***OFFICIAL MINNESOTA AT OREGON IN-GAME THREAD!!!***

[MNVCGUY]

Shinholster's dunk will go on his highlight reel. He will not speak of the two airballs he launched (making Grove look like Steph Curry).
Asuma just needs to tweak his shot in the off-season and get the ball on the fingertips instead of coming off his palm. Watching Asuma's progression under Niko has been great. Niko doesn't have any elite ball players, but they all know their roles and their expectations. I am very impressed with what Niko is doing with his "dirty seven."

Yeah....on paper it shouldn't work but night in and night out these guys compete and even without a true superstar or any depth they find a way to be in games.

The final record won't be great but there are a lot of positives to build on going forward.

 

[topos]

Every time I can't stay up for a late West Coast game, they win (dating back to last year).

Just watched the replay. It was really fun to see them peak late in the 2nd half.

Take care of business against Rutgers this weekend, and it's almost guaranteed we won't have to play on the terrible Tuesday of the BIG10 tourney.

Pretty excited to officially add Grove to the list of guys Niko needs to lock down for next year. Nice little nucleus forming!

 

[Slim Tubby]

Ended the game on a 32-14 run

Our depth and athleticism finally wore them down.

 

[BTChamp]

Per ESPN "Minnesota leads the all-time series, 8-3."

Not something I would expect.

 

[goldenboy]

I keep waiting for the game when both Cade and Bobby get hot. Seems like it’s always one or the other. Mostly Bobby lately. I wonder if Cade’s ankle is still bothering him, or if it’s all in his head now. He dhot so blistering hot earlier in the year that I never expected him to airball an open three.

 

[gophersoa]

I think the Oregon game really shows how good of a coach Niko is. It was kind of a surprise that JCJ was not going to be able to go on Saturday and the team looked confused and out of sync at times. For Oregon, Niko now knows that JCJ is probably not going to play, he had three days to work with the guys to get their assignments down and how the offense was going to run. He decides to go with the 'Steel 6' and the rest is history.
Really looking forward to when Niko has a full compliment of players to run his stuff.

 

[upnorthkid]

As a random question for someone who doesn't watch them outside of when the Gophers play them, why is Oregon so bad?

 

[Bad Gopher]

 

[MNVCGUY]

As a random question for someone who doesn't watch them outside of when the Gophers play them, why is Oregon so bad?

Don't know a ton about them but they are missing one of their top players in Jackson Shelstad who has been out since late December.

 

[SplitDecision]

A lot of it was MN effective zone defense made them look worse. Oregon was supposed to be pretty good according to the "experts", but I think the team underperformed slightly, even before the Jackson Shelstad injury. Losing starting point guard has been tough for them (NO SYMPATHY from me), as he was the floor General playing 35+min, high assist rate, and shot 3's pretty well. Worked well with Bittle, who seems a bit lost these days.
It makes me appreciate Niko's coaching even more, because the system MN has is more of a plug and play with next man up.

 

[MNVCGUY]

A lot of it was MN effective zone defense made them look worse. Oregon was supposed to be pretty good according to the "experts", but I think the team underperformed slightly, even before the Jackson Shelstad injury. Losing starting point guard has been tough for them (NO SYMPATHY from me), as he was the floor General playing 35+min, high assist rate, and shot 3's pretty well. Worked well with Bittle, who seems a bit lost these days.
It makes me appreciate Niko's coaching even more, because the system MN has is more of a plug and play with next man up.

Niko had a great plan for Bittle. We didn't have the height to battle him but as soon as he touched the ball he was surrounded. He got a few easy looks but he also looked really uncomfortable most of the game.

That combined with their entire team being ice cold from behind the arc was enough to get the well deserved W.

 

[FinnGopher]

A nitpick, but I would suggest that Minnesota's zone is more of a 2-2-1 with the lower two fanning out to the 3 point circle. I think the vulnerable points in our zone are the high/low middle and the deep corner threes. If a team can exploit that then I think Niko's zone is made ineffective. But, that 2 for 20 shooting display made the Gophers zone look like a throwback to Syracuse.

 

[Unregistered User]

Niko had a great plan for Bittle. We didn't have the height to battle him but as soon as he touched the ball he was surrounded. He got a few easy looks but he also looked really uncomfortable most of the game.

That combined with their entire team being ice cold from behind the arc was enough to get the well deserved W.

And when Bittle was blocked by Langston early in the game, that's when I decided I was probably going to watch the whole thing. It was just a clean, straight up 6' 4" guy blocking a 7 footer.

 

[Unregistered User]

I keep waiting for the game when both Cade and Bobby get hot. Seems like it’s always one or the other. Mostly Bobby lately. I wonder if Cade’s ankle is still bothering him, or if it’s all in his head now. He dhot so blistering hot earlier in the year that I never expected him to airball an open three.

When you're deemed the only scoring option, the other coach is going to try to take you away and try to make the rest of the team beat you.

Cade is facing a ton of pressure, and if you watch him off the ball, he was to work his ass off to even see a good shot.