DEFENSE!!!!

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GopherPlaya

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We keep talking about how our offense being optically terrible but wtf is going on with our defense. We have been one of the worst defensive teams in the big ten every year except when we had Reggie Lynch erasing mistakes. We have been consistently inept offensively and defensively. We have become a bottom 4 Big Ten School. I feel like that is unacceptable. We felt like Tubby being middle of the pack was unacceptable but now we are just as bad as Monson days if not worse
 

Spot on.

We have no identity. On either side of the ball. It's really disheartening. Even Spencer on the radio call last night was ripping our effort. If we don't have effort, what do we have?

Go Gophers!!
 

BleedGopher said:
Spot on.

We have no identity. On either side of the ball. It's really disheartening. Even Spencer on the radio call last night was ripping our effort. If we don't have effort, what do we have?

Go Gophers!!
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Yes, the effort is ugly. The effort wasn't an issue during Tubby years even when the coaching and talent wasn't up to snuff the players played hard
 


GopherPlaya said:
We keep talking about how our offense being optically terrible but wtf is going on with our defense. We have been one of the worst defensive teams in the big ten every year except when we had Reggie Lynch erasing mistakes. We have been consistently inept offensively and defensively. We have become a bottom 4 Big Ten School. I feel like that is unacceptable. We felt like Tubby being middle of the pack was unacceptable but now we are just as bad as Monson days if not worse
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Our tournament teams have correlated with our best defensive teams. It's not complicated. We've been bad positioning wise his entire tenure and there hasn't been a ton of improvement. This means its not taught correctly or it isn't a priority or maybe both.
 


manderson1984 said:
Our tournament teams have correlated with our best defensive teams. It's not complicated. We've been bad positioning wise his entire tenure and there hasn't been a ton of improvement. This means its not taught correctly or it isn't a priority or maybe both.
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And even those teams weren't upper echelon defensively. I thought he would at least have guys being pest defensively. That was a staple of his dad's squads
 

He simply lets the kids play. We have seen this before -the monson approach. It works if you have top talent but.......
 

Defense is something that every team can do well if they WANT to.

We don't and haven't very many times with Pitino around here.

Remember when the Gophers were successful? It was with Clem and Clem made them play HARD all the damn time.
 

Pitino has no identity.

If you played for Bobby Knight you knew you were going to have to play man to man defense every game and help out and NEVER get caught sleeping.

If you played for Jim Boehiem you knew you were going to play the 2-3 match -up zone every game and you had to cut off passing lanes and driving lanes or he'd find someone who would.

I could go on with all the GOOD coaches.

I'm pretty sure players who play or played for Pitino have little or no idea what the basic identity of his defensive mindset is.

That is a problem.
 



Go Gophs said:
Defense is something that every team can do well if they WANT to.

We don't and haven't very many times with Pitino around here.

Remember when the Gophers were successful? It was with Clem and Clem made them play HARD all the damn time.
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Only thing I’d add here for this to be 100% true is there needs to be a system that is taught well and players recruited to play and defend in that system. Not all teams could be effective in Huggins run and jump style nor could they all play and be successful in Wisconsin’s pack line.

Find a system and the players that fit It. Then teach and prioritize it as the number one thing in your program.
 

The defense is strange. We have long, quick, athletic guys which should pose problems for teams but it never seems to be the case. We never press, we never try a zone, we never trap in the half court. We always go over the top on screens allowing ball handlers to attack the basket easier...maybe slide under and make them hit some 3s? I don't know I'm not a basketball wiz by any means, but I think with the guys we have you can utilize them in different ways.

Also, rebound the fricken ball. That will help out your defensive numbers.
 


Go Gophs said:
Defense is something that every team can do well if they WANT to.

We don't and haven't very many times with Pitino around here.

Remember when the Gophers were successful? It was with Clem and Clem made them play HARD all the damn time.
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They also had a handful of 1st round picks. Dominant players. Makes defense easier.

Why didn’t LMU just try harder against the Gophers when on defense? Being not as good matters on both sides of the ball
 



UpAndUnder43 said:
They also had a handful of 1st round picks. Dominant players. Makes defense easier.

Why didn’t LMU just try harder against the Gophers when on defense? Being not as good matters on both sides of the ball
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Aside from Bobby Jackson, who else was a first round pick?

Jacobson? if he was, he was the very bottom of the first round. But I can't think of anyone else.
 

UpAndUnder43 said:
They also had a handful of 1st round picks. Dominant players. Makes defense easier.

Why didn’t LMU just try harder against the Gophers when on defense? Being not as good matters on both sides of the ball
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They did try hard that's why it was a 3 point game the second time we played them. Dominant offensive players doesn't make defense easier. Effort and IQ does. We have been lacking both during Pitino's tenure
 

Otis said:
Aside from Bobby Jackson, who else was a first round pick?

Jacobson? if he was, he was the very bottom of the first round. But I can't think of anyone else.
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Sam Jacobson, John Thomas, Quincy Lewis. Sorry, only 3 others. I thought Courtney James was.
 

