No reason not to start the Freshmen the rest of the way!

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Otis

Otis

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Pitino should embrace the horror and just go with Ihnen and Williams in the starting lineup the rest of the way. Demir and Willis are not B1G material and the two frosh have clearly demonstrated more talent and physical upside than the players ahead of them.

Let them get the meaningful minutes the rest of the way and develop. Those other two guys have used up their usefulness.
 

I like it. Willis is a depth player on a Big Ten team- a solid one. Demir has had moments but has really fallen on tough times. Ihnen is ready for 25-30 minutes per game and will be terrific next year.
 


bga1 said:
I like it. Willis is a depth player on a Big Ten team- a solid one. Demir has had moments but has really fallen on tough times. Ihnen is ready for 25-30 minutes per game and will be terrific next year.
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You can sell me on Jarvis and Ihnen getting Demir's minutes and increasing William's minutes. Winning should still come first and foremost however in any line up we have.
 

manderson1984 said:
You can sell me on Jarvis and Ihnen getting Demir's minutes and increasing William's minutes. Winning should still come first and foremost however in any line up we have.
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Winning does come first.

Ihnen should be starting, based on his play the past month. That does provide the best chance at winning, imo. Williams should be taking more minutes from Willis, who really looks weak and slow - against Wisonsin.
 


BarnBurner said:
Winning does come first.

Ihnen should be starting, based on his play the past month. That does provide the best chance at winning, imo. Williams should be taking more minutes from Willis, who really looks weak and slow - against Wisonsin.
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Tollackson said in the pregame he doesnt believe Willis has recovered from the ankle injury.
 

ltf said:
Tollackson said in the pregame he doesnt believe Willis has recovered from the ankle injury.
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Didn't know that - thanks. He just doesn't seem very fluid.
 

If Pitino knows he is gone, why give the Freshmen experience ? Just helps the new guy.
 

Pete smith said:
If Pitino knows he is gone, why give the Freshmen experience ? Just helps the new guy.
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Maybe Coyle is playing it close to the vest. "Yeah Rich ... we'll talk after the season. Take a look at everything, and see where we stand."
 




Otis said:
Pitino should embrace the horror and just go with Ihnen and Williams in the starting lineup the rest of the way. Demir and Willis are not B1G material and the two frosh have clearly demonstrated more talent and physical upside than the players ahead of them.

Let them get the meaningful minutes the rest of the way and develop. Those other two guys have used up their usefulness.
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I'd disagree and say that Willis is a solid rotation player. Lights out no, streaky yes, but if he was only playing 10-15 a game off of the bench I think we would appreciate him.
 

manderson1984 said:
You can sell me on Jarvis and Ihnen getting Demir's minutes and increasing William's minutes. Winning should still come first and foremost however in any line up we have.
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By the way- Jarvis is starting to show a little improvement on the offensive side....
 




manderson1984 said:
We do fine offensively. We need to defend better and more consistent.
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I won't disagree that there is room for improvement on D, but our defensive stats are right in the middle of the Big Ten and I think there has been better D this year. Where we are getting killed versus our rivals is on shooting- especially on threes and frees. We are the worst three point shooting team in the league.
 

GopherPete said:
What???!! I guess that may be a thought process if you are a little baby.
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If you feel like you are coaching for your job you try to win at all costs. You worry about development for next year if there is a next year.
 

golfing18now said:
If you feel like you are coaching for your job you try to win at all costs. You worry about development for next year if there is a next year.
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If you are trying to win at all costs and are playing Demir more then 4 minutes a game you deserve to be fired anyway. I think willis is also a useless B1G player but Williams has been inconsistent so if they split minutes i would at least understand that.
 

golfing18now said:
If you feel like you are coaching for your job you try to win at all costs. You worry about development for next year if there is a next year.
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I think if Pitino swapped out Demir's minutes for Ihnen and Jarvis, he would back his way into winning at all costs. He doesn't realize it, but those two are better than Demir right now.
 

bga1 said:
I won't disagree that there is room for improvement on D, but our defensive stats are right in the middle of the Big Ten and I think there has been better D this year. Where we are getting killed versus our rivals is on shooting- especially on threes and frees. We are the worst three point shooting team in the league.
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We need someone to work on form shooting - there’s isn’t a player on Wisconsin who doesn’t shoot with good form (do they teach it or recruit players that have good form? ) balance, release and follow thru are terrible on our role players - Demir leans forward, Hurt mechanically poses his shot, ihnen has weird rotation on release, Williams brings ball back and pushes shot. Omersa has attempted 1 jump shot all year so who know his form is. The other starters have decent form - kalshaur and Willis just aren’t super athletic so they have to rely on sets/break downs on defense to get shots.
pitino isn’t/hasn’t been a player, and I don’t know if he can Fix bad form on shots.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
I think if Pitino swapped out Demir's minutes for Ihnen and Jarvis, he would back his way into winning at all costs. He doesn't realize it, but those two are better than Demir right now.
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Demir is crafty and was effective when he could be a threat to hit a three. But 0-21...wow. And very few of the last 21 have even been close. He is killing us at this point, as he does not have to be guarded more than 6 feet from the bucket. My guess is that Demir doesn't get much run in the coming games.
 

bga1 said:
I won't disagree that there is room for improvement on D, but our defensive stats are right in the middle of the Big Ten and I think there has been better D this year. Where we are getting killed versus our rivals is on shooting- especially on threes and frees. We are the worst three point shooting team in the league.
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I see our 3 pt percentage as ahead of Maryland, Rutgers, Illinois and NW? https://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/stats/teamsort/BIG10/SCORING/regularseason/yearly

Agree that we need to continue to put more of a premium on guys who can shoot the basketball more consistently, but efficiency wise we are just as high if not better on KenPom than last year.

