Game 12: Gophers Host Belmont (12-14-16)

[Ignatius L Hoops]

Gophers Host Belmont

This season’s Field Trip Day game is against the Belmont Bruins (6-4). The Bruins are coached by Cameron Newbauer, in his third year, who gets the occasional mention as an up and coming coach.

Useless Fact: Cameron’s sister, Andrea, played for Indiana a couple of years back.

Last season, Belmont finished 24-9 (13-3 in the Ohio Valley Conference). The Bruins lost to Michigan State, 74-60, in the first round of the NCAA tournament after making the Spartans work up a sweat. All the Bruins starters returned for this season.


Wins: @Fort Wayne, 85-59; @UAB, 72-58; @ Loyola Marymount, 79-72; Lipscomb, 100-64; Trevecca Nazarene, 87-56*; @ Samford, 73-64.

Losses: @Louisville, 73-50; @ Troy, 91-74; UWGB, 62-53; @ LMU, Fresno State, 62-53.

*Yes Trevecca is a DII school; but when else are they going to get a mention?


A couple of former Gopher useless facts: Jackie Johnson scored 19 points and grabbed 12 rebounds in LMU’s loss to Belmont. Tory Jacobs scored 5 points in Fresno State’s win over Belmont.


Probable Starters:

Kylee Smith: 5’11” F Jr. (14.3 points/game)
Darby Maggard: 5’5” G So (13.5/game)
Lauren Thompson: 6’1” F Sr
Jenny Roy: 5’11” F So
Sally McCabe: 6’3” C Jr (9.7/game) 8 rebounds/game

Belmont likes threes: 95-269 (.353)
Opponents threes: 56-179

Belmont averages 72.6 points/game while holding opponents to 64.9/game.

 

[samloupete]

What kind of effort can we expect from this team Wednesday? A more focused, concentrated effort or a going through the motion laissez-faire potential failure again?

 

[ruppertflywheel]

What kind of effort can we expect from this team Wednesday? A more focused, concentrated effort or a going through the motion laissez-faire potential failure again?

Definitely no swagger on this team. Really miss the likes of Kelly, Zahui B, and Banham

 

[Ignatius L Hoops]

http://www.belmontbruins.com/sports/w-baskbl/2016-17/boxscores/20161214_miez.xml

75-74 was closer than it needed to be. The game started out normal enough. Minnesota led 20-6 with about 3 minutes remaining in the third quarter. Then the Gopher offense ran off the road and a game broke out. Jesse Edwards’s 29 points saved the day. Edwards was un-guardable from 10’, tough in the paint and knocked down key free throws late.

Belmont was a hard nosed team and Bruin head coach, Camereon Newbauer, was a step ahead a good part of the game. Newbauer spent a year as an assistant to Jeff Walz and demonstrated some of the same mannerisms. He was fairly constantly on the refs and laid into his players after some poor execution.

The Bruins Darby Maggard scored 25 (7-14 from three). And the Belmont posts were really good at diving from the elbow to the block, pinning the Edwards and Barnes before bouncing them under the hoop. (Yes, yet another thing we hope Bryanna can clean up).


It was also an interesting day on the Gopher bench. I thought Dawkins and Striegler weren’t always on the same page with Nikki doing most of the talking. This team can use the upcoming break. A great day by Edwards made the ending much more pleasant.

Starters

Edwards
Hedstrom
Wagner
Bell
Hubbard


Minutes Played:

35 Edwards: 29 points, 5 rebounds, 7-8 free throws!!!!
35 Bell: 16 points, 5 turnovers and 3 steals
34 Wagner: 16 points
34 Hubbard: Got into foul trouble when she couldn’t keep from bumping players on defense
29 Hedstrom: 11 rebounds
18 Tinjum: 9 points on 4-5 shooting (Tinjum and Hedstrom would have combined for one good player)
6 Brunson
5 Starr
4 Barnes


And also, Belmont was 12-32 from three while Minnesota was 5-19.

 

[Shades]

What happened to Stollings? How'd we become a post-centric offense. It worked against yes team, so it's about time.

Edwards should now be cemented into the starting lineup. Does that mean we go against Stollings' normal vision of a 4 guard type of offense and field the 5 best players as the starters? To me, that would mean both Edwards and Fernstrom starting. We all expect big things from Fernstrom but what happens if she turns out to be not all that?

 

[Ignatius L Hoops]

What happened to Stollings? How'd we become a post-centric offense. It worked against yes team, so it's about time.

Edwards should now be cemented into the starting lineup. Does that mean we go against Stollings' normal vision of a 4 guard type of offense and field the 5 best players as the starters? To me, that would mean both Edwards and Fernstrom starting. We all expect big things from Fernstrom but what happens if she turns out to be not all that?

Edwards has made a stronger case than Hedstrom, Tinjum, and T Bello. Of course they would probably have to switch to 3-2 zone (joking). Whatever the lineup with Fernstrom, it will debut against Ohio State-maybe Mavunga's knee will still be acting up and Jessie won't have to chase her around the court.

 

[Shades]

Sounds like the Belmont coach had a good scout on Minnesota, but it didn't work because he underestimated our "secret weapon". I thought Stollings was the only who ever underestimated her.

Bruins Head Coach, Cameron Newbauer
On the final minute of play:
“Our game plan was to make somebody besides the ‘Big Three’ beat us. I’ll just put it out there, Edwards, I hadn’t seen her hit a free throw line jumper all year. I told our team we are going to make her beat us, we’re going to make her shoot from the high post. She was a 58% free throw shooter on the year, I told the team to make sure we box her when she shoots. She ended up going 7-for-8 at the free throw line, 11-of-15 on the floor and it turned into a one-point game. Our game plan worked, we held the ‘Big Three’ between 32 and 37 points when they normally score 53 or 54. I think what really bit us in the butt were some of those offensive rebounds late in the game. Hats off to them, our kids competed and fought all game. We didn’t shoot it well, but that’s a testament to their defense. They took us out of some things with their athleticism and their size gave us some problems. If you look at our shooting percentage overall, we didn’t play great offensively, but I think that’s because of them. [Coach Stollings] has done a good job. You never know how a team is going to come back after what they faced in South Carolina the other day, but they have a good squad, and these kids played hard.”

 

[Shades]

They got props for defense from the opposing coach. I didn't see it. Were they actually playing man-to-man?

 

[Ignatius L Hoops]

They got props for defense from the opposing coach. I didn't see it. Were they actually playing man-to-man?

I think the Gophers played man for only a tiny stretch in the first half. Otherwise it was the 2-3 match-up zone. I do think the Gophers jumped some of Belmont's plays; but size was probably a bigger factor than actual "D".

Cameron Newbauer has more of Jeff Walz in him than I thought, including deciding to make a non-scorer beat you. Still, I doubt they could have stopped Edwards today unless they doubled Jessie.