Gophers underdogs against Cal Baptist

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Not even in a “rebuild” should we be an underdog to teams of this caliber.
 






Based upon what I have seen so far, this team, at this point, should be an underdog in most games. We are not very good and we have a steep learning curve to get to B1G level. This season is going to be painful, but I hope to see improvement by the end of the year.
 

Any news on Battle and his foot injury? These things can take forever.
 



Nomellini said:
Any news on Battle and his foot injury? These things can take forever.
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If we're hoping to win before the-year-after-next-year....we should be glad that Battle & Garcia aren't doing much now. We need them both back next year if we want to win.

Hoping for Battle now so we can beat Cal-Baptist is not exciting to me. I'd rather play the freshmen.
 

Honestly not surprising, the gap in the quality of talent on these low majors has been closing for years. There are just way more good basketball players out there. If you don't have a legitimate top 25 team (and even if you do) you can expect to have difficulty nowadays. Just look at all the "upsets" of the lower Pac-12 and ACC teams. BC losing to Maine, Cal losing to UCSD and Southern, Colorado losing to Grambling.

It's not nearly the shocking upset it was 10-15 years ago.
 

MennoSota said:
Based upon what I have seen so far, this team, at this point, should be an underdog in most games. We are not very good and we have a steep learning curve to get to B1G level. This season is going to be painful, but I hope to see improvement by the end of the year.
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You’re right that we’ve been bad so far. That being said, I’d hold off judgement until Battle is back. Our offense will change for the better and he’ll open more things up.
The nice thing about this team is the growing curve will be large because of all the new parts coming together. Also the B1G isn’t as good as last year imo.
 

Gopherfan84 said:
You’re right that we’ve been bad so far. That being said, I’d hold off judgement until Battle is back. Our offense will change for the better and he’ll open more things up.
The nice thing about this team is the growing curve will be large because of all the new parts coming together. Also the B1G isn’t as good as last year imo.
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Gophers have been worse than I expected thus far. Thought defensively they would have shown more. The rebounding, well, no sense even mentioning that. Maybe we see them with Battle tonight.
The Big might be down, but right now, so far, it doesn't appear as if the Gophers can capitalize on that.
 



I didn't know there were any Baptists in California, let alone that they had a university or a basketball team, or that they were in the WAC, which used to consist of a 100% different set of schools.

But I guess if they beat up on Washington that's better than anything the Gophers have done in a while in basketball.
 

Gopherfan84 said:
You’re right that we’ve been bad so far. That being said, I’d hold off judgement until Battle is back. Our offense will change for the better and he’ll open more things up.
The nice thing about this team is the growing curve will be large because of all the new parts coming together. Also the B1G isn’t as good as last year imo.
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The biggest problems for this team and why they are bad is rebounding, defense and free throws. These are mentality issues. Battle isn't going to fix these, the coaches need to fix these.
 

fan of Ray Williams said:
Gophers have been worse than I expected thus far. Thought defensively they would have shown more. The rebounding, well, no sense even mentioning that. Maybe we see them with Battle tonight.
The Big might be down, but right now, so far, it doesn't appear as if the Gophers can capitalize on that.
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What exactly were you expecting? This will take years to turn into a competitive team.
 

I honestly didn't realize that Cal Baptist was a D1 team, but you can't really look at the name and conclude anything. It seems like they'd be in the 300s in the computer rankings, but they're in the 170s. So being an underdog isn't as bad as it appears at first.
 


justthefacts said:
I honestly didn't realize that Cal Baptist was a D1 team, but you can't really look at the name and conclude anything. It seems like they'd be in the 300s in the computer rankings, but they're in the 170s. So being an underdog isn't as bad as it appears at first.
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A B1G team shouldn’t be an underdog to a low level conference team ranked in the 170s.
 

adchester said:
Honestly not surprising, the gap in the quality of talent on these low majors has been closing for years. There are just way more good basketball players out there. If you don't have a legitimate top 25 team (and even if you do) you can expect to have difficulty nowadays. Just look at all the "upsets" of the lower Pac-12 and ACC teams. BC losing to Maine, Cal losing to UCSD and Southern, Colorado losing to Grambling.

It's not nearly the shocking upset it was 10-15 years ago.
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When I look at some of the quick guards on these smaller school teams that have run right past our guards, I wonder how it is that we were unable to get one more guard that could compete at this level. The most quickness we have is Henley who at 6-6 is going to be terrific, but not quite ready yet.
 

fmlizard said:
But I guess if they beat up on Washington that's better than anything the Gophers have done in a while in basketball.
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Is it? Washington has made the NCAA tournament once over the last 12 years.
 

adchester said:
Honestly not surprising, the gap in the quality of talent on these low majors has been closing for years. There are just way more good basketball players out there. If you don't have a legitimate top 25 team (and even if you do) you can expect to have difficulty nowadays. Just look at all the "upsets" of the lower Pac-12 and ACC teams. BC losing to Maine, Cal losing to UCSD and Southern, Colorado losing to Grambling.

It's not nearly the shocking upset it was 10-15 years ago.
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The boosters for Cal-Baptist have been pouring tons of $$ into their sports programs over the past 10-12 years, bringing it from NAIA to Division 2 to D-1 in 2018. I know that in the latter stages of their D-2 days on the West Coast, they were raising 3 times as much recruiting money as any other D-2 programs in the west. They seem pretty serious about becoming a big dog in hoops and baseball (dreams of Pac-12?) Seems like they have some experienced transfers to supplement their recruits. They may be similar to what the Gophers suited up last year in terms of experience.

One way to look at it, do you think (comparing each squad on all levels, as of this date in both seasons) that last years Gophers team would/could beat this year's Gophers team tonight? Might be a good way to gauge this game tonight.

I do believe that this year's team has far more potential to be a lot better, but I'm pretty certain that last year's squad, at this exact point of the season and their level of play, would be a big problem for this years squad. Cal Baptist might be the same story for the Gophers tonight.
 

bga1 said:
When I look at some of the quick guards on these smaller school teams that have run right past our guards, I wonder how it is that we were unable to get one more guard that could compete at this level. The most quickness we have is Henley who at 6-6 is going to be terrific, but not quite ready yet.
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💯. I think Johnson put together some nice length with this roster, but completely whiffed on complimenting that with speed and ball handlers.

Even with all our length, only Payne actually wants to play in the paint. So we’re incredibly slow at every perimeter position and getting beat to loose balls and rebounds.

Battle will help us in the scoring department, but I don’t see him helping us out much on the rebounding or defensive side of the ball.
 

justthefacts said:
I honestly didn't realize that Cal Baptist was a D1 team, but you can't really look at the name and conclude anything. It seems like they'd be in the 300s in the computer rankings, but they're in the 170s. So being an underdog isn't as bad as it appears at first.
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Serious? Rankings have Cal Baptist at 176 and Nebraska at 138, you wouldn't be that worried if we get beat by a team ranked 38 spots below the worst team in the Big Ten? I guess you are all in on Minnesota is by far the worst team in the B1G, and ok with it.
 

Cal Baptist's starting PG, Joe Quintana (15 pts/game), transferred from LMU.

We played LMU twice in the 20/21 season and barely won the second game. While Leaupepe is still etched into my memory, Quintana was also very solid and scored 19 pts in the first game. I think @Chico Gopher is spot on with his assessment.

I think we see some of our high-end athleticism start to gel this week and some light-bulb moments for some of our freshmen.
 

Rockraven said:
They are 3-1 with a 9 point win over the Washington Huskies. Know your opponent. Yes, we are a project, but with a big upside. Looking forward to a win.
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The huskies have been going downhill since the Pac12 has figured out Mike Hopkins (a Jim Boehim long-time assistant). They had a great year in his first year (with big time NBA talent but have since steadily gone downhill. They were barely over .500 in the pac12 last year, which has some horrendous teams at the bottom of the conference.

This post is not saying we should take Cal Baptist likely (since we are not that great), but beating the Huskies isn’t that great of a win…they are 120 in KenPom and Gophs are 148 …not a huge difference…but we wouldn’t classify beating the gophers as a huge win.
 

fan of Ray Williams said:
Gophers have been worse than I expected thus far. Thought defensively they would have shown more. The rebounding, well, no sense even mentioning that. Maybe we see them with Battle tonight.
The Big might be down, but right now, so far, it doesn't appear as if the Gophers can capitalize on that.
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I expected out defense to struggle right away with some assignments. New team and some inexperienced players. They do work hard and positioning is good early. I think this will improve with time.
Rebounding is a mystery to me, but more Payne will help.
 


Gopherfan84 said:
I expected out defense to struggle right away with some assignments. New team and some inexperienced players. They do work hard and positioning is good early. I think this will improve with time.
Rebounding is a mystery to me, but more Payne will help.
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Yeah, you are more knowledgeable than I am on this, but seemed like they had more success in the zone last game than man to man. Not sure if it was because of their skill at it or the opponent's lack of recognizing and executing. The rebounding is baffling.
That said, looking forward to the game. As mentioned in another thread, Cal Baptist has a bunch of international players led by the younger Armstrong, who I've been anxious to see play.
 

Gopher Teeth said:
The biggest problems for this team and why they are bad is rebounding, defense and free throws. These are mentality issues. Battle isn't going to fix these, the coaches need to fix these.
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Battle will help rebounding since he’ll be a wing and on defense he knows spots to be in. We’ve played 3 games so far so they get sometime to fix and grow. Luckily defense and rebounding are strength areas of Thorson and Ben. We should see improvement.
 

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