I have read through a number of threads and most eveyone has made the points I wanted to make. This was no fluke win, the Gophers were the better team. As much as Hubert Davis harped on the quickness advantage the UNC bigs enjoyed, two things stood out to me: 1. The Gophers bigs are significantly stronger than the UNC bigs their were some "man sized" boards by both Trevor and Colton. 2. If you took the names on the jerseys and the hype away, I think most people would have pointed to Rodney and Trevor as the two best athletes on the floor.
I can't say enough about Al Nolen's performance tonight. He had to play almost the entire game (I'll get to that later) and still was getting HUGE rebounds/loose balls in the final few minutes of this game. Al had to do a ton of ballhandling tonight and more than met the challenge.
Trevor/Ralph/Colt- All had huge moments up front. Colton didn't do much offensively, but dominated the glass at times. Trevor continues to impress and I saw some emotion from Ralph to go along with some nice jumpers.
Blake- struggled with open looks early, but caught fire later. Blake's passing was crucial and he's become a weapon against the press-as soon as the ball hits his hands, he knows where the open guy is and delivers an accurate pass to beat the press.
Mo Walker- Bleed had a post that basically stated my thoughts. I thought Mo really struggled in his entrance to the game, but then continued to get better and better. The guy has really soft hands and seems to just have a feel for the game (witness the loose ball he was able to corrall and then pass to an open teammate while on the floor between 2-3 UNC defenders). Then "the shot" happened and a 5 point lead was in danger of being cut to two because our Freshman center took a 3 early in the shot clock in the waning minutes. Bleed said "oh no", my reaction was "what the _ are you doing?". The win is huge for Mo because he would have been the goat if the Gophers lost. It also allows us to remember his positive contributions to this game. I do feel like Mo got the short end of the stick on the charge/block fouls.
Tubby- you could hear the guy coaching, he clearly was in to the game and was always barking some sort of instructions out. I certainly thought Tubby coached a hell of a game, and it would have looked even better if the Gophers could have connected on a couple of those wide open lob plays. That said, I hope Tubby's obvious passion for coaching can be translated in to recruiting in the next two classes. Tubby mentioned how many more games the Gophers would have won with Trevor last year...well there is no replacement for Trevor in the program right now. Likewise, we better be really sure that Andre Hollins can play pg, because we don't have anyone in the program capable of taking over for Nolen. Without getting too long winded on a potential negative, my point is that Tubby is proving that his passion to win is still there and this is no retirement job, but he needs to compete off the court as hard as he's competing on it because we can only go so far without a "Trevor" or a pg, etc.
I can't say enough about Al Nolen's performance tonight. He had to play almost the entire game (I'll get to that later) and still was getting HUGE rebounds/loose balls in the final few minutes of this game. Al had to do a ton of ballhandling tonight and more than met the challenge.
Trevor/Ralph/Colt- All had huge moments up front. Colton didn't do much offensively, but dominated the glass at times. Trevor continues to impress and I saw some emotion from Ralph to go along with some nice jumpers.
Blake- struggled with open looks early, but caught fire later. Blake's passing was crucial and he's become a weapon against the press-as soon as the ball hits his hands, he knows where the open guy is and delivers an accurate pass to beat the press.
Mo Walker- Bleed had a post that basically stated my thoughts. I thought Mo really struggled in his entrance to the game, but then continued to get better and better. The guy has really soft hands and seems to just have a feel for the game (witness the loose ball he was able to corrall and then pass to an open teammate while on the floor between 2-3 UNC defenders). Then "the shot" happened and a 5 point lead was in danger of being cut to two because our Freshman center took a 3 early in the shot clock in the waning minutes. Bleed said "oh no", my reaction was "what the _ are you doing?". The win is huge for Mo because he would have been the goat if the Gophers lost. It also allows us to remember his positive contributions to this game. I do feel like Mo got the short end of the stick on the charge/block fouls.
Tubby- you could hear the guy coaching, he clearly was in to the game and was always barking some sort of instructions out. I certainly thought Tubby coached a hell of a game, and it would have looked even better if the Gophers could have connected on a couple of those wide open lob plays. That said, I hope Tubby's obvious passion for coaching can be translated in to recruiting in the next two classes. Tubby mentioned how many more games the Gophers would have won with Trevor last year...well there is no replacement for Trevor in the program right now. Likewise, we better be really sure that Andre Hollins can play pg, because we don't have anyone in the program capable of taking over for Nolen. Without getting too long winded on a potential negative, my point is that Tubby is proving that his passion to win is still there and this is no retirement job, but he needs to compete off the court as hard as he's competing on it because we can only go so far without a "Trevor" or a pg, etc.