Hats off to Al Nolen

Donate To GopherHole
tikited

tikited

Me
Joined
Nov 20, 2008
Messages
18,216
Reaction score
5,481
Points
113
Best game by a Gopher this year for sure. He dominated WVU.
 

For sure, it was a good game for Nolen too :). Who'd have thought he would be the leading scorer tonight?!
 


Al was a one man wrecking crew tonight. One one hand you could tell that he knew nobody could guard him and he was anxious to personally take the game over. On the other hand he didn't over-step his ability and continued to make smart decisions. Great game from Al.
 




I agree that Al played well, I just wish he would move the ball more on offense. It is frustrating when he dribbles for 25 seconds before the offense runs a play. I do like how he attacked the basket tonight.
 





Al Nolen

Al in my opinion was the MVP of this tourney! Dont think he came out the second half...

He shut down their best scorer. Handled the ball through out this tourney without much help. Al was great!:clap:
 

I'm not able to, on the spot, think of a better game Al Nolen has played for us. His floor leadership, his dribbling, his defense on Mitchell after he rattled in 16 points in the first 10 minutes was all outstanding. His drive to the bucket past everyone in the 2nd half ahd my son and I jumping about the room. He isn't the greatest shooter, but he is everything else you could want in a point guard and he's showing senior leadership. Plus he was able to drag himself up from academic issues last year to give us this season. Congrats Al!
 

Love the way he's played so far. With Devoe being out it was even more important for him to step up and he has definitely done so.
 

I remember there was an lengthy on-line interview with some Augsburg radio station with Nolen. During the interview Nolen said he was interested in making it to the NBA. I thought to myself 'I guess everyone thinks they can play in the NBA'. Do the Twolves need another point guard?
 



Marcus just tweeted this:

Nolen should have been on all-tourney team as well. But we had to cast our ballots early in the second half.
Click to expand...

I just bet it was too hard to narrow down the # of Gophs making the all tourney team, so many of our guys played great - and Nolen was HUGE.
 

I could not be more impressed. I was not his biggest fan, but if he keeps this up, every bad thought I've ever had about him will be forgotten. He still can't shoot outside, but he has already finished more shots around the rim this year than he seemingly did all of last year. And he is making FT's too. We have Hoff to shoot. Right now, Al can do everything else.
 

From the Barn said:
He has gone the full Eric Harris, only a year late.
Click to expand...

Boy he sure looked like it tonight.

Also, some of his most surprising defense seemed to be against WV's low post guys and arround the basket and baseline. Maybe his hand speed is unexpected by the bigs?
 

tikited said:
Best game by a Gopher this year for sure. He dominated WVU.
Click to expand...

The kid's hard as nails, on the floor, ripping down rebounds, you could just feel he was completely in command, he recognized they were in a drought & needed a basket and was able to penetrate & convert in those situations and of course he mostly shut down their star player.

Nolen, Blake & Mbakwe should all be "All Tournament" imo.
 

Marcus is a Nolen hater

GopherLady said:
Marcus just tweeted this:

Quote:
Nolen should have been on all-tourney team as well. But we had to cast our ballots early in the second half.

I just bet it was too hard to narrow down the # of Gophs making the all tourney team, so many of our guys played great - and Nolen was HUGE.
Click to expand...

That's a piss poor excuse from Marcus. It was clear by that time that Nolen was going to be key to the Gopher win. Marcus just basically admitted that he thought the Gophers were going to lose the tourney championship game.

Nolen deserved to be on the All Tourney Team BEFORE the ballots were due. Marcus should have saved that tweet and left us wondering.
 

Nolen commanded the floor, ran the team, he works extremely well with Blake...his defense is amazing too. I've always liked Al so its really sweet to see him elevate his game.
 

Um, how long does it take to count a couple dozen ballots? 45 minutes?
 

If I had to guess, I would say that Al moves so fast that a lot of times his body gets ahead of his brain, and that's when he gets in trouble.. With the extra-intensive scouting and planning sessions in these early tournaments, there's less of that happening, and he generally knows what to do. That and an improved jumper have been key... and then when he got on a roll tonight, he just kept going and WVU had no answer. I just hope that the big 10 refs call all of the fouls too, especially on the road... because Al is so quick that no one can stay in front of him 1 on 1.
 

Winning the tournament was great, but what made it even greater, was how dominant Nolen was. It's disgusting the hate he receives on this board. Hoffarber too. I hope the haters finally realize how much we're going to miss those too. Btw, how many BT pgs are betting at beating their man off the dribble than Nolen?

Also, anyone think that we actually benefited from Devoe not playing? It might sound crazy (yes, I'm a big supporter of Nolen over Devoe, but hear me out), but I think it really helped that we had to rely so much on Nolen. Let's be honest here, Devoe is a very streaky player, and no matter how bad of a game he is having, he will continue to shoot. Of course we can use his scoring ability, but I don't think he would've necessarily been able to score as many points as Nolen did, and obviously his defense would've have been nowhere close. It also really helps that Nolen puts so many players in foul trouble. I know we're a better team with Devoe, but I think that in this tournament, we actually were better off being forced to play Nolen such heavy minutes. Thoughts?
 

While Devoe will be our backup point guard when he returns, I hope it doesn't cut into Al's minutes too much. I'm hoping Devoe gets most of his playing time alongside Al, and only runs the point when Al needs a breather.
 

It was really, really, nice to hear the annoucers giving Al such high praise as well and even from Davis who openly hates the Big Ten.
 

From the Barn said:
He has gone the full Eric Harris, only a year late.
Click to expand...

FTB, I am going to exception on this one. Al has proven himself to be a solid traditional pointguard (long before this weekend, in my opinion), but he needs to be more consistent in knocking down the threes before I will put him in the Eric Harris improvement category.

I look forward to Devoe's return and being able to spell Al a bit. Mav is not there yet, and Chip is not a point guard yet. I don't think Al benefits over the season if he is forced to play 35 minutes a game. He has a history of running out of gas later in the season, and it will benefit him and the team if his stamina can be preserved. I would say the goal should be about 30 minutes a game, if capable back up can be assured.
 

Holy Man said:
FTB, I am going to exception on this one. Al has proven himself to be a solid traditional pointguard (long before this weekend, in my opinion), but he needs to be more consistent in knocking down the threes before I will put him in the Eric Harris improvement category.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Harris was a very good scorer and shooter at the end.
 

I was more referring to the major leep forward we have seen from him, not specifically the outside shooting ability. Though Nolen has a better outside shot than he gets credit for.
 

Hubert Davis

I thought Hubert showed the Gophers much love.. Hubert complimented the Big 10 many times
 

He is what he is, I'm not looking for him to be a top flight shooter, and really, with all the weapons around, he doesn't have to be. We got plenty of guys who can shoot the ball, and we have low post threats. Nolen provides exactly what we need, and that is a guy who can bust into the lane and wreak havoc on the defense by cutting into it. He'll open things up for others with his ability to get in there, whether kicking it out for a Hoff three, or feeding Mbakwe for an easy layup or dunk.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom