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

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MNVCGUY said:
Love this team. They have their flaws but they are a lot of fun to watch. Future is bright if we can keep this group together.
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As a defender of Johnson even through the fecal matter of the first two seasons, one thing that needs to be noted is that the guard play has improved SO much through this season. Hawkins has gone from 4 turnovers a game and 6 assists at Howard last year to 2.7 turnovers a game and 7.7 assists, to lead the country. Those stats were at Howard last year! That is an unbelievable change!

And Mitchell has cleaned up his game a huge amount since the beginning of the season when he was a turnover machine. And they are both working their assess off and playing good defense as well. That's plain and simply some really good coaching, that I hope people are noticing.
 

SHGopher said:
I was wrong. I thought they had little chance during this stretch. We'd see close losses yet again. During the thread "will this be a winning streak" I started to write "no" but didn't, I don't want to be a downer. My hand is slapped.
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That's all right! One game at a time. One game at a time.
 

Johnnyboy18 said:
Northwestern is going to collapse down the stretch of the season because they play 4 starters basically the entire game. Bad strategy. Starting in March I'm for it though.
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I can't really see them collapsing given their schedule being pretty favorable. Much like the rest of the league, they'll probably take care of business at home and lose on the road.

As for us, if we want to be successful, the starters need to log heavy minutes. I'm not saying play them the entire game, but each need to be at like 32+ minutes IMO. Spell PP and Garcia with Fox, Carrington plays about 6 minutes, JOJ(with the way he's been playing) like 10 minutes.
 




SHGopher said:
I was wrong. I thought they had little chance during this stretch. We'd see close losses yet again. During the thread "will this be a winning streak" I started to write "no" but didn't, I don't want to be a downer. My hand is slapped.
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You’re right now😀, that’s all that matters.
 

stocker08 said:
Yes. That worked out perfectly. The pass that Hawkins made to Christie was crazy tough....but directly on the mark.
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Yes, great pass by Hawk. Thought at first he was gonna dish it to, I think it was PP, but saw Christie at the last second. We're at our best when we're aggressive.
 

Formerswish said:
And Mitchell has cleaned up his game a huge amount since the beginning of the season when he was a turnover machine. And they are both working their assess off and playing good defense as well. That's plain and simply some really good coaching, that I hope people are noticing.
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Yeah, I don't think the defense has gotten enough credit this season (at least around here). We have heard TV people complimenting the team's defense throughout the season and Haslametrics is complimentary to the team's defense. I thought the defense was particularly good today although NW has some great three point shooters and they made us pay when we didn't get to them quickly enough.
 

Formerswish said:
As a defender of Johnson even through the fecal matter of the first two seasons, one thing that needs to be noted is that the guard play has improved SO much through this season. Hawkins has gone from 4 turnovers a game and 6 assists at Howard last year to 2.7 turnovers a game and 7.7 assists, to lead the country. Those stats were at Howard last year! That is an unbelievable change!

And Mitchell has cleaned up his game a huge amount since the beginning of the season when he was a turnover machine. And they are both working their assess off and playing good defense as well. That's plain and simply some really good coaching, that I hope people are noticing.
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Working two guards who are expected to play big minutes into the lineup takes time. Hawkins looks like a completely different player than at the beginning of the season. Not to mention that Christie was really green. He's playing with way more confidence.
 





Formerswish said:
As a defender of Johnson even through the fecal matter of the first two seasons, one thing that needs to be noted is that the guard play has improved SO much through this season. Hawkins has gone from 4 turnovers a game and 6 assists at Howard last year to 2.7 turnovers a game and 7.7 assists, to lead the country. Those stats were at Howard last year! That is an unbelievable change!

And Mitchell has cleaned up his game a huge amount since the beginning of the season when he was a turnover machine. And they are both working their assess off and playing good defense as well. That's plain and simply some really good coaching, that I hope people are noticing.
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I spent a lot of that game just watching Hawkins work like crazy just on ball denial to Boo. Really amazing effort he put into this game.
 




Johnnyboy18 said:
If they didn't choke against Missouri and Wisconsin would they be on the right side of the bubble?
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probably. that mizzou loss is absolutely devastating right now with the lack of big wins to pull us the other direction
 

Johnnyboy18 said:
If they didn't choke against Missouri and Wisconsin would they be on the right side of the bubble?
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They'd be higher up in NET anyway but I think the bigger part of what's keeping us lower than we'd like is the amount of high numbered 200s and sub 300 ranked teams on the nonconference schedule. If we could have swapped out four or five of those for teams ranked between 150 and 250 and won those, we probably would be in a more comfortable NET position. I think our NET ranking increased after the two point loss to Wisconsin.

I understand what I think Johnson was trying to do but he probably went a little overboard in scheduling rotgut teams while this team developed. He won't do that next season.
 

upnorthkid said:
probably. that mizzou loss is absolutely devastating right now with the lack of big wins to pull us the other direction
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We’re getting a Big Win on Tuesday - these guys are starting to believe they’re a good team. There’s also a lot fewer lapses on D, shows they’re applying the coaching they’re receiving.
 



Just back from one of the most fun games in the past several years. Great, great defense. Real good crowd- maybe 10k and almost all Gopher fans. NW hit a ton of threes, but we really outplayed them in almost every way. IMO, Ben saved his job today. I am happy for him and think the players love the guy. I think that puts him as a heavy favorite to get to 8+ wins and that along with the fact that they have competed with everybody, is likely enough. There are lots of signs of improvement and today they moved the ball a little better on offense in addition to playing stellar defense.
 

bga1 said:
Just back from one of the most fun games in the past several years. Great, great defense. Real good crowd- maybe 10k and almost all Gopher fans. NW hit a ton of threes, but we really outplayed them in almost every way. IMO, Ben saved his job today. I am happy for him and think the players love the guy. I think that puts him as a heavy favorite to get to 8+ wins and that along with the fact that they have competed with everybody, is likely enough. There are lots of signs of improvement and today they moved the ball a little better on offense in addition to playing stellar defense.
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Not yet, but I believe he will before the season is over. Let's at least get to a winning regular season first which only requires two more wins.
 

TwistingMyMelon said:
They'd be higher up in NET anyway but I think the bigger part of what's keeping us lower than we'd like is the amount of high numbered 200s and sub 300 ranked teams on the nonconference schedule. If we could have swapped out four or five of those for teams ranked between 150 and 250 and won those, we probably would be in a more comfortable NET position. I think our NET ranking increased after the two point loss to Wisconsin.

I understand what I think Johnson was trying to do but he probably went a little overboard in scheduling rotgut teams while this team developed. He won't do that next season.
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Definitely got to have a stronger non-con schedule next year.....as the team should be expecting to compete for the NCAA Tournament. This year though.....I have no problem with the weak non-con. We were breaking in some new pieces to the team and still had a lot of inexperience across the roster. Team is in a way better place than they were earlier in the season when they lost to Mizzou or San Francisco.
 

stocker08 said:
Definitely got to have a stronger non-con schedule next year.....as the team should be expecting to compete for the NCAA Tournament. This year though.....I have no problem with the weak non-con. We were breaking in some new pieces to the team and still had a lot of inexperience across the roster. Team is in a way better place than they were earlier in the season when they lost to Mizzou or San Francisco.
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Good points and it developed a lot of confidence for the team also.
 

Johnnyboy18 said:
If they didn't choke against Missouri and Wisconsin would they be on the right side of the bubble?
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No, Wisconsin would've been a nice Q1 win but Mizzou has had an epic collapse, they are a Q3 game. We'd be in that next 4 out.
 


bga1 said:
Just back from one of the most fun games in the past several years. Great, great defense. Real good crowd- maybe 10k and almost all Gopher fans. NW hit a ton of threes, but we really outplayed them in almost every way. IMO, Ben saved his job today. I am happy for him and think the players love the guy. I think that puts him as a heavy favorite to get to 8+ wins and that along with the fact that they have competed with everybody, is likely enough. There are lots of signs of improvement and today they moved the ball a little better on offense in addition to playing stellar defense.
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Glad you had a great time!
 

kg21 said:
The key is the games are being entertaining. They don't get blown out much. They will win some and lose some in that scenario.
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That's true. I'd say San Francisco was our biggest blowout loss (18 point margin). Second largest was by 12 points. Last season we lost four games by over twenty points and two of those by more than 30 points.
 

Johnnyboy18 said:
If they didn't choke against Missouri and Wisconsin would they be on the right side of the bubble?
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I think we'd be in the conversation. Still would only have 1 Q1 win, but no bad losses. If we were in the conversation, our OOC SOS is something that would hold us back big time. I look at a team sheet like Nevada(who's been projecting in the next 4 out category) as a team we'd still be behind based on their numbers even with those 2 wins. But if we did have those wins, we'd be a week away(beating MSU and Iowa) from most likely jumping into the field.
 


BBJones said:
JOJ spends too much time drifting around the perimeter. If he moved inside and pounded the boards, he'd contribute more and get more playing time.
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His game is off a bit but he’ll be needed down the stretch. Didn’t like the way he came in today and felt the need to launch two shots. That’s not his game.
 

MaxyJR1 said:
His game is off a bit but he’ll be needed down the stretch. Didn’t like the way he came in today and felt the need to launch two shots. That’s not his game.
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I think most of his minutes will come in the Garcia, Fox, Payne rotation. He’ll get some run but he just doesn’t handle the ball or see the game well enough to play the wing,
 

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