Missing Nolen

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Moonlight

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While a few posters with a couple dozen posts face off in their own personal threads about the coaching issue, the fact that we killed this OSU team a mere few weeks ago lets us know how badly we need Al Nolen. Not that Joseph and Cobbs aren't going to be contributors and they have the ability in the scoring dept that Nolen lacks but the kind of tough relentless defense that Al brought to the game is missing from this team and it is what we needed today.
 

Moonlight said:
While a few posters with a couple dozen posts face off in their own personal threads about the coaching issue, the fact that we killed this OSU team a mere few weeks ago lets us know how badly we need Al Nolen. Not that Joseph and Cobbs aren't going to be contributors and they have the ability in the scoring dept that Nolen lacks but the kind of tough relentless defense that Al brought to the game is missing from this team and it is what we needed today.
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You got that right
 


Joesph CAN bring his own set of skills, but he is not proven to be the least bit consistent. At least we know what we are getting with Nolen's strong defense and court general duties.
 

Nolen personally won't score a lot, but he still does create offense with his defense. Getting steals and fast breaking are what this team is built for and without him that is basically gone. Devoe just isn't quick enough on defense to force his man into a trap.
 


rccola889 said:
Nolen personally won't score a lot, but he still does create offense with his defense. Getting steals and fast breaking are what this team is built for and without him that is basically gone. Devoe just isn't quick enough on defense to force his man into a trap.
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Good point, rc. We have a team set up to score off our defense, which is really absent without Nolen.
 

rccola889 said:
Nolen personally won't score a lot, but he still does create offense with his defense. Getting steals and fast breaking are what this team is built for and without him that is basically gone. Devoe just isn't quick enough on defense to force his man into a trap.
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I was thinking the same thing to myself, but I actually don't think it's a matter of quickness. For some reason, I thought that Tubby said he was the quickest on the team, I could be wrong with that comment - but Devoe is certainly not slow. Defense is something that a lot of guys just have intrinsically. Nolen is one of those guys. It's not just about speed, it's about seeing the court, reading your opponent, predicting what their next move may be. With Nolen and DJ on the press, it's very effective. That's a weapon we don't have in our ammo now.

This is not a knock on Devoe at all, he has certainly had some breakthrough games, it's just a reminder about how important Nolen is to us, and irreplaceable on this team.
 

GopherLady said:
I was thinking the same thing to myself, but I actually don't think it's a matter of quickness. For some reason, I thought that Tubby said he was the quickest on the team, I could be wrong with that comment - but Devoe is certainly not slow. Defense is something that a lot of guys just have intrinsically. Nolen is one of those guys. It's not just about speed, it's about seeing the court, reading your opponent, predicting what their next move may be. With Nolen and DJ on the press, it's very effective. That's a weapon we don't have in our ammo now.

This is not a knock on Devoe at all, he has certainly had some breakthrough games, it's just a reminder about how important Nolen is to us, and irreplaceable on this team.
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I agree it may not be quickness, but it is something (instincts maybe?).

And I personally am glad that Devoe is getting more playing time now, and he is getting lots of valuable experience for the future years.
 

GopherLady said:
I was thinking the same thing to myself, but I actually don't think it's a matter of quickness. For some reason, I thought that Tubby said he was the quickest on the team, I could be wrong with that comment - but Devoe is certainly not slow. Defense is something that a lot of guys just have intrinsically. Nolen is one of those guys. It's not just about speed, it's about seeing the court, reading your opponent, predicting what their next move may be. With Nolen and DJ on the press, it's very effective. That's a weapon we don't have in our ammo now.

This is not a knock on Devoe at all, he has certainly had some breakthrough games, it's just a reminder about how important Nolen is to us, and irreplaceable on this team.
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I agree but would add that Nolen is also missed on the offensive end of the floor. He is the only Gopher who doesn't pick up his dribble early (which is why it seems like he is dribbling all the time) and has that PG court vision that seems to be missing from the other guards (with exception to Cobbs, who needs time/experience to build his skill set).