GopherPlaya said:
They did try hard that's why it was a 3 point game the second time we played them. Dominant offensive players doesn't make defense easier. Effort and IQ does. We have been lacking both during Pitino's tenure
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A lot of the time dominant offensive players are also really good defenders, especially in college, because they are just physically better than their opponents.
 


Otis said:
More than I thought. Only Bobby stuck.
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Right. Jacobson was a Laker, I remember that cause the Lakers drafted a local kid. didn't last long in the league.

Thomas bounced around a little.

Quincy and Bobby had nice NBA careers. Quincy would make A LOT of money now. 3 and D all day.
 

UpAndUnder43 said:
A lot of the time dominant offensive players are also really good defenders, especially in college, because they are just physically better than their opponents.
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That is not true. If you think so please list some. Luke Garza is a bad defender and he is dominantt and I can a million other star scorers who often times play 0 defense. We need competitive high IQ guys in the game to improve our defense.
 

How many times did MN allow Illinois get to the basket uncontested? When Cockburn was fronted by post players they lobbed over the top with no weak side help. Defense and rebounding is a lot of "want to" and we definitely lacked that aggressiveness and physicality.

Fans, media, Pitino will say that the Big Ten is loaded and MN doesn't have the pedigree to be at the top of the conference. Well, when will that change? It will change when we can keep some of the top MN talent home instead of losing players to Baylor, Wisconsin, Marquette, etc.. It will change when a coach establishes an identity. Michigan State is rebounding, Wisconsin is that pattern patient offense, Purdue with Painter is a half court executing screening offense and so on. When Clem was here you knew MN was going to be tough, physical, and play hard especially on the defensive end. I am not sure what Pitino/MN identity is?
 

Our defense struggled but we did some nice things. Gabe played Dosunmu tough. That kid is really good and Gabe really hung with him well. It was hard to notice it because the game was such a disaster but for whatever reason you're a masochist and re-watch the game, I encourage you to watch Gabe on Dosunmu.

This also isn't to pull the focus off of our defense (which also stinks) back to our offense, but it is really hard to defend against a talented team if you take and miss a lot of bad shots. Our defense stunk, even when it was set, but we were also often playing defense after a miss, usually a long miss.
 

Otis said:
Second shots are killers
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Guys like Omersa think this a video game where you get points for jumping high and not blocking the shot. Most of the time he is trying to block the shot of a guy he had no business trying to and it leaves him totally out of position to rebound.

Just one game you would think a coach would ask him to stop glory hunting blocked shots, get position and jump for a rebound a few times.
 

I don't know jack about what kind of access anyone does or does not have to practices, but i'm curious to hear a take from someone who's actually seen them under Richard. I mean, I seriously wonder sometimes wtf they actually do work on. Is the instruction not focused enough, is it lacking altogether, what's actually happening behind the scenes? You'd think with whom his dad is that Richard would have all of the x's and o's and fundamentals down pat. That certainly doesn't ever seem to reflect in the play of his teams though.
 

WhoFellDownTheGopherHole? said:
I don't know jack about what kind of access anyone does or does not have to practices, but i'm curious to hear a take from someone who's actually seen them under Richard. I mean, I seriously wonder sometimes wtf they actually do work on. Is the instruction not focused enough, is it lacking altogether, what's actually happening behind the scenes? You'd think with whom his dad is that Richard would have all of the x's and o's and fundamentals down pat. That certainly doesn't ever seem to reflect in the play of his teams though.
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I would assume that its not just open gym as Coyle has to have sat in plenty of practices since he's gotten here especially since Pitino wasn't his hire. Coyle came from Syracuse right? I'm sure he saw how a HOF coach ran practices and if Pitino ran a S show of a practice with no instruction or anything there would have been problems by now.

Edit: He did come from Syracuse and was also a deputiy AD (whatever the hell that is) at Kentucky. Our AD should have a good idea of what he wants in a basketball program assuming he's seen practices.
 

UpAndUnder43 said:
Why didn’t LMU just try harder against the Gophers when on defense? Being not as good matters on both sides of the ball
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THEY DID. And that is how they stayed close and even had us on the ropes in the second game. Half the talent, yet they are in both games until the end. How does that happen?
 

Maybe I'm imagining this, but when we hired Pitino wasn't there a lot of talk about how he really liked to run a high energy, full court press defense?
 

tyecko said:
Maybe I'm imagining this, but when we hired Pitino wasn't there a lot of talk about how he really liked to run a high energy, full court press defense?
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We assumed that he would be like his dad with zero evidence backing up that assumption. I thought it would be the case too, it was really all we had to go on.
 

Being a coaches son does not mean the son will have a teaching gift. Pat Knight played for and coached with his father and it just did not translate. Theses coaches know a great deal that they understand but that does not mean that they can convey it, require it, build from what they scouted, translate , make staples non negotiable, demonstrate it, prove it. Everyone should be able to recall a great teacher in school that stood head and shoulders above the others. They had the same information but knew how to really connect. They were smarter, they made you feel smarter. P ractices for the gifted stand head and shoulders above the others. They know what to work on and how to work on it.
 

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