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

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MNVCGUY said:
If this team ever figures out how to play the way they do in the second half for the full game....man that would be fun to watch. These slow shooting starts are so frustrating, and Garcia seems to be a non factor for most of the first half before kicking it into gear in the second half.

There is a lot to like about this current Gopher squad but they have to find a way to play better in the first half and not dig such a deep hole every single game.
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This is in a Gopher's nature.....

Switching back to serious mode, I see a lot of comments about a poor coaching job at the end. I disagree. This was a coin-flip and one team executed better than the other. It could have easily gone the other way. Execution is also the culprit in the FT shooting, not coaching.

Where coaching does matter is in the schemes. When the 3s are falling, everyone's happy, but the truth is that that covered up some rather poor offensive possessions. On the D side, this was actually a great game compared to UW's normal efficiency. Keeping them off the FT line was the best thing they accomplished.
 



bga1 said:
If something else is in the game plan - they aren't doing it. Payne was not on the low blocks at all last night. Meanwhile a lesser athlete than Payne, Wahl, is getting passes 4 feet from the basket isolated against Payne or Garcia one on one. Crazy.
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He was there on the low block but probably could count them on one hand. The one time when Hawkins was moving laterally across the top of the lane he stepped out higher(I’m assuming an il advised clear out) and Hawkins inexplicably passed him the ball knowing full well Payne isn’t capable from there. A good pg wouldn’t have done that. A good pg wouldn’t pass the ball to a player that will immediately be triple teamed and stripped.

True Hawkins wasn’t the worst of our worries last night but these types of plays are easily correctable mistakes he shouldn’t be making at this point in his career and all three led to points on the other end.
 








MUgopher32 said:
Guys, Ben cant do the most important part of his job...which is to actually coach.

I said it when we called TO vs Sparty and Mitchell shot a 3 from dinky town. Ill say it after this one.

Brutal
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The most important part of any coach's job is recruiting talent comparable to his opponents. In basketball talent is expressed in shooters/scorers.

We had the same coach in the second half when we started out 6-6 from three as in the first half when we were 2-14. Shooting 5-13 from the line did not happen because Ben didn't call a good play.
 



This loss was 100% on the players, not CBJ. The strategy of defending the low post without help or doubles was playing to the strengths of Garcia and Payne, as Wisc has shredded teams that double down. The plan nearly worked, but Hawkins turnover, crucial bad decisions, Mitchell dribbling out of bounds, multiple missed FTs were all player failures. If you had told me that MN would be in a one possession game under a minute to play vs Wisc I would have taken it in a minute. If you had told me we would hold Wisc to 61 points I would have taken it. Players blew it, even the set plays were hosed out of time outs. Was impressive how MN battled and got an efficient Wisc team into a rock fight. Lots to clean up on our side, but it can be done.
 

Bad Gopher said:
I told my wife that Wisconsin was smart enough to make this a free throw shooting contest and, for that reason, I'd take Payne out of the game late, at least on offense. Ironically, it was our good free throw shooters who failed us.
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Payne had 60% of our made FTs. His form is good. He just doesn't believe it will go in.
 

bga1 said:
The refs were horrid. Wisconsin constantly was playing physical with us and the same thingon the other end we would get called for. Tyler Wahl banged into Payne down on the blocks 3 straight times on one possession and they refused to call a charge on him, then he wheels and scores.

But poor coaching and free throw shooting lost the game for us. Ben never posts Payne up deep and we simply do not reverse the ball on offense to move the defense. We are just super easy to defend. We go 7-10 in the second half from 3 point range but that's fools gold. Good effort by the players though.
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If Payne sets up deep he has to catch the pass in some traffic. He can't. Therefore, feed the post 12 feet out. He can catch that one.
 

Dakota2 said:
The most important part of any coach's job is recruiting talent comparable to his opponents. In basketball talent is expressed in shooters/scorers.

We had the same coach in the second half when we started out 6-6 from three as in the first half when we were 2-14. Shooting 5-13 from the line did not happen because Ben didn't call a good play.
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Well, lets thank god you will not be involved in the hiring process.
 

CentralGopher said:
Hawkins really pisses me off sometimes. Lazy pass over players that gets picked off for an easy bucket, dribbles into the lane and passes it to Payne who stepped out even further from the bucket than he is when he could have kept dribbling or found someone else, and passes to Payne when he isn’t set up on the low block and is instantly surrounded by three players and stripped repeatedly. At this point a player should know better than that. This is on the coach as well to not know how to set up an offense so Payne isn’t always put in such a terrible position but those types of passes are just plain stupid.
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So the answer is a point guard who knows better than to pass it to his center because he will fumble it or get strippped?
 

SplitDecision said:
This loss was 100% on the players, not CBJ. The strategy of defending the low post without help or doubles was playing to the strengths of Garcia and Payne, as Wisc has shredded teams that double down. The plan nearly worked, but Hawkins turnover, crucial bad decisions, Mitchell dribbling out of bounds, multiple missed FTs were all player failures. If you had told me that MN would be in a one possession game under a minute to play vs Wisc I would have taken it in a minute. If you had told me we would hold Wisc to 61 points I would have taken it. Players blew it, even the set plays were hosed out of time outs. Was impressive how MN battled and got an efficient Wisc team into a rock fight. Lots to clean up on our side, but it can be done.
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I'm not going to rag too much on Ben for this game but the calls out of the TOs were awful.

I also do have a major issue with how he used Ihnen and JOJ in the first half. They were playing SF when we dug our massive hole in the first half and they didn't play a minute at the SF in the 2nd half.

This is an easy fix. They aren't wings. Stop playing them there, it absolutely kills us.
 

Dakota2 said:
So the answer is a point guard who knows better than to pass it to his center because he will fumble it or get strippped?
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I’m not saying he can’t learn from it but Payne has never shown any ability outside of 5 feet from the hoop other than to set a screen.
 


Dakota2 said:
Right. You can handle that, just as in the past. Keep up the good work.
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Ummm, obviously I havent handled it. Hence why I think the current coach cant, well...you know...coach.

The good work is you stating that coaching is simply recruiting players and then hoping they make shots. There is a lot of insanity on this board, you just leap frogged to the top.
 

CentralGopher said:
He was there on the low block but probably could count them on one hand. The one time when Hawkins was moving laterally across the top of the lane he stepped out higher(I’m assuming an il advised clear out) and Hawkins inexplicably passed him the ball knowing full well Payne isn’t capable from there. A good pg wouldn’t have done that. A good pg wouldn’t pass the ball to a player that will immediately be triple teamed and stripped.

True Hawkins wasn’t the worst of our worries last night but these types of plays are easily correctable mistakes he shouldn’t be making at this point in his career and all three led to points on the other end.
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A really good point guard would not enter the portal to join a team whose post player could not catch his pass or would get stripped if he did.
 

MUgopher32 said:
Ummm, obviously I havent handled it. Hence why I think the current coach cant, well...you know...coach.

The good work is you stating that coaching is simply recruiting players and then hoping they make shots. There is a lot of insanity on this board, you just leap frogged to the top.
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I know you have Coyle's ear and probably someone on the Board of Regents as well. Your expertise in hiring coaches will continue to be valued by all.

But when you think about it -- not in the cards for you, I know -- if you recruit real shooters you don't actually need to sit around and hope they might score. You know they will. Iowa and Wisconsin prove that over and over.
 

Dakota2 said:
I know you have Coyle's ear and probably someone on the Board of Regents as well. Your expertise in hiring coaches will continue to be valued by all.

But when you think about it -- not in the cards for you, I know -- if you recruit real shooters you don't actually need to sit around and hope they might score. You know they will. Iowa and Wisconsin prove that over and over.
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So....basically youre just adding to why Ben stinks.

He cant recruit shooters and he cant draw up plays or an offense to mitigate that.

Do you have any clue how basketball works?? Haha. Teams win games all the time shooting horrendously at the line. Sometimes barely, sometimes by a lot. Then win games with inconsistent halves shooting the ball too.

That is where coaching comes in. Every post you make seems to imply that all the teams with well regarded coaches actually just shoot well and their coach stood on the sidlines as a mute.

Beard never drew anything up at Texas Tech. Painter does no coaching at Texas. Tommy Lloyd walked into Zona and was fortunate to have players who only make shots.

Im genuinely curious, I dont want to make assumptions. But you are aware that coaches can draw up offensive sets/plays/concepts more efficient looks right? Like the coach isnt required to just sit in a seat and pray Mike Mitchell nails 30 footers. You are aware of that right?
 

bga1 said:
If something else is in the game plan - they aren't doing it. Payne was not on the low blocks at all last night. Meanwhile a lesser athlete than Payne, Wahl, is getting passes 4 feet from the basket isolated against Payne or Garcia one on one. Crazy.
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The whole premise of Wisconsin’s Pack Line defense is to deny the low post entry. They sell out completely to deny that pass or collapse when it happens. You can’t just setup a guy on the block and expect him to get open, it has to start with a high ball screen.

The reason Crowl and Wahl were getting passes 4’ from the hoop is because we let them do it.
 

SplitDecision said:
This loss was 100% on the players, not CBJ. The strategy of defending the low post without help or doubles was playing to the strengths of Garcia and Payne, as Wisc has shredded teams that double down. The plan nearly worked, but Hawkins turnover, crucial bad decisions, Mitchell dribbling out of bounds, multiple missed FTs were all player failures. If you had told me that MN would be in a one possession game under a minute to play vs Wisc I would have taken it in a minute. If you had told me we would hold Wisc to 61 points I would have taken it. Players blew it, even the set plays were hosed out of time outs. Was impressive how MN battled and got an efficient Wisc team into a rock fight. Lots to clean up on our side, but it can be done.
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61 was a winnable game.

But not all on players. Rewatch the play of Mitchell dribbling out of bounds (assuming you are talking about play resuming after the under 8). The play that was drawn up was ridiculous. Mitchell runs off picks in two circles then sprints away from the hoop towards the sideline through an elevator screen. Any shot off of that play would have been off balance with a high degree of difficulty. Badgers took the ball down the court and had a wide open look from 3 like 7 seconds into the shot clock. This is why Minnesota loses games and Wisconsin wins them. Call it execution if you want, but CBJ isn’t putting his guys in positions to be successful.
 

Dakota2 said:
If Payne sets up deep he has to catch the pass in some traffic. He can't. Therefore, feed the post 12 feet out. He can catch that one.
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Totally disagree. Payne has good hands. A good post feed doesn't go through other hands it goes by being delivered at an angle where only the receiving post player can catch it. Payne catches the ball. Now if you want to toss it to him while he is moving through the lane with hands all around, yeah things are going to get messy and that is with any big- not just Payne.

Again, I'd rather Payne sets up low as possible. If they can't get him the ball, fine he has drawn one or two opposing bigs to the basket leaving the perimeter more free to move in. If you watched how either Clem or Dutch or Mussy fed the bigs the ball would move side to side and then from the 3 or 4 spot into the low post big. Payne would get 4- 5 more boards a game setting up low and just as many points off the offensive boards. Your three point looks would get better because the traffic is drawn lower.

If there are some that don't want to change it - fine, but almost every team we see had better motion and is able to feed their bigs. We can't and it sure isn't because of Payne's hands.
 

Gold Vision said:
The whole premise of Wisconsin’s Pack Line defense is to deny the low post entry. They sell out completely to deny that pass or collapse when it happens. You can’t just setup a guy on the block and expect him to get open, it has to start with a high ball screen.
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You can expect him to get put back rebounds- especially as athletic, big and strong Payne is. I personally don't think forcing Payne to make his buckets driving from the FT line area. That's not his gift right now. Garcia has that skill.
Gold Vision said:
The reason Crowl and Wahl were getting passes 4’ from the hoop is because we let them do it.
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Because they move the ball quickly to move the defense and if you collapse on them they will drill the 3.
 

To win, we needed 3 more points, or to allow 3 less points, or some combination thereof.

1 shot made or 1 shot defended vs. the leader in the B10 conference.

Beyond that it seems a little asinine to point out specific play calling or coaching strategy or "i'm tired of this" or "we should have done that". The sum of the effort was a loss by a bucket and an exciting game. Its on the players and to a greater extent Ben (and to an even greater extent Coyle & company).

That being said I still feel like there is a winning streak in them yet this year.
 

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