It was a lot of fun watching the individual efforts of Daniel Oturu (basically all game) and Marcus Carr (mostly just the 2nd half). Those guys deserved a better result and they certainly deserve a better whistle than they got from the refs today.
I don't understand how we just saw the best team performance on a full 40 minute basis on Wednesday and then turned around and looked so inept for the first 26ish minutes of this game. The first few minutes of the second half were some of the worst minutes of basketball of the season. I thought the defensive effort in the first half was mostly strong, but it went the way of the offense to start the second half. I am not sure the offense looked any better to start the comeback as it was mostly tough shot making from Carr on individual plays that cut the 20 point lead to 11. After that point, things starting looking better.
Going with the strange decisions, I certainly could have done without Michael Hurt bizarrely getting the minutes off the bench in the first half. Why would you put him in instead of Ihnen, Williams, or Omersa? What changed between Wednesday and Saturday? We also saw Greenlee come in and give up a 3 in like the 30 seconds Pitino tried to rest Carr.
It would be huge if Demir would step in and take a charge on a drive or two. Too often, he's the last line of defense and offers no deterrence at the rim. There were a couple of opportunities late where he could have stepped in front of someone and made a huge play.
Really pleased with the fight to try to come back in a game that looked way out of reach, but discouraged with what put the Gophers in that position to begin with.