Sid Hartman: Tubby knows every game is 'huge' now for Gophers

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BleedGopher

BleedGopher

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"We didn't play very well at all up at Michigan State, and we haven't played [well]. We won two games, we've lost six of our last eight games, we haven't been playing well. Fortunately we got the win against Iowa. We played terrible in the last three minutes of the game, again, at Michigan State. We have our work cut out for us."

Asked if during his coaching career he had a team like this season's Gophers, who started out 15-1 against one of the toughest schedules in the country and then lost five of seven, Smith said he had that experience while coaching at Kentucky.

"Unfortunately, we need our guys to step up and be hungrier and play harder, those are the things that have to get done," he said. "We knew we were playing against some very good teams in the league in our three losses we had on the road, then what got away from us was Michigan here and the Northwestern game [there].

"That puts you in a funk when you have a losing streak like that. We thought we had corrected some things, but I knew there were things that we hadn't corrected that we needed to do a better job of."

"I need Oto [Osenieks] and Mo [Walker] getting better, Elliott [Eliason] is playing well, we need to get Julian [Welch] playing better. Wally [Ellenson] was moving along there, but he strained his Achilles tendon. Those are key people."

Smith is not pleased with how players are spreading the ball. "Rodney [Williams] and Trevor [Mbakwe] need to share the basketball better," he said. "That's something I saw was the dropping in our assists. We're still one of the top assists teams in the league, but we have to do a better job of finding the open man."

http://www.startribune.com/sports/gophers/190483871.html

Go Gophers!!
 

BleedGopher said:
"We didn't play very well at all up at Michigan State, and we haven't played [well]. We won two games, we've lost six of our last eight games, we haven't been playing well. Fortunately we got the win against Iowa. We played terrible in the last three minutes of the game, again, at Michigan State. We have our work cut out for us."

Asked if during his coaching career he had a team like this season's Gophers, who started out 15-1 against one of the toughest schedules in the country and then lost five of seven, Smith said he had that experience while coaching at Kentucky.

"Unfortunately, we need our guys to step up and be hungrier and play harder, those are the things that have to get done," he said. "We knew we were playing against some very good teams in the league in our three losses we had on the road, then what got away from us was Michigan here and the Northwestern game [there].

"That puts you in a funk when you have a losing streak like that. We thought we had corrected some things, but I knew there were things that we hadn't corrected that we needed to do a better job of."

"I need Oto [Osenieks] and Mo [Walker] getting better, Elliott [Eliason] is playing well, we need to get Julian [Welch] playing better. Wally [Ellenson] was moving along there, but he strained his Achilles tendon. Those are key people."

Smith is not pleased with how players are spreading the ball. "Rodney [Williams] and Trevor [Mbakwe] need to share the basketball better," he said. "That's something I saw was the dropping in our assists. We're still one of the top assists teams in the league, but we have to do a better job of finding the open man."

http://www.startribune.com/sports/gophers/190483871.html

Go Gophers!!
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I just looked at the MSU box score and found Rodney and Trevor were a combined 6 of 10 from the field. Hollins, Hollins, and Joe were 10 of 34 from the field.

How does that compute with Rodney and Trevor needing to share the ball more?
 


Section201 said:
I just looked at the MSU box score and found Rodney and Trevor were a combined 6 of 10 from the field. Hollins, Hollins, and Joe were 10 of 34 from the field.

How does that compute with Rodney and Trevor needing to share the ball more?
Click to expand...

I would think Tubby meant the other players have to do a better job of getting the ball to Rodney and Trevor. A lot better job!
 



GoodasGold said:
mumbo jumbo
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"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know."
 

UofMdad said:
"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know."
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Donald Rumsfeld!?...is that really you?:)
 

shh....I'm in an undisclosed location and in disguise.
 

The rest of the season comes down to Dre Hollins. He is playing the most important position in college basketball and needs to be the leader. When Dre finally realizes that he is the man, then the Gophers have a chance to make a run in the post season. The last time the Gophers had a stud point guard was when Al Nolen was a Senior. Too bad he hurt his foot that year or the Gophs would have been in the Sweet 16. Pick it up Dre!
 



UofMdad said:
I would think Tubby meant the other players have to do a better job of getting the ball to Rodney and Trevor. A lot better job!
Click to expand...



Unfortunately it seems feeding the post is a lost art in college basketball. Guards just do not consistently know how to feed the post without turning the ball over. Seems it is easier to get the ball in the paint to the big off a screen and roll than it is to just pass into the post when the ball is being pressured. This problem is not unique to Minnesota. Indiana has problems getting Zeller the ball. So do other teams have this issue of their bigs not getting enough touches.
 

The problem with the Gophers guards is that they wait to pass it to the post when the ball is pressured which makes for a sloppy pass to the post and gives the defense time to react. If you want to pass it to the post you need to get it down to them quickly, before the bigs have time to react to it. Preferably within the first 10 seconds on the shot clock. Dre needs to facilitate that better.

In addition, I wanted to add that it wouldn't hurt for one of our guards to penetrate and dish it off to a big instead of trying to make a shot that the Harlem Globetrotters would have a hard time making!
 

Reduce the turnovers, start making open shots, and stay focused for 40 minutes. Your " shooters "
can't go 10-34 and expect to win games. The last time anybody has really lite it up was Austin against Northwestern. They need someone to get hot and stay HOT!
 

ruppertflywheel said:
Reduce the turnovers, start making open shots, and stay focused for 40 minutes. Your " shooters "
can't go 10-34 and expect to win games. The last time anybody has really lite it up was Austin against Northwestern. They need someone to get hot and stay HOT!
Click to expand...

I heard a coach say the other day(don't remember who it was) that your team looks more like it's well coached when shots are going down.
 



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