NIT Game #2: #1 Gophers vs. #4 Saint Mary's [ESPN2, 2:00PM]

Donate To GopherHole




Just got back from The Barn...a really fun day. For those that want to jump on me for that comment, yes, I get it was the NIT and yes, we'd all rather be playing in the NCAA Tournament, but it was a much better crowd than I expected. Not to mention, whether it was folks in different seats (re: closer to the court than normal), or a true weekend day game (there were more kids than usual) but the crowd seemed to get off their feet pretty regularly and I didn't hear anyone asking folks to sit down.

It was not a pretty game, but it was nice to see both teams playing hard and caring about winning. I'm looking forward to the game on Tuesday night. We'll have to play better to win, but it should be fun.

Go Gophers!!
 


BleedGopher said:
Just got back from The Barn...a really fun day. For those that want to jump on me for that comment, yes, I get it was the NIT and yes, we'd all rather be playing in the NCAA Tournament, but it was a much better crowd than I expected. Not to mention, whether it was folks in different seats (re: closer to the court than normal), or a true weekend day game (there were more kids than usual) but the crowd seemed to get off their feet pretty regularly and I didn't hear anyone asking folks to sit down.

It was not a pretty game, but it was nice to see both teams playing hard and caring about winning. I'm looking forward to the game on Tuesday night. We'll have to play better to win, but it should be fun.

Go Gophers!!
Click to expand...

What was the crowd in your estimation?
 

BleedGopher said:
Just got back from The Barn...a really fun day. For those that want to jump on me for that comment, yes, I get it was the NIT and yes, we'd all rather be playing in the NCAA Tournament, but it was a much better crowd than I expected. Not to mention, whether it was folks in different seats (re: closer to the court than normal), or a true weekend day game (there were more kids than usual) but the crowd seemed to get off their feet pretty regularly and I didn't hear anyone asking folks to sit down.

It was not a pretty game, but it was nice to see both teams playing hard and caring about winning. I'm looking forward to the game on Tuesday night. We'll have to play better to win, but it should be fun.

Go Gophers!!
Click to expand...

It seems like Gophers will be playing Chip and company.
 


The-Real-Truth said:
It seems like Gophers will be playing Chip and company.
Click to expand...

Yep you are correct. Could be interesting game. Despite many of his obvious faults on the court, chip was always fun to watch as a gopher.
 



Someone posted earlier that they thought Malik's career as a gopher is over. So do you think he will get the Ralph Sampson treatment that Clem used two years ago in our NIT run and sit him in place of other players for youth development?
 

XMan said:
Someone posted earlier that they thought Malik's career as a gopher is over. So do you think he will get the Ralph Sampson treatment that Clem used two years ago in our NIT run and sit him in place of other players for youth development?
Click to expand...

Clem's been gone for a few years! :cool:

Go Gophers!!
 





XMan said:
Someone posted earlier that they thought Malik's career as a gopher is over. So do you think he will get the Ralph Sampson treatment that Clem used two years ago in our NIT run and sit him in place of other players for youth development?
Click to expand...

I thought Ralph was sitting out because he got injured during a Big Ten Tournament game or something. I don't think it was just to give younger guys experience.
 

XMan said:
Someone posted earlier that they thought Malik's career as a gopher is over. So do you think he will get the Ralph Sampson treatment that Clem used two years ago in our NIT run and sit him in place of other players for youth development?
Click to expand...

Since Maverick (senior) is getting Malik's minutes, I don't think that is the case. McNeil was right at his 10 minute a game average today.
 

Really impressed by the defensive effort by the Gophers today. If they were going to mail it in during the NIT, this was the perfect game to do it after getting down 14-0 and missing a ton of open looks throughout the first half (Dre Hollins from 3 in particular). That said, I am not seeing anything in these games that makes me excited for next year. The press forced some turnovers today, but we saw through 20 Big Ten games that this personnel grouping can't create turnovers against high caliber programs. Joey King was excellent today on the offensive end, but I highly doubt those post moves are going to work any more often next year against Big Ten teams than they did this year. That's not a slight on Joey's game today, just an example of something that was successful today that likely won't be repeatable in the future. I do think it's a positive that the team played hard today, even if they didn't play especially well. The lack of movement and execution on offense in the half court simply can't continue.

I thought Joey King, Maverick Ahanmisi, Austin Hollins, and Elliott Eliason all played pretty well today.

Some concerns:

Mo Walker was awful in the post today. I don't know what was wrong with him, but he was really slow and couldn't get off the floor. It seemed like every time he attempted a post move he was blocked or forced to put up a really low percentage shot. This wasn't the Mo we saw be an (at times) dominant post scorer during Big Ten play.

Andre Hollins just needs a break from basketball. If his ankle is limiting him, he probably shouldn't be risking further damage by playing in the NIT. If it's not his ankle, his mental game is way off (and possibly it's both the ankle and mental). He just can't get out of his own way on the offensive end of the court .

Elliott Eliason really played a nice game on the defensive end of the floor, but man does his offensive game need work. I am not sure what can be done because he just lacks coordination. Every post move seems like he's closer to falling down than actually making a shot. The one area where he can continue to get better is adding strength. He took a nice from lil Dre (I think it was lil Dre) and had an easy path to the basket for a two hand dunk. A Saint Mary's guard fouled him and the ball went flying, nowhere close to the basket. That's a play a 7 foot Big Ten Center needs to finish the dunk and go to the line for the and one. This is not meant to take away from Eliason's game, as he was certainly a net positive for the Gophers today and should be a valuable piece to the puzzle next year.

Kind of disappointed the Gophers face Southern Miss next as I assume they'd get a better crowd for Missouri. The fact that the head coach of Southern Miss is the guy who didn't give Lil Dre a scholarship, certainly adds a very intriguing subplot. I hope it goes better for lil Dre on Tuesday than it did for Vince Grier when he got to go home for the NCAA tournament. Sometimes when you so badly want to play your best, you end up playing your worst.
 

damueller99 said:
This is a down year for the Gaels. They would finish last. They may win 1-3 by accident. The talent differential between them and a big 10 team is huge. St. Mary's fills out their roster with local kids (although the Bay Area is huge). They are the west coast equivalent of South Dakota State, but with a better and deeper talent pool to draw from and more competition for said talent.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

St. Marys recruits heavily from overseas. In fact, St Marys has two players currently in the NBA who are foreign players (Patrick Mills and Matthew Dellevadova) while Minnesota has only one player in the NBA (Humphries). I'd say the talent differential isn't as wide as you make it out to be. Furthermore, St. Marys did advance to the final 16 in 2010 and won a play in game in 2013 before losing by 2 to Memphis. You could look these things up before you make these pronouncements.
 

Elliot returns; Mav better than Andre H right now

Went to the game today. Glad to hear Pitino praise Elliot today because he was "huge" on the defensive end. Number 00 (Waldow) is the Gaels leading scorer but he did absolutely nothing against Elliot today. Their backup post player was a little more successful. 8 rebounds and 7 blocks from Elliot: that's what we were hoping to see more of earlier in the year. Glad Pitino let him play the majority of the minutes and put him back in quickly when he recognized that the interior defense was faltering a bit in his absence.

Today Maverick was better than Andre Hollins, from both an individual and team standpoint. Mav seems to understand his limitations now (don't dribble into traffic). He is looking for teammates but he is still attacking the basket and taking pretty good shots when he sees the need and the opportunity. Glad he is saving his best for last.

Gained a lot of admiration for Joey today. He may not be very athletic, highly skilled, or physically very strong but he played very hard and made some big plays inside based on sheer will.
 


I have to keep reminding myself that all of the criticism against King is (hopefully) relative to elite D1 basketball athletes. The way some talk about him on here, you would think he was a 4th grader that was plucked out of the stands:

"Even though Joey is slow, has no instincts, can't jump more than 2 inches, is afraid of Williams Arena's raised floor, can't reach the net, has a prosthetic leg, and is missing 1 arm, I love his heart."

Just an observation.
 

EG#9 said:
Really impressed by the defensive effort by the Gophers today. If they were going to mail it in during the NIT, this was the perfect game to do it after getting down 14-0 and missing a ton of open looks throughout the first half (Dre Hollins from 3 in particular). That said, I am not seeing anything in these games that makes me excited for next year. The press forced some turnovers today, but we saw through 20 Big Ten games that this personnel grouping can't create turnovers against high caliber programs. Joey King was excellent today on the offensive end, but I highly doubt those post moves are going to work any more often next year against Big Ten teams than they did this year. That's not a slight on Joey's game today, just an example of something that was successful today that likely won't be repeatable in the future. I do think it's a positive that the team played hard today, even if they didn't play especially well. The lack of movement and execution on offense in the half court simply can't continue.

I thought Joey King, Maverick Ahanmisi, Austin Hollins, and Elliott Eliason all played pretty well today.

Some concerns:

Mo Walker was awful in the post today. I don't know what was wrong with him, but he was really slow and couldn't get off the floor. It seemed like every time he attempted a post move he was blocked or forced to put up a really low percentage shot. This wasn't the Mo we saw be an (at times) dominant post scorer during Big Ten play.

Andre Hollins just needs a break from basketball. If his ankle is limiting him, he probably shouldn't be risking further damage by playing in the NIT. If it's not his ankle, his mental game is way off (and possibly it's both the ankle and mental). He just can't get out of his own way on the offensive end of the court .

Elliott Eliason really played a nice game on the defensive end of the floor, but man does his offensive game need work. I am not sure what can be done because he just lacks coordination. Every post move seems like he's closer to falling down than actually making a shot. The one area where he can continue to get better is adding strength. He took a nice from lil Dre (I think it was lil Dre) and had an easy path to the basket for a two hand dunk. A Saint Mary's guard fouled him and the ball went flying, nowhere close to the basket. That's a play a 7 foot Big Ten Center needs to finish the dunk and go to the line for the and one. This is not meant to take away from Eliason's game, as he was certainly a net positive for the Gophers today and should be a valuable piece to the puzzle next year.

Kind of disappointed the Gophers face Southern Miss next as I assume they'd get a better crowd for Missouri. The fact that the head coach of Southern Miss is the guy who didn't give Lil Dre a scholarship, certainly adds a very intriguing subplot. I hope it goes better for lil Dre on Tuesday than it did for Vince Grier when he got to go home for the NCAA tournament. Sometimes when you so badly want to play your best, you end up playing your worst.
Click to expand...

Excellent analysis, as always.

I've come away from these NIT games coupled with watching NCAA games with the firm conviction that this program needs more talent and way more of it. Last year we had a couple of uniquely talented forwards who had the effect of making the rest of the team look pretty good, but this year the remaining players have to fend for themselves. I like the job Richard has done to put them in a position to win as many games as they have, but they just bring a knife to a gunfight most nights. Combine that with the lack of vocal leadership among the players, and...

Not that these are rotten players. When Dre's himself, he can be a force. Besides him, we have a few players who are three-star recruits. But you need more than that to get to the Tournament and make a splash there. The teams who got there have those players, and the many teams who did not do not. I reminded myself recently that the Gopher team that went to the Final 8 in 1990 had six, count-em six, players who went on to play in the NBA. That's a lot. That's what it takes to do what they did.
 

Bad Gopher said:
Excellent analysis, as always.

I've come away from these NIT games coupled with watching NCAA games with the firm conviction that this program needs more talent and way more of it. Last year we had a couple of uniquely talented forwards who had the effect of making the rest of the team look pretty good, but this year the remaining players have to fend for themselves. I like the job Richard has done to put them in a position to win as many games as they have, but they just bring a knife to a gunfight most nights. Combine that with the lack of vocal leadership among the players, and...

Not that these are rotten players. When Dre's himself, he can be a force. Besides him, we have a few players who are three-star recruits. But you need more than that to get to the Tournament and make a splash there. The teams who got there have those players, and the many teams who did not do not. I reminded myself recently that the Gopher team that went to the Final 8 in 1990 had six, count-em six, players who went on to play in the NBA. That's a lot. That's what it takes to do what they did.
Click to expand...

Agreed. It was very eye opening to switch back and forth between the gopher game and the Wichita-Kentucky game yesterday. It was barely the same sport. The only players on our team who might crack the rotation of either KY or Wichita are the Dre's and Little Dre might be too small. The other thing that surprised me was the difference in player movement on offense. Richard's offense features a lot more player movement than Tubby's patented "motion free" offense but it is still considerably less than KY and Wichita's offenses, where there is nearly constant off the ball movement. The main thing, though, is the talent gap. We have a long way to go to get to sweet sixteen level talent.
 

jamiche said:
Agreed. It was very eye opening to switch back and forth between the gopher game and the Wichita-Kentucky game yesterday. It was barely the same sport. The only players on our team who might crack the rotation of either KY or Wichita are the Dre's and Little Dre might be too small. The other thing that surprised me was the difference in player movement on offense. Richard's offense features a lot more player movement than Tubby's patented "motion free" offense but it is still considerably less than KY and Wichita's offenses, where there is nearly constant off the ball movement. The main thing, though, is the talent gap. We have a long way to go to get to sweet sixteen level talent.
Click to expand...

That movement we saw from UK was an aberration from the norm of the majority of the season and Sleezy Cal's dribble drive offense. But I agree with you on the flipping between. I had relatives in town that know nothing about basketball this weekend (talk about bad timing) and I had negotiated to be able to watch the Gopher game and NCAA during that time slot. When I was flipping back and forth one of my sister in law's asked if the Gopher game was High School basketball. I told her no, this is your home state's University Program. Simple reply of "oh" was what I got.

That said, I think you can attribute much to playing up to your competition, and subsequently down to your competition and I think you saw that in both games. UK was playing out of their damn minds last night and I think Wichita was playing superbly as well. Conversely I think you saw a very sloppy game with a lot of grabbing and holding in the NIT affair. It started nicely for St Mary's but once the Gophers decided they were more athletic and could defend aggressively the game got bogged down. Add to the fact that UofM couldn't hit a jumper to save your life, that game is going to get ugly in a heartbeat.

I liken it to playing in your normal Tuesday night men's league vs slopping it up on a Saturday afternoon at the Y. You as a player likely play much cleaner, crisper and move much more during your men's league game, but at the Y there is a bunch of standing around and sloppy play. It's human nature and a byproduct of the game.
 

jamiche said:
Agreed. It was very eye opening to switch back and forth between the gopher game and the Wichita-Kentucky game yesterday. It was barely the same sport. The only players on our team who might crack the rotation of either KY or Wichita are the Dre's and Little Dre might be too small. The other thing that surprised me was the difference in player movement on offense. Richard's offense features a lot more player movement than Tubby's patented "motion free" offense but it is still considerably less than KY and Wichita's offenses, where there is nearly constant off the ball movement. The main thing, though, is the talent gap. We have a long way to go to get to sweet sixteen level talent.
Click to expand...

I think both Tubby and Richard have had trouble getting this group of players to run the offense and move without the ball. The guys who do the best are the newly added players this year.
 

Bad Gopher said:
I think both Tubby and Richard have had trouble getting this group of players to run the offense and move without the ball. The guys who do the best are the newly added players this year.
Click to expand...

Over the last several years, I feel like we have seen a lot of guys without the ball standing around and watching. Is there any chance that is by design, or are the players just not listening, or does anyone have an idea why that is?
 

cjbfbp said:
Went to the game today. Glad to hear Pitino praise Elliot today because he was "huge" on the defensive end. Number 00 (Waldow) is the Gaels leading scorer but he did absolutely nothing against Elliot today. Their backup post player was a little more successful. 8 rebounds and 7 blocks from Elliot: that's what we were hoping to see more of earlier in the year. Glad Pitino let him play the majority of the minutes and put him back in quickly when he recognized that the interior defense was faltering a bit in his absence.

Today Maverick was better than Andre Hollins, from both an individual and team standpoint. Mav seems to understand his limitations now (don't dribble into traffic). He is looking for teammates but he is still attacking the basket and taking pretty good shots when he sees the need and the opportunity. Glad he is saving his best for last.

Gained a lot of admiration for Joey today. He may not be very athletic, highly skilled, or physically very strong but he played very hard and made some big plays inside based on sheer will.
Click to expand...

Andre Hollins has been out to lunch this season. Can someone please tell me why?
 

station19 said:
Andre Hollins has been out to lunch this season. Can someone please tell me why?
Click to expand...

I think the foul trouble really impacts him sometimes. He has a hard time getting in rhythm when he is pulled every half for fouls.

He seemed extremely frustrated yesterday by that. Pitino seemed to try and console him though too and let him play a bit in foul trouble.
 

scher215 said:
I think the foul trouble really impacts him sometimes. He has a hard time getting in rhythm when he is pulled every half for fouls.

He seemed extremely frustrated yesterday by that. Pitino seemed to try and console him though too and let him play a bit in foul trouble.
Click to expand...

Yes, he let both Dre's play with two fouls in the first half but never at the same time.
 

station19 said:
Andre Hollins has been out to lunch this season. Can someone please tell me why?
Click to expand...

I think his ankle injury completely threw him off and he won't recover physically and mentally until the offseason.
 

jaymil said:
I think his ankle injury completely threw him off and he won't recover physically and mentally until the offseason.
Click to expand...

It's not the ankle. He hasn't been the same since day one of the season.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom