***OFFICIAL MINNESOTA AT OHIO STATE IN-GAME THREAD!!!***





Wow! Who were those guys? We have not played anything thing like that all year!!
Our defense was fantastic! Our offense had purpose. We were disciplined. Very reminiscent of how we played last year. Loved it!
Improvement happens slowly af first and then suddenly it comes together - the bread crumbs were the Nebby and Wisconsin games.
Good D travels and works against any type of style.
 



Improvement happens slowly af first and then suddenly it comes together - the bread crumbs were the Nebby and Wisconsin games.
Good D travels and works against any type of style.
The difference was we controlled tempo. We dictated who was in control. Wisconsin forced us to play their game, maybe helped the players realize with the close score that’s how we can be effective.
We were in charge! It was fun!

And totally agree, the intensity, effectiveness of our defense was the biggest factor.
 
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Ben censored himself for TV. Holtmann's just a choir boy.
There were definitely a few pauses that I assumed we're cuss words. Ben really coached his ass off last night. Holtmann team has an effort issue last night, drawing plays up isn't going to fix that. Buckeyes clearly overlooked the Gophs and we may them pay
 

What a great game. Look at these strong stats for the Gophers! Really good effort and prime time coaching by Ben Johnson.

I think Carrington and Henley will start catching on better later in the season. Even Payne too needs some time and still got 10 points, 3 rebounds, and some fine "presence" on the floor.

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Transfers led the team to a great win! Nice to see them start to gel.
 

9 TO's was huge! Took care of the ball!
allowed only 5 assists from Ohio state all game?
Ohio States two leading scorers had to take as many shots as they had points! 18 & 13! great job defending them.
Garcia continues to be our best player and he put on a clinic for a stretch of time in the first half
Cooper just all around good game! points, boards, assists, blocks. not a bad stat line to look at
we gave up 14 O boards but still won.
the freshman overall seemed to have their worst game of the year as a whole.
54 total minutes from the freshman. 9 fouls from them. Payne had 10 points but also had 5 TO's.
 





They FOR SURE made that up, completely. They can't call a foul on a review, so they essentially called a foul by substituting an improper out-of-bounds call. That's the kind of thing that would get protested if it were a baseball game, and the protest would be upheld. It was an intentional and willful circumvention of the rules.
It took me a minute of WTF to figure out this was exactly what they did. He never touched it, but it should have been a foul, so they just circumvented the rules to make it equitable. I believe they scored on that possession, so I guess that evens it out for the call at the end of the game.
 


I only caught a little bit of the game last night. But what I did see was a passionate Ben Johnson fighting for his team. I think I've seen a couple posts complaining he wasn't showing passion?

Already got a monkey off their back, go get some more wins guys! Nice work!
 

I only caught a little bit of the game last night. But what I did see was a passionate Ben Johnson fighting for his team. I think I've seen a couple posts complaining he wasn't showing passion?

Already got a monkey off their back, go get some more wins guys! Nice work!

The people hating on Ben Johnson couldn't build a card house....let alone a basketball program. Most have just been throwing shit against a wall while focusing on the negatives.
 

The people hating on Ben Johnson couldn't build a card house....let alone a basketball program. Most have just been throwing shit against a wall while focusing on the negatives.
This board itself is a house of cards. One win does not make a program. There are a few people on the extreme ends of the positivity/negativity spectrum, and those of us in the middle are caught arguing with them based on whichever way we lean. We should celebrate the win and not make it about which poster’s perspective is currently correct.
 

It would be great if you could turn the coaches off and on. The whole game is just too much.
when both coaches were talking it was hard to hear either one. It was interesting to see how quick Holtmann took the mic off postgame vs Ben. Which was probably talked about pre-game. Would have been interesting to listen to THE Ohio State postgame locker room.

I liked it a whole lot better than play by play and analysts that do no homework on the teams and just trot out the cliches they read in the pre-game notes

side note- the article on the front page of GopherHole says"Gophers knock of Ohio State"- not OFF Ohio State. Is that sloppy or a subtle dig at THE Ohio State/Of Ohio State?
 

Nice Win!
Good defense
Great game Garcia!
Way to take care of the ball
Loved the hustle to go after every loose ball
Good to see Ben's passion for coaching up close and personal
We have the talent to win this year.
This game makes me even more hopeful that Ben can be our guy long term.

Free Throws? What is our record if we are shooting at a 75% pace instead of 59%??
 

I only caught a little bit of the game last night. But what I did see was a passionate Ben Johnson fighting for his team. I think I've seen a couple posts complaining he wasn't showing passion?

Already got a monkey off their back, go get some more wins guys! Nice work!
To me its not passion, I would say he is clearly passionate, he wants to win and tries. I would say its more being stern/mean for lack of a better word. For example, in the Neb game JB was taking some TERRIBLE shots and the refs seemed to be on the Neb payroll. At that point I would have liked to see him get in Battle's face, hey you want to be the leader of this team you need to be better! Or the refs, I've said I dont want the Fran freak out every 15 seconds but I felt like he needed to spend a TO just letting the refs know we were getting the shaft. I did not get to listen to the coaches audio much but there was on play early Cooper just totally went to sleep, his guy went by him for a wide open layup. Ben was like hey you cant do that in the calmest voice ever, again there it would have been to call over the guy playing 40min and say THIS CANT HAPPEN! I would agree it doesnt work to just be PO'd the whole game but there are times is needed IMO.
 

Fair enough. He needs to know how his guys respond to different kinds of coaching.

Some guys will shut down if you yell and challenge them, while other guys will fire up and respond to that. Some guys you need to be patient and encouraging, while other guys you need to challenge them, like you said.
 

I see a team that is continuing to improve and learning how to play together. I also saw a team committed to playing good team defense and diving for loose balls. That was a blast seeing and hearing the coaches during breaks. Regardless of what some posters want to say, I thought Johnson was coaching his ass off.

My biggest complaint - for the love of all that is sacred, every player must shoot 100 free throws minimum per day for the rest of the season. If any player doesn't get at least 70%, shoot another 100. It is maddening that they shoot so poorly as a team.
Shooting a thousand free throws a day with bad form won't help.
 

I thought Jamison played within himself and didn't press as much as he had in previous games.

Yes, this was his best game of the season. For the most part, he didn't take bad shots. He also didn't limit himself to 3s. He was only 1 of 6 on 3s but 4 of 6 on 2s. Finally, he played pretty hard on the defensive end.
 

when both coaches were talking it was hard to hear either one. It was interesting to see how quick Holtmann took the mic off postgame vs Ben. Which was probably talked about pre-game. Would have been interesting to listen to THE Ohio State postgame locker room.

I liked it a whole lot better than play by play and analysts that do no homework on the teams and just trot out the cliches they read in the pre-game notes

side note- the article on the front page of GopherHole says"Gophers knock of Ohio State"- not OFF Ohio State. Is that sloppy or a subtle dig at THE Ohio State/Of Ohio State?
Great gig for announcers!

It was fun and informative and Holtzman started getting bleeped at the end of the game.

Ben came across as encouraging, enthusiastic and on control of his ship
 

And apparently I’m in the minority because I enjoyed the broadcast. Something different and cool to hear the coaches.
I think it gave fans a chance to see exactly how engaged coaches are during a game, and exactly what they are paying attention to during the action. Even if they don't go Tom Izzo-crazy or get real demonstrative, they are constantly talking, teaching, coaching and yes, making the refs aware that they are paying attention. Some do it more calmly than others (Ben) but it doesn't mean they aren't 100% locked in and just as intense as the screamers.

As a guy who is lucky enough to regularly get a chance to sit fairly close to team benches, and watch coaches in practice, I'm pretty convinced that what we watched and heard from Ben in the broadcast last night, was pretty much the way he always is on the sideline.

As I mentioned before, the main thing I've been looking for with this team is consistent energy and effort on defense, along with generally positive body language. Over the past 3 games, that area of the Gophers game has been much, much better. Looks like most everybody is starting to realize what "playing hard" actually feels like. Just my opinion, but Garcia seems to be the most obvious example of that. Pretty certain that there will still be some dips and valley's, but the trend is up and that's great to see. Believe it or not, a lot of coaches point to that as one of the hardest things to coach and get their players to understand.

If that effort has now become a habit, now we can start to concentrate one some of the other concerns regarding getting some of the freshmen to improve their games and get more consistent. Still along ways to go, but the club is much better now than they were a month ago.
 

I only caught a little bit of the game last night. But what I did see was a passionate Ben Johnson fighting for his team. I think I've seen a couple posts complaining he wasn't showing passion?

Already got a monkey off their back, go get some more wins guys! Nice work!
Some folks are convinced that if a coach isn't yelling, screaming and jumping around, he doesn't care. Some people are quiet leaders, and that approach can also be effective.
 

I’m pretty much convinced 90, 95% of Ben’s work is accomplished in practice. His behavior during a game is what we see, so dummies like me tend to think he might need to change this or that to win a game.
 

A couple of things I noticed toward the end:

OSU spaced on setting up the 2-2-1 press late in the game, even after Holtmann mentioned it about 20 times in the TO.

The Gophers did a great job on that last play using JB as a decoy, giving Cooper a free lane to the basket.

The refs screwed us again with 1.7 seconds, not allowing a sub for Payne. Fortunately, the Gophers knew they would try to foul him before the inbound and had him stand at 1/2 court.
 




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