Recruiting Mistakes

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GopherFanatic11

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The more I watch the gophers this year the more i am convinced that Monson made big mistakes in taking Al Nolen and Especially Blake Hoffarber over '07 recruits like Justin Stommes and Jon Leuer.

Justin Stommes is averaging 19 ppg and shooting 44% from 3

he has been over 41% all three years and could give us the scoring power we need!

Jon Leuer is averaging around 14 ppg as well . . .
 

GopherFanatic11 said:
The more I watch the gophers this year the more i am convinced that Monson made big mistakes in taking Al Nolen and Especially Blake Hoffarber over '07 recruits like Justin Stommes and Jon Leuer.

Justin Stommes is averaging 19 ppg and shooting 44% from 3

he has been over 41% all three years and could give us the scoring power we need!

Jon Leuer is averaging around 14 ppg as well . . .
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that is why he is no longer here...you are going to miss on kids though
 

It's a crap shoot. It's easy to have 20/20 hindsight in recruiting.

I mean, at this point we should have said screw Royce when he wanted to come here and pursued Lockett right?
 

You make it sound like we had a choice. Al and Blake were willing to stick with thier committments even when they didn't know who the coach was. They just wanted to be Gophers. That alone deserves respect. And both have been decent contributors through thier tenures, even if not quite what we'd hope.

Do I wish we had Jon Luer? Yes. So does everyone. He didn't want to come here. Monson didn't 'choose' Nolen or Blake over him. There was no mistake per se.
 

TubbytownUSA said:
It's a crap shoot. It's easy to have 20/20 hindsight in recruiting.

I mean, at this point we should have said screw Royce when he wanted to come here and pursued Lockett right?
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Exactly - I doubt more than a few people would have chosen Leuer over Blake after their freshman year...particularly after "the shot" against IU. As for Stommes - he is doing very well and has gotten better every year, but I'm sorry, Eastern Kentucky is not exactly Minnesota, nor do they compete with the big boys of the Big 10 all season long.

Both Blake and Nolen exceeded my expectations 10 fold their freshman years. They had some struggles last year, a bit of a sophomore slump - but regardless, they're our players, and I'm happy to have them. I think they both will have many, many more good games to come.

As I've said in the past, you can pick apart every recruit and who "could have" been better - but that's comparing apples to oranges. The only one that's every really gotten to me is Cole - the rest, I haven't given a 2nd thought about. Even after we played poorly tonight, I'm very happy with our talent level.
 


I am not out to say that I haven't been somewhat pleased with these guys, but I was just saying I would rather have Justin Stommes over either one of Nole or Hoffarber. He does play at Easter Kentucky but i just looked up his stats and he scored 24 against Pittsburgh a week ago and they are one of the premeire defensive teams in the country.
 

howeda7 said:
You make it sound like we had a choice. Al and Blake were willing to stick with thier committments even when they didn't know who the coach was. They just wanted to be Gophers. That alone deserves respect. And both have been decent contributors through thier tenures, even if not quite what we'd hope.

Do I wish we had Jon Luer? Yes. So does everyone. He didn't want to come here. Monson didn't 'choose' Nolen or Blake over him. There was no mistake per se.
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Actually, I believe Leuer did want to come here. At that time, we had one schollie open - it was up for grabs for Blake and Leuer, Blake committed 1st. Obviously, more scholarships opened up, but that bridge was already burned.
 

GopherFanatic11 said:
The more I watch the gophers this year the more i am convinced that Monson made big mistakes in taking Al Nolen and Especially Blake Hoffarber over '07 recruits like Justin Stommes and Jon Leuer.

Justin Stommes is averaging 19 ppg and shooting 44% from 3

he has been over 41% all three years and could give us the scoring power we need!

Jon Leuer is averaging around 14 ppg as well . . .
Click to expand...

Dude, what are you talking about? Al Nolen is . . .



















A COMPETITOR!!!!

A COMPETITOR!!!!

A COMPETITOR!!!!

A COMPETITOR!!!!

A COMPETITOR!!!!

A COMPETITOR!!!!

A COMPETITOR!!!!
 

what are you talking about?

Al Nolen is . . .


A terrible shooter

A turnover prone point guard

A ok - bad defender
 




Al is a bad shooter, he doesn't turn the ball over that much. As a defender, I have mixed emotions. A very good off the ball defender, thus the amount of steals he gets. As for his on the ball defense, I am not convinced how good he is, he got beat off the dribble at least 6-7 times last night by a point guard that probably wouldn't start in the Big 10.
 

Agree with Lincoln about Nolen's off the ball defense. Good in disrupting the passing lanes but gets overaggressive when manning up on his guy. Jumps at pump fakes, over-pursues, and tries to get the steal too often. His shot is among the ugliest I have ever seen though. You would've thought there'd have been at least a slight improvement from his freshman year shooting-wise but I have yet to see any.
 

