How many years in a row is this going to happen? This goes back to the Monson years that the Gophers lose a seemingly statistically impossible number of 2 possession/OT games especially in conference play. I mean how many shots like Koenig's have Badger fans seen go in over the last decade? The blocked shot that bounded out to Showalter or whoever in OT for a 3 was especially cruel. I thought Coffey was going to go to the line at the end of regulation as he was in front of the defender with nobody back. I thought Coffey got fouled on his drive in OT with the Gophers down 1. My biggest takeaway from this game though is the fact that these opportunities to gather momentum and establish your program won't keep coming along. The Gophers didn't outplay Wisconsin today, but shot above expectation from three and had a chance to both put some distance between themselves and the bubble and encourage a sell out crowd to keep coming back. Instead the game ended in the particularly painful way that so many games have ended post Clem.
I was really, really upset with the coaching in this game. At what point do you start sending a double to Happ/Hayes when they are constantly backing down and getting easy buckets? Make SOMETHING else beat you. There was a stretch of 4 possessions in the second half where Happ scored out of the same set on the post 3 times including a hoop and harm. We'd had issues with Happ on the post in the first half, yet no real adjustment was made. Late in regulation, the Gophers had 3 straight possessions where they turned the ball over without getting a shot up and that reflects really poorly on the coaching as well.
As for individual players, we need more from Nate Mason and Jordan Murphy. Murphy in particular was absolutely horrific on both ends of the floor today. He got abused on defense by Hayes and Brown, took another of his terrible 3 point attempts, had another one of his patented post turnovers and was a net negative pretty much everywhere. Nate's shot is just broken right now, I really didn't understand the decision to not run a top of the key iso for Nate at the end of the first half....settling for a mid range contested jumper there was ridiculously conservative.
