***OFFICIAL UMKC AT MINNESOTA BEN JOHNSON DEBUT IN-GAME THREAD!!!***

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I like what I saw tonight. Better defense than the Concordia game and for a good part of the game better passing and ball movement. Daniels seems to fit better than Curry right now as Daniels is looking for the cutters rather than to make a play off the dribble. Good game for Stephens and Battle is going to be real good for the Gophers. Willis was solid.

There just isn't much overall talent on this team but I like what the staff is doing with them. It is really fun to watch Thorson on the sidelines. I am happy for Ben to get that win.
 

I like the movement and the spacing on offense. and the hard work on defense-- only a couple of major lapses that I remember. I used to think we needed at least one guy that wasn't overly athletic but was a smart basketball player that could shoot. Now it seems like we have a bunch of those guys-- less athletic but better basketball players.
easier to watch even being that deliberate. But then again, I watch alot of Badger basketball also, so I am used to deliberate play
 



Doesn't mean much as I have no idea how to compare teams like UMKC, SIU-Edwardsville, and Kennesaw State, but similar results for all 3 new coaches in the midwest. Craig Smith appeared to have the best debut of the scores I looked at but that is assuming ACU (beat Texas in the NCAA tournament last year) is a decent team.

I have two conflicting thoughts on Thompson and Thiam not playing:

1. I am a believer in making guys earn their playing time and it's much easier to do that if you start immediately and stay consistent with that. "Once you do X, Y, and Z consistently in practice you will earn your way on the court".

2. What is the point of playing just 1 guy (not counting the walk on) that will be back next season if you don't expect to contend for anything meaningful?

I think strong arguments can be made both ways.

Glad Coach Johnson won his debut...the mocking in the local media would have been in full swing immediately if that wasn't the case.
 


EG#9 said:
Doesn't mean much as I have no idea how to compare teams like UMKC, SIU-Edwardsville, and Kennesaw State, but similar results for all 3 new coaches in the midwest. Craig Smith appeared to have the best debut of the scores I looked at but that is assuming ACU (beat Texas in the NCAA tournament last year) is a decent team.

I have two conflicting thoughts on Thompson and Thiam not playing:

1. I am a believer in making guys earn their playing time and it's much easier to do that if you start immediately and stay consistent with that. "Once you do X, Y, and Z consistently in practice you will earn your way on the court".

2. What is the point of playing just 1 guy (not counting the walk on) that will be back next season if you don't expect to contend for anything meaningful?
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Well, one holdover midwestern coach didn't have the same result: Nebraska lost to Western Illinois (traditionally the weakest of the Illinois directional schools). Hoiberg was regarded as having a pretty good recruiting class, including some transfers.

Do we know exactly why these two guys didn't play? It might not be a reflection of their readiness. Could be an illness or some slight injury. I don't see the point of not playing these guys but maybe this is a first game thing rather than a recurring event.
 


PhiloVance said:
View attachment 15223Gabe stats tonight.
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The impressive thing there is the 13 free throw attempts. I don't believe he ever got close to that while playing here. Maybe the ISU coach figured out a better way to use him instead of just having him standing outside shooting threes the substantial majority of the time.
 

EG#9 said:
Doesn't mean much as I have no idea how to compare teams like UMKC, SIU-Edwardsville, and Kennesaw State, but similar results for all 3 new coaches in the midwest. Craig Smith appeared to have the best debut of the scores I looked at but that is assuming ACU (beat Texas in the NCAA tournament last year) is a decent team.

I have two conflicting thoughts on Thompson and Thiam not playing:

1. I am a believer in making guys earn their playing time and it's much easier to do that if you start immediately and stay consistent with that. "Once you do X, Y, and Z consistently in practice you will earn your way on the court".

2. What is the point of playing just 1 guy (not counting the walk on) that will be back next season if you don't expect to contend for anything meaningful?

I think strong arguments can be made both ways.

Glad Coach Johnson won his debut...the mocking in the local media would have been in full swing immediately if that wasn't the case.
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Johnson HAD TO win that first game. Losing it was not an option. The bad press resultant of a home loss to Kansas City in front of 4000 fans would have been awful and deflate any little optimism about watching our team. I would expect that he loosens the rotation a bit going forward.
 



howeda7 said:
Didn't see it, but Spence said it was a finger injury. Seems like it may be a broken finger since he never came back in. Not sure if you can play with that or not.
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From Ben - not sure if this clarifies anything but there it is

"We are in the timeout and he's grabbing his arm. I thought he hurt his shoulder. And he just kept making faces so I was like 'Dude are you ok? Are you going or staying' and it was nothing, it was like a hangnail on his finger, or he jammed his finger. Then he got mad because he didn't want to come out."
 

bga1 said:
Johnson HAD TO win that first game. Losing it was not an option. The bad press resultant of a home loss to Kansas City in front of 4000 fans would have been awful and deflate any little optimism about watching our team. I would expect that he loosens the rotation a bit going forward.
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I think you are right, he needs Thompson to get some minutes every night though, it's a long season, I don't see Thiam playing much this year, to much to learn in my book.
 

bga1 said:
Johnson HAD TO win that first game. Losing it was not an option. The bad press resultant of a home loss to Kansas City in front of 4000 fans would have been awful and deflate any little optimism about watching our team. I would expect that he loosens the rotation a bit going forward.
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Agreed. If the entire non-conference goes by without other guys getting minutes, that’s a bad sign, but for game 1, just win.
 

cjbfbp said:
The impressive thing there is the 13 free throw attempts. I don't believe he ever got close to that while playing here. Maybe the ISU coach figured out a better way to use him instead of just having him standing outside shooting threes the substantial majority of the time.
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The points total looks good, but 17% from 3 and 60% FT is pretty bad for a shooter. Those FT attempts does seem to indicate he's getting to the basket however vs floating outside like you said.
 



jovs said:
I think you are right, he needs Thompson to get some minutes every night though, it's a long season, I don't see Thiam playing much this year, to much to learn in my book.
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I'd find ways to play both of them.

I'm cool with them not playing in close winnable games. Winning still matters and our players are working hard and deserve the coach to put them in the best position to win. Ben did that tonight.

That said, I really hope we see extended runs in games (to the extent they happen) that aren't as close. I'm not strictly talking about garbage time, because I don't if that develops players as much.
 

cjbfbp said:
Well, one holdover midwestern coach didn't have the same result: Nebraska lost to Western Illinois (traditionally the weakest of the Illinois directional schools). Hoiberg was regarded as having a pretty good recruiting class, including some transfers.

Do we know exactly why these two guys didn't play? It might not be a reflection of their readiness. Could be an illness or some slight injury. I don't see the point of not playing these guys but maybe this is a first game thing rather than a recurring event.
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the how they lost also quite epic. up 3 heading to the FT line with 34 seconds left, hit 1/2, give up a 3 to cut to win, fouled, hit 1/2 again and then give up another 3 to be down 1. finish it off with missing the final shot. brutal way to start the season for them
 

Marooned said:
The points total looks good, but 17% from 3 and 60% FT is pretty bad for a shooter. Those FT attempts does seem to indicate he's getting to the basket however vs floating outside like you said.
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Gabe played and his shooting hasn't improved....

Let's move these Gopher Transfer player discussions over to the Gopher Transfer thread... No need to contaminate the Gopher game thread with these "has-been" discussion.
 

fan of Ray Williams said:
Will be interesting how KC does in their next game which is against Iowa.
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Listened to KC coach on pregame radio interview. They had 4 guys out and 2 play starter type minutes. They feel at full strength that they can compete with anyone in the Summit League. He believes South Dakota State is an at-large berth, good team. Said that Summit has led the NCAA in 3pt. shooting for 6 straight years. Summit League tournament is 3rd in attendance. Big Ten is first. He was a good interview.
 

Here's my impressions on the new guys:

I really liked Stephens last night. He may be the best SG/SF we've had this era after Coffey and Austin Hollins, which isn't saying a whole lot because we've really struggled to recruit that position, but it did seem like at times that Stephens was the best player on the court.

Willis kind of reminds of Andre Hollins after his ankle injury. Kind of slow, methodical, but he has a good shot even when contested. Hollins was still a productive player, albeit a shadow of his former self, his last year here despite the injury. Think Willis can give us that level of production this year.

Battle is good. Pitino's failure to recruit him is a massive failure. We may have made the tournament if he was a Gopher last season.

Daniels looked better than Curry. The fact he got hurt is brutal luck. We've had two big men go down already this season. Hopefully Daniels is not out long because he will make or break our season. If Daniels could offer consistent minutes at the 5 for us, I don't see why we can't be in a lot of games this year.

Loewe... He was hit and miss for me. Thought he was too aggressive at times.

Sutherlin.. I don't know what his problem was, but he seemed to be playing a different game than the rest of our squad. Maybe he didn't like not getting the start? A lot of iso from him. For a senior, was hoping to see a little more. He did make his free throws, so i'll give him that.
 



Bob_Loblaw said:
I'd find ways to play both of them.

I'm cool with them not playing in close winnable games. Winning still matters and our players are working hard and deserve the coach to put them in the best position to win. Ben did that tonight.

That said, I really hope we see extended runs in games (to the extent they happen) that aren't as close. I'm not strictly talking about garbage time, because I don't if that develops players as much.
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In regards to TT/Thiam, I was initially pretty annoyed/upset/frustrated whatever the word is, that they got 0 minutes. But after I thought about it, I think that is residual from Pitino. There was a pretty clear pattern with him, if you came here and didnt play at all game 1, that essentially meant you were done here as a player. RP did an AWFUL job at developing players and if you didnt start day 1 it was basically that you werent good enough and he couldnt develop you. So many examples Mitchell, Diedhou, Hurt, Greenlee, etc. So after 8 years I immediately went to "well TT/Thiam are now either a waste of 4 years of a scholarship or they will transfer but they wont contribute here" That is unfair to Ben and the new staff. Could it be that way, sure, but who knows, maybe they bring them along and one/both of those two guys do the 1.1ppg fr year 4.5 soph 13.5 jr 16 sr type thing. TRYING TO BE POSITIVE HERE! =) Glad they got the win last night, good to not have that hang over the team early in the year.
 

Good look last night. Thats a good start to learned season.
Also is it me or could Sutherlin be Coffey's doppelganger?
 

gophers got the win. Nebraska did not. OSU almost didn't.

zips went up by one with 6 seconds left. OSU scored the winning bucket with 0.2 on the clck
 

great 1st win

but saying that we gotta get some more guys minutes....they were dog tired in the 2nd half
 

I was pleasantly surprised by the game. Thought they played a much more fundamentally sound game than anything under Pitino. Granted, I have virtually zero expectations for this team, so even showing a pulse at this point will be a positive.

Mirroring what others have said, but good grief, why couldn't have Battle been on this team earlier? He should have been a Gopher from day 1.

Attendance was abysmal. Like embarrassingly bad. Completely justified based on the assumed level of talent on this team and predicted finish.

Watched on B1G+ and can we have this setup every game? Video feed that was pretty good and having the Grimmer/Spencer radio feed as the audio was awesome.
 


Mountaineer Gopher said:
I broke/dislocated most of my fingers playing. Back in the day you just taped the injured finger to the finger next to it and kept on playing. Right, old people?
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or just remove the finger ala ronnie lott.

Maybe these guys can coach? Charlie Daniels was a fouling machine prior to this year. I think he fouled out after about 8 minutes at SFA.
 

Mountaineer Gopher said:
I broke/dislocated most of my fingers playing. Back in the day you just taped the injured finger to the finger next to it and kept on playing. Right, old people?
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Right! Um ... wonder if that's why I have a finger that if I use it to point at anything, I'm basically pointing it at my nuts because that's as as far as I can straighten it.
 


bga1 said:
I like what I saw tonight. Better defense than the Concordia game and for a good part of the game better passing and ball movement. Daniels seems to fit better than Curry right now as Daniels is looking for the cutters rather than to make a play off the dribble. Good game for Stephens and Battle is going to be real good for the Gophers. Willis was solid.

There just isn't much overall talent on this team but I like what the staff is doing with them. It is really fun to watch Thorson on the sidelines. I am happy for Ben to get that win.
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I'll have to get back and see a few games, after suffering through Tubby's and for a good portion of Pitino's offenses the last n years it might be enjoyable again no matter what the outcome.

Team offense is part of the reason I like Curry's game, he is better than most passing from the post.
 

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