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gopherlaney

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First let me say I was very happy with the effort, ball movement, shot section, defensive rotations, etc. It’s clear to me the fundamentals will improve with the regime of CBJ.

That said, this year will be brutal in conference season. We do not have a single, not 1, Big Ten caliber athlete. If we get a point for getting a shot off, forget going in, we still might only be .500 in conference.

I like Ben, but either Coyle underestimated the risk of getting a decent roster in the transfer portal era, or he was forced to make this hire.

Going to be patient as it is going to take 3-4 years to be competitive.
 

I hear ya, Laney.

But I enjoy watching a building process, and can look past wins and losses. If I see the pieces coming together and recognize the system that's coming together, I'm happy as a pig in sh!t. I can wait a few years for W's. Not saying you can't, just spouting off on my temperament and outlook.
 

gopherlaney said:
First let me say I was very happy with the effort, ball movement, shot section, defensive rotations, etc. It’s clear to me the fundamentals will improve with the regime of CBJ.

That said, this year will be brutal in conference season. We do not have a single, not 1, Big Ten caliber athlete. If we get a point for getting a shot off, forget going in, we still might only be .500 in conference.

I like Ben, but either Coyle underestimated the risk of getting a decent roster in the transfer portal era, or he was forced to make this hire.

Going to be patient as it is going to take 3-4 years to be competitive.
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Agree about the look of the offense, but most of the guys on the floor are seniors and have been coached for 4 years by others. Hard for me personally to walk away from one game against KC thinking BJ is an upgrade at teaching fundamentals. Still a complete unknown for me in that dept.
 

Ben is eager to see the gophs eclipse the futile record of the NW team he ditched. That’s our guy.
 

Honestly don’t care after seeing Nebraska go down, Ohio St should have lost. Michigan and Maryland (tonight) didn’t win by a ton. Michigan St got beat pretty good by Kansas. Minnesota will do just fine.

Also I would say Fox and Battle are “athletes”. 3 to 4 years away from being competitive is absurd.
 


was listening to a podcast - can't remember where - and heard this thought/opinion:

supposedly/allegedly, when Johnson interviewed for the job with Coyle, Johnson said that he would be able to attract MN kids through the transfer portal for this season. Dawson Garcia's name was mentioned. So, if you believe this theory, Johnson got the job and went into the season thinking/expecting that he would land some better players through the transfer portal, but he missed out on his top targets, so he had to go to plan B.

again, this was presented as an opinion, so it could be horse manure.
 


short ornery norwegian said:
was listening to a podcast - can't remember where - and heard this thought/opinion:

supposedly/allegedly, when Johnson interviewed for the job with Coyle, Johnson said that he would be able to attract MN kids through the transfer portal for this season. Dawson Garcia's name was mentioned. So, if you believe this theory, Johnson got the job and went into the season thinking/expecting that he would land some better players through the transfer portal, but he missed out on his top targets, so he had to go to plan B.

again, this was presented as an opinion, so it could be horse manure.
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There’s zero way anyone could know that. Coyle sure as shit isn’t going to say that to anyone and neither is Ben. For coyle it would make him look like a moron to use one year pulling in transfers as a reason to hire a guy and Ben isn’t going to share things that could obviously blow up directly in his face by saying
 

gopherlaney said:
First let me say I was very happy with the effort, ball movement, shot section, defensive rotations, etc. It’s clear to me the fundamentals will improve with the regime of CBJ.

That said, this year will be brutal in conference season. We do not have a single, not 1, Big Ten caliber athlete. If we get a point for getting a shot off, forget going in, we still might only be .500 in conference.

I like Ben, but either Coyle underestimated the risk of getting a decent roster in the transfer portal era, or he was forced to make this hire.

Going to be patient as it is going to take 3-4 years to be competitive.
Click to expand...
I've been told that doesn't matter. This year is all about high fives and playing with grit while holding out hope of being competitive again someday.
 



gopherlaney said:
First let me say I was very happy with the effort, ball movement, shot section, defensive rotations, etc. It’s clear to me the fundamentals will improve with the regime of CBJ.

That said, this year will be brutal in conference season. We do not have a single, not 1, Big Ten caliber athlete. If we get a point for getting a shot off, forget going in, we still might only be .500 in conference.

I like Ben, but either Coyle underestimated the risk of getting a decent roster in the transfer portal era, or he was forced to make this hire.

