Really poor shooting and Cain dominating down low were the story here. Nebraska played well but teams with good bigs are gonna give the Gophers trouble all year.
Some notes on offense, defense, turnover margin, rebounds, and small ball versus double posts ...
Clearly, there were several aspects to the Gophers coming up short in Nebraska (and similarly versus Ohio State). At Nebraska, generating offense was a real problem.
> Really poor shooting ... were the story here. (
@whalenfan)
> For the game the Gophers were 23 of 73 ... (
@Ignatius L Hoops)
We started out OK with a pair of NBA-length triples by Scalia and Hubbard. Three-point shooting after that was 1-1 by Brunson, 1-7 by Hubbard, 1-5 by Pitts, and 0-4 by Scalia. Overall, 5-18 or .278 - compared to pre-game 3-point shooting of .406, .451 and .467 for Hubbard, Scalia and Pitts.
By comparison, Nebraska stole a page from our playbook, and Hannah Whitish (especially) started shooting NBA threes (5-8), with threes by Sam Haiby (3-5) and others for a total of 10-19. Up to that point, Whitish and Haiby had shot .324 and .333 from deep. Home court shooting luck (and vice Versa for the Gophers)? I suspect that part of the problem was that we didn’t respect their deep three shots, and so didn’t go out to pick them up (as in, we thought only Pitts and Hubbard and Scalia were allowed to shoot NBA threes). In any event, a 15-point deficit on three-point scores for the Gophers, who normally excel in that department.
On two-pointers, we were 18-55 (.327) - not very good either. The Huskers were 17-42 (.405). Our shooting was definitely below our normal proficiency.
Just a guess, but I suspect that strong Nebraska defense made our shooting sub-par. They seemed able to shift fast and match-up to our shooters at the three-point line. Mostly, that suppressed our deep shots for not being open and/or tall defenders. The threes we did take seemed rushed. That 4-point play by Pitts was nearly blocked. Our deep shooting works best when we get wide open looks. We had similar issues against better Missouri State defense and 2nd half against Penn State.
> The Gophers missed 19 of their first 23 shots ... (STrib)
We had only 3 field goals and two free throws in the first quarter. That’s 3 made and 12 missed field-goal attempts in the first quarter for .200 shooting.
Our 4th made jumper comes at 9:08 in 2Q, and our 5th make comes at 5:52 on our 9th shot of the quarter. Thus (as the STrib says) just before 5:52 we had taken 23 total shots and made only four for .174 shooting (the one at 5:52 being the 5th make). We had 12 points (including 2 free throws) in the first 14 minutes of the game, and then we got out 14th point.
This was due to strong Husker defense as well, much of it in the form of blocks or steals.
Pre-game, Kate Cain was averaging 2.94 blocks per game (#13 in NCAA), whereas T. Bello averaged 2.31 (#26 in NCAA). Taiye got 2 blocks, plus one by Kehinde. Cain got 6 blocks in this game, with two more by others for 8 total Husker blocks.
During the first 14 minutes (the interval where we made 4 shots out of 23 attempts), Cain made 4 blocks on T Bello and one on Pitts, and Eliely blocked Powell once. So 6 of those initial 19 missed shots were actually blocked shots. Those shots were pretty much bunnies that otherwise go in, so that’s 12 lost points in 14 minutes of play. Nebraska got the rebound after each series of blocks (twice we got blocked two times in a row). The actual score was 12-23 after those initial 14 minutes. Without those Nebraska blocks, the 14-minute score would have been a respectable 24-23 for a 2-point Gopher lead. Without those blocks, our initial 4 makes and 19 misses would have been 10 makes and 13 misses for a rather normal .435 shooting. (Minnesota had no blocks during that time, our 3 blocks came later.)
So it was mostly the 3-inch height difference between T Bello and Cain that put us in a hole during the first 1.4 quarters. The 12 points lost to blocks in the first 14 minutes accounts for all but two of the 14 points by which we lost. Taiye has good vertical, but Cain was just too much.
Plus, Taiye was contending against 6’2” Veerbeek along with 6’5” Cain for rebounds. Through the Ohio State game, Taiye has averaged 4.46 offensive rebounds per game (#12 in NCAA) versus Cain’s 1.92; and 5.92 defensive rebounds per game versus Cain’s 5.31. At Nebraska, T Bello’s rebounds were cut to 5 - half the usual number. 4 of these were offensive (the usual), but only 1 defensive. Cain got 4 offensive and 11 defensive rebounds. That’s a +10 rebounding margin on Cain vs T Bello alone. Again, Taiye can outrebound 6’3” posts, but against 6’5” she needs post help.
For the whole teams it was 50-38 Nebraska over Minnesota on rebounds. A +12 rebounding margin for Nebraska. (Different from what I reported before, since the Live Stats available at that time did not include Team rebounds. By the way, I suspect Taiye might have been cheated out of a double-double or two by crediting some of her rebounds to Team.)
