Myron blog: A pair of athletic recruits coming to Minnesota this weekend

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Athletes are good. But we need basketball players, too. Basketball players that can put the ball in the basket with some regularity, preferably beyond 5 feet.

Isn't it a stretch to call Landry and Ingram juco "standouts"?
 

I wouldn't say we need basketball players "too." We need basketball players exclusively. This team's got athletes. What this team doesn't have is shooters, or shot-creators.
 

jmag21 said:
I wouldn't say we need basketball players "too." We need basketball players exclusively. This team's got athletes. What this team doesn't have is shooters, or shot-creators.
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Touche.
 

The highlight reels are dunk highlights not basketball, hard to tell one way or another from these clips how good they are.
 


SelectionSunday said:
Touche.
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The burden of proof will be on Tubby next year. The fans saw and are tired of a team of guys that couldn't shoot straight or beat someone off the bounce. I'm fine with him going after these athletes as long as he is confident that he has guys in place- Oto, Hollins, Welch, and others than can shoot the ball from more than 5 feet next year or finish plays off the drive.
 

Well, im not expecting the power forward to be fillin it up from outside kinda a poor mans mbakwe, and this Guy Landry looked to shoot about 400% at three during his juco years, so he should be decent from outside...
 

jmag21 said:
I wouldn't say we need basketball players "too." We need basketball players exclusively. This team's got athletes. What this team doesn't have is shooters, or shot-creators.
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My early nomination for post of the year.

This was the first, second and third problems of last season's team that nose-dived to end the season. No shooting. Period.

I'd like to think most of Hollins' problems shooting were just some freshman nerves. I'm not writing him off as a poor shooter until I see how he shoots it next year. Hopefully some of the other new faces can shoot it as well. Time will tell...
 

Guy Landry is the player we want out of these 2... Tubby is probably thinking that he could play some 4 when we try to press.. an earlier article stated he is about 6'6'' 220 which is draymond green size.. a lineup of Hollins Welch Rodney Landry Mbakwe could be pretty fierce running a press

this team would be VERY deep aswell
 



Did any of you actually watch the championship game last night? We need shot blockers, rebounders, defenders and guys who can finish at the rim.
 

AO54 said:
Did any of you actually watch the championship game last night? We need shot blockers, rebounders, defenders and guys who can finish at the rim.
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Conneticut also has a guy that can create and finish in the lane and shoot from the outside in Walker, it makes a difference. They would never have made it to the championship game without that.
 

AO54 said:
Did any of you actually watch the championship game last night? We need shot blockers, rebounders, defenders and guys who can finish at the rim.
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Huh? If Butler shoots a normal % from the field you would be saying the exact opposite.
 

Ogee Oglethorpe said:
My early nomination for post of the year.

This was the first, second and third problems of last season's team that nose-dived to end the season. No shooting. Period.

I'd like to think most of Hollins' problems shooting were just some freshman nerves. I'm not writing him off as a poor shooter until I see how he shoots it next year. Hopefully some of the other new faces can shoot it as well. Time will tell...
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I think you're right. Hollins was good early in the year, but he was missing so badly by the end of the year, the problem must have been mental. Armelin's problems have to do with his form, but Hollins' form looked pretty good at times. Austin was regularly airballing twice or more per game. My view is that it was a mental issue. However, that's still not good. Even frosh should be able to handle the pressures of the Big Ten enough to make more shots than Hollins made down the stretch. It got so bad that the two shooters I trusted most to hit an outside jumper (besides Blake who couldn't get an open jumper to save his life) were Ralph and Rodney.
 




I wonder if Tubby would really take 3 Spring Juco recruits? Most Juco kids do sign in the Spring, but usually there's a few standouts that sign in the Fall. My guess is that Tubby wants one of Landry or Ingram and wants them both on campus at the same time in a first come/first serve type of scenario. I am not sure I prefer Landry, even though he clearly has elite athleticism and impressive offers. I believe Gopher Warrior reported that Landry would be like 23 by the time he hit campus. I wouldn't be concerned with that normally, but his JUCO numbers were awfully pedestrian (something like 9 points and 4 rebounds a game) and were nearly identical in his freshman and sophomore years. I would say that is some strong circumstantial evidence to suggest that Landry has peaked as a player. Ingram just started playing organized ball as a senior in high school and averaged 13 and 7 his sophomore year while shooting 63% from the field. Without seeing either play, I think it's possible that Ingram could end up being the bigger contributor going forward.

