I haven't read all the posts in this thread, but this Western Carolina team played both Mississippi State and Alabama tough on the road. Considering how well Western Carolina shot the ball early, I think the Gophers performance was at least adequate. There was a lot to like in the way the team attacked the rim and shared the ball in the second half.
Good: Deandre Mathieu, Nate Mason, Carlos Morris and Joey King. Hopefully this was the breakout game for lil 'Dre! His performance is the second half exemplified the type of impact we need him to have on a nightly basis in the B1G. Mathieu was getting in the lane and finishing or forcing defenders to rotate and finding the open man. Nate Mason just continues to be a solid contributor on both ends of the floor. I love how composed he is and the game seems to slow down for him when he has the ball as opposed to most freshman (and many players in general) where the game seems to fast for them. Carlos Morris continues to improve his decision making (though the step back long 2 point jumper that went in was not a good shot) and he seems to be adjusting to the D-1 game nicely. Some posters have pointed out that it often takes JUCO's awhile (even an entire year) to adapt to high major college basketball, and Morris seems to be settling in a bit. How about 2 dunks for Joey King? The stuff I am going to say about Joey is going to bleed in to the "bad" part of my post, but I thought he had a really nice game. In the first half especially, King seemed to be the only guy out their who was intent on playing with any sort of edge. He took some charges, dove for a loose ball and was noticeably engaged on both ends of the floor.
Bad: What does it say about our team that I am thinking during the game "Is Joey King really our tough guy"? This isn't really new I guess, but their was a noticeable lack of physicality from our bigs, which was probably more apparent playing an undersized team. The other concern was that, unless I am missing something, Joey King had both of the teams dunks. It's tough to win consistently when pretty much everyone in the rotation is a below the rim player. Both of these points get to the real issue in this game which was the Gophers inability to control their defensive glass. If they can't do it against Western Carolina, it's going to be hard to do it in the B1G. The Gophers are not going to beat anyone on the road when allowing a bunch of second chance opportunities. Part of it is a physical limitation, but a lot of it is just not being physical and putting a body on someone.
Concerning: No minutes for Bakary. Very sketchy minutes for Josh. Up and down from Buggs. I watched Buggs and Martin closely while their were on the floor and I can see Pitino's dilemma. Charles is clearly a four in any system that wants to get up and down the floor. He had his struggles in the first half, but his defense in the press was a bright spot in the second half. Josh, just really had a rough stretch with his minutes in the first half. It's unfair to judge someone off just two minutes, but it still looked like the game was too fast for him out there. It will be interesting to see if he could have just a little success (maybe catch a lob like they tried to throw to him before half), if maybe that would get him to settle down a bit out there. As of now Pitino can only feel good about playing 7 guys and two of those guys can't be on the floor at the same time.
