Game 12: Gophers Visit Indiana (2-6-19)

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IU with only 2 fouls in the 4th. That may work against them.
 


why didn't the Gophers get Pitts closer to Bell on the in-bounds pass?
 

Thank you Bello for forcing that huge jump ball!
 



Bell misses 4 shots down the stretch. Pitts commits her 5th turnover to give them a basket, deficit now 2, plus a foul. Missed free throw but they get the O-Reb. Miss the shot.

With 12 sec, Bell makes 2 free throws, but We give em a fast break fir 2.

3 point game now.
 

Got a little scary but 3 nice wins in a row.
 


Perez only Gopher to play 40 minutes. Go figure. Nice win for the Gophers. That being said, nothing comes easy for this team. They're winning ugly. But the most important thing is that they are winning.
 



Another big win for the Gophers! Hopefully, the first of 2 wins for the basketball teams, tonight.
 

Whew!!! What a mix and match lineup with the foul trouble and injury to Staples. Execution on inbound plays...yuck. A good game to tough out.
 

I know it is a road game, but would Perez actually get a shot at Heart of the Game?
 

Pitts seals it with a free throw. She made 8-9 free throws (88%).

Bell shoots 11-17 free throws. Is there any way we can make Pitts be nominated as Bell's designated free throw shooter?

Final: Minnie wins, 65 to 61.

Perez with 11 points on 4-4 shooting.

Bell with 22 points on 5-21 shooting (yes you read that right, you can't make this stuff up).

Pitts nearly fouls out, good thing not, since we needed that last free throw from her.

Bello with 14 rebounds, Bell with 7, Perez with 6, Pitts with 5.

A good win, but as ugly a win as, well, all the other recent ugly wins we got.
 



Thanks for the recap. I already pay too much for sports so do not get BTN plus. Nice to see them finish these last 3 games.
 

CutDownTheNet said:
Pitts seals it with a free throw. She made 8-9 free throws (88%).

Bell shoots 11-17 free throws. Is there any way we can make Pitts be nominated as Bell's designated free throw shooter?

Final: Minnie wins, 65 to 61.

Perez with 11 points on 4-4 shooting.

Bell with 22 points on 5-21 shooting (yes you read that right, you can't make this stuff up).

Pitts nearly fouls out, good thing not, since we needed that last free throw from her.

Bello with 14 rebounds, Bell with 7, Perez with 6, Pitts with 5.

A good win, but as ugly a win as, well, all the other recent ugly wins we got.
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If this teams gonna win, its gonna have to be ugly. Our offense just isnt good enough to win any other way.
 

GringaGopher said:
Thanks for the recap. I already pay too much for sports so do not get BTN plus. Nice to see them finish these last 3 games.
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I don't have BTN Plus either.

I got all that from the streaming play by play. Kinda frustrating to guess wtf is happening via play by play. All you know is three things:
1. You see our double digit lead wither rapidly toward zero in the closing minutes, leading to a feeling of déjà vu.
2. You see Bell just shooting and shooting and shooting.
3. You se Bell just missing and missing and missing.
4. An occasional great rebound by Bello gives one a glimmer of hope.
5. An occasional made free throw by Pitts gives one another glimmer of hope.
6. And in the end we win by four glimmers.
7. Now you can breath again.
 

Lol. I have done that in the past but find it too annoying.
 

What you didn't see was hard to watch. We kept going into that run-the-clock-down non-offense where we dribble around give it to Bell and she forces a bad shot with a few seconds left, it caroms away from the rim and the other team is off to score again. Seen that act way to much.
 

EaganGopher22 said:
I know it is a road game, but would Perez actually get a shot at Heart of the Game?
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Yes. With 11 points (4-4), 6 rebounds, 2 steals, 1 block, 1 assist, 0 turnovers and 2 fouls in 40 minutes she'd be the favorite. The only player not to leave the court. I loved the three where she let the defender go by, took a dribble to reset and then drained it. She's getting more comfortable.
 
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EaganGopher22 said:
I know it is a road game, but would Perez actually get a shot at Heart of the Game?
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I sure would hope so. She got a lot of heart, for sure. Especially to have the guts to take 4 schots today, when most of the season she seemed a bit timid with regard to shooting.

The key takeaway is that ...

Perez scores 11 points on only 4 shots.
Bell scores twice as many (22) points, but requires more than 5 times as many ShOts to do so.
Even then, Bell really only scored 11 points on field goals, with the other 11 coming from free throws, hit at a rate of only 64.7 %.
So in the end, Perez and Bell scored exactly the same number of points on field goals, but Bell required more than 5 times as many shots to do so.

I'd like to see Bell surrender half of her shots to Pitts and Perez. Even on an average 3-point shooting day for those two, you're going to get an average one point per shot out of them.
 
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https://www.hoosiersportsreport.com/2019/02/iuwbb-patberg-hurt-hoosiers-lose-to-minnesota-65-61/

An update on Ali Patberg:

Patberg, the Hoosiers’ leading scorer, landed hard to the floor after she was tripped up and fouled in transition. She came up holding her right shoulder, clearly in pain, and IU coach Teri Moren could be heard saying “Deep breath, Ali. Deep breath.”

Moren said after the game that Patberg’s right shoulder was “out of socket” and she was receiving additional x-rays to diagnose the extent of the injury.
 

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EaganGopher22 said:
What you didn't see was hard to watch. We kept going into that run-the-clock-down non-offense where we dribble around give it to Bell and she forces a bad shot with a few seconds left, it caroms away from the rim and the other team is off to score again. Seen that act way to much.
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Good point, maybe I was blessed not to have to watch the real thing.

