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

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SplitDecision said:
Yes, winning! Most kids are recruited based on offensive skills and being a selfless teammate. Offensive skills are more valued/rare, while defending is more about effort and willingness to learn. Thus, a defender can be “made” but its harder to develop offensive ability/shooting. Agree?
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I might agree in some instances, but I've seen so many kids and pro's go from very shaky shooters to very good/reliable shooters through hard work. Also seen plenty of kids who looked like great shooters, until they hit a certain level of defense being played against them. Currently watching a local kid who could barely hit 15% from 3 last season, shooting 45% this season. Another kid, 40% free throw shooter last year, closer to 75% this year. The key? For one guy, identifying a small technical flaw, then spending hours in the gym shooting free throws, concentrating on the correction. For the other, just a matter of spending his summer jacking up 700 shots a day. Wasn't LeBron James a not great shooter when he came into the league, and now is a dead-eye? It was hard work that did it for him.

Conversely, defense is generally pretty effort related. Although, don't under-estimate the need and ability for players to absorb defensive concepts that they may have never been exposed to before. The need to make those actions and reactions instinctive can be daunting. I've seen it take over a year for it to click in some very talented players.. (See M.Johnson on the womens team) I don't doubt she's really trying to pick up Coach Dawn's defensive stuff in an effort to earn playing time, but it obviously hasn't clicked in yet. And of course, Coach Dawn has locked in on a defensive identity for the team, so players have to show her they are getting it before they see much floor time.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Think it is less about convincing them to play defense and more about figuring out how to get a consistent effort out of them.

In the end, the only real way to convince guys to do things is with a legit threat of losing playing time if they don't do what is asked.
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And having sufficient NIL $ to keep them from "pout transferring" over less playing time.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Get the right coach who can bring a player or TEN with him and get some impact transfers and the opportunity is there to improve. But whoever the next coach is, he is not going to be inheriting much of anything from the current roster outside of Asuma (assuming he sticks around).
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FIFY. It’s ok to bring almost an entire roster of a solid mid-major that knows a system and are comfortable with each other. See Drake with mostly D2 players at 20-1 this season.
 


Drake University Gopher said:
FIFY. It’s ok to bring almost an entire roster of a solid mid-major that knows a system and are comfortable with each other. See Drake with mostly D2 players at 20-1 this season.
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Interesting to see if the model can be replicated at a Power 4/5 school. Missouri Valley isn’t the Big Ten.
 


Holy Man said:
Interesting to see if the model can be replicated at a Power 4/5 school. Missouri Valley isn’t the Big Ten.
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Drake has beaten Vanderbilt, Miami, K State, and FAU in addition to its schedule in the MVC (Indiana State didn’t have this kind of non-con which cost them last year). This is being done with D2 talent. I don’t think anyone can replicate this exact model because there aren’t multi-championship D2 coaches growing on trees. That being said I think it does show how important a good coach, a system, and players who can play together can be. I don’t want us to go out and find D2 talent. I do want us to go find a system that has worked and do it here.
 

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