Have the Gophers turned the corner?

Donate To GopherHole
Otis

Otis

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 13, 2014
Messages
5,797
Reaction score
2,951
Points
113
Inspired play the last 2 games! They really look like a different mindset than the first few B1G efforts!

A couple of positives:

1. Reduced turnovers - they have really done a great job of reducing these the last couple games. Doing a much better job of making each possession count!

2. Defensive Intensity - not a lot of lapses being seen out there. Doing a good job of contesting as much as they can and not drawing Ricky tick fouls. Also going hard for loose balls! That’s more like it.

3. Better shot selection and ball movement - nice to see an offense that looks like it has a purpose! Not killing the clock and forcing up a shit shot seems to be working! Keep it up fellas!

4. Garcia making a statement - looks like a different player. Definitely playing with a chip in his shoulder. Must of read Wet Blanket’s negative posts. He is establishing himself as the man on this Gopher team!

5. Continued improvement from freshmen - these guys are coming together and look more poised with every game! Need some more point production outside of Payne last night but they aren’t forcing it and the game will come to them if they keep the smart, hard effort up!

Negatives:

1. FTs - epicly bad at the charity stripe. Need to fix their strokes but that is an off season thing. Just need to work at getting to Carnegie hall on fts for now! Practice, practice, practice….

2. Battle 3pt shooting - I swear the name on the back of his jersey this year reads KALESHEUR. Hopefully he gets his stroke back cause he is killing their 3pt % all by himself.

Great progress! Keep it up Johnson!
 

They have turned a corner and seem to be figuring some things out. But still a long way to go before they turn THE corner and really start playing at a high level.

Still good to see some signs of improvement and the team looking much better over these past few games.
 

MNVCGUY said:
They have turned a corner and seem to be figuring some things out. But still a long way to go before they turn THE corner and really start playing at a high level.

Still good to see some signs of improvement and the team looking much better over these past few games.
Click to expand...

Agreed with this. The corner we've turned is like the curvature of a Cul-de-sac...still a ways to go before we make that hard right turn back into relevancy. We can absolutely accomplish it this season and that should be our expectation. We have 15 Big Ten games left in a conference that isn't "that" good this year. Let's go 8-7 in the last 15 (we only have 2 games against ranked teams) and win a game in the BTT, now that is turning a corner.

Go Gophers!!
 

Otis said:
Inspired play the last 2 games! They really look like a different mindset than the first few B1G efforts!

A couple of positives:

1. Reduced turnovers - they have really done a great job of reducing these the last couple games. Doing a much better job of making each possession count!

2. Defensive Intensity - not a lot of lapses being seen out there. Doing a good job of contesting as much as they can and not drawing Ricky tick fouls. Also going hard for loose balls! That’s more like it.

3. Better shot selection and ball movement - nice to see an offense that looks like it has a purpose! Not killing the clock and forcing up a shit shot seems to be working! Keep it up fellas!

4. Garcia making a statement - looks like a different player. Definitely playing with a chip in his shoulder. Must of read Wet Blanket’s negative posts. He is establishing himself as the man on this Gopher team!

5. Continued improvement from freshmen - these guys are coming together and look more poised with every game! Need some more point production outside of Payne last night but they aren’t forcing it and the game will come to them if they keep the smart, hard effort up!

Negatives:

1. FTs - epicly bad at the charity stripe. Need to fix their strokes but that is an off season thing. Just need to work at getting to Carnegie hall on fts for now! Practice, practice, practice….

2. Battle 3pt shooting - I swear the name on the back of his jersey this year reads KALESHEUR. Hopefully he gets his stroke back cause he is killing their 3pt % all by himself.

Great progress! Keep it up Johnson!
Click to expand...
the freshman had their worst game of the year last night IMO. Payne was the bright spot with 10 points but then he also had 5 turnovers.
 

The problem is there are no easy B1G games, they've looked decent three games in a row and could be 3-2 now. They need to keep winning the close ones and hopefully they will all be close. These games have been enjoyable to watch win or lose.
 




Gophs24 said:
the freshman had their worst game of the year last night IMO. Payne was the bright spot with 10 points but then he also had 5 turnovers.
Click to expand...
You’re paying too close attention to points. Their defense and poise is much improved. Offense will come, doing the little things helps the team be more efficient.
 




Otis said:
You’re paying too close attention to points. Their defense and poise is much improved. Offense will come, doing the little things helps the team be more efficient.
Click to expand...
no i am not. they still had 7 of our 9 turnovers. 9 of our 14 fouls. played their fewest minutes as a whole since the 1st game of the season. looking at the big picture they did not have a very good game last night. were there positives? of course.
 

They certainly seem to be a better team the last 3 games. Competitive, which was what I had expected from the start of the year. Not sure why it took so long. If they had played this way in the non-conference part of the schedule we’d have 3-4 more wins and some of our squeaker wins against the sisters of the poor would have been blowouts.
 

