Hah, I was wondering if there would be a lot of comments about Dakich and every post on the last page of the thread mentions him. I think he makes some good points, but on the other hand it's so noticeable that he (Dakich) is doing the game as opposed to most other broadcasters. He takes it over in a way like Bill Walton, but without being as entertaining (though I don't think I'd enjoy Walton calling a game I really cared about either).
I thought the defense was the key to this game as it was consistently very good. The only 2 negatives in the entire game on the defensive end were not locating Michgan's 3 point shooter in transition and giving up a bunch of offensive board late in garbage team. Pretty much every half court possession was locked in and I thought this might have been Carr's best game on the defensive end of the floor as a Gopher.
Offensively, it was more up and down. If you watch the game in the first half around the time the score was 14-8 Gophers, Minnesota had 7 poor shots in a row (all one shot possessions). They then got a good shot (Carr missed layup) and then 2 or 3 more bad shots (the Tre Williams 3 attempts were near the end of this stretch. The Gophers were lucky to make 3 of these poor shots (long jumpers X3 by Curry, Mashburn Jr, and Curry again) and that combined with good defense on the other end allowed them to maintain a lead during a stretch that could have gotten really ugly. I think if you go back to Dakich and his talk about shot selection and benching guys, he does have a point but it's a no win situation for Pitino. Carr is the biggest culprit and him taking bad shots encourages others to follow suit. Unfortunately, if you sit him your only option is Mashburn who is not playing well and is also prone to taking poor shots while being less of a distributor. When the ball moved, the offense was pretty good and it was impressive to hold a lead for so much game time without making a single three until the second half.
If I have a concern about the game it was the Ihnen, Mashburn, Williams group continues to underwhelm. The starting 5 seems to get better and better and when Curry can play using mostly his mind and not his body (like Saturday) he can be effective. Unfortuately outside of those 6 the best contribution was Sam Freeman playing solid on couple offense/defense substitutions in the first half to spare Robbins from foul trouble.
It was fun to see Robbins rise up to the challenge of Dickinson. There haven't been many Gophers in recent years who bounce back to win a matchup like that after being dominated previously.
Last thing that occurred to me. Michigan shot 6-22 from 3 and was missing a starting guard. If the shoe was on the other foot there would be some posters excusing a Gopher loss and suggesting there was nothing they could do. The way Michigan shot the ball had a lot to do with the Gopher defense and Minnesota deserves praise.