Tubby might want to start Cobbs ahead of Joseph at the point and see how that works out. Let Allen back up Cobbs with Joseph replacing Westbrook or Hoffarber on the wings.

Just a thought.
 



Drex96 said:
I agree but would add that Nolen is also missed on the offensive end of the floor. He is the only Gopher who doesn't pick up his dribble early (which is why it seems like he is dribbling all the time) and has that PG court vision that seems to be missing from the other guards (with exception to Cobbs, who needs time/experience to build his skill set).

Tubby might want to start Cobbs ahead of Joseph at the point and see how that works out. Let Allen back up Cobbs with Joseph replacing Westbrook or Hoffarber on the wings.

Just a thought.
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Thanks for the post, Drex, GL. Good points all.
 

Drex96 said:
I agree but would add that Nolen is also missed on the offensive end of the floor. He is the only Gopher who doesn't pick up his dribble early (which is why it seems like he is dribbling all the time) and has that PG court vision that seems to be missing from the other guards (with exception to Cobbs, who needs time/experience to build his skill set).

Tubby might want to start Cobbs ahead of Joseph at the point and see how that works out. Let Allen back up Cobbs with Joseph replacing Westbrook or Hoffarber on the wings.

Just a thought.
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Yes - I omitted that, and absolutely agree. I think when people think offense, they usually just think points, but he's great at running the point, plays, and minimizing turnovers while making a lot of assists. He's missed all over.
 

Devoe is pretty slow at least laterally. He can't exactly blow by defenders like Nolen but he has some pretty sneaky hesitation moves and headfakes. We could definitely use Nolen. I guess the one nice thing about him being out is that I don't have to read the bs bashing of him on here. I think people look much at points sometimes and don't realize how valuable he is to our team.
 

Good post--I would disagree with Nolan being a good point guard however, his assist numbers are average, he is a poor scorer, he is terrible at FT's (for a Guard) I will agree that we do miss him on Defense and his ability to have the instincts to get a bunch of steals and forced TO's.
 



millions2spare said:
Good post--I would disagree with Nolan being a good point guard however, his assist numbers are average, he is a poor scorer, he is terrible at FT's (for a Guard) I will agree that we do miss him on Defense and his ability to have the instincts to get a bunch of steals and forced TO's.
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He is #2 in the Big 10 in assists (I think that's better than average), #2 in his assists/turnover ration (which I think it more important) and #1 in steals, and shoots 71% from the line, which is the 3rd best on our team. I think Al takes a lot of criticism for a player with these kinds of numbers. We are lucky to have him...if he was eligible, that is ;)
 

I stand corrected on the assist numbers --
I will stick with my opinion however that he is an average Point guard--great on defense and we miss that more than anything else he brings to the table....
 

He doesn't exactly have the greatest games against top tier big ten teams...Kinda like jaryd allen of the vikings...gets it done against mediocre teams.
 

rccola889 said:
I agree it may not be quickness, but it is something (instincts maybe?).

And I personally am glad that Devoe is getting more playing time now, and he is getting lots of valuable experience for the future years.
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Come on now, Devoe has good spead, he does not have great first step quickness, there is a huge difference. You can counter that with hussle and play good defense, he just won't force alot of turnovers.
 

I remember Tubby saying that Devoe was the most well conditioned player. Don't remember him saying he was the quickest but I could have missed that.
 

quickness

Al Nolen is so much quicker than Joseph its funny there is confusion. Nolen is the quickest player on the team. I would say Westbrook and Williams are the next quickest players. I'd put Joseph in a group with Johnson and maybe Carter. Next i'd say Cobb, Sampson, Hoffarber, and Bostick. Id say Iverson is in a group by himself.

It seems like whenever we play on the road at Ohio St. with their tall quick perimeter players, we start discussing some of our slow players? Lets face it, one weakness for Ohio St. is they only have one quality big man. It would be nice to throw a bunch of multiple bigs at them and actually give them the ball--maybe next year?
 