Definitely trending in the right direction. I think the conference is down this year. They could definitely pick off a few more games. "Rounding a corner?" I guess that depends on your definition.

No doubt the defense and ball movement has improved. They are a much better offensive team when their offense is more than Battle jacking up shots. The effort has been much improved and they made a good offensive team look ordinary last night.

I still need to see more from all the freshman. Certainly not giving up on any of them at this point. But the recent improvement has really been due to Garcia/Cooper/Samuels and defense collectively. I hope Ben Johnson doesn't go Iron Five like he did at the end of last year. Getting experience for Joseph/Henley/Carrington should be the priority over eking out a win or two.
 

Gophs24 said:
no i am not. they still had 7 of our 9 turnovers. 9 of our 14 fouls. played their fewest minutes as a whole since the 1st game of the season. looking at the big picture they did not have a very good game last night. were there positives? of course.
Click to expand...
Nice try but Payne, who you said was the bright spot, had 5 of those 7 turnovers as you pointed out. 2 turnovers for the rest is pretty good complementary basketball.

Their defense is way better and that is what we need.
 



It depends what you mean by turned the corner. I think Garcia has played much better over the last month or so (playing much harder) and he is obviously going to be a big part of any success. We also have just played much harder. We had some lifeless games early and they've really battled the last few games.

I think the turnovers will come and go. It's not even an execution thing at times, it's a physical ability thing. We have very few decent ball handlers and we are pretty young. We'll have some good games with turnovers but we will likely continue to have some tough ones.
 

Otis said:
Nice try but Payne, who you said was the bright spot, had 5 of those 7 turnovers as you pointed out. 2 turnovers for the rest is pretty good complementary basketball.

Their defense is way better and that is what we need.
Click to expand...
Four. Ben Johnson. I thought Johnson did a great job. Sure it helped that we could hear everything that he was saying but I think his offensive calls the first fifth or sixth of the game were really good and helped direct the early game flow. I also liked that he went from playing the three Gopher freshmen guards/wings 18 minutes in the first half to only a dozen in the second half. Don't get me wrong the freshmen need to play. But Braeden Carrington, Joshua Ola-Joseph, and Jaden Henley simply made too many youth mistakes in the first half on both ends of the floor taking away from the team's consistency.

Going with the older players in half two will not halt the growth of the frosh. Those players will be back on the floor getting good minutes soon. But tonight Johnson made the right rotational call to get experience on the floor and stay with it. He also made the call to stay with Pharrel Payne who had a really tough first half that included four turnovers. Payne's low post defense in the second half was a big reason the Gophers won the game including that late game block of the potential Brice Sensabaugh And1 completion. Pharrel finished with ten points.


Ryans James opinion
 


Gophs24 said:
Four. Ben Johnson. I thought Johnson did a great job. Sure it helped that we could hear everything that he was saying but I think his offensive calls the first fifth or sixth of the game were really good and helped direct the early game flow. I also liked that he went from playing the three Gopher freshmen guards/wings 18 minutes in the first half to only a dozen in the second half. Don't get me wrong the freshmen need to play. But Braeden Carrington, Joshua Ola-Joseph, and Jaden Henley simply made too many youth mistakes in the first half on both ends of the floor taking away from the team's consistency.

Going with the older players in half two will not halt the growth of the frosh. Those players will be back on the floor getting good minutes soon. But tonight Johnson made the right rotational call to get experience on the floor and stay with it. He also made the call to stay with Pharrel Payne who had a really tough first half that included four turnovers. Payne's low post defense in the second half was a big reason the Gophers won the game including that late game block of the potential Brice Sensabaugh And1 completion. Pharrel finished with ten points.


Ryans James opinion
Click to expand...
Fine. You win.

I still don’t see why we don’t start Payne.

He plays with Garcia and Battle plenty to have that as the reason.

He’s a young big who plays in the paint. This is where turnovers are prevalent. Zed Key had 4 for OSU and he’s a junior. Payne will get better.
 

Good game last night. I would say a corner is turned if they are still playing like that in 2 weeks. But thats just me.
 

Otis said:
Fine. You win.

I still don’t see why we don’t start Payne.

He plays with Garcia and Battle plenty to have that as the reason.

He’s a young big who plays in the paint. This is where turnovers are prevalent. Zed Key had 4 for OSU and he’s a junior. Payne will get better.
Click to expand...
Key having 4 turnovers has no correlation to Payne or what he’ll become or how he plays/played
 

The perimeter defense has come a long way. Last night, the three-pointers OSU made were well defended or from far away...or needed to be shot fast because of pursuit. Not sure what their percentage ended up at, but the D was very good.
 

Otis said:
Fine. You win.

I still don’t see why we don’t start Payne.

He plays with Garcia and Battle plenty to have that as the reason.

