David Mutaf

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According to Turkish tweets, he hasn't played because we're just loaded and it's hard to crack the rotation....
 


howeda7 said:
According to Turkish tweets, he hasn't played because we're just loaded and it's hard to crack the rotation....
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Was he on the bench? I didn't take a close look as to who was suited up but didn't play.
 


GopherBlood666 said:
He's been on the bench for every game. It is going to be hard for him to get time this year.
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With our guard depth, I don't know why everyone had such high expectations for him this year to get a ton of minutes. Plus there is normally always a transition period for European guys that was delayed even more so by the Covid.
 


manderson1984 said:
With our guard depth, I don't know why everyone had such high expectations for him this year to get a ton of minutes. Plus there is normally always a transition period for European guys that was delayed even more so by the Covid.
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Yeah I'm not really sure where he fits in at this point. Carr and Gach are going to be playing most of the game. With the way Mashburn and to some degree Williams have looked (yet alone Gabe who will get minutes) there isn't going to be a lot of minutes for him.
 

Mutaf should get some run in the non conference games because why not? He can go 2/22 on 3s
 


Gopherguy0723 said:
Mutaf should take Gabe's minutes.
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Lol this seems to be a popular take on gopherhole. Tre or mash or whoever should start and take gabe's minutes. I'm not in love with the 1-11 from 3 every night, but gabe plays great defense and does other things to help this team win. Pitino loves him and the one making the decisions on playing time, so gabe is gonna be a mainstay in the starting lineup whether people like it or not!
 



gophereric30 said:
Lol this seems to be a popular take on gopherhole. Tre or mash or whoever should start and take gabe's minutes. I'm not in love with the 1-11 from 3 every night, but gabe plays great defense and does other things to help this team win. Pitino loves him and the one making the decisions on playing time, so gabe is gonna be a mainstay in the starting lineup whether people like it or not!
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Gabe is going to have some great games this year. I like that last night he did not take many shots because it was obvious he is not hitting them at the moment. He is going to get hot in stretches and he will win some games for us. When he is off we have a nice option of going with Mashburn, Carr and Gach together. Over time, I think Gabe would be a perfect 6th man, a guy who can get hot and who can get you stops on defense.

For me, later in the season the highest ceiling lineup we have is:
Robbins
Ihnen
Gach
Carr
Mashburn

6th man- Gabe

I don't like Robbins receiving the ball on the perimeter at all. Much better to work Ihnen in at the high post and get Robbins down low. I don't think Robbins is going to be a great pick and roll guy but he has really nice skills near the bucket.
 

bga1 said:
Gabe is going to have some great games this year. I like that last night he did not take many shots because it was obvious he is not hitting them at the moment. He is going to get hot in stretches and he will win some games for us. When he is off we have a nice option of going with Mashburn, Carr and Gach together. Over time, I think Gabe would be a perfect 6th man, a guy who can get hot and who can get you stops on defense.

For me, later in the season the highest ceiling lineup we have is:
Robbins
Ihnen
Gach
Carr
Mashburn

6th man- Gabe

I don't like Robbins receiving the ball on the perimeter at all. Much better to work Ihnen in at the high post and get Robbins down low. I don't think Robbins is going to be a great pick and roll guy but he has really nice skills near the bucket.
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At least we are deep enough now where we have options and can actually discuss him possibly being 6th man or not. Personally, I dont think pitino makes him 6th man ever, but as you suggest it might not be the worst thing either.
 

manderson1984 said:
With our guard depth, I don't know why everyone had such high expectations for him this year to get a ton of minutes. Plus there is normally always a transition period for European guys that was delayed even more so by the Covid.
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High expectations matched with a bit of curiosity. He racked up a 44% 3-pt rating back in Turkey (going from memory on that one), and we could use a consistent 3-pt shooter (going with reality on that one).
 

gophereric30 said:
Lol this seems to be a popular take on gopherhole. Tre or mash or whoever should start and take gabe's minutes. I'm not in love with the 1-11 from 3 every night, but gabe plays great defense and does other things to help this team win. Pitino loves him and the one making the decisions on playing time, so gabe is gonna be a mainstay in the starting lineup whether people like it or not!
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Never hesitant to offer opinions and facts of criticism or praise on Pitino and i love how he has handled Gabe. He needs him to win games and believes that shooting is the least of his concerns in regards to Gabe. If he thought giving some of those minutes away to someone else increased the chances ti win he would play them.
 



builtbadgers said:
Never hesitant to offer opinions and facts of criticism or praise on Pitino and i love how he has handled Gabe. He needs him to win games and believes that shooting is the least of his concerns in regards to Gabe. If he thought giving some of those minutes away to someone else increased the chances ti win he would play them.
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Gabe needs to work inside out and try to get some inside buckets by running the floor or driving a bit. There has to be other ways to get the shot going. He's perfect from the FT line. Try to get there. It's also tough when the two best players also have the ball in their hands a lot, so there may not be a lot he can do offensively. That is why Pitino defends his play.
 

gophereric30 said:
Lol this seems to be a popular take on gopherhole. Tre or mash or whoever should start and take gabe's minutes. I'm not in love with the 1-11 from 3 every night, but gabe plays great defense and does other things to help this team win. Pitino loves him and the one making the decisions on playing time, so gabe is gonna be a mainstay in the starting lineup whether people like it or not!
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Why do people keep saying this? does he really play great defense? Seems to me he usually struggles against quicker guards. I think he is an above average to good defender. Great? No.
 
