***OFFICIAL GOPHERS VS. LOUISVILLE ARMED FORCES CLASSIC IN-GAME THREAD***

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Just a bad night. Lvile guards were quicker and Harrell made out front court his bitches
 

Nort73 said:
I'm happy with Hollins and Mason. Really disappointed in Morris and lil Dre. I think we will be fine this year though.

Side note, but Harrell seems like kind of a jackass. He's really good, but he could talk less in my opinion.
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Have to agree. Talented but a ******
 

According to the ESPN box score, there was a total of 60 fouls in tonight's game. Zebra's get a big fat "F" for a grade tonight.
 




Oh and after that game and possible future ones, how keen is anyone to cheer for Louisville during the tournament if/or likely when they get further than us? I can't cheer for Harrell. A very very cocky dude.
 

Clearly Louisville has much better athleticism than us. We have more depth this year than last year and Mason is better than any guard coming off the bench last year. Hollins is back. Morris might be as good of an athlete as Austin, but I'm really missing Austin already. The two centers and Joey look pretty much the same, which is kind of unfortunate. I'm not worried about DeAndre yet; he had a slow start last year.
 

It should have been a good game, but the Gophers didn't play well.
 

Nort73 said:
I'm happy with Hollins and Mason. Really disappointed in Morris and lil Dre. I think we will be fine this year though.

Side note, but Harrell seems like kind of a jackass. He's really good, but he could talk less in my opinion.
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Agree fully - Andre Hollins looks like he might be back to sophomore form, which would be wonderful for this team. Mason didn't play like a freshman against a lot of pressure. I'm sure he'll hit those FTs in the future.

Morris was non-existent, lil' Dre struggled some on both ends of the court tonight. The other freshmen had tough nights, but it is tough to have expected much. They probably shouldn't have played, if a W was more important than experience.

Harrell was outstanding, and was THE difference in the game. But that's what superstars do, they rise in games like this. Surprised that Daddy Rick allows him to spout off that attitude, though. Unnecessary. Otherwise, the better team won, Gophers deserved to be on the same court, final result somewhere around as-expected. A good experience to learn from, hopefully, and onto some cupcakes.
 



Louisville - 23FG, 6 3PT, 29-42 FT
Minnesota- 22FG, 4 3PT, 20-33 FT
The rest of the stats are pretty close, except they have 5+ steals
Free throws hurt us a lot.
75 foul shots. Oh. My. God.
 

all things considered I'm frustrated but encouraged for the future. Nate Mason is the type of recruit Pitino wants, and that kid handled the pressure and the stage better than anyone else on the team. If we can get 11 more Nate Mason's which it seems like next years class is full of, we will have a bunch of gamers.

Speaking of gamers, Carlos Morris got himself a taste of D1 Basketball in a HURRY. He looked UGLY, HowieWowie, welcome back to the Gopherhole.

EE/Mo, L'Ville was waaay too athletic for them to be effective or even a factor.

King, didn't even know he was there.

Bakary and Martin, too young, too raw to be relevent in this game, they need a full exhibition to learn how to play that pace.

Mathieu, I hope someone gets in his ear, because he could be come irrelevant in a hurry if he plays like that. Too small to play with no heart/brains.

McNeil, oversold his growth, got a dose or reality from the guard play from L'ville.

We hung around, which was nice to see, didn't fold when it looked like we would a couple times. Excited to see how this team plays in a situation where they are dictating the pace rather than the pace being forced upon them. L'ville wanted to play faster than we could, that should be a role reversal for the rest of our games this year.
 

tinyarch said:
According to the ESPN box score, there was a total of 60 fouls in tonight's game. Zebra's get a big fat "F" for a grade tonight.
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Not really. Called it too tightly, which lowered entertainment, but they were pretty consistent and fairness is the main thing a reffing crew must bring. That they did.
 

Lil dre won't always play so disengaged, there won't be 60 (not an exaggeration) combined fouls called every game, open shots and free throws will eventually fall, newbies will gain confidence, and we won't play an all-American big man on a potential final four team every game.

We good, folks.
 



tinyarch said:
Biggest difference in this game is the rebounding advantage to Louisville. Gophers only getting one chance on offense.
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That said, Gophers did a pretty solid job on their own D boards, especially in the second half. Boards didn't make or break this game, Harrell's shooting and FT shooting did, IMO.
 

SuperSenior13 said:
Lil dre won't always play so disengaged, there won't be 60 (not an exaggeration) combined fouls called every game, open shots and free throws will eventually fall, newbies will gain confidence, and we won't play an all-American big man on a potential final four team every game.

We good, folks.
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Right. You know, everyone wants to see us play better teams in the preseason. This is what will happen at times when we do.
 

Here's how the game went:

Early, Gophers looked good... then the refs got involved. They called every little hand check against the Gophers. Making Coach Pitino have to reach into his bench for young front court players (in their first real game ever), that just added more fouls and ends up giving Louisville 20+ free throws in the first half. The seniors are doing nothing so far, and we all know once little Dre gets frustrated, he plays terrible. We can't capitalize on our free throws. Second half, the refs make up calls for the gophers against Louisville, and we continue not being able to capitalize on the free throws. Then we start tossing up ugly shots. Game ends.

Mason is for real. He's probably the best ball handler on the team. Morris had a bad night, but he is just as good if not better than Austin. Big Dre tried to take control but he just can't do it alone. King did nothing. Elliot was himself. Mo was soft, as usual. Louisville, and teams like them with size and athleticism will always give us trouble. I do see Coach Pitino slowly building a team like them, but it might be a couple of years until we are dominating like Louisville is.

We will be better than last year, but 6th is probably the highest we'll climb in the B10.
 

Moonlight said:
Right. You know, everyone wants to see us play better teams in the preseason. This is what will happen at times when we do.
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With how awful we did play at times, we also fought back to cut the lead to 8. Dre and Mo were senior catalysts in keeping everyone engaged and fighting. They're just a better team, and turned it on when they needed.

Life is more enjoyable when you're optimistic :)
 


Good to see Elliot and Joey really hit the weights offseason.
 


RolGnav said:
Here's how the game went:

Early, Gophers looked good... then the refs got involved. They called every little hand check against the Gophers. Making Coach Pitino have to reach into his bench for young front court players (in their first real game ever), that just added more fouls and ends up giving Louisville 20+ free throws in the first half. The seniors are doing nothing so far, and we all know once little Dre gets frustrated, he plays terrible. We can't capitalize on our free throws. Second half, the refs make up calls for the gophers against Louisville, and we continue not being able to capitalize on the free throws. Then we start tossing up ugly shots. Game ends.

Mason is for real. He's probably the best ball handler on the team. Morris had a bad night, but he is just as good if not better than Austin. Big Dre tried to take control but he just can't do it alone. King did nothing. Elliot was himself. Mo was soft, as usual. Louisville, and teams like them with size and athleticism will always give us trouble. I do see Coach Pitino slowly building a team like them, but it might be a couple of years until we are dominating like Louisville is.

We will be better than last year, but 6th is probably the highest we'll climb in the B10.
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Good analysis. Thanks.
 

Moonlight said:
Right. You know, everyone wants to see us play better teams in the preseason. This is what will happen at times when we do.
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Yes, and as Martha Stewart used to say, "It's a good thing." Just like the game with TCU, this game showed us how we need to improve. I'd rather open the season like this than playing two or three doormats to start the season.

On an optimistic note, I don't think there are many (in fact, there may not be any) Big Ten teams with the kind of athleticism we saw tonight.

I hope Pitino gives Buggs a chance this year. He did some good things when he was on the court. He looked far more ready than Martin.
 

SuperSenior13 said:
Lil dre won't always play so disengaged, there won't be 60 (not an exaggeration) combined fouls called every game, open shots and free throws will eventually fall, newbies will gain confidence, and we won't play an all-American big man on a potential final four team every game.

We good, folks.
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Pretty much my take away from this game. I'm not pissed about the outcome or any less optimistic afterward. We won't have 60 fouls called in every game, which means we won't have to go deep into our bench midway through the first half. We'll be fine, we'll beat some good teams this year and go to the tournament. I'm still very much looking forward to the rest of this season.
 

I think LNH can quell the, is Andre healthy talk. He moved around very well tonight.
 

Today was a great reminder for me: we are more talented than last year. But we have a long way to go to be a Sweet Sixteen and beyond type team like Louisville.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Tough game and I wanted us to show up better but I AM SO GLAD THE BB SEASON HAS FINALLY STARTED!!
And I'm looking forward to seeing the team come together in the next weeks/month.
 

Mo was effective...

Winasota Gopher said:
all things considered I'm frustrated but encouraged for the future. Nate Mason is the type of recruit Pitino wants, and that kid handled the pressure and the stage better than anyone else on the team. If we can get 11 more Nate Mason's which it seems like next years class is full of, we will have a bunch of gamers.

Speaking of gamers, Carlos Morris got himself a taste of D1 Basketball in a HURRY. He looked UGLY, HowieWowie, welcome back to the Gopherhole.

EE/Mo, L'Ville was waaay too athletic for them to be effective or even a factor.

King, didn't even know he was there.

Bakary and Martin, too young, too raw to be relevent in this game, they need a full exhibition to learn how to play that pace.

Mathieu, I hope someone gets in his ear, because he could be come irrelevant in a hurry if he plays like that. Too small to play with no heart/brains.

McNeil, oversold his growth, got a dose or reality from the guard play from L'ville.

We hung around, which was nice to see, didn't fold when it looked like we would a couple times. Excited to see how this team plays in a situation where they are dictating the pace rather than the pace being forced upon them. L'ville wanted to play faster than we could, that should be a role reversal for the rest of our games this year.
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Post game thoughts

I was initially pleased that the Gophers were not overwhelmed athletically by Louisville. Through the first 10 minutes or so, Minnesota was able to get up and down the floor and looked like they could hang with Louisville in a lot of aspects of the game. After about the 10 minute mark or so, I felt like the Gophers noticeably struggled with the speed and athleticism of Louisville for much of the rest of the game. Having Mathieu in foul trouble really hurt because nobody else has the combination of quickness and confidence in their ball handling ability to get the ball across half court and the team in to an offensive set. The other area where the athleticism really showed up besides in the trap or press by Louisville was in rebounding. The stats show the Gophers actually had one more offensive board than Louisville which really blows my mind. It was very apparent watching the game that Louisville could dominate the boards (especially on the offensive end) against the Gophers. I know GopherWarrior will disagree, but the Gophers free throw shooting (especially in the first half) was the biggest reason why this wasn't a closer game. Nate Mason missing those two free throws following the "flagrant" foul and the Gophers then failing to score on the subsequent possession was so huge. What could have been 4-5 points was ZERO. It would be one thing if it was Eliason missing free thows, but it was the guards for the most part.

Positives: I thought Andre Hollins had some really good moments offensively against a very good defensive team. Mo Walker continued to build on his impressive junior season by looking a little more athletic and was still extremely effective when he did get the ball in the post with time and space to go to work. Nate Mason won't experience a more difficult defense to break all season. When looking at things from that context, he did a pretty nice job when forced in to the primary ball handler role.

Negatives: I was baffled that Pitino seemingly played Joey King the entire second half. The Gophers actually looked better with Konate or Buggs in for King in my opinion. Joey just can't guard anyone on that Louisville team and isn't athletic enough to score on any of them either. He got 3 wide open looks for 3's in the second half and missed all of them. Looking at the box score Buggs turned it over twice in what couldn't have been more than 4 minutes of playing time and Bakary had a bad jump shot and a turnover as well. It's not like anyone at the four played well and Joey earned some trust in the NIT run, but in a match up like this it's readily apparent that we need an athlete at the four. In a grind it out B1G game, Joey can have more success.

Carlos Morris had a really ugly debut. I mentioned that he had some Chip Armelin in him after watching the UMD game, and this game was much more "Chip" that it was Vince Grier. Very poor shot selection tonight, which often led to transition opportunities for Louisville. The positive was that he was able to put the ball on the floor and get in the lane and he should improve his decision making in those situations as the season goes along.

Deandre Mathieu's foul trouble. Lil Dre is just far too important to this team for him to be sitting out 10 minutes of game time because he's in foul trouble early in the first half. The silly fouls that plagued him last year, plagued him in this game. If the Gophers are going to get some signature wins, they are going to need ~15 points and a solid A/T ratio from Mathieu to do it. I thought the fouls really prevented Mathieu from every really getting in a rhythm and he never had much of an impact on the game. Overall, our guards were outplayed by Louisville's guards and that's not going to be a recipe for success for this team. To beat good teams, we need our guards to definitively win their match ups.

Overall, the Gophers didn't play very well and still put up a representative (for the most part) effort against a very good Louisville team. That said, until we see guys like Morris and McNeil actually play well against a high major team, it's not fair to just assume they will be solid players.
 

Disappointed in the result but some positives to take as well. I liked the way this team continued to fight back when Louisville would pull away a little bit but just couldn't get over hump. At times we let Louisville speed us up too much on offense and that is when we really got into trouble. I thought Andre looked back to himself the explosiveness was back. Mo looked solid offensively and I thought his touch around the basket was very good. The refs really turned the game into a foul fest calling every little thing and I thought free throw differential and Harrel were really the difference in the game tonight. I thought Louisville would struggle a little more than they did but they definitely are a very athletic and explosive team that should be highly ranked at the end of the year.
 

Even playing about as sloppy a game as you could possibly play, the Gophs lost by a not-embarrassing amount to a Louisville team that would surprise no one if they won it all this year. More importantly, Andre's back to his old self. We'll need him if we want to make a tourney appearance.

We'll see how this season goes, but this isn't THAT awful a result. We're not going to see this many fouls called the rest of the year. At least I hope not - the refs made this game tarpit slow and bowling shoe ugly.
 

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