***OFFICIAL MINNESOTA AT VIRGINIA TECH BIG TEN/ACC CHALLENGE IN-GAME THREAD!!!***

Stan

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Hard to know what team we'll see tonight after the disappointing effort from the UNLV game. We need more Payne, we need more consistent effort from the entire team and we need to find an offensive rhythm.

This is the start of a tough 4 game stretch, at Va Tech, home against Michigan and home against Mississippi State. No one is going to feel sorry for us, no one is going to allow us to "feel" our way into this season. Teams like UNLV and better sense blood in the water and will pounce.

We must figure this out on the fly and get this season going.

It starts tonight on national TV.

GET 'ER DONE JOHNSON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 

Key tonight is the veterans have to lead. Pedulla a nice PG for Va Tech, I remember Pitino recruited him hard in the 2021 class, but he's not an explosive quick PG, like the one's that have hurt us. Hopefully Battle is more settled in and his shots are more in the flow of the offense. Team needs more out of Garcia, Battle and Cooper. I imagine will see more Payne as Va Tech will be bigger and the four guard UNLV line up was a tough match up for him. I'm guessing Henley and Thompson will still start. Thompson fine at 12-15 a night, Henley needs to be more diciplined with the ball, make smart plays, would prefer to see him at 15-20 as oppose to the 25-29 he has been playing. Maybe get the steady hand of Samuels an extra rotation or Ramburg's defense for 4-6 minutes
 

Would be fun to win tonight. But please compete. I have not been overly impressed through 1.1 years of this regime with their compete level. I dont watch every minute of every game anymore but thats my takeaway.

I dont see great hustle or effort. If you're not as talented you NEED to do those things. Figured this staff would get that and so far, they have not :(
 


Would be fun to win tonight. But please compete. I have not been overly impressed through 1.1 years of this regime with their compete level. I dont watch every minute of every game anymore but thats my takeaway.

I dont see great hustle or effort. If you're not as talented you NEED to do those things. Figured this staff would get that and so far, they have not :(
Haven't been as impressed with the compete level this year, but if anything I think that was the one thing we did right last season. Need more fight out of Garcia and Cooper
 


Haven't been as impressed with the compete level this year, but if anything I think that was the one thing we did right last season. Need more fight out of Garcia and Cooper
maybe the fight issue last year was the dearth of talent. I just expected more. I know losing rotation guys to injury was/is a problem as you only have so many guys to play. but it just isn't the hectic, attacking, helter skelter style i was expecting with Thorson being involved.
 



repeat after me: young teams are generally more inconsistent.

Now, if they are still playing this way 20 games into the season, that's a different situation.

but for right now, I'm prepared to live with the growing pains, IF the players are learning something and can use that to improve.

this is not Duke or Kentucky. MN is not running out a bunch of FR who were top-10 national recruits or McDonald's All-Americans.

the MN players have talent. they also have flaws. and other teams will try to expose and exploit those flaws.
 




please make an effort rebounding!
please shoot 70% from the free throw line!
Battle/Henley please get your shots going!
 

Not all team stats get better with experience. For example, free throw %. FT % was 70% last year and similar to Pitino's era which hovered around 70% +/- 2.
 

View attachment 22149

Some things to work on.
What is the source for this?

It looks like whatever it is isn't adjusting for tempo (or possibly strength of schedule either), which might account for some of the differences in rank that I see on t-rank. Defensive rating in particular, has MN at 147th and VT at 68th on t-rank.
 



We can be certain Bimbo Coles, Dell Curry, and Allan Bristow will not be taking the court tonight at Cassell Coliseum (cap 10,052). And they definitely won't be coached by Seth Greenberg. However, they still have enough talent to easily defeat this up and coming Gopher squad.
VT wins handily 74-59
 

What is the source for this?

It looks like whatever it is isn't adjusting for tempo (or possibly strength of schedule either), which might account for some of the differences in rank that I see on t-rank. Defensive rating in particular, has MN at 147th and VT at 68th on t-rank.
It’s from the app I use to follow scores, called The Score. I don’t know if it’s adjusted or not.
 

Would imagine our pace picks up as Battle is back more, but those early numbers are real alarming in not a good way thus far
 

Just don't turn the the ball over (14 per game right now is terrible) and make at least 75% (shooting like 50% or something horrid) of the free throws, you should have a chance to win.
Gophers are good enough in almost every other aspect of the game.
 

repeat after me: young teams are generally more inconsistent.

Now, if they are still playing this way 20 games into the season, that's a different situation.

but for right now, I'm prepared to live with the growing pains, IF the players are learning something and can use that to improve.

this is not Duke or Kentucky. MN is not running out a bunch of FR who were top-10 national recruits or McDonald's All-Americans.

the MN players have talent. they also have flaws. and other teams will try to expose and exploit those flaws.
Stop being so reasonable 🤨
 







TT is absolutely worthless.

Henley I would not play more than 10 min a game at this point. Ball stopper on offense shooting 30% is not good
 


Team seems to be getting into the easy free flowing offensive style of this game. Not a half court Big Ten game. Unfortunately, they also are playing easy free flowing defense.
 

Payne enters. Gets ball, passes out, receives back, dunks, and then gets what appears to be one of our few defensive rebounds so far.
 

Commentators that actually seem to know a bit about the team!? Dropped a BSF mention.
 





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