Nope. And, I think Ben knew they had front court issues going into the year. I think this year he feels good about his perimeter players. And, yes, I really do believe that Ben and staff know more about their current roster than you.
Taurus Samuels Commits to Gophers!!
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Gophers7633
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So what's our lineup looking like:
Cooper/Samuels
Carrington/Henley
Battle/Ihnen/Henley
Fox/Thompson/JOJ
Garcia/Payne
Or do we start Samuels and Cooper for in the backcourt?
Cooper/Samuels
Carrington/Henley
Battle/Ihnen/Henley
Fox/Thompson/JOJ
Garcia/Payne
Or do we start Samuels and Cooper for in the backcourt?
GopherWeatherGuy
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Our backcourt is currently worse than last season's backcourt. It's not even really close at this point.
Samuels was the 3rd best player on a bad Dartmouth team. Their best player couldn't even start for a really bad Temple team the year before. If Samuels has to play meaningful minutes next season, that's not a good thing.
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Pete smith
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What?? Another guard who shoots under 30% outside. Sad
The backcourt may be a bit worse but that might not matter much if the mix of players is a bit different. Most of the time last season, Johnson played one big man, one swing man, and three true guards. With the abundance of forwards on this year's team, I suspect the primary lineup will feature two big men, one swing man, and two true guards. Still, if one guard is injured that could cause problems. Sounds like he might stay put but maybe he'll surprise us and decide to add one more guard before the summer is over. Right now the player I fear most getting injured is Battle.
Samuels' stats don't look like much but, if you check out his game logs from last season, he had some pretty productive games against P6 teams.
Bayfieldgopher
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Maybe, but then, maybe not.
If one uses the comparison of the ability to score and from what we know at this point, then your statement is accurate. However there is more to consider than scoring. And this will be a different team.
IMO, Willis was not a strong defender and got beat off the dribble often. There were many games where his man scored equal to him. After watching tape on Samuel, it was clear to me that he should be a much better defender. Not great but better. Cooper to a lesser degree but still fundamentely more sound than Willis.
In the other facets of the game, the newbies compare to Willis other than FT% where they had better numbers. Of course, Willis played in a more competitive environment.
Ben will use his backcourt in a different fashion. The offense/scoring duties pretty much went through Willis and he was OK at getting others involved. The newbies won't focus on scoring nearly as much but rather moving the ball and setting up Battle, Garcia and others. But both Cooper and Samuel put up some decent numbers in some games. I'm still unsure who Ben will use in the 2 spot. But if Cooper gets minutes there, he could closely match Stephens, Loewe and Sutherlin. The FR are still a ???
I posted a couple weeks ago that it will be cool if could Ben threw out the ball and let the guys play. Then we could see some possibilities. But........................we will have to wait and see.
Gopherfan84
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Battle-Cooper-Samuels, Carrington is worse than Willis-Loewe, Stephens-Suetherlin? Battle is the best player of those 8 guys. Cooper can match Loewe, Samuels was just as good a player for his team as Stephens or Suetherlin? Carrington is more talented than those two as a freshman? Is it not that close? If we break down by position, you can justify it being 3-1 towards last years, but it isn't that far away and that's more because Carrington is an unknown.
Gopherfan84
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With Battle playing the 3/wing more, he will be considered more of a backcourt vs. front court like last year unless we are only counting the "1s and 2s". Even then, it isn't that far away imo. Carrington is significantly better than he gets credit for.
Bayfieldgopher
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Not a great shooter at 31% from 3 and 37% FGA.
His D and moving the ball and setting up the scorers should be an improvement over Willis.. A lot of points were given up last year defending the PG. The PG position focus will be different on this team.
50PoundHead
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Agree. I see them running a lot more Battle-centric plays on offense. I see him as a 2.5.
It would still be nice if they could get what I call a counterpunch player whose role is basically to come in and shoot (and hit) 3s to force the opposing defense out of their patterns.
You really can't put Battle in your group you like then omit him in the group you don't like. Sorry
alchemy2u
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No you don't! You always have something to complain about Ben and his team.
You still haven't gotten over that Ben is our coach instead of some "dream pick" you wanted.
Ben has brought in a very good group of young and experienced players that all buy into his work ethics expectations of the team. It is a tremendous step for just his second year as a HC. He has a team that will be very competitive in the B1G. Will they win the B1G title, most likely not, but they are on course to be an upper pack team.
alchemy2u
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Ben's objective with his roster is to have versatile players that are not really defined by 1, 2, 3, 4
He has a large group of players that can interchange between the 1- 4 spots as they play, so how do you know will be playing "front court" or 'back court". He said he was going to give Battle some time as the PG.....
Gophers_4life
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You know, there's this whole "pinned thread" thing, that GH could utilize for more "official" announcements/pure news ....
Just sayin ...
Chico Gopher
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Thanks for bringing up defense. So few actually do that when discussing the new players. It's great if you have a guy who scores 20 and shoots well, but if that same player gives up 20 and forces all kinds of defensive adjustments and rotations because he can't cover his guy a little bit, he's really not helping you much.
I might be wrong, but I get the feeling that this guy was brought in as much for his ability to stay in front of other point guards as any offensive boost he might provide. As many of us have come to realize, offense is really fun to watch, but defense is what wins a tight game.
