***OFFICIAL MINNESOTA AT INDIANA STATE NIT IN-GAME THREAD!!!***

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fan of Ray Williams said:
Maybe so, but a bad look nonetheless.
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Agreed, doesn't look good but, honestly, I wouldn't miss any of the players beyond the starters and Fox if they departed. I like Mitchell but I would prefer that even he was replaced as a starter if we could find someone a little better.
 
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howeda7 said:
Yes. He's elevated the talent level from awful (which was on him) to mediocre. But he has shown zero ability to coach it up from mediocre to good. And he's not suddenly going to figure it out now. The odds of retaining all five starters are low, so where's this improvement next year going to come from? If we lose more than one starter it's likely a dead coach walking situation. That's no good for anyone.
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Improvement would come from the portal and player development; the three most likely returning starters, Mitchell, Payne and Mitchell should all improve.

One can assume it won’t happen and spend the offseason worrying or patiently wait and see; we all have a choice on how we fan.
 



fan of Ray Williams said:
A few fricking seconds at the end? Really disappointing. Not sure if he understands that part of being a team. He really loses me on his handling of this.
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I agree 1000%. You misunderstood me bro, I meant it’s no fair to the reserves who show up to and practice every day Travis.

I was yelling at the Oakland voach to empty his bench last night as well
 

MNVCGUY said:
Indiana State is very good....probably should be in the NCAA tournament and will probably win the NIT. Their PG is really impressive.

Guys battled but with Hawkins hurt and the refs unwilling to call any fouls on Indiana State it was just too much to overcome.

Now we get to wait and see what happens with the roster and who might be coming in from the portal.
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Yes, Hawkins injury and the refs were the cause of the loss.
But.
 





Gopher_In_NYC said:
Improvement would come from the portal and player development; the three most likely returning starters, Mitchell, Payne and Mitchell will improve.

One can assume it won’t happen and spend the offseason or patiently wait and see; we all have a choice on how we fan.
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If the starters all return, I don't see high end portal guys coming here but hopefully they can add at least a couple good bench guys at the Fox/Carrington level. If Garcia and Christie leave, they'll be hard pressed just to find equal replacements.

I certainly have hopes for Christie and Payne to continue to improve if they are back. Hawkins/Mitchell/Garcia/Carrington pretty much are what they are at this point.
 

howeda7 said:
If the starters all return, I don't see high end portal guys coming here but hopefully they can add at least a couple good bench guys at the Fox/Carrington level. If Garcia and Christie leave, they'll be hard pressed just to find equal replacements.

I certainly have hopes for Christie and Payne to continue to improve if they are back. Hawkins/Mitchell/Garcia/Carrington pretty much are what they are at this point.
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I'd be curious to see if someone like that #1 for Indiana State was here. He looked like a game changer. Obviously no evidence to go by, just seeing him attack was nice. At least I think that's him, it could have been 5 people all doing it and I just noticed him.
 

BTChamp said:
I'd be curious to see if someone like that #1 for Indiana State was here. He looked like a game changer. Obviously no evidence to go by, just seeing him attack was nice. At least I think that's him, it could have been 5 people all doing it and I just noticed him.
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He wouldn't be playing against Minnesota's "defense."
 




A tough environment to play in, but good that the kids got to play.
Garcia getting that technical hurt us. Then Hawkins injury hurt us. I don't recall seeing JOJ on the court. I think he's probably in the portal by tomorrow. If so, that's a bummer. I think he has an upside, but something happened to break him over the B1G season.
Christie, despite the prognosticators, is not ready for the NBA and could use another year in college. Hopefully he sees this and then stays true to the Gophers.

Coach Johnson needs to bring in some solid depth for this team as we're not going to win the B1G next year even if all person's return. We need a couple bigs and another shooter if we're going to compete at the top.

Now to wait.
 

howeda7 said:
If the starters all return, I don't see high end portal guys coming here but hopefully they can add at least a couple good bench guys at the Fox/Carrington level. If Garcia and Christie leave, they'll be hard pressed just to find equal replacements.

I certainly have hopes for Christie and Payne to continue to improve if they are back. Hawkins/Mitchell/Garcia/Carrington pretty much are what they are at this point.
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Time will tell.

None of us imagined Fox would be this important and Hawkins would be this good; I remember all the comments that Fox was cooked due to the knee surgeries and Hawkins wasn’t really recruited by other programs, which wasn’t the case.
Players can add to their games, if, they put the time in the gym. Garcia needs to shoot hundreds of 3s a day, so he can become a ~35% 3 shooter; Mitchell needs to improve his handle and passing and Hawkins should work on a mid range game IMO.

Ben can evaluate talent and his job is to find pieces which fit and improve the team on the court, regardless of who stays or leaves.

Secondly, he needs to take those pieces and meld them into an NCAA tournament team.

I’m more optimistic of the former paragraph than the latter; I’d give it a 1/4- 1/3 chance we make the tournament next season.
But I’m wrong a lot and hopefully we make it relatively easily and not as a bubble team.
 