Going to be patient as it is going to take 3-4 years to be competitive.
Click to expand...
Willis is a Big Ten player. He's already proved it. Battle has to prove it but I have no doubt he will.
 

gopherlaney said:
First let me say I was very happy with the effort, ball movement, shot section, defensive rotations, etc. It’s clear to me the fundamentals will improve with the regime of CBJ.

That said, this year will be brutal in conference season. We do not have a single, not 1, Big Ten caliber athlete. If we get a point for getting a shot off, forget going in, we still might only be .500 in conference.

I like Ben, but either Coyle underestimated the risk of getting a decent roster in the transfer portal era, or he was forced to make this hire.

Going to be patient as it is going to take 3-4 years to be competitive.
Click to expand...
Willis, Battle, and Thompson are B1G athletes, add Ihnen and Fox to the list and you would have five, may not be top All B1G type athletes but good enough.
 

It depends on your definition of a B1G player.

Battle would be on any B1Gs roster for sure. Willis got recruited to the B1G so technically he is worthy bc of that.

now if youre talking do we have any active 1st or 2nd B1G team players? Not 1st, 2nd…lets see how battle does against tougher competition.

we all knew this year is a wash. Our current team in general is going to be slower than most every B1G team. If we can create open shots, and play good zone, we might surprise 1 game or 2 where we are heavily not favored.
 

gopherlaney said:
First let me say I was very happy with the effort, ball movement, shot section, defensive rotations, etc. It’s clear to me the fundamentals will improve with the regime of CBJ.

That said, this year will be brutal in conference season. We do not have a single, not 1, Big Ten caliber athlete. If we get a point for getting a shot off, forget going in, we still might only be .500 in conference.

I like Ben, but either Coyle underestimated the risk of getting a decent roster in the transfer portal era, or he was forced to make this hire.

Going to be patient as it is going to take 3-4 years to be competitive.
Click to expand...
Yeah but they can slap them cheeks with the best of em.
 



gopherlaney said:
First let me say I was very happy with the effort, ball movement, shot section, defensive rotations, etc. It’s clear to me the fundamentals will improve with the regime of CBJ.

That said, this year will be brutal in conference season. We do not have a single, not 1, Big Ten caliber athlete. If we get a point for getting a shot off, forget going in, we still might only be .500 in conference.

I like Ben, but either Coyle underestimated the risk of getting a decent roster in the transfer portal era, or he was forced to make this hire.

Going to be patient as it is going to take 3-4 years to be competitive.
Click to expand...
Do we really need another thread on the subject? I think this has been analyzed to death. The season started this week... can we please start focusing on analyzing the actual results now?
 

gopherlaney said:
First let me say I was very happy with the effort, ball movement, shot section, defensive rotations, etc. It’s clear to me the fundamentals will improve with the regime of CBJ.

That said, this year will be brutal in conference season. We do not have a single, not 1, Big Ten caliber athlete. If we get a point for getting a shot off, forget going in, we still might only be .500 in conference.

I like Ben, but either Coyle underestimated the risk of getting a decent roster in the transfer portal era, or he was forced to make this hire.

Going to be patient as it is going to take 3-4 years to be competitive.
Click to expand...

I guess it depends on what your definition of competitve is. It definitely should not take 3-4 years in this era of college basketball to make the 68 team tournament. If you are talking about competing for a top seed or a conference title, that's fair.

I also think it's false to say there is not a single Big Ten caliber athlete on this roster. I am certainly not a Willis fan, but he's scored 20 against Wisconsin before and is certainly atleast a backup quality guard in this league (and hopefully more). I think there are a few others that also are Big Ten caliber athletes, but not many. There is certainly nobody bigger than Battle on the roster than should be playing more than spot minutes for a Big Ten team and the overall roster is certainly terrible.

Like others I'd also caution on praising the fundamentals/overall look of this team. It's an extremely veteran team that has been coached a lot before coming to Minnesota. A quick example from the previous coach: the best defenders we had during his time were Lynch (came from Northern Illinois), Springs (UW-Milwaukee), and Kalscheur (Delasalle HS-arguably best fundamentals on both sides of the ball of anyone who played here the last 8 years and he had them from game 1).
 

jovs said:
Willis, Battle, and Thompson are B1G athletes, add Ihnen and Fox to the list and you would have five, may not be top All B1G type athletes but good enough.
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Good enough for what?
 


Surprising to see Gophers only +2.5 for tonight's game. WKU has size and legit talent. While just one game early in the season, a nice test for Gophers against a roster w/ size closer to B1G-capable. And Stansbury knows what he's doing.
 

dlnavra said:
Surprising to see Gophers only +2.5 for tonight's game. WKU has size and legit talent. While just one game early in the season, a nice test for Gophers against a roster w/ size closer to B1G-capable. And Stansbury knows what he's doing.
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Yeah if they keep it that close I'll be very happy.
 

dlnavra said:
Surprising to see Gophers only +2.5 for tonight's game. WKU has size and legit talent. While just one game early in the season, a nice test for Gophers against a roster w/ size closer to B1G-capable. And Stansbury knows what he's doing.
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I've seen that line move to 3.5

Wonder what Daniels' status is tonight. If he can play I think we have a shot.
 

bc2211 said:
Agree about the look of the offense, but most of the guys on the floor are seniors and have been coached for 4 years by others. Hard for me personally to walk away from one game against KC thinking BJ is an upgrade at teaching fundamentals. Still a complete unknown for me in that dept.
Click to expand...
I think the development of Thiam will be a huge indication of BJ’s ability to develop players. A freshman who’s got raw talent, athleticism, makes spark plays, and has a history of being a good shooter. On the other hand, he’s very raw, makes some questionable decisions, and has no experience against top talent. He’s the type of guy that a top coach can turn into a star, but could also just as easily never contribute.
 

minnyrules11 said:
Honestly don’t care after seeing Nebraska go down, Ohio St should have lost. Michigan and Maryland (tonight) didn’t win by a ton. Michigan St got beat pretty good by Kansas. Minnesota will do just fine.

Also I would say Fox and Battle are “athletes”. 3 to 4 years away from being competitive is absurd.
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I’ll bet you whatever amount of money you want the gophers don’t finish in the top 10 of the conference, and that is a generous definition of “fine”
 


gopherlaney said:
First let me say I was very happy with the effort, ball movement, shot section, defensive rotations, etc. It’s clear to me the fundamentals will improve with the regime of CBJ.

That said, this year will be brutal in conference season. We do not have a single, not 1, Big Ten caliber athlete. If we get a point for getting a shot off, forget going in, we still might only be .500 in conference.

I like Ben, but either Coyle underestimated the risk of getting a decent roster in the transfer portal era, or he was forced to make this hire.

Going to be patient as it is going to take 3-4 years to be competitive.
Click to expand...
Out on a limb and say this post didn’t age well - this rotted quicker than supermarket sushi🍱.

Battle is a baller fo sure and Curry is a great bench guy and could be for several teams to give them some quality minutes- not a ton. Stephens looks like a contributor as well,

u get credit for not deleting the post - that’s it
 


gopherlaney said:
We do not have a single, not 1, Big Ten caliber athlete. If we get a point for getting a shot off, forget going in, we still might only be .500 in conference.
Click to expand...
@gopherlaney, what is your definition of Big Ten caliber athlete? Our players are among the roughly 182 basketball players that have earned a full-ride basketball scholarship at a Big Ten university. Doesn’t that make them Big Ten caliber athletes?

If this team wins a game against another B1G team, does that mean that team’s players aren’t Big Ten caliber athletes? After all, how could they lose to our squad of paraplegics?
 

matt said:
@gopherlaney, what is your definition of Big Ten caliber athlete? Our players are among the roughly 182 basketball players that have earned a full-ride basketball scholarship at a Big Ten university. Doesn’t that make them Big Ten caliber athletes?

If this team wins a game against another B1G team, does that mean that team’s players aren’t Big Ten caliber athletes? After all, how could they lose to our squad of paraplegics?
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From what I gather, Blake Hoffarber wouldn’t be an example of a B1G athlete. But Wally Ellenson would be.
 

dlnavra said:
Surprising to see Gophers only +2.5 for tonight's game. WKU has size and legit talent. While just one game early in the season, a nice test for Gophers against a roster w/ size closer to B1G-capable. And Stansbury knows what he's doing.
Click to expand...
The guy has won a lot of games.
 

Gopherlaney's dream starting 5:

1. Chip Armelin
2. Wally Ellenson
3. Rodney Williams
4. Josh Martin
5. Gaston Diedhiou

6. Charles Buggs as 6th man

I know it feels weird and unfamiliar relying on offensive sets, defense, and making open shots to win games. We're all jaded. But perhaps we actually are upon a new era of Golden Gopher basketball. I like what I have seen so far.
 

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