night the 6’5” center posted 14 points and 8 rebounds in a 73-61 loss to Ohio State (1-0). She also picked up 4 fouls which is a tendency the Gophers should be able to exploit. Cain spent much of the pre-season recovering from a foot injury. However, she wasted no time establishing herself as one of the B1G’s best freshman.

Nebraska finished the non-conference season 9-4 and Cain finished as their third leading scorer. This is not to imply that you can’t go inside on the Huskers. In the last non-conference game versus Washington State, the Cougars scored 38 points in the paint in their win. Cain keeps her feet moving and her body in contact with opponents. I suppose it raises the question: if Minnesota doesn’t use their 6’5” senior big against Nebraska’s 6’5” freshman big, when will they ever use her? No need to answer, of course, we can expect Edwards and T. Bello to pretty much rotate the post duties.

Nebraska has other weapons; but the two freshmen, Kate Cain and Taylor Kissinger, are by far the most interesting (maybe you can throw Maddie Simon in the mix). Assuming Minnesota stays aggressive, it’ll be a good New Year’s Eve for Gopher fans.


Last Season, in Lincoln, a very bad Nebraska team forced Minnesota to overtime before the Gophers ran away to a 79-69 win. Nebraska trailed by 11 in the first half then rallied for a Jess Shepard game tying bucket with 7 seconds remaining. Carlie Wagner played every minute scoring 28 points and grabbing 8 rebounds. Kiki Bell contributed 13 points and 7 rebounds in 43 minutes.

Two seasons ago, the last time Amy Williams coached a game at Williams Arena, her South Dakota team defeated the Gophers in the WNIT.


Wins: SIU Edwardsville 62-53, UMKC 80-60, Arkansas 80-69, (N) Coastal Carolina 55-47, Arkansas Pine Bluff 73-52, @ Kansas 66-49, @ Drake 89-84 (2 OT), @ San Jose 81-55 and FAU 86-69.

Losses: Creighton 64-49, (N) Buffalo 82-72, Clemson 67-66, Washington State 73-61 and Ohio State 73-61.


Likely Starters:

6’5” C Fr Kate Cain 11.7 points and 7.7 rebounds per game
6’2” F Jr Maddie Simon 10.4 points per game
5’9” G So. Hannah Whitish 13 points per game
6’1” G So. Nicea Eliely
5’ 10” G Sr Jasmine Cincore


Not to forget:

6’1” G Fr Taylor Kissinger 13.3 points per game (8 points and 3 rebounds in 15 minutes against Ohio State. Kissinger was out four weeks with an knee injury before the Buckeye game. After the game, coach Amy Williams said there is “no rush to increase playing time”.

 

[overpass]

Any sort of offensive post production would have been the difference in this one. Bello made a few but 3-8 isn’t that effective. Bell went at Cain and drew some fouls but couldn’t sustain that after Cain was called for her 3rd. Nebraska looks much better than last year and should get better now that Kissinger is back but this is a huge blown opportunity by the Gophers. .

 

[Ignatius L Hoops]

Yes, 1 point from Edwards (0-3) was not good enought. Bello was 3-8 but the misses were off good set-ups. Defensively the posts were at least adequate. Carlie unfortunately wasn't. 11 points on 4-7 shooting (six of those were threes) was bad enough; but four turnovers and four fouls compounded Carlie's problems. I think Bell was the only guard to drive the lane. We could have used a few drives from Wagner.

In the last two minutes of the 3rd quarter they had the Huskers down 59-51 and virtually out on their feet. I thought the Gophers would supply the knockout punch; but they let Nebraska off the mat.

The Gopher D was fairly solid both playing man and zone. Minnesota forced 18 turnovers with 8 steals-none was more fun than Kiki's swipe giving the Gophers the lead with 38 seconds remaining. But we really needed Carlie today.


Minutes Played (Starters Bolded)

40 Hubbard
39 Bell
39 Pitts
34 Wagner
28 Edwards
12 Taiye Bello
7 Brunson
1 Kaposi

 

[samloupete]

We lead 74-73. They have the ball after our time out. Why does she have Hubbard on the floor trying to guard Simon who ends up scoring the go ahead basket. That’s not coaching!!!!

 

[Shades]

I don't think we need to dump all the blame for the loss on one player, but Ignatius has clearly been the anti-Carlie. Plenty of blame to go around, like only playing defense when we are down and need to get back into the game. Playing stronger defense rattled Nebraska, but it was a little too little, a little too late. Playing defense the whole game would mean going deeper into the bench to keep players fresher, and Stollings doesn't like the thought of that.

Carlie was the most efficient player on the floor, whereas Hubbard made one more FG with 7 more shots, but let's not throw her under the bus.

Nebraska is tall all around, and that seemed to bother the Gopher guards, disrupting jump shooting and passing. Carlie was a team high 50% from three, but needed that last contested three.


Gotta hand it to Nebraska. They're better than I expected, probably better than most people expected. Shot like 52%? Hopefully Stollings saw good things when the Gophers were playing tight defense so she'll be inclined to encourage more good things all the time.

Let's make up for this loss by knocking off Ohio St. Similar styles to both teams.... should be a fun game if we're hitting shots.

 

[tripledouble]

Random thoughts. Gophers just didn't shoot the ball well enough to win this game. That includes Bell, Pitts, Hubbard, and the two post players who can't seem to finish. Wagner needed to be more of a factor and she wasn't. I don't care how efficient she was...an occasional drive to the basket would have helped. Hats off to Amy Williams and Nebraska. They've been much better than anticipated. Nebraska and Rutgers could be two BIG teams that finish higher than expected when the season started. I'm viewing this as a bad loss for the Gophers, although it's early in the conference schedule and it seems as if the conference will be a bit of a cluster this year. Unlike Shades, I don't have a lot of optimism for the OSU matchup and I don't consider Iggy to be the anti-Carlie.

 

[Ignatius L Hoops]

I'm not really anti-Carlie. I just think she needed to be more of a factor and, as a senior, not make that crazy "throw it to a Husker" turnover midway through the fourth quarter that gave Nebraska a 66-64 lead.

http://journalstar.com/sports/huske...cle_bf89f73b-ded6-5c29-ad87-76fe4bccedc8.html

Nebraska (10-5, 1-1) held a 71-66 advantage, but Minnesota used a 2-2-1 defensive alignment to force some turnovers to get back in the game, using an 8-2 run. The Gophers took a 74-73 lead with 38 seconds remaining when Kenisha Bell stole the ball from Whitish and scored on a layup.

"And their fans really got into it right there, it got pretty loud in here," Williams said. "Our kids just buckled, and I really want to credit some of our play in nonconference to kind of just really educating us for that type of situation. We were in those situations when we were at Drake and when we were at Kansas, and we had to kind of handle that and I think that gave us confidence to know that we can do that again."

Nebraska immediately responded with Simon's basket. Minnesota freshman Destiny Pitts then missed a three-pointer, and Simons grabbed the rebound.

"We thought our zone was working better than our man (defense)," Simon said. "They missed some shots and our goal is just to get rebounds and be tough out of the zone, and we got a board and they had to foul us."

 

[Shades]

At least you're being honest with the "not really anti-Carlie" which means "yeah, I kinda am".
Even when Carlie had that 31 pt (12-15, 7-8 3P) superstar outing against Georgetown, the most praise you could muster up was "She sounded relieved to have a great night after some sub par outings." I might believe you weren't anti-Carlie if you gave her the deserved praise without mentioning perceived subpar outings. That'd sorta be like be like me mentioning all Bell's high turnover games last year if she gets a low turnover game this year. "Man, can you believe Bell got a low turnover game after she held the Gophers back all season long with her high turnover games?"

You must have a different definition of "being a senior" than I do. We already got enough players playing "me ball". Unselfish play is mature play. How many assist attempts didn't go down for Carlie? Maybe I'll count them up later. Seemed like a lot of wide open three attempts were missed. I'm sure Carlie would drive more if that was part of the Stollings game plan. Do you really think it was? Really?