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gopheraschells said:
Why do people keep saying this? does he really play great defense? Seems to me he usually struggles against quicker guards. I think he is an above average to good defender. Great? No.
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Great defenders make you notice them defensively. If you watch Gabe defensively...he's attentive (best I can say)...last night on the plays I saw him he was not even at the good level.
Yes, he has taken some charges here and there...cool. He had zero rebounds last night. In 5 games he has 7 rebounds total and 6 steals. He commited 2 dumb fouls that gave BC 5 points.
That and lots eye test stuff says he ain't even good defensively...basically 1 rebound and one steal per game for all his minutes is not a defensive standout. He was the defender on many made threes last night.
He's a good defender only because Pitino says he is to cover for him for his horrific shooting.
It seems he actually was better defensively in proportion to his offense....both used to be better.
 

Regarding Mutaf...I just want to see him play so I can make my own assessment how he compares to his teammates.
 

60's Guy said:
Great defenders make you notice them defensively. If you watch Gabe defensively...he's attentive (best I can say)...last night on the plays I saw him he was not even at the good level.
Yes, he has taken some charges here and there...cool. He had zero rebounds last night. In 5 games he has 7 rebounds total and 6 steals. He commited 2 dumb fouls that gave BC 5 points.
That and lots eye test stuff says he ain't even good defensively...basically 1 rebound and one steal per game for all his minutes is not a defensive standout. He was the defender on many made threes last night.
He's a good defender only because Pitino says he is to cover for him for his horrific shooting.
It seems he actually was better defensively in proportion to his offense....both used to be better.
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Did you watch Carr give up 5 3’s in the 1st half? His d was horrific last night. Call out everyone then. Omersa even took on fouls by rotating because Carr got burnt.
 

gopheraschells said:
Why do people keep saying this? does he really play great defense? Seems to me he usually struggles against quicker guards. I think he is an above average to good defender. Great? No.
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Well according to the coach he plays good defense, so I would say yes hes a good defender. If I can remember right he held Carson Edward's to about 7-40 when we beat them twice late in the season a few years back.
 

GopherCountry said:
Did you watch Carr give up 5 3’s in the 1st half? His d was horrific last night. Call out everyone then. Omersa even took on fouls by rotating because Carr got burnt.
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The difference is I don't believe anyone has labeled Carr a great defender.
And to the Carson Edwards comment...Gabe like I said, played better defense as a freshmen.
 

60's Guy said:
The difference is I don't believe anyone has labeled Carr a great defender.
And to the Carson Edwards comment...Gabe like I said, played better defense as a freshmen.
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Well Carr is far from a 1st all big ten player given his defense. So defense does matter when evaluating players.
 

GopherCountry said:
Well Carr is far from a 1st all big ten player given his defense. So defense does matter when evaluating players.
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As I said in another post, Carr is a score first PG. compared to Amir he makes open passes late. That’s the difference between freshman Gabe and now. Regardless, he needs to figure out rhythm given his teammates.
 

GopherCountry said:
As I said in another post, Carr is a score first PG. compared to Amir he makes open passes late. That’s the difference between freshman Gabe and now. Regardless, he needs to figure out rhythm given his teammates.
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Meaning Gabe needs to figure it out.
 



60's Guy said:
Great defenders make you notice them defensively. If you watch Gabe defensively...he's attentive (best I can say)...last night on the plays I saw him he was not even at the good level.
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Gabe is like Eric Murray was for the football team. He blankets the guy he is guarding and gives him little space to work, but he doesn’t rack up the steals (or interceptions in Eric Murray’s case). The best way to see how well Gabe (or Eric Murray) defended was to look at the stats of the offensive player he guarded at the end of the game.
 


matt said:
Gabe is like Eric Murray was for the football team. He blankets the guy he is guarding and gives him little space to work, but he doesn’t rack up the steals (or interceptions in Eric Murray’s case). The best way to see how well Gabe (or Eric Murray) defended was to look at the stats of the offensive player he guarded at the end of the game.
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This is a solid comparison. As in Gabe's case too, Eric was always guarding the best receiver so that person did receive looks and attention and even caught some passes, but they didn't control the game. Basketball and football for that matter have become tailored to offenses. You'll never completely shut down a star player, but if you reduce impact and cause disruption, it's very valuable.

We also switched defensive schemes last year. We do not get up the line defensively and jump lanes like we did with Amir and Dupree. We play more pack line in the half court. Defenses like that are predicated on forcing a bad shot and rebounding (which we've been bad at so far this year). Looking at our stats, no one is getting a ton of steals or blocks and that's partly by design. I know pass deflections are still a stat that's kept by this staff, but you wont find that on basketball reference or gopher sports.
 


matt said:
Gabe is like Eric Murray was for the football team. He blankets the guy he is guarding and gives him little space to work, but he doesn’t rack up the steals (or interceptions in Eric Murray’s case). The best way to see how well Gabe (or Eric Murray) defended was to look at the stats of the offensive player he guarded at the end of the game.
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I chuckled at this but then I realized you were serious.
 

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