I think the coaching staff needs to take a good look at the 4th quarter tapes from many of those near-losses where we blew a big lead (this one's a good example) and from many of those actual losses (Illinois comes to mind).

The one common theme is Bell stalling, then either taking an ill-advised shot, or else literally driving right into a triple-team for a guaranteed turnover, and then the other team either gets it out-of-bounds or is off to the races with a fast break on the rebound.

Only half-joking, I think I might prefer to bench Bell and have Lamke play point guard during the 4th quarter.
 

CutDownTheNet said:
Only half-joking, I think I might prefer to bench Bell and have Lamke play point guard during the 4th quarter.
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Seriously, we could do that in the last several minutes, but couldn't Brunson play point? And Lamke is a much better FT shooter.
 
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EaganGopher22 said:
Seriously, we could do that in the last several minutes, but couldn't Brunson play point? And Lamke is a much better FT shooter.
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Well yeah, and that's not even a joke. Brunson should be in there at point during the last 5 min of 4Q, as she's equally fast but much less likely to turn it over, and much less likely to throw up 4 bricks in a row (each of which could easily turn into an opponent fast break.

Furthermore, she should do her PGing a bit off to the left or right side and leaving room for Bell to park herself high in the middle without the ball. There's two rationales for that.

First, Bell's primary purpose up top is defense against a possible fast break. Bell is our fastest so can get ahead of any fast break (especially with the head start of up-top position). Maybe foul if they're not in the bonus. You don't have to fret about who's covering fast break, it's always Bell.

Second, her secondary purpose up top is outlet for Brunson if she gets double teamed, say while stalling for instance.

Brunson should start the play with 5 seconds on the shot clock (not 2-3) if stalling, a bit more if semi-stalling. And a real play, not a drive-and-desperation shot.

You want Pitts in there for her free-throw shooting and 3 shooting. You want her to take the shot off the play if possible.

You could have Perez in for 3 shooting, or Lamke in for free-throw shooting. If the latter, I'd have her maneuver in high post, keeping moving to try to take a pass at the top of the key. From there she has a decent 15-foot jumper plus maybe she's fouled. Maybe she can do a hi-lo feed to Bello, who should be low post or keepin movin along the baseline to get free (and she's in position to rebound).

Just do a real play, try to get your free-throw shooters involved and fouled.

Keep Bell engaged in the next defensive play that she may be able to stop. Keep her out of the offensive play where she might cause damage.
 

Don't agree with the above assessments of Bell. I'll admit that she takes more shots than anyone else and she takes more bad shots than anyone else. But she is playing with a group of basically reluctant shooters. Pitts is the only other starter that is not a reluctant shooter and she can't create her own shots. You can point to the recent shooting percentages of Perez all you want, but she can't create her own shots and she's not at a level where she'll take shots when the game is on the line. I think we're stuck with what we got. And although I realize Bell's shortcomings, I'd like to know who else is going to be willing to shoot it (other than Pitts) when the game is on the line.
 

If I recall, during the last several wins, it's not unusual for Lindsay to have Brunson play the point late (teams obviously have their better defender on Bell). I think that was especially the case against Northwestern. Last night, in crunch time, there was a play where T. Bello was supposed to inbound to Brunson to bring up court; but she threw it to Bell whom was already headed up court. Fortunately, Bell reacted quickly and tapped the ball to Brunson. Even the players think they need to get the ball to Keke.

Playing off Triple Double's point, no matter who you want to get the ball, it's finding Bell. As Eagan Gopher points out, Whalen's basic play late in the game is to wind down the clock down and then Bell has to do her thing. It can be tough to watch; but there's no question that is what Lindsay wants. The good news is that Keke gets to the foul line. I think we ran one play late, out of a time out, that got Destiny a wide open shot and had Teri Moren really upset with the Hoosier defender.

Yes, I'd like to see more offensive movement with five minutes remaining. Last season, they were able to run the clock late and still get into a quick offensive set.

I'm actually more perturbed by sloppy inbound plays. There are too many crazy turnovers or nervous passes. Bottom line, we have a three game winning streak and a four guard lineup which works even though we are actually down to only having four healthy guards.
 

Iggy's right to point out that the inbound plays have really been lacking this year. This is something that should be near the top of the team's "Things to Work On" list. It seems to me that this team had a lot more success with inbound plays in previous years, often scoring on those plays when they happened in the Gophers offensive end of the court. Now, there are too many times when the time can't even get the ball in or they have a sloppy turnover. With speedy and athletic players such as Brunson, Bell, and Bello, there's no excuse for that. And late in games when the Gophers have the lead and other teams are looking to foul, the Gophers need to run plays to inbound the ball to Pitts, by far the team's best FT shooter. Last night in one of those situations, Pitts was 30 feet from the ball.

One other thing: We've got to give the coach credit for the move to the 4-guard lineup. That's been a major factor in the recent mini-win streak. I liked the 4-guard lineup under Stollings but didn't think that would work with this team's personnel, mostly because of the lack of guard depth and I wasn't sure that either Perez or Staples could fill the fourth guard spot. It seems that Perez is gaining more confidence as she gets more minutes and she seems to be improving with every game. She's still not as aggressive offensively as I would like her to be, but she's a good shooter and maybe this will come as she gets more PT. Either way, the 4-guard lineup is working with Perez as the 4th guard. It's especially working on the defensive end,. Last night the Gophers created lots of defensive problems for Indiana. Love the full-court press the Gophers have used. I'm sure Whalen wishes she had more guards to use for this defense, as using the full court press often might lead to occasional foul trouble and fatigue.
 

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