I share the concerns about a lack of shooting expressed in this thread, but I do like that both of these guys are big time athletes.
 

Was our team even that athletic last year??? Sorry, but I don't consider Colt, Mav, RSIII or Blake very athletic.

Chip, Rodney, and Trevor - sure. These guys are athletic. But most D-I teams outside of the city of Madison can probably come up with 3 athletic guys on their roster. And two of those guys rarely took advantage of their athleticism.

In my opinion we were only an average athletic team at best. That was our problem last year - we weren't overly athletic AND we couldn't shoot the ball. Ridiculously horrible combination.
 

josh087 said:
Was our team even that athletic last year??? Sorry, but I don't consider Colt, Mav, RSIII or Blake very athletic.

Chip, Rodney, and Trevor - sure. These guys are athletic. But most D-I teams outside of the city of Madison can probably come up with 3 athletic guys on their roster. And two of those guys rarely took advantage of their athleticism.

In my opinion we were only an average athletic team at best. That was our problem last year - we weren't overly athletic AND we couldn't shoot the ball. Ridiculously horrible combination.
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Great post. I think we needed DJ and Al on the court for sure. Tubby's teams press. It was missing last year.

Go Gophers
 

Oto and Hollins are athletic as well.

josh087 said:
Was our team even that athletic last year??? Sorry, but I don't consider Colt, Mav, RSIII or Blake very athletic.

Chip, Rodney, and Trevor - sure. These guys are athletic. But most D-I teams outside of the city of Madison can probably come up with 3 athletic guys on their roster. And two of those guys rarely took advantage of their athleticism.

In my opinion we were only an average athletic team at best. That was our problem last year - we weren't overly athletic AND we couldn't shoot the ball. Ridiculously horrible combination.
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I don't understand posts that assume we want to play RW for his athleticism, he is a one man half-court offense stopper, but of our offense.
 

I think we need to consider a host of other problems the perceived solution may create in addressing a problem. One of the reasons I couldn’t agree with the others who have persistently argued for Chip or Mav getting major minutes toward the end of the last season was exactly that -- to me, it was not even clear how well they would contribute to solving/alleviating the problems we were having.

By the same token, I don’t think we need to pursue players who are better in terms of shooting and understanding of the game just because we can use the type badly right now. There must a qualifier regarding how well they fit into the system Tubby is running in terms of athleticism, whatnot. If they don’t, it is very likely that they won’t see many minutes to make meaningful contributions because they are likely to cause other problems to the system either offensively or defensively.

Tubby really needs to recruit players with skills, understanding of the game, athleticism, size, whatnot. But, those are long gone by now. Given the options at this moment, I would think that athletic guys fit better even if they do not offer skill sets we needed badly in the last season.
 

AuggieGopher said:
Guy Landry is the player we want out of these 2... Tubby is probably thinking that he could play some 4 when we try to press.. an earlier article stated he is about 6'6'' 220 which is draymond green size.. a lineup of Hollins Welch Rodney Landry Mbakwe could be pretty fierce running a press

this team would be VERY deep aswell
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or Kobe Bryant / MJ size :clap:


507Gopher said:
Well, im not expecting the power forward to be fillin it up from outside kinda a poor mans mbakwe, and this Guy Landry looked to shoot about 400% at three during his juco years, so he should be decent from outside...
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If he shoots 400% from three next year, I think MN will have its first number 1 draft pick! :clap:

(I realize it was a typo, but couldn't resist ... sorry)
 

scher215 said:
or Kobe Bryant / MJ size :clap:




If he shoots 400% from three next year, I think MN will have its first number 1 draft pick! :clap:

(I realize it was a typo, but couldn't resist ... sorry)
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touche scher, touche...
 

basically guard play got teams to the elite eight, a cavernous non-basketball arena took shooters out of the final game.
 


Can you Shoot?

In my view, the first criteria for a guard or wing player is their shooting ability. If they don't have that part of their game in order, move on to the next recruit. Athletic ability is great, but the last time I checked, the team with the most POINTS wins the game. Maybe I'm getting old, but it seems like I remember a day when it was almost a given that the guards and small forward could shoot WELL, the power forward was a bit clumsy with his shot, but could rebound and defend like an animal, and the center just had to have post moves from within a few feet of the basket.