Minnesota is used to outrebounding it’s opponents, thanks to T Bello’s league- and NCAA-leading efforts. But the Gopher rebounding deficit in this game was another big contributor to lack of offensive point production (lack of offensive rebounds and Gopher second chance points) and hampering our defense against Nebraska points (lack of defensive rebounds, and thus extra Husker second chance points). In the end, the Gophers got 9 second-chance points to Nebraska’s 11. That’s not as bad as it could have been; yet, with the 12-rebound deficit moving the line on second-chance points, we could have gotten as much as +6 delta Gopher points (and -6 Husker points) if rebounding had been as much as tied (let alone if the Gophers had won the rebounding battle).
We could be conservative and estimate a +6 to the scoring delta (instead of the feasible +12). But add that to +12 that we could have gotten if we had avoided the blocks, and we see that adding more height to the Gopher equation, such as to nullify both the points lost to the rebounding deficit and nullify the points lost to blocks, would have been enough for the Gophers to have won the game. But the facts are counter to that: It just wasn’t possible to throw one 6’2” Bello against a 6’5” Cain and a 6’2” Veerbeek without enabling both a lot of Husker blocks as well as a Gopher rebound deficit.
Another contributing factor to the loss was turnovers versus steals. The Gophers are used to getting a lot of steals, and in general causing the opponent to out-turnover us. Plus fast breaks off those opponent turnovers. In the end, the Huskers did out-turnover the Gophers 16-10; and we did get 5 more points off turnovers than they did. But what hurt us is that they only had a couple turnovers in the first half - which, by lack of our usual points off turnovers, helped put us in a first-half hole and made it an uphill battle. Furthermore, in those first 14 minutes - as analyzed above and by the STrib - the Gophers had 3 turnovers (of our 10 for the game). That’s three less possessions, and cost us an expected 3 points or so.
So between the not-as-high-as-usual turnover margin, and the (negative) not-as-good-as-usual rebounding margin, and the shocking number of points lost to blocks, that by itself is enough to explain the Gopher loss. The blocks were all against two-point shots, and (along with off-balance shots to avoid blocks) are sufficient to explain the poor two-point shooting. But add to that the poor three-point shooting, and the Minnesota fate was pretty much sealed.
Add to that some poor defense. On several occasions, we let them drive full court uncontested for a layup - and it wasn’t even a fast break. Or they brought it up uncontested and either dumped it off or lobbed it ahead to a post for a layup. Much of this was toward the end of the game. Tiredness again?
In a case or two, K Bello was unable to stop such post scoring after feed from uncontested guard, and some might want to blame her, but these points were lost by the guards, long before the ball reached the post. As I’ve already argued, if anything, Kehinde was a defensive hero in this game by chalking up 2 steals, 1 block and 6 rebounds (e.g., 9 defensive acts) in 16 minutes (that’s one every 1.8 minutes). The rest of the team logged 40 defensive acts in 184 minutes of cumulative playing time (that’s one every 4.6 minutes per player, on average).
> Small ball just doesn’t cut it in the BIG unless you can shoot lights out (
@Katogopher)
One major strength of the Gopher team is our guards. That includes stealing capability, fast-break capability, two-point scoring capability, even (especially lately) rebounding capability, but especially three-point shooting capability. Our best three-point shooters average near 45% accuracy - one of the best deep-shooting trios in the NCAA.
We just had a bad day shooting at Nebraska. We didn’t shoot the lights out - far from it. We also got outrebounded and had our shots stuffed by the significantly taller Huskers.
Another Gopher strength is power forward (but mostly played at the 5 slot) T Bello. Her post skills exceed most posts in the NCAA and she’s an NCAA leader in offensive rebounding and double-doubles. She’s also a notch or three better than the other Gopher posts.
It is therefore blatantly obvious that the Gophers should start Taiye plus our top three shooters (Pitts, Hubbard, Scalia) plus point guard (Brunson, spelled by Powell). We have gone with 4 guards plus 1 post for virtually all minutes of all games, except for some flirting with a double-post configuration against the weakest non-conf opponents - just to get a bit of experience in it.
Our experience against Nebraska demonstrates that we need to deploy a two-post/three-guard configuration for at least part of the total 40 minutes, against the taller of the tough Big-Ten teams. For those good/big teams we can’t give up a big height differential for the whole game, or else lack of rebounds plus blocks by the opponent will virtually guarantee our defeat - with the one exception that if we absolutely shoot the lights out, then we can salvage the win.
An example of the latter is the first half, versus the second half of the Penn State game. In the first half we truly shot the lights out and gained a huge lead. In the second half we shot more normally but with not as good defense, and we burned up most of that lead - nearly losing to a weaker Big-Ten team that nevertheless had somewhat of a height advantage in us.
In the Ohio State game against another tall/strong Big-Ten team, we shot fairly well but did not shoot the lights out - but we seemingly tired out and fell apart in the 4th quarter, just in time to lose the lead by the buzzer.