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Gopherbbdude said:
Box score is closer than I thought it would be
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Numbers can lie.

In school, one of the books on my Stats class syllabus was "How to Lie With Statistics" by Darrell Huff. I recommend it to everyone. It will open your eyes to how Rotissorie Baseball and Fantasy Football are distracting bastardizations of the real games Using a box score as an indication of how close a game was is a fool's errand.
 

TwistingMyMelon said:
Agreed, doesn't look good but, honestly, I wouldn't miss any of the players beyond the starters and Fox if they departed. I like Mitchell but I would prefer that even he was replaced as a starter if we could fine someone a little better.
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Three of the five starters in last season's finale went into the portal. Battle, Cooper and Henley decided to depart with Garcia and Ola-Joseph staying.
of course that team lost 15 of its last 18. Those guys were probably jumping over each other to get to the portal first.
Guess we find out soon enough.
 

Gopher_In_NYC said:
Improvement would come from the portal and player development; the three most likely returning starters, Mitchell, Payne and Mitchell should all improve.

One can assume it won’t happen and spend the offseason worrying or patiently wait and see; we all have a choice on how we fan.
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Sounds like a law firm
 

this version of Gopher Men's Basketball was not good enough to make the NCAA tournament.

ergo, they need to improve if they want to make the NCAA tournament.
and how do they improve?
1. existing/returning players get better
2. team adds players who are better than the ones they are replacing.

problem with #1 is that IMHO a lot of players on this team don't have a lot of room for improvement. Payne and Christie can and hopefully should improve. the others are who they are.

so that leaves us with #2 - add better players. Johnson cannot keep shopping for (to steal a baseball phrase) 'replacement-level' talent. any player he brings in needs to be a clear upgrade in talent. Hey, that's not going to be easy or cheap, but if the Gophers cannot find some way to improve the talent level - including the talent level for the 7, 8, 9 spots in the rotation - then this team will be right back in the same spot - scrambling to make the NIT.
 

howeda7 said:
I certainly have hopes for Christie and Payne to continue to improve if they are back. Hawkins/Mitchell/Garcia/Carrington pretty much are what they are at this point.
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Disagree that there is not another level for guys like Hawkins/Mitchell/Garcia/Carrington.....They all have areas of their games that can improve and they have an off season to work on them. They might not have the potential for the big jumps a guy like Payne or Christie could make but they absolutely can continue to grow and improve and be even better players in 24/25.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Disagree that there is not another level for guys like Hawkins/Mitchell/Garcia/Carrington.....They all have areas of their games that can improve and they have an off season to work on them. They might not have the potential for the big jumps a guy like Payne or Christie could make but they absolutely can continue to grow and improve and be even better players in 24/25.
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Hawkins, Mitchell and Garcia will be 5th year seniors. They are who they are. Carrington might have some areas to improve, but his biggest flaw is that he can't shoot the 3 and I don't see that changing. It's not like the coaching staff has shown much ability to develop talent either.
 



short ornery norwegian said:
this version of Gopher Men's Basketball was not good enough to make the NCAA tournament.

ergo, they need to improve if they want to make the NCAA tournament.
and how do they improve?
1. existing/returning players get better
2. team adds players who are better than the ones they are replacing.

problem with #1 is that IMHO a lot of players on this team don't have a lot of room for improvement. Payne and Christie can and hopefully should improve. the others are who they are.

so that leaves us with #2 - add better players. Johnson cannot keep shopping for (to steal a baseball phrase) 'replacement-level' talent. any player he brings in needs to be a clear upgrade in talent. Hey, that's not going to be easy or cheap, but if the Gophers cannot find some way to improve the talent level - including the talent level for the 7, 8, 9 spots in the rotation - then this team will be right back in the same spot - scrambling to make the NIT.
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I agree that we need better talent overall on the roster. There will need to be departures to accomplish that. I certainly don't agree with the belief that some of our older starters can't improve. Basketball players don't stop improving at the age of 21. Go through the historical stats of about 30 random 5th year players this season and see how much more effective many of them were as 5th year players than they were as 3rd year players or even 4th year players.
 

TwistingMyMelon said:
I agree that we need better talent overall on the roster. There will need to be departures to accomplish that. I certainly don't agree with the belief that some of our senior starters can't improve. Basketball players don't stop improving at the age of 21 or 22.
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Yeah, I don't get those thinking guys are finished products as well. Sure, we have a pretty good idea of what kind of player they are late in their career but these are still kids that are maturing and growing and there absolutely is room for improvement in everyone's game.

Rookies in the pro ranks continue to evolve, develop and get better over the course of their career. Just because a guy is a 5th year senior it doesn't mean he is done improving.
 

2 true road games vs good opponents was enough.

Now I want to hear that everyone is returning!!

I like that Payne & Mitchell were the leading scorers...and Garcia the lowest.
 

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