Exhibition Game Tonight: Chris Halvorson Returns to Williams Arena

Donate To GopherHole

Just realized we have a game tonight, which kind of suck since I'll be at Lambeau for MNF. This game is on BTN in a few days though so I'll catch it then.
 

Honest question -- why was Halvorsen not brought back as a walk-on, when we ended up needing tryouts to fill out our roster?
 


WanderingGopher said:
Honest question -- why was Halvorsen not brought back as a walk-on, when we ended up needing tryouts to fill out our roster?
Click to expand...

I recall lots of speculation, but no concrete answers. My only guess was that he either wanted a scholarship and was upset he didn't get one, or wanted to go somewhere that he felt he'd have a chance of getting playing time.
 


Halvorsen returns to the Barn

Concordia-St. Paul senior forward Chris Halvorsen will return to a familiar stomping ground Monday when his Golden Bears visit the Barn.

Halvorsen served as a Gophers walk-on during the past two seasons, playing in 16 games for Minnesota.

“It’s going to be interesting going up against those guys,” he said. “It’ll be kind of like going up against your brothers in the backyard.”

Halvorsen will likely be matched up against his former roommate Oto Osenieks in the post.

Halvorsen said he’s still close with some of the Gophers players, and he said there’s been some playful banter in the weeks leading up to the team.

Halvorsen graduated from Minnesota with a biomedical engineering degree and is starting his MBA at Concordia. He said his decision to transfer to Concordia in the offseason was based on playing time.

“I wanted to get a little bit more of a chance to play,” he said. “I never really got the chance [with the Gophers]. I felt like I wanted to play one more year.”
 


Is there any audio of this game?
 

Any reporting about the exhibition tonight including the Reid test report would be greatly appreciated.

TIA.
 



Anyone have a working stream yet? I still have the counter.
 


I'm watching All-Access. We're up 22-19 right now. Incredibly sloppy so far. Reid Travis is in the house though and already got a chant from the students.
 

Gophers up 36-23. That Mathieu kid is so fast. Wow.
 



Joey King looks good again by the way.
 



7 turnovers in the first half against a d2 team? Uh oh
 

Brutal defense. The press is pretty ineffective.
 

Gophers look very underwhelming. If this was a game against any real competition I would be okay with it, but this is a D2 team. Turning the ball over frequently and Concordia's gaurds are outplaying ours.

Our bigs are the only ones who can score, basically because they're outmatching the CSP players. The problem with that is our bigs won't match up with many teams this year and we'll have to rely on guard play, which this game doesn't make look promising.
 

JMWZ said:
Gophers look very underwhelming. If this was a game against any real competition I would be okay with it, but this is a D2 team. Turning the ball over frequently and Concordia's gaurds are outplaying ours. Our bigs are the only ones who can score, basically because they're outmatching the CSP players. The problem with that is our bigs won't match up with many teams this year and we'll have to rely on guard play, which this game doesn't make look promising.
Click to expand...

Offense looks fine. Lots of ball movement, they're just missing wide open shots.

Defense has me worried. They are able to real the press with ease. You can't tell much from these games though. Just look for bright spots.
 

Gold Vision said:
Offense looks fine. Lots of ball movement, they're just missing wide open shots.

Defense has me worried. They are able to real the press with ease. You can't tell much from these games though. Just look for bright spots.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure about that last part. Seems to me that these should be pretty dominating performances. Maybe things will pick up.
 

I see the score opened up a bit. Those who were watching, was it legit improvement involving working within the system?
 

Nice to see Halvorson get some serious minutes at the Barn. It looked, for a spell, like he was going to out score Oto.
 


Halverson was definitely playing with some passion tonight (which is more than our guys can say for themselves). Surprisingly enough, he was also getting a little chippy with our guys. At one point him and Elliot were in a little skirmish, with Elliot getting a technical for it. And then him and Joey King were going at it for most of the second half, with King laying on top of Halverson for a few seconds after a made basket.
 

It was a very high tempo contest and CSP wouldn't go away as the Gophers let them hang around. Dre got the offense going a couple of times but Mathieu sets the pace. He will be fun to watch and plays under control for the most part. Austin wasn't really involved much but was steady. King showed some moves on O and will see lots of PT and could start. The press had both its good and bad moments but overall I was disappointed the number of times CSP broke it and got quick points. Mo is working hard and we must keep him healthy as EE keeps on picking up dumb fouls. Rebounding will be a problem for this squad.

With the press and run, most of the guys will get plenty of PT, especially in the NC. McNeil & Buggs are on the far end of the bench at this point.

My guess for starters Friday are Hollins, Hollins, Mathieu, King and EE with Mo on deck and Smith and Oto in the hole. I was not impressed with Mav but he will get some PT as we have no one else. Wally may have played well enough to see the court in the first half.
 

It finished at 101-67 but that score definitely was not indicative of how poorly we played tonight, they were within 10 points of us for much of the second half. The press was pretty ineffective all night, and we made a lot of silly turnovers. You could definitely tell that Pitino was pretty frustrated with how we played all night long. Also, the refs were calling EVERY little bump tonight.
 


wisky gopher said:
It finished at 101-67 but that score definitely was not indicative of how poorly we played tonight, they were within 10 points of us for much of the second half. The press was pretty ineffective all night, and we made a lot of silly turnovers. You could definitely tell that Pitino was pretty frustrated with how we played all night long. Also, the refs were calling EVERY little bump tonight.
Click to expand...

I think your exaggerating a bit. They scored 101 points and could pretty much score at will on offense. It's obvious they viewed as a learning experience trying multiple lineups, and focused on feeding the big men. There was a lot of movement in the half court sets to get the shots they wanted.

On the other side of the ball, I was a little disappointed the press wasn't as disruptive as it should have been. We were running back on defense against odd rushes way too much. I really hope they are focusing on half court team defense as we'll, something this team could excel at.

It was basically a practice and played a little too loose, but there were plenty of promising notes to go along with the chaos.
 

Bayfieldgopher said:
It was a very high tempo contest and CSP wouldn't go away as the Gophers let them hang around. Dre got the offense going a couple of times but Mathieu sets the pace. He will be fun to watch and plays under control for the most part. Austin wasn't really involved much but was steady. King showed some moves on O and will see lots of PT and could start. The press had both its good and bad moments but overall I was disappointed the number of times CSP broke it and got quick points. Mo is working hard and we must keep him healthy as EE keeps on picking up dumb fouls. Rebounding will be a problem for this squad.

With the press and run, most of the guys will get plenty of PT, especially in the NC. McNeil & Buggs are on the far end of the bench at this point.

My guess for starters Friday are Hollins, Hollins, Mathieu, King and EE with Mo on deck and Smith and Oto in the hole. I was not impressed with Mav but he will get some PT as we have no one else. Wally may have played well enough to see the court in the first half.
Click to expand...

Mav just cannot be a primary ball handler at any point. He does good things when he plays within his capability, but it's a dropoff once you cross the line into what he isn't good at.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom