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


The good- The team is way more talented than the last two years. They look like a Big 10 team. I give CBJ kudos for that.

The bad- the last 10 minutes were as bad of a coaching job as I’ve ever seen. The rotation made so little sense, I figured I missed some injuries or something. He has a crippling problem of not playing guys to their strengths. He also looked like a deer in headlights.

I feel really bad for the players tonight. They deserved to win. They are the more talented team.
GREAT POST. Exactly right
 

The good- The team is way more talented than the last two years. They look like a Big 10 team. I give CBJ kudos for that.

The bad- the last 10 minutes were as bad of a coaching job as I’ve ever seen. The rotation made so little sense, I figured I missed some injuries or something. He has a crippling problem of not playing guys to their strengths. He also looked like a deer in headlights.

I feel really bad for the players tonight. They deserved to win. They are the more talented team.

At least since Fleck and Rossi's Northwestern fumble.
 

Such a gut punch. You want to think CBJ has things going on the right direction and then it goes worse than you could ever expect. At this point I don't know how anyone expects to be anything but bottom 4 in the conference and totally irrelevant again.
 

Such a gut punch. You want to think CBJ has things going on the right direction and then it goes worse than you could ever expect. At this point I don't know how anyone expects to be anything but bottom 4 in the conference and totally irrelevant again.
If the team from the 1st 30 minutes shows up they shouldn't be. The B1G sucks
 


So many things to say about this game. I guess I'll start with the last 3 possessions. We're up 1 with less than a minute left and in the double bonus. Why the F is Johnson telling Christie to hold the ball and dribble in to a shot clock draining 3? We have the ball right by our bench in this situation and we run nothing. The goal there has to be a layup or free throws and we don't even dribble the ball inside the 3 point point line. Then on the Missouri 3 point play...how does Carrington get crossed up so bad by the left handed East going with a right to left cross over back to his strong hand? Then the 6'1 Mitchell leaves his feet and gives up what was like our 3rd or 4th and 1 opportunity in the last 8 minutes? Just terrible defensive fundamentals. Finally on the last possession there was a time where both Ihnen and Garcia were both in the paint with only one defender in there. It seems like we were always going with a Christie jumper there but there was certainly an opportunity to get pass to either Ihnen or Garcia and have a deep post chance.

-Not sure we had any quality buckets after getting up 58-38. If I remember correctly two of our scores after that point were the wild pass from Hawkins that kind of bounced around and Payne corralled and scored over 2 guys and the Garcia running push shot that was contested. I noticed even in the first half that our half court offense was not good. We had success when we got stops/turnovers and were able to score before the Missouri defense was set.

- Like 4 times this game, Missouri players drove to the basket, stopped at the rim and powered up a layup against 1 guy. Just terrible defense. The individual defender is not playing with their chest/lower body to prevent that and their is zero help to contest. Not the same, but a similar issue to the Wisconsin game last year.

- Two WTF moments from this game. When we were still up like 15, Mike Mitchell had a possession where he was the only guy to touch the ball past half court. He dribbled from one side of the court to the other and took a contested turnaround...airball. How he wasn't pulled from the game for that, I have no idea. Then late in the game, Carrington brought the ball up and...turned his ankle? He appeared to just fall down with no contact. Bizarre play.

I am concerned about how the ball handling on this team, it appears very shaky as even Hawkins was uncomfortable against pressure in the half court. When he was out of the game, it seemed like someone was just picked at random between Mitchell, Christie, and Carrington to bring the ball up.

Carrington is my early season positive surprise. He's so much stronger and the box score credited him with 13 rebounds. He's going to need to show more skill on the offensive end though.

Nice to see Ihnen get to the basket twice in addition to just shooting the 3. He's looked better than I expected him to.

I remember being upset when Pitino blew a 15 point halftime lead to MSU. Losing a 20 point lead with like 11 minutes left seems nearly impossible. Have to let a team score on pace for nearly 80 (Missouri was nowhere close to that with 38 points thourgh 28 and change) and essentially not score at all yourself...and that's exactly what happened.
 

So many things to say about this game. I guess I'll start with the last 3 possessions. We're up 1 with less than a minute left and in the double bonus. Why the F is Johnson telling Christie to hold the ball and dribble in to a shot clock draining 3? We have the ball right by our bench in this situation and we run nothing. The goal there has to be a layup or free throws and we don't even dribble the ball inside the 3 point point line. Then on the Missouri 3 point play...how does Carrington get crossed up so bad by the left handed East going with a right to left cross over back to his strong hand? Then the 6'1 Mitchell leaves his feet and gives up what was like our 3rd or 4th and 1 opportunity in the last 8 minutes? Just terrible defensive fundamentals. Finally on the last possession there was a time where both Ihnen and Garcia were both in the paint with only one defender in there. It seems like we were always going with a Christie jumper there but there was certainly an opportunity to get pass to either Ihnen or Garcia and have a deep post chance.

-Not sure we had any quality buckets after getting up 58-38. If I remember correctly two of our scores after that point were the wild pass from Hawkins that kind of bounced around and Payne corralled and scored over 2 guys and the Garcia running push shot that was contested. I noticed even in the first half that our half court offense was not good. We had success when we got stops/turnovers and were able to score before the Missouri defense was set.

- Like 4 times this game, Missouri players drove to the basket, stopped at the rim and powered up a layup against 1 guy. Just terrible defense. The individual defender is not playing with their chest/lower body to prevent that and their is zero help to contest. Not the same, but a similar issue to the Wisconsin game last year.

- Two WTF moments from this game. When we were still up like 15, Mike Mitchell had a possession where he was the only guy to touch the ball past half court. He dribbled from one side of the court to the other and took a contested turnaround...airball. How he wasn't pulled from the game for that, I have no idea. Then late in the game, Carrington brought the ball up and...turned his ankle? He appeared to just fall down with no contact. Bizarre play.

I am concerned about how the ball handling on this team, it appears very shaky as even Hawkins was uncomfortable against pressure in the half court. When he was out of the game, it seemed like someone was just picked at random between Mitchell, Christie, and Carrington to bring the ball up.

Carrington is my early season positive surprise. He's so much stronger and the box score credited him with 13 rebounds. He's going to need to show more skill on the offensive end though.

Nice to see Ihnen get to the basket twice in addition to just shooting the 3. He's looked better than I expected him to.

I remember being upset when Pitino blew a 15 point halftime lead to MSU. Losing a 20 point lead with like 11 minutes left seems nearly impossible. Have to let a team score on pace for nearly 80 (Missouri was nowhere close to that with 38 points thourgh 28 and change) and essentially not score at all yourself...and that's exactly what happened.
Is their a Cliff Notes Version?
 

One if the many problems with games like this, where you blow a lead that should have been collapse proof, is you put fans in a position where they are looking over their shoulder. If the coach is capable of blowing a 19 point lead that late, what kind of lead to we need to not have the fans reasonably thinking "we could still choke this one away."
 




My conversations with people connected to high level d 1 basketball suggest that it is not at all unusual for players to completely panic and forget or not do exactly what the coaches told them to do. I suppose it could have been drawn for Christie, but I highly doubt it.
I'm guessing they were definitely in panic mode, how any times did both Hawkins and Mitchel drive the lane only to dribble it back out without any one to pass it to in the last 10 minutes. No ball movement and everyone just standing there.

Wherever the fault lies it's time for Garcia to step up and demand the ball when the game is on the line.
 

That loss is 100% on Johnson...imagine if we hired guys that actually could coach.
Why would we do that? Wh had a guy that knew a guy from D1 and could probably recruit local kids. Plus, he played here.
 


BRUTAL!!!! JUST BRUTAL!!! Hawkins needs to be in the game to dribble penetrate. Bad coaching. He stands with his arms crossed emotionless the whole game. Give Thorson the reigns!! I know that he can coach.
 



It's one game guys...... we are 2 and 1

deep breath

in with the good air, out with the bad.

it was very disappointing, but this team played really well for 30 minutes. took the foot off the gas and paid for it. live and learn. moving on
they put it in fricken park. had a chance to make the entire fan base feel a lot better about this team and they let it run down their leg

you are right its just one game, but any game where you blow a 20 point 2nd half lead is a very bad game
 

Subtle note, but because we didn’t have a play drawn up, I’ll call the last timeout usage into question.

In real time, I found it curious that we didn’t even attempt to inbound the ball before calling the time out. The timeout came immediately before we saw if Missouri was going to press us after the make. If they backed off, we could have had the ball over half court with 7 seconds and called the timeout. Ultimately I was worried that the timeout would have allowed Gates to set up pressure to burn the rest of the clock. Didn’t work out that way, and maybe it’s disadvantageous to have to inbound from the sideline in that situation… but we didn’t do anything with the timeout anyways, so what was the plan?
 

they put it in fricken park. had a chance to make the entire fan base feel a lot better about this team and they let it run down their leg

you are right its just one game, but any game where you blow a 20 point 2nd half lead is a very bad game
YUP.....there is no avoiding it....this one hurts a bit
 

I was watching last night and looked over at my wife and said 'Boy, these last few years have been tough. They sure do deserve some good things to happen.' I think we were still up by 14-15 at that point. A win was surely in the bag. Lol. And people got mad at me for saying yesterday that we can't keep Minnesota kids here because we're bad at basketball.
 
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Note to Ben: On behalf of the players and fans please do not put the team into "run the clock out" mode unless we are up by 50 with under a minute to go. That was the most botched 10 minutes of basketball coaching that I have seen here at MN (That is saying alot).
Up 20 with 3-4 minutes left makes sense. Not with over 10 minutes.

This was Gophers- NW football game all over again.
 


Similar to our local pro teams' long dry spell without even reaching the championship round, an occurrence like this just isn't natural. It's almost statistically impossible. It takes ineptitude that's three standard deviations off the mean. This isn't just stubbing your toe. This is stepping on your dick, stepping on a rake, and then stepping on your dick again. Johnson seemed clueless how it happened and how it could have been avoided. He's a disaster.
 


Similar to our local pro teams' long dry spell without even reaching the championship round, an occurrence like this just isn't natural. It's almost statistically impossible. It takes ineptitude that's three standard deviations off the mean. This isn't just stubbing your toe. This is stepping on your dick, stepping on a rake, and then stepping on your dick again. Johnson seemed clueless how it happened and how it could have been avoided. He's a disaster.
Being able to step on your dick seems like a problem in itself.
 


Similar to our local pro teams' long dry spell without even reaching the championship round, an occurrence like this just isn't natural. It's almost statistically impossible. It takes ineptitude that's three standard deviations off the mean. This isn't just stubbing your toe. This is stepping on your dick, stepping on a rake, and then stepping on your dick again. Johnson seemed clueless how it happened and how it could have been avoided. He's a disaster.
I needed this post 🤣🤣. It's just such an unreal sports run for this state. I agree with you the odds are improbable. We don't stumble into 1 run or title in 30+ years?? And we lose random games like this all of the time
 


Up 20 with 3-4 minutes left makes sense. Not with over 10 minutes.

This was Gophers- NW football game all over again.
Yeah, improbable finishes this fall. NW, Illinois, Missouri. Next morning and still can’t believe it.
I literally had to meditate a few times to try and clear my mind from automatically snapping to this game.
 

It's one game guys...... we are 2 and 1

deep breath

in with the good air, out with the bad.

it was very disappointing, but this team played really well for 30 minutes. took the foot off the gas and paid for it. live and learn. moving on
There's nothing to move on to. Instead of a tournament in Vegas next week, we have 2.5 weeks of cupcakes that will tell us exactly nothing.
 

Does anyone know why Fox didn’t play in the second half? Maybe I missed something… Please explain. We could have used his energy on the court. That and why Jack didn’t play?
 







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