Jon Rothstein: Big Ten Preseason Power Rankings (#12. Minnesota)

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I bet this is without Gach getting his waiver since it wouldn't be fair for everyone else to assume he gets one before the fact.

Also I don't really see how you can put Reuvers ahead of Cockburn on the first team. Mine would go

Carr
Dosunmo
Jackson-Davis
Garza
Cockburn

Those are clearly the 5 best players returning to the conference next year IMO.

Also Is Geo Baker really that good? I also saw Andy Katz had him as a top 10 returning player in the country. I admittedly didn't watch much of Rutgers aside from when they played the gophers and don't even remember much of that game but just looking at his numbers I don't really see what's so special. 10 PPG, 39% FG, 25% from 3, is he some crazy good defender or something? If you aren't going to put Carr first team, I think Weiskamp makes more sense.
 




theczar said:
Baker's stat package not much better than Gabes
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Thats what I was thinking, closer to Gabe than Carr. And Gabe actually has had a higher true shooting percentage than Baker, 57% two years ago and 50% last year, Baker's has been between 47% and 49% the last 3 years.
 

I will be shocked, surprised and very disappointed if the Gophers are even anywhere in the bottom half of the conference.
 

for the fist time in my life I will use the popular moniker, albeit modified slightly -

#fakeratings
 

60's Guy said:
I will be shocked, surprised and very disappointed if the Gophers are even anywhere in the bottom half of the conference.
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And, especially, if their two biggest rivals finish #1 and #2.
 




At first glance I thought the ranking was too low, but who do you move the Gophers ahead of? The Gophers look very interesting on paper, but it's a deep conference with no bad teams.
 

Potential is there for a higher ranking, but I say that every year. Pitino’s reached the point where he’s no longer trendy with the media. It’s a safe bet to put the gophers at 12 sadly.
 

Meh. It's a talker. Like all preseason ratings.

You can't go wrong. It automatically gets clicks. The more the better.
 



Regardless of your thoughts on the team, we lost our star player and has a program that has no real track record of outperforming expectations, so the media is going to always be low on us.
 


GopherWeatherGuy said:
At first glance I thought the ranking was too low, but who do you move the Gophers ahead of? The Gophers look very interesting on paper, but it's a deep conference with no bad teams.
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I think that most of us are hoping and maybe believing the Gophers will be much better than 12th. Lots of talented new guys on the team. On paper, lots of good talent and depth now. Of course, the key word is "New" guys. We all hope that the very talented new guys will mesh and compliment each other really well and run as a finely tuned machine. Of course, you can't count on that and if they don't, well, our team might not be as good as we hope. Lots of potential, but how well will all the new parts fit together and work? That's the big question mark.

Would not be surprised if that's part of the thought process that went into his version of the rankings.
 

I'm guessing that most of the reason Baker is getting a lot of love from the media is because Rutgers is basically in new territory, with respect to preseason expectations. Media pundits are trying to swing for the fences on a player from an up and coming team. I've seen Baker play a lot over the past few years, and while I would absolutely take him on the Gophers, this preseason 1st team hype isn't warranted. Might turn out to be one of the Big Ten's best this season, but other players are deserving of preseason love before him.

If some of you follow Jon, he already said a week or two ago that having Robbins and Gach available this year would give the Gophers an NCAA tournament caliber roster. The Big Ten is going to be crazy competitive again.
 


Chico Gopher said:
I think that most of us are hoping and maybe believing the Gophers will be much better than 12th. Lots of talented new guys on the team. On paper, lots of good talent and depth now. Of course, the key word is "New" guys. We all hope that the very talented new guys will mesh and compliment each other really well and run as a finely tuned machine. Of course, you can't count on that and if they don't, well, our team might not be as good as we hope. Lots of potential, but how well will all the new parts fit together and work? That's the big question mark.

Would not be surprised if that's part of the thought process that went into his version of the rankings.
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Jon factors more into it than just the roster.
 

There isn't a media person who works as hard as Rothstein (at least on appearances). Him ranking the Gophers low is warranted given the team was bad last year and lost what most people thought was an all-american center.

We like the transfers and the roster coming back but from an outside perspective, our best player shot 37 percent from the floor, our 'sniper' shot 33 percent from 3 and our three impact transfers are coming from Drake, Western Michigan and Utah (where he shot under 40 percent from the floor. We have one top-100 recruit coming in and neither of the sophomores projected in the rotation did much as a freshmen.

All of these things are not untrue and while I think there's potential for the team to be good, it's clearly unproven.
 

Biggsohnasty said:
There isn't a media person who works as hard as Rothstein (at least on appearances). Him ranking the Gophers low is warranted given the team was bad last year and lost what most people thought was an all-american center.