 

[Ignatius L Hoops]

http://www.startribune.com/gophers-...-nebraska-in-big-ten-home-opener/467444823/#1

“It’s not so much that last series as much as it was the fourth quarter in terms of our intensity level overall,” Stollings said. “We needed to rebound better. We needed to go get second shots.”

In the fourth quarter, the Gophers made just four of 16 shots and went 1-for-8 from beyond the three-point arc, while Nebraska made seven of 10 shots and eight of nine from the free-throw line.

The Gophers got great looks all game long, but offensive rebounds were an issue.

“When we missed that first shot, you’ve got to go get the second one,” Stollings said. “You’re not always going to hit the first one, and that’s our big takeaway from that piece.”

Bell was her usual dominating force, putting up 30 points, seven rebounds and seven assists. It’s the third time this season she’s scored at least 30 points and the second time in the past three games. She’s also put up at least 20 points in each of the past six games.

Stollings is most proud of how Bell takes care of the basketball; she had just two turnovers in the game after going two in a row with zero.

“I got the team on my back,” Bell said. “They trust me, and that gives me more confidence each game to do that stuff that I do.”

 

[Shades]

“It’s not so much that last series as much as it was the fourth quarter in terms of our intensity level overall,” Stollings said.

“We needed to rebound better. We needed to go get second shots.”

In the fourth quarter, the Gophers made just four of 16 shots and went 1-for-8 from beyond the three-point arc, while Nebraska made seven of 10 shots and eight of nine from the free-throw line.

Well, the Gophers took more shots than them.... just didn't make them. Do we need to rebound more so we can take twice as many shots as them just to win?

The Gophers got great looks all game long, but offensive rebounds were an issue.

“When we missed that first shot, you’ve got to go get the second one,” Stollings said. “You’re not always going to hit the first one, and that’s our big takeaway from that piece.”

She's gotta take a lot of the responsibility instead of saying "we" (meaning the players).

Stollings only played the bench 20 minutes. Starters are going to be tired in the 4th. Not only are they tired but they're going against a taller team using Stollings' 4 guard lineup. I notice they're now labeling Pitts as a forward, but let's not kid ourselves. It's a 4 guard system. If you want more rebounds against taller Big 10 teams, you're gonna have to bite the bullet and consider playing two post players. Kaposi only got one minute early in the game even though she's a good rebounder. Not only that, the player we have playing the 4 is out there almost exclusively taking WNBA length threes. How is she going to rebound out there? It's sorta like our center vs whoever the opponent has crowdin the paint. The odds aren't high for an offensive rebound.

With this 4 guard system, if they can't defend better than giving up 52% fgp to the opposing team, then they better make sure they hit their shots. Stollings seems out of touch if she can't figure this stuff out herself. It wasn't an effort problem with the players. It's a system problem.

 

[Old Cardinal]

Iggy, I appreciate all you do to keep the women's BB forum active. I agree with your assessment of Carlie. Although she has had a great career, she has not been the superstar we were hoping for. Unfortunately, Stollings has not been able to put a good supporting cast or system around her.
Carlie is an outstanding person and I wish her nothing but the best for her. Based on Shades join date and his ripping you on your opinion about Carlie, he is obviously one of her brothers. Next year he will not be on the site and you will still be the mainstay of the forum. Thanks and keep up the good work.

 

[thatjanelpick]

Should there be a Wagner thread? Anyway, I think a huge part of the disappointment about her career is that she has not played her game since she became a Gopher and Stollings began trying to turn her into Banham 2.0. In high school, she shot jump shots and she drove to the basket. That was her game, complemented by threes but not dominated by them. Stollings decided she needed Wagner to be a three-point shooter and Wagner has gamely adapted but it doesn't appear to me that she has ever been completely comfortable in her role (I need to check where she is on the Gopher "attempts" chart to see, but I would guess her shooting percentage is not stellar).

 

[samloupete]

Wagner does have to step up simply because she is a leader instead of deferring to Hubbard and Pitts. She has taken a subordinate role to both Banham and Zahui B. to her individual detriment and as a result to the team. The more involved she is the better the team will be. The team will not not get to where they need to go with her continuing to play 2nd fiddle.