Maybe I'm wrong, and I'm like most of us middle-age Minnesotans who remember a childhood with HUGE snowdrifts that were higher than our rooftops every winter. Is this the case (my bad memory), or have high school guards and wings so terribly fallen in their ability to simply SHOOT THE STUPID BALL, that we now have to search far and wide for someone with this skill? Someone, please help me out on this one!
 

Bordergopher said:
In my view, the first criteria for a guard or wing player is their shooting ability. If they don't have that part of their game in order, move on to the next recruit. Athletic ability is great, but the last time I checked, the team with the most POINTS wins the game. Maybe I'm getting old, but it seems like I remember a day when it was almost a given that the guards and small forward could shoot WELL, the power forward was a bit clumsy with his shot, but could rebound and defend like an animal, and the center just had to have post moves from within a few feet of the basket.

Maybe I'm wrong, and I'm like most of us middle-age Minnesotans who remember a childhood with HUGE snowdrifts that were higher than our rooftops every winter. Is this the case (my bad memory), or have high school guards and wings so terribly fallen in their ability to simply SHOOT THE STUPID BALL, that we now have to search far and wide for someone with this skill? Someone, please help me out on this one!
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You obviously don't get it. If you play the ball line defense properly with l-o-n-g athletic defenders all you need is 2 points and you should win the game. :)
 

bga1 said:
with l-o-n-g athletic defenders all you need is 2 points and you should win the game. :)
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You summed it up.

The modern emphasis on being long athletic is astounding. Who cares if they don't have any basketball IQ, can't shoot, dribble or pass well.
 

Bordergopher said:
In my view, the first criteria for a guard or wing player is their shooting ability. If they don't have that part of their game in order, move on to the next recruit. Athletic ability is great, but the last time I checked, the team with the most POINTS wins the game. Maybe I'm getting old, but it seems like I remember a day when it was almost a given that the guards and small forward could shoot WELL, the power forward was a bit clumsy with his shot, but could rebound and defend like an animal, and the center just had to have post moves from within a few feet of the basket.

Maybe I'm wrong, and I'm like most of us middle-age Minnesotans who remember a childhood with HUGE snowdrifts that were higher than our rooftops every winter. Is this the case (my bad memory), or have high school guards and wings so terribly fallen in their ability to simply SHOOT THE STUPID BALL, that we now have to search far and wide for someone with this skill? Someone, please help me out on this one!
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I am not discounting the importance of shooting ability. It is a darn valuable skill. But, there are many other skills and physical abilities to make shooting abilities really shine (unless we are talking about someone who consistently makes 60% of shots from behind the arc or something).

For instance, if someone shoots well but is really poor at passing, defending or whatever, then the value of his shooting prowess lessens because his overall contribution to the team can be less than desirable and therefore may not even get enough minutes to be a factor at all.

We need a more complete player whose skill set includes shooting complemented with physical capabilities. If we base our recruiting solely on shooting or whatever skill we need at this moment, we may be short-sighted into picking someone who is essentially deadweight.

Considering that the available players at this moment most likely are role players with incomplete game/abilities providing relief efforts, I think athletic guys would fit better into our system than someone who can just shoot reasonably well. That is the gist of my last post.
 

I understand and share the opinion about the team’s shooting ability in general. But, Austin can improve his shooting as he doesn’t have a serious mechanical issue. Oto, Andre, and Julian may prove to add more than expected in that regard. Even Ralph and Rodney may be able to chip in next season. Our shooting situation is not as bleak to the point that we need to get a shooter at all cost regardless his lacking other skills and physical abilities.

Basketball is more about weaving a lot of different skills and abilities into a winning formula. I think that as long as our players can provide perimeter firepower, say, a bit more adequately than they did last season, we will be able to find other ways to score and make defensive stops to win a game as we did in the first 18 games of the last season. The fatal last 10 games or so are much more than our shortcoming in shooting.
 

The game has changed a lot in the last 30 years. Athleticism does matter as does shooting. Butler had 2 pts in the paint, and that was mostly about athleticism. Them missing open 3 pt shots was just horrible luck. Every team would love to have athletic players who are highly skilled, but we all can't recruit like Ohio St., Duke, and Kansas. Because Tubby is defense first he seems to concentrate on athletic players over less athletic but skilled ones. He did try and recruit some skilled players recently one signed with virginia, one with Iowa I believe.
 

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