St. Olaf Exhibition - The Good, The "Okay," the Ugly (with a silver lining)

Donate To GopherHole
GopherWeatherGuy said:
Henley being a post was never an argument. Henley being a guard long term is still up for debate. It'll be interesting to see how he progresses against better competition.
Click to expand...
Its not a debate that he can at minimum be serviceable as a SG. Basketball is positionless.
 







fan of Ray Williams said:
@kg21 posted this in the other thread.
Big thanks to him.
Click to expand...
Yes, thanks for posting. Now that I have seen the game and almost all of these guys for the first time....I really like the potential of the freshmen. Very meh on the two transfer captain guards.

Thompson can't play man to man defense. He'd be awesome as a perimeter defender in a zone. And on offense he should just shoot 3's...he'd be good.
Henley is going to be special if he keeps working. Payne same thing.
Ola Joseph will contribute this year or certainly should get good minutes.
Betts is like a baby deer out there but he can be really good as well.
I like next year if these guys get minutes all year.
I know we are young but lots of ways we looked undisciplined...DeLaSalle did not ever look undisciplined. It's early but after 8 weeks or whatever...that's a long time to establish an identify.
Did like the freshmen potential a lot...we need these guys to stay together and in year three we can be a really solid group. Going to struggle this year....unless Battle, Garcia, Carrington average 60 between them.. :) Okay 50. Can they do that?
 

60's Guy said:
Yes, thanks for posting. Now that I have seen the game and almost all of these guys for the first time....I really like the potential of the freshmen. Very meh on the two transfer captain guards.

Thompson can't play man to man defense. He'd be awesome as a perimeter defender in a zone. And on offense he should just shoot 3's...he'd be good.
Henley is going to be special if he keeps working. Payne same thing.
Ola Joseph will contribute this year or certainly should get good minutes.
Betts is like a baby deer out there but he can be really good as well.
I like next year if these guys get minutes all year.
I know we are young but lots of ways we looked undisciplined...DeLaSalle did not ever look undisciplined. It's early but after 8 weeks or whatever...that's a long time to establish an identify.
Did like the freshmen potential a lot...we need these guys to stay together and in year three we can be a really solid group. Going to struggle this year....unless Battle, Garcia, Carrington average 60 between them.. :) Okay 50. Can they do that?
Click to expand...
Delasalle ? Carrington being part of a big three? If any freshman gives us double figures I’d bet on Payne. One,basically a scrimmage and everyone has their opinions I guess. I would say wait a few weeks Thompson can’t play man to man defense maybe but basing that on covering 6-5 players and of course going with internet narrative seems a bit premature I would think it would depend on matchups as to who he may be able to cover.
 






Gopherfan84 said:
You don’t think Henley will play that role in spurts? Battle will do it too I’m sure
Click to expand...

Yes and my argument has always been that he's Battle's eventual replacement if he develops the way we hope. But that also means he would play with two other guards the majority of the time.
 




Gopherfan84 said:
You don’t think Henley will play that role in spurts? Battle will do it too I’m sure
Click to expand...
Just my personal opinion, but i think that instead of 5 basketball positions, now there are typically 3. Point Guard, Bigs (about 3-4 per team) and everybody else. I never expect the point guard to be the only guy able to bring the ball up the floor. I would expect that almost everybody, and that includes a couple of the bigs (Point Forward?) would be comfortable getting the ball into the front court, if the situation dictates, a few times per game.

I would not be shocked if Thompson or Garcia were seen bringing the ball up the floor if the defense is denying the preferred ball-handlers, and I would expect them to handle it. I think even the bigs do some ball-handling drills from time to time, or on their own.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
Yes and my argument has always been that he's Battle's eventual replacement if he develops the way we hope. But that also means he would play with two other guards the majority of the time.
Click to expand...
If Henley ended up being a PG he would still play with two other guards the majority of the time.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
Yes and my argument has always been that he's Battle's eventual replacement if he develops the way we hope. But that also means he would play with two other guards the majority of the time.
Click to expand...
I think Henley is a wing and will play as such. He seems a little more of a playmaker than Battle, where as Battle is a superior shooter and rebounder. Development will be key like you mentioned.
 

Chico Gopher said:
Just my personal opinion, but i think that instead of 5 basketball positions, now there are typically 3. Point Guard, Bigs (about 3-4 per team) and everybody else. I never expect the point guard to be the only guy able to bring the ball up the floor. I would expect that almost everybody, and that includes a couple of the bigs (Point Forward?) would be comfortable getting the ball into the front court, if the situation dictates, a few times per game.

I would not be shocked if Thompson or Garcia were seen bringing the ball up the floor if the defense is denying the preferred ball-handlers, and I would expect them to handle it. I think even the bigs do some ball-handling drills from time to time, or on their own.
Click to expand...
I totally agree with your views on positions. It’s more about what skill sets do we have on the offensive and defensive end and how they play together. You can play a non shooting guard if you can space with your bigs for example.
 

The exhibition looked a little like a high school basketball game!

Which of course it nearly was with all the young players out there. TT’s maturity is pretty well summed up in that practice video.

Positives that I saw:

Payne - he looked dominant, like he should against that level of competition.

JOJ - he looked aggressive and had decent handles. He could really develop into something! Dribble tended to get away from his body, that’s a steal against B1G foes.

Henley - looked like the best player on the court at times. Would have liked to see his outside shot a little more instead of bullying his way into the paint. That will be much harder from here on out. Does he look a little like Coffey?

Cooper - he looked bored. As he should have. Nice that he drilled all three of his 3pt shots, all of which looked like, “If your going to give me this, I may as well take it!”

Negatives:

TT - looks incredibly passive. Shouldn’t he have gotten most the rebounds with a 6 inch height advantage? Terrible defense.

Defense as a whole - Umm, if you can’t stop Ole from driving for easy layups what’s going to happen when you get better more physical guys coming at you.

That being said, I’m sure we were seeing somewhere around 75-80% effort from the Gophers.

They will be better with the three missing players by far.
 

on the position thing - Johnson seems to like having taller, more athletic players as the SG or "2" position.

He says Ihnen was going to start at the 2 if he had been healthy.

and apparently Johnson thinks Henley can provide some of those same qualities.

we'll see if Henley can hold up defensively in the B1G.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom