***OFFICIAL GOPHERS VS HOOSIERS IN-GAME THREAD!!!***

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Goldy Gopher said:
I was hoping to see Pitino go small for a while and just go without a center in the game just to see if we could have matched up better that way.
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I was thinking a similar thing. A big center wasn't that useful against this team and it might have been less damaging to encourage them to attack inside and leave our quicker players closer to the perimeter.
 

The Gopher's inability to guard the three has carried over from the Tubby era. We need quicker, longer perimeter players. In most cases talent is the issue.
 

Seems every game we talk about ridiculous shooting against us. It's not bad luck.
 

Blackhammer said:
Seems every game we talk about ridiculous shooting against us. It' not bad luck.
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I don't know, I haven't thought any team has shot lights out against us this year until this game. I didn't think we played bad at all. We put up 70+ points and won the turnover battle by a big margin. Rebounding wasn't good, but part of that is the long rebounds from 30+ 3 point attempts. I think we would have beat a lot of teams in our conference with the way we played tonight. 3 point defense wasn't necessarily good, but most teams won't make 18 of them and shoot 55%.
 


I'm afraid Blackhammer is right. It's been a chronic issue but one I'm hoping next year's three guard recruits-Johnson, McBrayer and the reputed great on-ball defender Dorsey can help remedy. It's tough when the defense is just, hope they start to miss!
 



My expectation of this team coming into this year was to make the tournament. That is where my expectation remains, not going to move my bar because they choked early this year.
 



Blackhammer said:
The Gopher's inability to guard the three has carried over from the Tubby era. We need quicker, longer perimeter players. In most cases talent is the issue.
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This hasn't been true this year. Coming into the game tonight, we were in the top half of the conference in 3-point FG defense ahead of teams like Wisconsin and Maryland. Before tonight, only 3 of 12 conference opponents shot over 40% and only 1 shot over 46%.
 



mcal24 said:
I don't know, I haven't thought any team has shot lights out against us this year until this game. I didn't think we played bad at all. We put up 70+ points and won the turnover battle by a big margin. Rebounding wasn't good, but part of that is the long rebounds from 30+ 3 point attempts. I think we would have beat a lot of teams in our conference with the way we played tonight. 3 point defense wasn't necessarily good, but most teams won't make 18 of them and shoot 55%.
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This is correct. We shot 50%, we turned them over and played hard. They just went nuts from the 3.
 



bga1 said:
This is correct. We shot 50%, we turned them over and played hard. They just went nuts from the 3.
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The problem is that most teams play good offense against IU. They don't care about the defensive end too much.
 

Seems we have had a crummy home schedule - even in the big10. No Indiana, MSU, Michigan, or maryland
 

I guess I shouldn't be surprised to see so much negativity after this game, but I kind of am. To me, this game illustrates why the Gophers absolutely couldn't lose home games to Ohio State and Iowa(!) and really should have taken advantage of road games against Michigan, Nebraska, and Penn State. I'd argue the Gophers played better in this game than they did in any of those five games. Eventually, this team was going to get run off the court on the road, it's just not talented enough to go a whole season without it ever happening. That said, the avalanche in the second half occurred in large part to the Gophers missing some very good looks on offense and the Hoosiers hitting some tough contested 3's on the other end of the court. There were several 5 point swings that happened right on top of each other and the Gophers just couldn't recover. I felt like they showed decent fight in cutting the lead down to 10-11 a few separate times throughout the second half and some (not all) of the shots that expanded the Hoosiers lead back out were tough looks.

Positives:

I like Mathieu's drives to the basket tonight. We need him to be a threat offensively again and I liked seeing him being aggressive in the half court offense as opposed to just in the transition game where he's really struggled to finish. Obviously, Indiana's lack of size helped him here, but hopefully it was a confidence boost.

Charles Buggs continues to flash. Buggs had a couple of offensive boards in the second half that we just haven't gotten all year. He also had a nice pul up jumper off a behind the back dribble in the first half. The other thing I liked from Buggs was his attempt to disrupt Yogi in the second half both in the press and in the zone. I certainly don't fully trust him, but with another offseason he might solidify a nice role for himself.

Negatives:

The only thing that really angered me about this game was Joey King and Mo Walker on the boards. They were playing an undersized opponent tonight and they combined for one rebound in 59 minutes of play....Eliason had 3 boards in 11 minutes. I thought Mo also was not consistently aggressive in the post tonight and put up a couple of inexcusably soft attempts deep in the post against much smaller/lighter opposition. Indiana was so much more athletic in the front court, but our guys failed to use their size advantage which really hurt our chances of a win. In hindsight, a Morris/Buggs/Eliason front court would have been a better option given how Mo and Joey did on the boards.

While I think Indiana hit a number of tough shots, the Gopher defense has to get some blame 90 points and over 59% of fg's made against them. In general, the team just wasn't as sound defensively as they were against Iowa and really struggled to keep up with Indiana's excellent ball movement.

Big Picture: This was, by far, the best a team has played against the Gophers in conference play. Indiana certainly looked like the best team we've played so far and you can understand why they are undefeated at home during conference play. The Gophers were at both athleticism and skill disadvantages at numerous positions on the court and their only clear advantage (size) was negated by some soft play. In the future, we badly need to recruit some interior toughness in addition to better athletes/players. I don't feel like we have one player, outside of maybe Mathieu, who's naturally inclined to be physical and it's tough to win on the road without some guys with an element of nasty to them. I was still fairly encouraged by a lot of what I saw from the Gophers as they forced a bunch of turnovers and kept their own turnovers down. Wisconsin twice and at Michigan State are tough tasks, but that's the position this team put itself in. If they just played better earlier in the year, winning these games would be moving us up in to a nice seed in the NCAA tourney instead of needing them to sneak in. Don't be upset that we couldn't be the first B1G team to win at Indiana (on a night where they shot out of their minds no less), be upset that they blew games should have won under easier circumstances earlier in the year.
 

EG#9 said:
Big Picture: This was, by far, the best a team has played against the Gophers in conference play. Indiana certainly looked like the best team we've played so far and you can understand why they are undefeated at home during conference play. The Gophers were at both athleticism and skill disadvantages at numerous positions on the court and their only clear advantage (size) was negated by some soft play. In the future, we badly need to recruit some interior toughness in addition to better athletes/players. I don't feel like we have one player, outside of maybe Mathieu, who's naturally inclined to be physical and it's tough to win on the road without some guys with an element of nasty to them. I was still fairly encouraged by a lot of what I saw from the Gophers as they forced a bunch of turnovers and kept their own turnovers down. Wisconsin twice and at Michigan State are tough tasks, but that's the position this team put itself in. If they just played better earlier in the year, winning these games would be moving us up in to a nice seed in the NCAA tourney instead of needing them to sneak in. Don't be upset that we couldn't be the first B1G team to win at Indiana (on a night where they shot out of their minds no less), be upset that they blew games should have won under easier circumstances earlier in the year.
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The telling element of the defense last night was that Indiana at will passed the ball through our pressure. Their strength and athleticism completely negated what has caused the last couple opponents fits, and that's our ball pressure. How many times did you see the double team or multi team get cut through with ease by a strong deft pass by Yogi or Blackmon? They just seemed to pass right through our guys, that kills ball pressure and creates a scramble. They spaced the floor so well and made our slower front line have to cover A LOT of ground. Some in this thread were crucial of Joey King and others for being lazy or caught sleeping, I saw them as confused and unable to cover the ground they were being required to cover.

In the future our on the ball guards have to be able to, at a minimum, effect the pass across the court. Make it go up and over instead of through the double team. And that's the physicality you're talking about. Our wings and bigs will have to be able to cover and influnce a much greater area when playing a team as athletic as IU. Pitino's banking on that only being a requirement against a very few number of teams throughout the season going forward. The rest of the time we can make teams squirm like we've done the last couple by speeding them up and causing turnovers.