Gopherfan84
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Why not? He played the 4 last year. If you omit Battle from both, you need to omit either Loewe or Stephens then.
Gopherfan84
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I know this and have argued positionless basketball on this board for years. I'm more doing it for discussion against a point I don't agree with.
Spaulding!No!
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Yeah, Isn’t this for mature teams that have played together for 4-5 years?
GopherWeatherGuy
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Battle is not a guard. He's a wing on a good team. The comparison is Willis - Stephens - Loewe - Sutherland vs Cooper - Carrington - Samuels. I think Carrington can be a good player but his ceiling is likely Gabe K. You need guards that can handle and score to win major conference games. I'm not sure we have any that can score at this level currently.
Gopherfan84
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Maybe semantics, but in our offense next year who plays whose spot?
Last year- This year
Willis-Cooper
Loewe-Carrington
Stephens- Battle
Battle- Garcia
Curry- Fox
Bench
Suetherlin- Taurus.
Daniels- Payne
I think you absolutely have to include Battle this year in the backcourt unless you take Loewe or Stephens out of the comparison and just go with lead/combo guards. Even then a combo of Cooper and Carrington isn't far off of Willis & Loewe, or Stephens imo. Now you'd think we will obviously have some new wrinkles with the personal we have. Even by your argument, we then only have approx 85 (40+40+5 that Battle doesn't play) mins to cover with those three/four (if you include Henley), where last year we were covering 120 minutes with the four you mentioned.
Bob_Loblaw
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I have been a Gopher fan for 30 years. I've been a season ticket holder for a decade and dumped thousands of hours and dollars into my Gopher fandom. I want the Gophers to win. You think I would prefer the Gophers to lose just to win some meaningless bickering contest with a group of online mouthbreathers? LOL. Yep, that checks out!
I support Ben. Do you need me to find tons of posts over the last 6 months where I support Ben Johnson? They wouldn't matter to you. You have it in your head that any person who EVER says anything negative about Ben suddenly hates him and hates everything about him. It's skinned knee chick shit hysteria. You ignore (clearly) all posts of support and because you're all flustered that ANYONE could find any criticism of your sacred cow.
The truth is (whether you are capable of putting your emotions aside or not), I support Ben and I think he's a good coach. I will disagree with him on a ton of stuff, like I do any coach, but at the end of the day, I hope they're right and I'm wrong. I'd rather have the Gophers win than "win" some argument with you. I don't think enough of you to care to care about our perceived disagreement.
I actually didn't have a dream pick. I guess I would have preferred Craig Smith, maybe Gates or Medved. I wasn't one of those people who thought we could still get Muss.
It's about matchups...some nights we can play Ihnen or Henley at the point...Ben has said he thinks they can do that....his thinking prior to practice. Guards....for me, you got a point guard and the wings are guards. Again based on your opponent...sometimes you don't need a point guard.
So, I think we have enough "guards" IF they stay healthy. Our shooters are tall guys...but they'll be on the perimeter on offense...whatever we call them.
So, I think we have enough "guards" IF they stay healthy. Our shooters are tall guys...but they'll be on the perimeter on offense...whatever we call them.
Carrington doesn't start early in the season and maybe not at all. But he gets a lot of playing time off the bench. He can start both Cooper and Samuels at times. Match ups will allow him to start Cooper and a combination of Battle, Garcia, Fox, Payne, and Ihnen at other times.
This is not true because the guards will play a different role this year making it not a good comparison. Willis had to score. This year the two experienced guards will be playmakers setting the offense for our rangy big guys.
If Carrington gets comfortable and hits shots, great. Cooper won't take more than a half dozen shots a game and Samuels less. They don't need to score much to be just as good as last year's guards.
My GUESS is that he starts by Big Ten season. If that wasn't the plan, Ben would have been working a lot harder at recruiting over the top of him. I'm not saying that Carrington is 100% ready to start, I am just saying that the tea leaves point towards Ben building with the Frosh and it seems obvious to me that Samuels is a real nice depth piece- not a starter. I am glad we have him but I prefer to go with the freshman, considering the roster constructed as of now. Get me Eric Hunter or someone like that and that's a different story.
GopherWeatherGuy
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You always need a balanced roster with guards who can shoot/score. If you don't have them, you'll finish near the bottom of the conference.
Ok replace Sutherlin with Battle. Which back court do you like better now?
short ornery norwegian
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some fans can always find a reason to be optimistic.
and some fans can always find a reason to be pessimistic.
in the end, the coaching staff recruits the players and coaches the players.
we will see what the result looks like when they start playing games.
I hope the team does well.
and some fans can always find a reason to be pessimistic.
in the end, the coaching staff recruits the players and coaches the players.
we will see what the result looks like when they start playing games.
I hope the team does well.
Gopherfan84
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The add Garcia to this years team (Battle was out 4 man last year) and take off Samuels or Carrington. Which one is better? It’s not a stretch what I did comparison wise. Which one do you like better? Garcia and Battle are the two best players in that group. This years team is already remarkably deeper and more talented as a whole than last year.
Ben can certainly build with the frosh without starting them. He doesn't necessarily have "the plan" yet, just a lot of ideas to test out before November. I think Payne will be the first freshman to hear his name in the starting lineup.
However it plays out at least three freshmen are going to see plenty of playing time.