Small-ball (4 guards + 1 post) worked for 2 shoot-the-lights-out quarters against the somewhat tall Penn State, and then it didn’t. Small ball worked for 3.5 quarters against the tall Ohio State, and then it didn’t. Small ball didn’t work at all against the very tall Nebraska since we shot the opposite of “lights out” and they blocked the crap out of us as well as outrebounded us.
So we need to play two posts for some fraction of the 40 minutes against any Big-Ten team with any height - with the possible exception of the very worst teams. The fraction depends on how tall and how good the opponent is. But we still always want to start out with our small-ball starters. We hope to strike first and build up a lead. The more lights-out our shooters are, the more we can stay with that configuration. The lousier our shooters are (relative to our opponent), the sooner we need to rotate into two posts and the more time we must spend in two posts. Hopefully we can build up leads via small ball and then maintain/protect leads with two posts (during which time we also give our guards some rest). We might also build up leads with two posts, if our posts are rebounding and shooting well.
Is there any way we can prove this? Well, not easily since we mostly have only the above anecdotal evidence at this point. But maybe we could look at the little hard evidence that we do have.
Of the 16 minutes that Kehinde played in the Nebraska game, only 5.5 minutes were played alongside her sister in a two-post configuration (with the rest subbing for Taiye). So we literally only have 5.5 minutes of evidence as to how a two-post system compares to a small-ball system against a tall Big-Ten team.
The Bellos played side-by-side double posts from 3Q-2:44 through 4Q-7:12, a total of 5:32 or roughly 5.5 minutes. During this time, the score deficit improved by 1 point. Not a dramatic improvement, but after normalizing by extrapolating to a 40-minute game, that’s a +6.3 points per game for the double-post system for this particular game against a very tall team, in which we shot poorly. Against the same tall team with our same poor shooting, we had a -15 scoring differential over 34.5 minutes. After normalizing, we get a -17.4 points per game for the small ball system (again, we should repeat, under poor shooting circumstances).
That’s a total per-game “system +/-“ of +23.7 points per game better for the two-post system versus the small-ball system under conditions of poor shooting. On the other hand, under shooting-the-lights-out conditions, small ball would be better than two-post ball.
It’s only a very small data sample, but the results are quite telling. Playing two posts for 5.5 minutes stopped the bleeding in the Nebraska game; but the two-post system replaced the small-ball system for an insufficient fraction of the 40 minutes in that game, so as not to provide the needed transfusion that would have saved the patient from “crappy shooting and poor rebounding disease.”
By the second half, the coaches and Taiye had largely remedied the Cain-blocking problem by protecting the ball better against block, plus preferring dribbling-into-the-post plays so as to leave the slower Cain in the dust. But the rebounding problem and poor-shooting problem were still there (except for Taiye, who was high point woman).
By my estimation, we might have had a good chance of salvaging a win if we had played double posts for most of the second half.
What is the mechanism by which two posts is better than small ball under conditions of poor shooting against a very tall Nebraska team? Well obviously more rebounding, for one thing - probably canceling the rebounding deficit or even outrebounding them during two-posts ball. But more than that. We can’t control who guards our players, but with double Bellos on the floor (or else Taiye + Klarke, for example), we can choose that Kehinde guards Cain. Not only does this keep fouls off Taiye, but on defense Kehinde can block out Cain while Taiye can go to work rebounding (at most against a 6’2” player). Also they can screen for each other on offense. Kehinde screens off Cain, again leaving Cain behind a Kehinde block, thus keeping her from either rebounding or defending Taiye (let alone blocking Taiye), and leaving Taiye to work on and rebound against a 6’2” player (probably Veerbeek). Taiye gets her normal dozen rebounds per game instead of the 5 she got. Plus Kehinde’s rebounds.
Truth be told (in hindsight, which is 20-20 of course), ideally we should have gone to double posts already at the 7:01 mark in the first quarter, right after the second time that Taiye got stuffed by Cain. That would have short-circuited the bulk of the hole we dug ourselves into during the first 14 minutes.
In the Ohio State game, Aaliyah Patty would not have scored at will if double twins were guarding the two OSU posts. Again in hindsight, playing double posts for a spell would almost certainly have prevented the Ohio State loss (since we only needed two points, in essence).
Against the remaining Big-Ten teams that are tall, we will still need to start out with small ball, but we will need to rotate into double posts for a total of about 10-30 minutes per game depending on scenario.
Rules of thumb:
Against weak or short teams: play mostly small ball.
Against a tall team while we’re shooting the lights out: mostly small ball with some double post to rest guards or mix it up.
Against a tall team while we’re shooting badly: mostly double post, reverting to small ball occasionally to see if shooting has improved.
Against a tall team while we’re shooting normally: about a 50/50 mix of small ball and double posts, tending toward more double post if shooting efficiency goes down (or we’re being badly outrebounded), and tending toward more small ball if shooting efficiency goes up.