That all said, we still got IU to turn it over 18 times, so I have confidence in the system. It's just the other 50 possessions we weren't very close to the action...
 

EG#9 said:
The only thing that really angered me about this game was Joey King and Mo Walker on the boards. They were playing an undersized opponent tonight and they combined for one rebound in 59 minutes of play....Eliason had 3 boards in 11 minutes. I thought Mo also was not consistently aggressive in the post tonight and put up a couple of inexcusably soft attempts deep in the post against much smaller/lighter opposition. Indiana was so much more athletic in the front court, but our guys failed to use their size advantage which really hurt our chances of a win. In hindsight, a Morris/Buggs/Eliason front court would have been a better option given how Mo and Joey did on the boards.
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Good overall analysis. I can't recall a year where so many rebounds are lost because we can't get a body on a guy or don't even seem to react to the ball when it's right there. Also, especially at home, it's very noticeable that our bigs especially have no idea which way the ball is going to go on a miss.
You can see a shot is going to be short and come back towards the shooter but our guy will stand on the other side not moving. Aggressiveness, quickness, basketball sense--whatever it is--we ain't got it. Dusty Rychart where are you?
 

GophersInIowa said:
This hasn't been true this year. Coming into the game tonight, we were in the top half of the conference in 3-point FG defense ahead of teams like Wisconsin and Maryland. Before tonight, only 3 of 12 conference opponents shot over 40% and only 1 shot over 46%.
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We are eleventh overall in three point percentage against. Seventh in Big Ten games. Still weak in my eyes. Seems like it has been a glaring problem when we lose big leads which has been often.
 

bleedsmaroonandgold said:
My expectation of this team coming into this year was to make the tournament. That is where my expectation remains, not going to move my bar because they choked early this year.
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My feelings exactly. This should have been an NCAA Tournament team. But it's not and that's not anybody's fault but the team's.
 

One reason the Hoosiers looked so good is because they may have one of the top 5 point guards in the nation in Yogi Ferrell. He was under control and guiding his team like a surgeon guides his assistants in the operating room. Though I was rooting for the Gophers and disappointed with the loss, I was tremendously impressed with Ferrell. He is the heart and soul of that Hoosier team. It was his leadership and distribution capabilities that negated any pressure we tried to put on the Hoosiers. Huge props to Ferrell. He showed us just how far our point guard falls off in comparison.
 

wow

For all the credit I give to Pitino for finally putting a bigger lineup out there to help us beat Iowa, I take it back for playing a big lineup and pressing a 3-4 guard attack in Indiana. Williams will be an NBA small forward and he's playing Center at 6-7 210. How we couldnt score inside, slow the pace and make it half court, and play man on the 3 pt shooters is beyond me. Sometimes you have to adjust your style of play so you dont get run over!

I would have sat king and played the two dre's, Morris, Buggs, and MO and tried to play man. Buggs needs to play major minutes, the mental mistakes should slowly improve and he is easily our longest and most athletic big man.

Boxing out was pathetic by everyone. You can blame a hot 3pt shooting team for the score but there is no way a team that small should outrebound us 35-16, I don't care if the rebounds were going back to halfcourt we had to get them.
 

march madness said:
For all the credit I give to Pitino for finally putting a bigger lineup out there to help us beat Iowa, I take it back for playing a big lineup and pressing a 3-4 guard attack in Indiana. Williams will be an NBA small forward and he's playing Center at 6-7 210. How we couldnt score inside, slow the pace and make it half court, and play man on the 3 pt shooters is beyond me. Sometimes you have to adjust your style of play so you dont get run over!

I would have sat king and played the two dre's, Morris, Buggs, and MO and tried to play man. Buggs needs to play major minutes, the mental mistakes should slowly improve and he is easily our longest and most athletic big man.

Boxing out was pathetic by everyone. You can blame a hot 3pt shooting team for the score but there is no way a team that small should outrebound us 35-16, I don't care if the rebounds were going back to halfcourt we had to get them.
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March Madness- I doubt Buggs has played the 5 position ever in practice. I agree that Buggs needs to play lots of minutes at this point but asking him to play the 5 - I don't know. Then on offense that lineup really hampers because it leaves us with no inside threat and they could now pressure our guards more with impunity. That was just tone of those games where they got hot and their confidence grew and they started whipping the ball around as a confident team does and they found open shots - nearly all of which went in or were rebounded (often long rebounds). On this night I don't think there is any strategy that would have beaten the Hoosiers in their house. With all that happened - with 4 minutes left the Gophers had a shot to cut it to 8 -Andre missed a good look at a 3 pointer. He hits that and they might have tightened up a bit. Instead they go back down and run the lead up to 13 or 14 again and it's over but the counting.

One thing about Buggs- I would like to see them post him up ocassionally instead of having him just ride the perimeter...
 

march madness said:
Boxing out was pathetic by everyone. You can blame a hot 3pt shooting team for the score but there is no way a team that small should outrebound us 35-16, I don't care if the rebounds were going back to halfcourt we had to get them.
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Pathetic is too kind. We really need Mo to rebound better. He can't jump, so he needs to box-out better. He has never done this well, so I am not counting on it.
 

Blackhammer said:
We are eleventh overall in three point percentage against. Seventh in Big Ten games. Still weak in my eyes. Seems like it has been a glaring problem when we lose big leads which has been often.
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Small perimeter size coupled with poor athleticism on the inside is an RX for bad defense against the 3pt shot in my view. The little guys have to help the bigs when it goes inside- because the bigs are not great defenders (even Elliot has lost the ability he was showing to block shots last year) and even when the defense is set you can shoot right over our guards. I had actually been impressed at how our defense has improved considering out inherent defects.
 

bga1 said:
One thing about Buggs- I would like to see them post him up ocassionally instead of having him just ride the perimeter...
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I hope he can expand his skillset and become a headache and matchup problem for many teams. His athleticism and height should allow him to create a match up problem if he can expand his skills. If you put a guard on him have him post up and if you put a forward on him run him around the outside. Hopefully by the time he is a senior he can do some of this and be a bigger part of our system.
 

I still think it's a little early to say Buggs is or will be better than Morris. Junior college players sometimes take awhile before the light bulb comes on. Bobby Jackson I think was a little like that. Morris can handle and drive. I'm not sure Buggs will ever be good at either.
 

tikited said:
Pathetic is too kind. We really need Mo to rebound better. He can't jump, so he needs to box-out better. He has never done this well, so I am not counting on it.
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I too agree this was the one glaring downfall if our game last night. I'm not upset if I see the players boxing out and a weird bounce occurs or they get called for a foul for being too aggressive in keeping the opposition out of the box. But to see Mo just stand and try to jump for rebounds without leveraging his massive frame is ridiculous. How many times do I have to watch our players trying to out jump their opponents? I'm amazed at the amount of times you see DeAndre or Andre come flying in to grab rebounds from the arch as their front court watches the ball or gets out jumped by their opponent. Has the art of a good box out gone the way of the dodo bird?
 

Blackhammer said:
I still think it's a little early to say Buggs is or will be better than Morris. Junior college players sometimes take awhile before the light bulb comes on. Bobby Jackson I think was a little like that. Morris can handle and drive. I'm not sure Buggs will ever be good at either.
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Morris doesn't rebound very well, is average defensively at best, but his shot selection is what makes him a liability, until he corrects that I don't see why Buggs wouldn't start.
 

jovs said:
Morris doesn't rebound very well, is average defensively at best, but his shot selection is what makes him a liability, until he corrects that I don't see why Buggs wouldn't start.
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We need both of them this year and we'll need both of them even more next year. I think Buggs should continue to start because this team needs to be bigger (although last night perhaps they should have been smaller) but I think both players have talent.
 

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