He did get beat off the dribble by Tj but I'm pretty sure he would start in the Big ten, he would definitely start for us. Al Nolen is a turnover prone point guard; he is a junior and has been playing alot every year. This amount of turnovers would be ok for a freshman, but not a hardened junior. He's such a liability on offense that I would rather have Joseph or even Cobbs out there 80% of the time.
On a somewhat similar note, this really means we need Cory Joseph!!!
 



dex8425 said:
He did get beat off the dribble by Tj but I'm pretty sure he would start in the Big ten, he would definitely start for us. Al Nolen is a turnover prone point guard; he is a junior and has been playing alot every year. This amount of turnovers would be ok for a freshman, but not a hardened junior. He's such a liability on offense that I would rather have Joseph or even Cobbs out there 80% of the time.
On a somewhat similar note, this really means we need Cory Joseph!!!
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Al may have multiple faults, but being turnover prone is not one of them.

And now my question:
With about 9:15 left in the game, Al is dribbling ... dribbling ...dribbling ... at the top of the arc. Devoe is wide open (REALLY wide open) on the wing and Al looks at him once ... twice ... and passes the ball the other direction to a covered Westbrook. There is NO doubt that if Al had made a very simple pass to Devoe that Devoe would have had a great look. My question is, did Nolan not pass the ball to Devoe because he had lost trust in his teammate, or because he was freezing Devoe out?

The possession ended with the ball getting knocked out of bounds with 3-seconds on the time clock and getting a decent, but rushed shot as the time-clock ran out.
 

Mikie S said:
Al may have multiple faults, but being turnover prone is not one of them.

And now my question:
With about 9:15 left in the game, Al is dribbling ... dribbling ...dribbling ... at the top of the arc. Devoe is wide open (REALLY wide open) on the wing and Al looks at him once ... twice ... and passes the ball the other direction to a covered Westbrook. There is NO doubt that if Al had made a very simple pass to Devoe that Devoe would have had a great look. My question is, did Nolan not pass the ball to Devoe because he had lost trust in his teammate, or because he was freezing Devoe out?

The possession ended with the ball getting knocked out of bounds with 3-seconds on the time clock and getting a decent, but rushed shot as the time-clock ran out.
Click to expand...

Discipline and running the offense in times of crunch will correct this. They played well against Butler. They just do not have enough one on one talent to pull it out when they get down and into a situation like this. Nothing to get alarmed about.
 

Recruiting Misses

They missed on alot of players Monson's last couple of years. Talent is improving, they will be good by the end of the year. They would be better if the top to recruits were playing. I like what I have seen so far.

Misses
------------
John Leuer
Cole Aldrich
Cory Johnson
Isiah Dahlmen
Bryce Webster - played and left
 


GopherFanatic and Dex - Al Nolen is a turnover prone PG? At least have an idea of what you are talking about before you post.
 

underground629 said:
GopherFanatic and Dex - Al Nolen is a turnover prone PG? At least have an idea of what you are talking about before you post.
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Nolen averaging 4.4 assists but only 1.2 TO per game for 3.67 ATO ratio (over 2.0 is good, over 3.0 is very good, etc).
 

Al is not a good shooter but he is not a turn over machine or a defensive liability.

I like Al and I prefer to see him at the point more than anyone else on the team at this time.

My biggest concern is that he hasn't made the other players around him better. He hasn't been the leader we need from the point position. (plus he is on the bench way too often with foul trouble lately). He isn't creating scoring opportunities for his team mates. These are the issues, not that he turns the ball over or can't play defense.
 

I'm not going to defend Monson, but we have the players we have, there's no use wishing you could change the past.

When Nolen attacks the basket, he can be effective at times, but against better defensive big men, he's not even a threat to do that. Shooting... well, he just isn't a threat. He does hit his freethrows at a decent rate though, despite his horrendous form.

Honestly though, we do have some shooters on this team, the offense just doesn't work to get them open looks.. I'm not sure how much of our troubles are the players versus the coaching.. I'm not one to dog on tubby at all, and defensively, this team is very good when the refs swallow their whistles. But when the offense looks THAT bad, part of it is on the coaching staff.

I would love to see some ball-screens, I'd love to get the ball to DJ or Ralph at the top of the key to help pick apart a zone, I'd like to see some set plays to get the defense out of positions...
and I feel that the players simply need more work at hitting those threes where we get a good look as the defense is rotating in.. it seems like we always pass on those (except for westbrook), and that just encourages the opposing defenses to sag off more, making it harder for our guards to drive and our bigs to operate inside.
 

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