He’s a young big who plays in the paint. This is where turnovers are prevalent. Zed Key had 4 for OSU and he’s a junior. Payne will get better.
Click to expand...
For Garcia to be effective, he needs to cook against other team's centers. You will see by my post (Grading the players through 15 games) that contains his shot chart...he either shots a 3 (at a 37%+ clip, or essentially gets to the rim. He can't do that on good PFs. He needs to go against slower players (centers). If we take away Garcia's best weapon (mobility / offense) we are screwing ourselves.
 

Defense is better and players are finding themselves out of place less. Rebounding has improved drastically. No longer are we seeing the opponent get 4-5 shot attempts in a single possession multiple times per game. The ball is moving much better on offense and turnovers have decreased. We are making a much better effort to feed the low post which is opening up better shooting and playmaking opportunities. The team still has a lot to work on, but this is basically what I had expected them to look like at the beginning of the season. It seems the pre-season injuries may have had a significant impact on them after all. I am still not satisfied with the player rotations lol but players are getting comfortable and settling in. They seem to now finally understand where they are getting their points from and are forcing much less.
 

They are so young they'll have a bumpy road ahead but they are moving forward and these last three games have been their best ones this year. I think they will just get better and better.
 

Otis said:
You’re paying too close attention to points. Their defense and poise is much improved. Offense will come, doing the little things helps the team be more efficient.
Click to expand...
There were a few too many plays in the first half with blown assignments, OSU guys getting gimmes. I think JOJ especially was guilty of not always knowing where he needed to be. But it's a learning process and overall defense looked good.
 

They definitely played the best all season but let’s or get carried away and expect a bunch of wins. Ohio State did play pretty badly. I do think if we continue to keep turnovers low, play better defense, and move the ball more we will have more wins though but will still get beat downs from the likes of Michigan State and others.
 

GopherBlood666 said:
Defense is better and players are finding themselves out of place less. Rebounding has improved drastically. No longer are we seeing the opponent get 4-5 shot attempts in a single possession multiple times per game. The ball is moving much better on offense and turnovers have decreased. We are making a much better effort to feed the low post which is opening up better shooting and playmaking opportunities. The team still has a lot to work on, but this is basically what I had expected them to look like at the beginning of the season. It seems the pre-season injuries may have had a significant impact on them after all. I am still not satisfied with the player rotations lol but players are getting comfortable and settling in. They seem to now finally understand where they are getting their points from and are forcing much less.
Click to expand...
👍
 


A month ago they were a complete disaster. The past few games have been much better. They may have turned A corner, but I don't think that they will turn THE corner until the game slows down for Henley and Carrington and they are able to give positive minutes. Don't get me wrong, I think both players are talented and will be able to contribute, but the game is still too fast for them. It takes time.
 

Otis said:
Inspired play the last 2 games! They really look like a different mindset than the first few B1G efforts!

A couple of positives:

1. Reduced turnovers - they have really done a great job of reducing these the last couple games. Doing a much better job of making each possession count!

2. Defensive Intensity - not a lot of lapses being seen out there. Doing a good job of contesting as much as they can and not drawing Ricky tick fouls. Also going hard for loose balls! That’s more like it.

3. Better shot selection and ball movement - nice to see an offense that looks like it has a purpose! Not killing the clock and forcing up a shit shot seems to be working! Keep it up fellas!

4. Garcia making a statement - looks like a different player. Definitely playing with a chip in his shoulder. Must of read Wet Blanket’s negative posts. He is establishing himself as the man on this Gopher team!

5. Continued improvement from freshmen - these guys are coming together and look more poised with every game! Need some more point production outside of Payne last night but they aren’t forcing it and the game will come to them if they keep the smart, hard effort up!

Negatives:

1. FTs - epicly bad at the charity stripe. Need to fix their strokes but that is an off season thing. Just need to work at getting to Carnegie hall on fts for now! Practice, practice, practice….

2. Battle 3pt shooting - I swear the name on the back of his jersey this year reads KALESHEUR. Hopefully he gets his stroke back cause he is killing their 3pt % all by himself.

Great progress! Keep it up Johnson!
Click to expand...
To answer your question, yes, we've turning the corner. Holding us back are that FTs are obviously an issue, but the biggest one IMO is the lack of blocking out on defensive rebounds. We let other teams get way too many put backs.
 

improvement - yes.

Turned the corner - too early to say.

like others, my biggest concern is the FR. I expected more out of Carrington. Henley also has a long way to go. Payne has the physical presence, but needs experience. Same with JOJ - gives good defensive effort, but a real work-in-progress on offense.

I wonder what - if anything - Betts might have been able to provide this year. But I suspect that red-shirting is probably the right decision.

but, if you want to be optimistic - next year the FR and Betts will all be a year older and more mature. Then add Evans and Christie to the mix, and you have - potentially - a very interesting roster. a quick or athletic PG would be the icing on the cake, if they can find one in the portal.

(saw a tweet that Evans and Christie are each under consideration for McDonald's All-American status. D*mn - two McDon's AA in the same class - that would be sweet)
 

You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom