GAME #30: Gophers (18-11, 7-9) @ #16 Michigan (20-7, 12-3) [BTN, 5:00PM]

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GameDay said:
King may know where to be, but he still can't make a post move, secure a rebound, or make a shot. That's why I favor Buggs over King to be the starting (and closing) power forward for us.
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Ya, the guy with an eFG% of 52.7% (third best on the team) and a TS% of 56.4% can't make shots. Ok. Agree on the rebounding, but don't be ridiculous.
 


zambam said:
How ill informed are you? King is a our third best offensive player, easily. And he's also our second most consistent offensive player. He shoots fairly well, and depending on the match-up he's decent with his back to the basket. Buggs has one good game (and Oto stops playing) and suddenly everyone shifts from "Oto sucks" to "King sucks". Give King **** for his terrible defense and his incredibly poor rebounding, but don't be a moron and insult him for the only thing he actually contributes in.

Then again, you're the guy who thinks having either Mo or EE transfer after this year is a net positive, so maybe I shouldn't expect much from you.
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Duck!

King is no where near as bad as half of you make him out to be. Defensively I cannot recall one instance today where he got blown by or missed an assignment. He's helped us more than hurt us this year given the alternatives.

Love buggs but he's far from ready for big important minutes.
 

golfing18now said:
If this board is right about King and Buggs is the player that everybody is so infatuated with, what does that make Pitino -- incompetent?

Way too hard on King and way too early to put Buggs on this pedestal...
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I'm hardly a knee jerk fan.....but we have been discussing for a while about how neither Oto nor King has looked like a D1 player. Buggs has shown some competence in these past couple games. In 24 minutes, King went 0-3 with 3 rebounds. Buggs was 1-1 with 3 rebounds in 16 minutes.

I'm sorry.....but Buggs at least looks somewhat aggressive on the floor. Plus he can leap over most. When we were down 2 points with about four minutes left in the game.....King missed two rebounds that a semi-decent forward would have grabbed. All of the sudden, we are down 6. He's a liability. While Buggs doesn't really looked polished by any means.....at least he brings SOMETHING to the table.
 

stocker08 said:
I'm hardly a knee jerk fan.....but we have been discussing for a while about how neither Oto nor King has looked like a D1 player. Buggs has shown some competence in these past couple games. In 24 minutes, King went 0-3 with 3 rebounds. Buggs was 1-1 with 3 rebounds in 16 minutes.

I'm sorry.....but Buggs at least looks somewhat aggressive on the floor. Plus he can leap over most. When we were down 2 points with about four minutes left in the game.....King missed two rebounds that a semi-decent forward would have grabbed. All of the sudden, we are down 6. He's a liability. While Buggs doesn't really looked polished by any means.....at least he brings SOMETHING to the table.
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Not attacking you....but I'll ask the question again of you or anybody else that wants to answer it.

Why has Buggs not been playing over Oto or King this year? What possible explanation is there? If in the eyes of most on this board neither Oto or King are division one players but Buggs is, does Pitino just not get it?
 


The Gophers have no one like Stauskas or Robinson. And playing at Michigan made this an almost unwinnable game. They played well and had a chance to win in the last 2 minutes. They need to beat Penn St and then hope for the best altho making the tournament does not make or break this season IMO.
 

It's almost the same game as Indiana, just this one was on the road. The crowd didn't help us make important stops down the stretch, and the crowd made us make some stupid plays down the stretch. Indiana had Yogi and Vonleh who are well above our class of players, and Michigan has about 10 guys that are much more talented than our squad. We were in it late, a bad missed box out by Buggs, a stupid foul by EE, a stupid shot by Andre and some bad luck and we lose by 10. Thats the Big10...

Lets get PSU
 


golfing18now said:
Not attacking you....but I'll ask the question again of you or anybody else that wants to answer it.

Why has Buggs not been playing over Oto or King this year? What possible explanation is there? If in the eyes of most on this board neither Oto or King are division one players but Buggs is, does Pitino just not get it?
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There are plenty of reasons why a coach doesn't play a certain player. I'm not trying to say that Buggs should have been playing all year either. However, it's clear to me that, when receiving meaningful minutes, that Buggs has looked better than Oto or King. Maybe that is a recent development, maybe Pitino just got fed up with Oto. I have no idea.
 



stocker08 said:
There are plenty of reasons why a coach doesn't play a certain player. I'm not trying to say that Buggs should have been playing all year either. However, it's clear to me that, when receiving meaningful minutes, that Buggs has looked better than Oto or King. Maybe that is a recent development, maybe Pitino just got fed up with Oto. I have no idea.
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Finally someone says something that makes sense. Lots of things we don't know about come to play here.
 

GameDay said:
King may know where to be, but he still can't make a post move, secure a rebound, or make a shot. That's why I favor Buggs over King to be the starting (and closing) power forward for us.
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King has been solid posting up at times. But the point I was trying to make was that if Buggs looks lost after over 4 months, who knows what he was like several months ago.
 

StCroix said:
This Michigan team is better than us period. Nothing a coach can do with lesser talent. We kept it close but missed too many opportunities and gave them too many second chances. We have NO go to guy and Michigan has 3.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
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PTalberg said:
It's sad when our 5' 9" pg lead the team in rebounds...
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Quickness is just as important as height for most rebounds.
 




StCroix said:
This Michigan team is better than us period. Nothing a coach can do with lesser talent. We kept it close but missed too many opportunities and gave them too many second chances. We have NO go to guy and Michigan has 3.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
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PTalberg said:
Not for those 50-50 balls up in the air. Regardless, we need to get more boards.
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We were -1 on rebounds vs Mich.
 

Pitino is in a no win situation with Buggs. He is a net negative more often than not, although like we've seen he is capable of playing well, and everyone bitches because he doesn't get consistent minutes. The old saying "the backup qb is almost the most popular in town" applies to this situation 100%.
 

Dr.Don said:
Finally someone says something that makes sense. Lots of things we don't know about come to play here.
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This is exactly my point. We are basing our evaluation of Buggs on 20 minutes of playing time. I'm going to give Pitino's evaluation a little more weight.

That being said, I'm much more hopeful for Buggs than I was a week ago.
 

I'm gonna go up on a limb and say Buggs didn't deserve to play at the start of the year, I think he screwed himself with Pitino for being underweight and after working hard, and improving his game Pitino let him out of the doghouse. Sometimes guys get better during the year.
 

Anyone think the reason Buggs started playing is because Oto is injured?

Probably just a coincidence.
 

station19 said:
Anyone think the reason Buggs started playing is because Oto is injured?

Probably just a coincidence.
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Pitino said it wasn't the reason they decided to start playing him, though I'm sure he's getting more playing time than if Oto were healthy.
 

station19 said:
Anyone think the reason Buggs started playing is because Oto is injured?

Probably just a coincidence.
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I think if Oto were a star we would be seeing him on court with this injury. Just my guess.
 

bga1 said:
I think if Oto were a star we would be seeing him on court with this injury. Just my guess.
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Star? How about if he was useful at all. We don't have any stars, particularly at PF. Oto is a 22/23 year old that is essentially a poorman's version of Joey King. We really have no use for him.
 

Great effort by the guys tonight. I contrast this to the WI game in Madison where the Gophers lost by 8 but were never really in the game in the 2nd half. Critical details are the difference between winning and losing on the road and the inability to get loose balls and crucial rebounds were the difference tonight. If Joey King grabs that rebound (which he's not been able to snag all year; but not due to lack of effort), who knows?

Need a win against PSU and a little magic in the BTT.
 

Malik Smith kills this team when he isn't shooting well. He might not be in a slump if he shot when he was open. The 32 footers with a defender in his face or annoying as hell.
 

afurry91 said:
Malik Smith kills this team when he isn't shooting well. He might not be in a slump if he shot when he was open. The 32 footers with a defender in his face or annoying as hell.
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Even more annoying, how he gets three 3-pointers made on him on defense. That hurts!
 

GameDay said:
Even more annoying, how he gets three 3-pointers made on him on defense. That hurts!
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He had a rough 3 possessions in the end there... Would be nice for him to get hot in the BTT and steal a game
 

MadtownGopher said:
Star? How about if he was useful at all. We don't have any stars, particularly at PF. Oto is a 22/23 year old that is essentially a poorman's version of Joey King. We really have no use for him.
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In B1G play, Oto was good for about 8 pts, 4 rebs a game + solid defense and a knowledge of how to play within the offense. That's light years ahead of where King or Buggs is at.
 

station19 said:
Anyone think the reason Buggs started playing is because Oto is injured?

Probably just a coincidence.
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No, it's no coincidence. That's how it goes though, someone gets injured and someone else gets their shot. Oto, while never a star, was playing adequately enough at the 4 that we could win games until about the Northwestern game when his production & minutes fell off the map. As we know it wasn't an "injury" in the sense that it happened all at once, rather it was a gradual injury that got worse & worse as he played on it to the point that Pitino decided that it had gotten to the point that Buggs was a better option. Prior to that Oto was putting up maybe 8pt, 4reb a game but more importantly he played good defense & didn't stall the offense when he touched the ball because he knew what to do with it.
 

Costa Rican Gopher said:
No, it's no coincidence. That's how it goes though, someone gets injured and someone else gets their shot. Oto, while never a star, was playing adequately enough at the 4 that we could win games until about the Northwestern game when his production & minutes fell off the map. As we know it wasn't an "injury" in the sense that it happened all at once, rather it was a gradual injury that got worse & worse as he played on it to the point that Pitino decided that it had gotten to the point that Buggs was a better option. Prior to that Oto was putting up maybe 8pt, 4reb a game but more importantly he played good defense & didn't stall the offense when he touched the ball because he knew what to do with it.
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Good info CRG. I heard the terrible words degenerative knee injury. Have you heard anything else? Is this the type of thing where he may not be back this year or possibly even next?
 

Costa Rican Gopher said:
No, it's no coincidence. That's how it goes though, someone gets injured and someone else gets their shot. Oto, while never a star, was playing adequately enough at the 4 that we could win games until about the Northwestern game when his production & minutes fell off the map. As we know it wasn't an "injury" in the sense that it happened all at once, rather it was a gradual injury that got worse & worse as he played on it to the point that Pitino decided that it had gotten to the point that Buggs was a better option. Prior to that Oto was putting up maybe 8pt, 4reb a game but more importantly he played good defense & didn't stall the offense when he touched the ball because he knew what to do with it.
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Oto played good defense?
 

Costa Rican Gopher said:
No, it's no coincidence. That's how it goes though, someone gets injured and someone else gets their shot. Oto, while never a star, was playing adequately enough at the 4 that we could win games until about the Northwestern game when his production & minutes fell off the map. As we know it wasn't an "injury" in the sense that it happened all at once, rather it was a gradual injury that got worse & worse as he played on it to the point that Pitino decided that it had gotten to the point that Buggs was a better option. Prior to that Oto was putting up maybe 8pt, 4reb a game but more importantly he played good defense & didn't stall the offense when he touched the ball because he knew what to do with it.
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Nice post. Oto was a nice, not great, contributor earlier in the season and his presence, particularly his hustle, is a significant vacancy.
 

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