We like the transfers and the roster coming back but from an outside perspective, our best player shot 37 percent from the floor, our 'sniper' shot 33 percent from 3 and our three impact transfers are coming from Drake, Western Michigan and Utah (where he shot under 40 percent from the floor. We have one top-100 recruit coming in and neither of the sophomores projected in the rotation did much as a freshmen.

All of these things are not untrue and while I think there's potential for the team to be good, it's clearly unproven.
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have you actually looked at Maryland and Penn St roster and tried comparing it and projecting out???
 

Lots of new faces and unknowns but compared to Wisconsin

Carr vs Trice I'll take Carr
Kalschuer vs Davison I'll take Kalschuer
Gach vs Ford tossup
Robbins vs Potter close but Potter is more experienced
Johnson vs Ruevers I'd take Ruevers

For the first time Pitino has depth and a bench, I don't see a big difference in talent from the 2nd and 12th in the conference, you still have to perform on the court and learn to win the close one's but it looks to be a crap shoot on where the Gophers end up to me.
 

For a more positive perspective:

We were a kenpom top 30 team last year, and also rated as the 3rd unluckiest team in the country.
We lost a lot of close games, and should regress to the mean in that category.
We should be as good or better at 4 out of 5 positions in our starting lineup.
That fifth position is being filled in by one of the better transfer players in the country.

I haven’t looked closely at most other teams’ rosters, but I’ve seen Maryland and Penn State projected pretty low. For as good as they were last year, and as good as Maryland has generally been since joining the Big Ten, it’s weird to think of them in basement of the conference. I suppose 12th isn’t absurd if you’re of the opinion that teams #5-12 are fairly close together and, like last year, there will only be a difference of about 3 conference wins between them, and that Minnesota may end up at the bottom of that scrum.
 

Cayman said:
For a more positive perspective:

We were a kenpom top 30 team last year, and also rated as the 3rd unluckiest team in the country.
We lost a lot of close games, and should regress to the mean in that category.
We should be as good or better at 4 out of 5 positions in our starting lineup.
That fifth position is being filled in by one of the better transfer players in the country.

I haven’t looked closely at most other teams’ rosters, but I’ve seen Maryland and Penn State projected pretty low. For as good as they were last year, and as good as Maryland has generally been since joining the Big Ten, it’s weird to think of them in basement of the conference. I suppose 12th isn’t absurd if you’re of the opinion that teams #5-12 are fairly close together and, like last year, there will only be a difference of about 3 conference wins between them, and that Minnesota may end up at the bottom of that scrum.
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Thanks for bringing that up. I can't stand when people whip out the "team was bad" when talking about last year. That clearly shows they were looking at the record, and only the record. The Big Ten was a beast last year, and the Gophers were competitive in almost every game. They had some heartbreaking losses. The early non-conference schedule was probably too difficult as well, but Pitino clearly thought he'd have Coffey for those when he made the schedule. A win-loss record doesn't necessarily show the whole story.
 

Cayman said:
For a more positive perspective:

We were a kenpom top 30 team last year, and also rated as the 3rd unluckiest team in the country.
We lost a lot of close games, and should regress to the mean in that category.
We should be as good or better at 4 out of 5 positions in our starting lineup.
That fifth position is being filled in by one of the better transfer players in the country.

I haven’t looked closely at most other teams’ rosters, but I’ve seen Maryland and Penn State projected pretty low. For as good as they were last year, and as good as Maryland has generally been since joining the Big Ten, it’s weird to think of them in basement of the conference. I suppose 12th isn’t absurd if you’re of the opinion that teams #5-12 are fairly close together and, like last year, there will only be a difference of about 3 conference wins between them, and that Minnesota may end up at the bottom of that scrum.
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Agreed.

Assuming every returning player is at least a little better than they were last year, we should be better at 4 of the 5 starting positions and at least 4 of the 5 bench positions. This is a simplistic view of the way I see it:

2019 vs 2018 lineup

PG Carr > Carr
SG Gabe > Gabe
SF Gach > Willis
PF Johnson > Demir
C Robbins < Oturu

Bench
PG Mashburn > Greenlee
SG Tre > Tre
SF Mutaf = Hurt
PF Ihnen > Ihnen
C Curry > Omersa

And you could maybe argue Hurt being equal to Mutaf is generous for Hurt but I'll go conservative on that prediction.

And of course as you stated previously, last year the team was much better than the record indicated.
 

theczar said:
have you actually looked at Maryland and Penn St roster and tried comparing it and projecting out???
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I haven't done a deep dive but I know Maryland returns two multi-year starting guards in Ayala and Morsell plus a double-figure scorer on the wing in Wiggins. Throw in a couple transfers who are similar to ours (Galin Smith from Bama who is in the Johnson garbage guy mold and Jairius Hamilton from BC) and a couple 3 star recruits and the Terps are probably not going to be great. They haven't been terrible since joining the Big 10 though, and given resume of the coach (who I can't stand) and the recent history, they probably deserve to be rated higher than MN.

I know Penn State returns three solid guards in Dread, Jones and Brockington. They lose their frontcourt, so I'd think the Gophers should be better.

I've done my own personal rankings of the Big 10. I'd have Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan State, Michigan, Purdue, Rutgers, Ohio State, Indiana all ahead of MN based on on-paper returning talent on the court/sideline. I'd put them ahead of Penn State. I might put them ahead of Maryland. But I also don't blame a national reporter for projecting Maryland with multiple returning starters and a lot better recent history of winning to be better than a team that loses more than it wins.
 

Cayman said:
For a more positive perspective:

We were a kenpom top 30 team last year, and also rated as the 3rd unluckiest team in the country.
We lost a lot of close games, and should regress to the mean in that category.
We should be as good or better at 4 out of 5 positions in our starting lineup.
That fifth position is being filled in by one of the better transfer players in the country.

I haven’t looked closely at most other teams’ rosters, but I’ve seen Maryland and Penn State projected pretty low. For as good as they were last year, and as good as Maryland has generally been since joining the Big Ten, it’s weird to think of them in basement of the conference. I suppose 12th isn’t absurd if you’re of the opinion that teams #5-12 are fairly close together and, like last year, there will only be a difference of about 3 conference wins between them, and that Minnesota may end up at the bottom of that scrum.
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We were not a bad team last year but we were 10th or 11th in the conference in defense which will result in very mediocre results. Teams that play great defense, top 3 in a conference win a ton of close games. It is a culture that marks programs. We had one top 25 defense in 8 years and that was our only decent year.
 

jovs said:
Lots of new faces and unknowns but compared to Wisconsin

Carr vs Trice I'll take Carr
Kalschuer vs Davison I'll take Kalschuer
Gach vs Ford tossup
Robbins vs Potter close but Potter is more experienced
Johnson vs Ruevers I'd take Ruevers

For the first time Pitino has depth and a bench, I don't see a big difference in talent from the 2nd and 12th in the conference, you still have to perform on the court and learn to win the close one's but it looks to be a crap shoot on where the Gophers end up to me.
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Will you pick us over UW ?
 

Biggsohnasty said:
I haven't done a deep dive but I know Maryland returns two multi-year starting guards in Ayala and Morsell plus a double-figure scorer on the wing in Wiggins. Throw in a couple transfers who are similar to ours (Galin Smith from Bama who is in the Johnson garbage guy mold and Jairius Hamilton from BC) and a couple 3 star recruits and the Terps are probably not going to be great. They haven't been terrible since joining the Big 10 though, and given resume of the coach (who I can't stand) and the recent history, they probably deserve to be rated higher than MN.

I know Penn State returns three solid guards in Dread, Jones and Brockington. They lose their frontcourt, so I'd think the Gophers should be better.

I've done my own personal rankings of the Big 10. I'd have Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan State, Michigan, Purdue, Rutgers, Ohio State, Indiana all ahead of MN based on on-paper returning talent on the court/sideline. I'd put them ahead of Penn State. I might put them ahead of Maryland. But I also don't blame a national reporter for projecting Maryland with multiple returning starters and a lot better recent history of winning to be better than a team that loses more than it wins.
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Gophers have a bunch of solid guys plus Carr ...advantage gophs
 

Biggsohnasty said:
I haven't done a deep dive but I know Maryland returns two multi-year starting guards in Ayala and Morsell plus a double-figure scorer on the wing in Wiggins. Throw in a couple transfers who are similar to ours (Galin Smith from Bama who is in the Johnson garbage guy mold and Jairius Hamilton from BC) and a couple 3 star recruits and the Terps are probably not going to be great. They haven't been terrible since joining the Big 10 though, and given resume of the coach (who I can't stand) and the recent history, they probably deserve to be rated higher than MN.

I know Penn State returns three solid guards in Dread, Jones and Brockington. They lose their frontcourt, so I'd think the Gophers should be better.

I've done my own personal rankings of the Big 10. I'd have Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan State, Michigan, Purdue, Rutgers, Ohio State, Indiana all ahead of MN based on on-paper returning talent on the court/sideline. I'd put them ahead of Penn State. I might put them ahead of Maryland. But I also don't blame a national reporter for projecting Maryland with multiple returning starters and a lot better recent history of winning to be better than a team that loses more than it wins.
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Hamilton’s waiver got denied and I strongly disagree that Gaelin Smith is an equivalent transfer to Brandon Johnson. 15 and 8 in the MAC is much better than 3 points, 2 boards a game in the SEC. Johnson also had a 24 point game against Ole Miss.
 

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