On D, I think we've improved a little, but I was expecting a pretty good bump by losing Murphy and Coffey who were not great defensively. I really thought this group would be a top half, but we are 9th in KenPom (which is my preferred metric)
 

Thymanst said:
We need someone to work on form shooting - there’s isn’t a player on Wisconsin who doesn’t shoot with good form (do they teach it or recruit players that have good form? ) balance, release and follow thru are terrible on our role players - Demir leans forward, Hurt mechanically poses his shot, ihnen has weird rotation on release, Williams brings ball back and pushes shot. Omersa has attempted 1 jump shot all year so who know his form is. The other starters have decent form - kalshaur and Willis just aren’t super athletic so they have to rely on sets/break downs on defense to get shots.
pitino isn’t/hasn’t been a player, and I don’t know if he can Fix bad form on shots.
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Very rare you do much of this college let alone in season. Guys get tons of shots up and anybody on the staff is good enough to fix some minor flaws in form. I will tell you the coaching world has changed a lot on what is good form. Many really only focus on how it leaves the hand. Many shooting guys are not even caring about feet and things like that anymore. They worry about catching in rhythm and get shots off quickly.
 

leib0039 said:
If you are trying to win at all costs and are playing Demir more then 4 minutes a game you deserve to be fired anyway. I think willis is also a useless B1G player but Williams has been inconsistent so if they split minutes i would at least understand that.
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I definitely want to see more of Ihnen too. Clearly he has gotten better as the year has gone on. Demir has been inconsistent this year. He had a stretch where the board was pretty complimentary of him. I disagree with your assessment of Willis. Demir and Willis would be very serviceable bench players on a good team. It is unfortunate that Curry and Coffey weren't available to fill those starting roles.
 

Is Demir worth a damn on defense? What I have seen from him shows a slow footed height challenged PF without the hops to challenge shots and lacking the speed to help out others. Ihnen seems to be about 3 times faster with better lift. He need more time to hone his defense ability and has shown some real chops as of late defensively. His rebounding is better than Demir and well his shooting could use some two attempts mixed in has also been better. No reason for Pitino to continue to go with Demir in my opinion.

As for Willis, streaky shooter? My definition of a streaky shooter is that they shoot well every other game. At least one out of three! He has had one decent game that I can remember where he produced 21 points. Williams isn't better offensively but has he really been given enough run to get comfortable with the offense. The Gophs were doing pretty well against Whisky when they had Oturu, Omersa, Ihnen, Williams and Carr on the floor! Can't see any hard to the winning percentile chances by giving them 5 or 6 more minutes of burn.
 

bga1 said:
By the way- Jarvis is starting to show a little improvement on the offensive side....
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His shots never show any touch at all. Those two missed free throws were scary for such a physical player. D's will just foul him.
 

Otis said:
Is Demir worth a damn on defense? What I have seen from him shows a slow footed height challenged PF without the hops to challenge shots and lacking the speed to help out others. Ihnen seems to be about 3 times faster with better lift. He need more time to hone his defense ability and has shown some real chops as of late defensively. His rebounding is better than Demir and well his shooting could use some two attempts mixed in has also been better. No reason for Pitino to continue to go with Demir in my opinion.

As for Willis, streaky shooter? My definition of a streaky shooter is that they shoot well every other game. At least one out of three! He has had one decent game that I can remember where he produced 21 points. Williams isn't better offensively but has he really been given enough run to get comfortable with the offense. The Gophs were doing pretty well against Whisky when they had Oturu, Omersa, Ihnen, Williams and Carr on the floor! Can't see any hard to the winning percentile chances by giving them 5 or 6 more minutes of burn.
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When Ihnen adds another 20 pounds of muscle this summer he will become a force. He doesn't drive much because he is a weak finisher right now as he gets muscled out by Big Ten bigs. When he starts finishing drives he is going to be a beast. He has the handle and speed to do it.
 

bga1 said:
I like it. Willis is a depth player on a Big Ten team- a solid one. Demir has had moments but has really fallen on tough times. Ihnen is ready for 25-30 minutes per game and will be terrific next year.
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If winning is still the top priority I would only point out that it was Ihnen who gave up the HUGE, uncontested, free dunk to Ford last night near the end of the game. Not disagreeing with contention, just pointing out the downside of playing a freshman with very little playing experience if one wants to actually win a game
 

The PPP stats have us no better than 9th in the conference and that is no way to finish high in the conference. If we were 4th on defense we would be near UW. You have to win some games when shooting is poor.
 

Definite freshman mistake, however without his length on defense , his deflections due to his length and his rebounding due to his length we wouldn't have been in this game. How many rebounds did he have? Many of his rebounds were contested rebounds. I think he has tremendous upside. Plus it is obvious he has confidence in his shot. Definitely has improved his defense this season, that's why he is getting playing time now, oh, did I mention his length? Bright future!
 

"Hey Daniel, please stick around. By the
bga1 said:
When Ihnen adds another 20 pounds of muscle this summer he will become a force. He doesn't drive much because he is a weak finisher right now as he gets muscled out by Big Ten bigs. When he starts finishing drives he is going to be a beast. He has the handle and speed to do it.
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Ihnen looks like he will develop into a useful B1G player in a couple years, but he's not going to be some "beast" next year. Get a grip.
 

USAF said:
"Hey Daniel, please stick around. By the

Ihnen looks like he will develop into a useful B1G player in a couple years, but he's not going to be some "beast" next year. Get a grip.
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25 lbs and weight lifting isn't that hard to put on a 6'9" frame in one off-season! He could be a damn fine player next year.
 

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