GopherLady said:
He is #2 in the Big 10 in assists (I think that's better than average), #2 in his assists/turnover ration (which I think it more important) and #1 in steals, and shoots 71% from the line, which is the 3rd best on our team. I think Al takes a lot of criticism for a player with these kinds of numbers. We are lucky to have him...if he was eligible, that is ;)
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Absolutely GL. Nolen wasn't asked to be a great scoring threat in our offense. Penetrate and dish was his game. If he could learn to feed the post better, and occasionally finish better at the rim, he'd be the total package. Gophers still shot over 50% yesterday getting some decent looks, we just had no answer on the other side of the court.

Where we absolutely miss Nolen is his defense. We went from a great harassing man-man defense to a mediocre zone with his loss alone. The difference between the home game earlier this year was the containment of Evan Turner. We looked lost on team defense without Nolen out there. The Gophers did not look comfortable in that zone yesterday losing guys on screens and switches all afternoon. I don't even remember seeing a blocked shot.
 

march madness said:
Al Nolen is so much quicker than Joseph its funny there is confusion. Nolen is the quickest player on the team. I would say Westbrook and Williams are the next quickest players. I'd put Joseph in a group with Johnson and maybe Carter. Next i'd say Cobb, Sampson, Hoffarber, and Bostick. Id say Iverson is in a group by himself.

It seems like whenever we play on the road at Ohio St. with their tall quick perimeter players, we start discussing some of our slow players? Lets face it, one weakness for Ohio St. is they only have one quality big man. It would be nice to throw a bunch of multiple bigs at them and actually give them the ball--maybe next year?
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Spot on with the size difference in the backcourt. We exploited Ohio State with Al's quickness in the backcourt at home. You can offset a size differential with quick guards, when you lose that extra step and give up 3 inches average in the backcourt, you are in for a long game.
 

Gold Vision said:
Spot on with the size difference in the backcourt. We exploited Ohio State with Al's quickness in the backcourt at home. You can offset a size differential with quick guards, when you lose that extra step and give up 3 inches average in the backcourt, you are in for a long game.
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+1
 

Gold Vision said:
Spot on with the size difference in the backcourt. We exploited Ohio State with Al's quickness in the backcourt at home. You can offset a size differential with quick guards, when you lose that extra step and give up 3 inches average in the backcourt, you are in for a long game.
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Agreed. Devoe's not in the same league as Al in terms of quickness. Devoe's fast, but not that quick. He hasn't had much success getting into the lane in Big Ten play. Al was a lot more valuable than people realize, even if he was prone to missing bunnies (PC and Colton have now assumed responsibility of that important task).
 

jmag21 said:
Agreed. Devoe's not in the same league as Al in terms of quickness. Devoe's fast, but not that quick. He hasn't had much success getting into the lane in Big Ten play. Al was a lot more valuable than people realize, even if he was prone to missing bunnies (PC and Colton have now assumed responsibility of that important task).
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Thanks for the laugh! Its a tough job but someone has to do it.
I think most people were unaware of our high shooting percentage from yesterday's game. Our offense was not the problem.
Where we absolutely miss Nolen is his defense. We went from a great harassing man-man defense to a mediocre zone with his loss alone. The difference between the home game earlier this year was the containment of Evan Turner. We looked lost on team defense without Nolen out there. The Gophers did not look comfortable in that zone yesterday losing guys on screens and switches all afternoon. I don't even remember seeing a blocked shot.
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Great synopsis, GV.
 

I totally agree with the opinion that Nolen is missed. He is a great guard. His role was not that of a high scorer, but a point guard directing the offense, setting up other players to score and playing tough defense. He has amazing quickness and creates opportunities on defense.
(We almost pulled off the rally at Indiana with his steal in the closing seconds, had he not stepped on the line.)
Thank you GopherLady for the stats. They speak for themselves.
Don't get me wrong. Joseph is an outstanding player and we are fortunate to have him. But, he is a shooting guard. I would love to see what he could do with Nolen feeding him assists.
Joseph will be outstanding in the future. But, remember, this is the Big Ten. It's a steep learning curve for anyone, including Tubby.
 

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