Post-Game Thread (Michigan)

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I think majority of you are overreacting. It was a tough loss to swallow, especially because of the disappearing act the Hollins' displayed. Michigan is a still a good team with big time players, and we had a great opportunity to steal one on our home court. They made a lot more big time plays than we did. I think there are a lot of positives from this game. Dre Mathieu looks like a legit PG who can help us a lot and does not disappear in big spots. Same for Elliot. I think Mo looked decent, Malik Smith played pretty good, as did King. I think if King takes Oto's minutes, and the Hollins' play just marginally better we win. Going forward, I like the potential this team has, because I have faith that the Hollins' will come around. The team will need to be clicking on all cylinders to get tough wins like these.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
Team wins: everything is wonderful. Gopher players are great. Team loses: everything stinks. Gopher players are terrible. This board is more bi-polar than my boss's crazy wife. Reality (as I see it) - Gophers have to make 3's to win games. They actually got some inside scoring tonight from EE and Mo, but it wasn't enough to make up for (relative) lack of outside scoring. Way too many empty offensive possessions. Now- those problems are fixable, but my gut tells me this team is going to be feast or famine all season. They will lose games they probably should have won - like tonight - but they will also win some games they probably should have lost. The B1G season is going to be interesting, but we may all wind up with ulcers.
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Exactly, extremely encouraged by the play in the paint tonight, extremely disappointed they wasted that performance with sloppy play and poor shooting. I gotta think the Hollins' are due to go on a hot streak from 3. They've made too many shots in their career to count them out.

Malik Smith is an awesome 6th man, quickly becoming a favorite of mine.
 


howeda7 said:
Everyone knows free-throw shooting doesn't matter, as our resident expert has decreed.
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We score 1.4 more points if we shoot our league leading percentage tonight. We didn't lose because of FT shooting. They lost because of their shooting from the field.
 


Malik Smith should not be the 6th man. Should be starting. I am also confused why Otto is getting as many minutes as he is. Clueless on the court, think i saw him trip over his own feet two possessions in a row, horrendous shot. Guy is providing next to nothing right now. King should be getting those minutes.

Gold Vision said:
Exactly, extremely encouraged by the play in the paint tonight, extremely disappointed they wasted that performance with sloppy play and poor shooting. I gotta think the Hollins' are due to go on a hot streak from 3. They've made too many shots in their career to count them out.

Malik Smith is an awesome 6th man, quickly becoming a favorite of mine.
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GoldenUMNGopher said:
Malik Smith should not be the 6th man. Should be starting. I am also confused why Otto is getting as many minutes as he is. Clueless on the court, think i saw him trip over his own feet two possessions in a row, horrendous shot. Guy is providing next to nothing right now. King should be getting those minutes.
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Who's spot do you give to Malik?
 





MadtownGopher said:
Austin or Oto (move Austin to the 4).
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Austin is our best overall player. Hands down. I like the 4 guard lineups in spots, but not for extended stretches. Malik does great off the bench and can play major minutes in that spot.

They had the formula to win tonight. They just didn't hit shots.
 


GameDay said:
You may disagree, but I think Austin. In our offense, 3-point shooting is critical, and Austin isn't making threes.
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Your right, I completely disagree. Austin is an ok shooter in a bad slump who can play and guard the 2-4. He brings everything else to the table.
 

Wisconsin is a much better team than us, but they are essentially starting 4 guards and a (small) Center. I think we should give Mathieu, Dre, Malik, Austin, and EE a shot.
 




MadtownGopher said:
Wisconsin is a much better team than us, but they are essentially starting 4 guards and a (small) Center. I think we should give Mathieu, Dre, Malik, Austin, and EE a shot.
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Huh? Kaminsky is 7'0" and Dekker is 6'7". Nigel Hayes at 6'7" also plays some big minutes off the bench.
 

Gold Vision said:
Huh? Kaminsky is 7'0" and Dekker is 6'7". Nigel Hayes at 6'7" also plays some big minutes off the bench.
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Dekker is a wing, period. Kaminsky is 7'0 but he is more of a stretch 4. Both are not big guys and tend to hang around the perimeter. Hayes is a low post player, but like you said he comes off the bench.
 

MadtownGopher said:
Dekker is a wing, period. Kaminsky is 7'0 but he is more of a stretch 4. Both are not big guys and tend to hang around the perimeter. Hayes is a low post player, but like you said he comes off the bench.
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Got it. 6'7" wing/forward = guard and 7'0 center = small.

When's the last time you saw a Wisconsin big man hang around and bang in the post?
 

In reality, I'm all for the 4 guard lineup and more Malik.

I just don't think you need to take minutes from our best overall player or sacrifice size right out of the gates.

I think Malik embraces that 6th man roll.
 

First and foremost, get a grip people. this is one game. yes it's one we should've won but to proclaim Andre is disinterested and not in the game is reaching. You can see that he's maybe TOO into the game with how he's forcing it and pressing (I mean for christ's sake he looked like he wanted to punch himself when he missed his 3rd FT), Austin is a better shooter than he is showing and is in a slump. I think it's safe to say that those 2 guys, being the veterans on our team that have played big for us in the past, are trying to press too much. You see them taking some long range (Austin big time) or highly contested shots in the paint (Andre) when they think the team needs it. This will come around. There is too much talent there for it not to.
Second, this team is going to be a tough out for anyone if we play with this much defensive intensity and passion game in and out. Yeah we make some mistakes and get out-athleted at times, but damnit this team will compete with anyone. in case you have forgotten, this same team did ride with Cuse right to the end and these guys are only going to get better as they grow in Pitino's system.
Third, Pitino is the pushing the right buttons with the players out there. They play hard for him and his intensity gets them going. Yes he makes some personnel mistakes from time to time, but as a young coach that is to be expected.
Finally, the sky is not falling. This team is still growing and will experience growing pains like we saw tonight. We don't have anywhere near the talent that Michigan has on it's roster (if you believe the recruiting experts anyways) and this team showed the ability to overcome some adversity (the flopping from Mich was pretty brutal for about a 3 minute stretch and they got every call when they flopped). We have the ability on our roster to play with anyone as well as lose to anyone, because like was discussed here earlier this year, we have the one asset that can kill your or destroy any team and that's the deep ball. we shot 26% from 3 tonight and that killed us. we shoot our 35% (from our season average) and that correlates to about 2 more 3's and we win this game. Tonight we died with the 3 and we have to accept that's going to happen with this team.
This game is what it is. Yeah it was extremely frustrating to see a game that was right there for the taking slip away, but I for one will choose to take the positives out of this and know better nights are coming for this team.
 

Gold Vision said:
In reality, I'm all for the 4 guard lineup and more Malik.

I just don't think you need to take minutes from our best overall player or sacrifice size right out of the gates.

I think Malik embraces that 6th man roll.
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i agree but Malik NEEDS to get more than 17 minutes
 


Gold Vision said:
Who's spot do you give to Malik?
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simple. we have the potential for plenty of guys to handle the 1 so it's simply a combination of people. Oto loses 2-3 mins, Austin loses 2 mins, Andre loses 2 mins, and You end up with 18 mins for Oto, 34 for Austin, 36 for Dre and 23 for Malik (which is much closer to where he needs to be. The combos are there to make it work with our other personnel to allow for Malik to be in there with any of our players as he can play the 2 or 3 in our system. I think we'd see fresher guys down the stretch which will help immensely. And in terms of the minutes, I'm just speaking about it in regards to tonight specifically
 

I was actually pretty encouraged that we could hang with them given how poorly our two best players performed.

But I am starting to get worried about Austin's shooting. He had a very prolonged slump last year too.
 

upnorthkid said:
First and foremost, get a grip people. this is one game. yes it's one we should've won but to proclaim Andre is disinterested and not in the game is reaching. You can see that he's maybe TOO into the game with how he's forcing it and pressing (I mean for christ's sake he looked like he wanted to punch himself when he missed his 3rd FT), Austin is a better shooter than he is showing and is in a slump. I think it's safe to say that those 2 guys, being the veterans on our team that have played big for us in the past, are trying to press too much. You see them taking some long range (Austin big time) or highly contested shots in the paint (Andre) when they think the team needs it. This will come around. There is too much talent there for it not to.
Second, this team is going to be a tough out for anyone if we play with this much defensive intensity and passion game in and out. Yeah we make some mistakes and get out-athleted at times, but damnit this team will compete with anyone. in case you have forgotten, this same team did ride with Cuse right to the end and these guys are only going to get better as they grow in Pitino's system.
Third, Pitino is the pushing the right buttons with the players out there. They play hard for him and his intensity gets them going. Yes he makes some personnel mistakes from time to time, but as a young coach that is to be expected.
Finally, the sky is not falling. This team is still growing and will experience growing pains like we saw tonight. We don't have anywhere near the talent that Michigan has on it's roster (if you believe the recruiting experts anyways) and this team showed the ability to overcome some adversity (the flopping from Mich was pretty brutal for about a 3 minute stretch and they got every call when they flopped). We have the ability on our roster to play with anyone as well as lose to anyone, because like was discussed here earlier this year, we have the one asset that can kill your or destroy any team and that's the deep ball. we shot 26% from 3 tonight and that killed us. we shoot our 35% (from our season average) and that correlates to about 2 more 3's and we win this game. Tonight we died with the 3 and we have to accept that's going to happen with this team.
This game is what it is. Yeah it was extremely frustrating to see a game that was right there for the taking slip away, but I for one will choose to take the positives out of this and know better nights are coming for this team.
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+1. Good synopsis
 

upnorthkid said:
simple. we have the potential for plenty of guys to handle the 1 so it's simply a combination of people. Oto loses 2-3 mins, Austin loses 2 mins, Andre loses 2 mins, and You end up with 18 mins for Oto, 34 for Austin, 36 for Dre and 23 for Malik (which is much closer to where he needs to be. The combos are there to make it work with our other personnel to allow for Malik to be in there with any of our players as he can play the 2 or 3 in our system. I think we'd see fresher guys down the stretch which will help immensely. And in terms of the minutes, I'm just speaking about it in regards to tonight specifically
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Completely agree that there are plenty of minutes for him off the bench. People are talking about swapping Austin out of the starting lineup for him, that's what I disagree with. 20-25 minutes is ideal. 25 when the matchups work.
 

We simply do not shoot very well - Austin isn't even close on his shots and Dre is even missing ft.s... Even against that Texas team we shot lousy! We need to learn to set picks correctly - didn't we have at least3 offensive calls on that in the 2nd half! Watching pregame shooting = we were nailing the3;s like crazy. Just saw Justin Cobbs single handedly beat Stanford down the stretch! (By the way T Reid - who's your new coach gonna be next year?)

Was wondering why Smith didn't miss 3rd rhrow on purpose?
 

gopherinpain is such an apt nickname for a Gopher fan. Maybe because it was a start of a new year, maybe it was because I felt like the team left so many points on the board, maybe it's just that I have seen this happen far too many times in my life, but this loss really, really hurt. I am so tired of being disappointed year after year, watching teams give away games in the waning minutes ten times as often as they pull off a comeback. I am tired of being on the wrong end of all these games, of hoping to be on the right side of the bubble, of expecting the Gophers to come up small in the big moments. None of this is Pitino's fault, it's his first conference game, but at some point you lose hope that your team is going to get the breaks to win these types of games. Robinson went out and Irvin makes 5 threes and almost all of them were at absolutely crucial times for Michigan. We would have been better off with Robinson in the game, but then that's no surprise to those of us who followed this team since Clem (or eariler in many cases).

As for the game itself, I am really disappointed in Austin and Andre Hollins. If either of them played an average game, the Gophers win. Austin took so many 3's with the Gophers up 5-6 points and missed them all. He hits just one, ONE! of those 3's and the Gophers go up 8-9 pts, I don't think Michigan gets back in it. Andre inexcusably let Stauskas backdoor him to push a one point lead to three late, just an unbelievably undisciplined play for a guy we are counting on. Combined, the Hollinses shot 4-19 and perhaps most disappointingly, neither looked like they wanted to take over late. Instead, it's Mathieu and Malik Smith who were the confident/aggressive players late in a home conference game. If Malik Smith could get in the lane to make a play late, how come Austin/Andre couldn't? The foul calls on Eliason really hurt the Gophers and at times it looked like the refs were actively looking for ways to deny the Gophers with some of the off the ball foul calls on them. Michigan exposed Mo Walker's slow feet on defense time and time again. If we could combine everything Oto did on the court tonight with Joey King's shooting stroke, we'd have a legitimate Big Ten player. As it was, Oto missed every wide open shot he took and looked like he wanted no part of the free throw line when he got fouled late.

The key stretch of the game to me came with the Gophers up 6 and they had a possession (thanks to some great hustle) where they had 5-6 shots and missed all of them. I believe it went Oto gets blocked(looks like a foul, Barn angry), Oto regains possession and misses short jumper, hustle play saves a tipout to DeAndre Mathieu who misses a three, hustle play knocks ball out of bounds, timeout, Gophers get another shot or two and miss both...then Irvin goes down and hits a 3. I don't believe the Gophers ever lead by more than 3 after that point.

I think this team still has a shot to go .500 in the conference, but that only happens if Austin Hollins and Andre Hollins both play at or near All-Big Ten levels. If we get the versions of the Hollinses that showed up tonight, then obviously things won't turn out well.
 

Love the Austin shouldn't start babble. Some of you are in need of some serious basketball schooling if you think Austin is the problem. Jeez Louise.
 

Benadryl Brownies said:
Everyone seems to forget that Michigan lost to #1 Arizona by only 1 point without McGary in the second half. This is a good Michigan team and we should have won tonight, but losing tonight is not even the worst loss this season (Arkansas).
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What? McGary played the second half of that game. http://espn.go.com/ncb/playbyplay?gameId=400506074

But I do think it is the worst loss of the season for Minnesota. It was a big home game against a team that could well make the NCAA tourney, a game that was right there for the Gophers to win and they didn't win. You don't get that many chances to get Ws against tourney teams at home where you're in it with a chance to win at the end & you've got to make the most of those chances.
 

I thought there were a handful of times the Gophers didn't try to score inside when they had the ball at close range, apparently because it wasn't a wide-open situation, but they should've tried to get a shot up or get to the foul line rather than pass the ball outside where most of those guys were ice cold.
 

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