Do us all a favor, and compare what is left of the this year's Gopher team to the notoriously small and speedy and successful Marquette team of a few years ago.
What can the Gophers learn from that team if anything? Any chance they can transform into that?
"Be quick, but don't hurry" -- John Wooden
Tough to compare those two and the Gophers can't transform into that, unfortunately.
The Warriors were very small in 2008-09 & 2009-10, with 2008-09 being slightly the better year. The three amigos were incredibly experienced seniors in '08-09 and three guys on that roster will be playing in the NBA this season with a fourth a decent possibility. Minnesota's roster is far less experienced and doesn't have the same level of talent.
Dwight Burke, more of a 4 type, played center for about half the minutes at 6'8", 250, but often Lazar at 6'6" was defending big men and hanging out around the paint with the ball. For the Gophers, arguably their best player is now Sampson, an actual center.
MU's team was offensively very efficient. They had four guys who took between 28% and 40% of their shots from beyond the arc, but they were also capable of getting to the hole. Lots of options - and each of them could beat you with passing, off the dribble, three-point shots. The weapons the Gophers have just aren't the same.
At the end of the day, the best thing Minnesota can do is to shoot a higher eFG% than their opponents. I'm seeing some hesitation from players when they have good looks from outside (some a lot more than others) and if this team is going to be good I think a couple of kids are going to have to let it fly with more confidence.
Net turnovers was an area that Marquette did well in and that Minnesota needs to improve on to win. For MU, they took good care of the ball on offense. Defensively, they were far from an elite team ("mediocre" might be a fair description), but they took the ball away from their opponent far more often than they gave it away and could turn the turnovers into quick transition points.
More than anything, the Gophers can't turn the ball over like they have been. With the makeup of this team (specifically, the inexperience), I don't know that they'll be able to win the turnover battle on a regular basis this year. But, valuing the ball more would be a key. The other team can take turnovers and turn them into transition points just as easily as MN can.
Minnesota just needs to shoot better than their opponent and not turn it over a ton and they'll be fine.
