The Goods and Bads from the 1st game.

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BuckyGopher

BuckyGopher

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Goods:
-played and stuck with a final four contender in Lousiville.
-Morris seems to be aggressive and not shook playing against a top team like Louisville even though he did not play all that well. Still a positive in my opinion and he will only get better throughout the year.
-Hollins looks to be in sophomore year form.
-Lil Dre will be fine, stop overreacting people!
-Mason could contend for newcomer of the year in the Big10.
-team aggressiveness.

Bads:
-Joey King period.
-EE period.
-I went back and forth about putting Konate on the goods and bads and I just feel that his presence on the court did not help us. Not saying that he couldn't move up to the goods later in the year.
-Rebounding.
-transition defense.
-offense movement.
 

BuckyGopher said:
Goods:
-played and stuck with a final four contender in Lousiville.
-Morris seems to be aggressive and not shook playing against a top team like Louisville even though he did not play all that well. Still a positive in my opinion and he will only get better throughout the year.
-Hollins looks to be in sophomore year form.
-Lil Dre will be fine, stop overreacting people!
-Mason could contend for newcomer of the year in the Big10.
-team aggressiveness.

Bads:
-Joey King period.
-EE period.
-I went back and forth about putting Konate on the goods and bads and I just feel that his presence on the court did not help us. Not saying that he couldn't move up to the goods later in the year.
-Rebounding.
-transition defense.
-offense movement.
Click to expand...

I think James Blackmon Jr. has a sranglehold on newcomer of the year at this point. Mason looked very poised for his first college game ever, playing a very good defense. He even stopped EE from getting a tech. I agree with most everything else.
 

DeathClutch said:
I think James Blackmon Jr. has a sranglehold on newcomer of the year at this point. Mason looked very poised for his first college game ever, playing a very good defense. He even stopped EE from getting a tech. I agree with most everything else.
Click to expand...

Yeah you are probably right. Overall I think last night was a positive, hard to see, but it was. Team should be fine, this is a very intriguing year with so much potential and a great coach at the helm.
 

I'm a homer, but I think there was enough there to show promise & I trust coach will drive home the need to take care of the ball, quit the silly fouls, and get some freebies already.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 

Good: A Pitino won
Bad: A Pitino lost.
 


BuckyGopher said:
Goods:
-played and stuck with a final four contender in Lousiville.
-Morris seems to be aggressive and not shook playing against a top team like Louisville even though he did not play all that well. Still a positive in my opinion and he will only get better throughout the year.
-Hollins looks to be in sophomore year form.
-Lil Dre will be fine, stop overreacting people!
-Mason could contend for newcomer of the year in the Big10.
-team aggressiveness.

Bads:
-Joey King period.
-EE period.
-I went back and forth about putting Konate on the goods and bads and I just feel that his presence on the court did not help us. Not saying that he couldn't move up to the goods later in the year.
-Rebounding.
-transition defense.
-offense movement.
Click to expand...

EE is still better than Mo defensively, is still better at securing the rebound, is more mobile, and more active in setting picks. Unfortunately we have two centers who lack anything close to a complete game and that probably won't change. I was hoping for more than I saw from either of them last night and I'll keep hoping. If Mo could average 15 points and 8 rebounds a game, then I would say that he should play 32 minutes a game despite his other limitations, but I don't expect to see those averages anytime soon.
 


Good: Hollin's attentive/active D.
-Hollin's leadership.
-Mo can score at will when not traveling.
-Transition D (effort not effectiveness).

Bad: Inattentive defense (except Hollins)
-REACHING FOULS exceeded all others kinds.
-No answer for scoring bigs.

Worst: Gophers D jumped at EVERY pump fake (didn't see all of the second half but was an eye sore overall).

Should be competitive in the B1G an make the tourney IMO but lost to a final four front-runner.
 

Try a zone to keep from fouling so much?
 



BuckyGopher said:
Goods:
-played and stuck with a final four contender in Lousiville.
-Morris seems to be aggressive and not shook playing against a top team like Louisville even though he did not play all that well. Still a positive in my opinion and he will only get better throughout the year.
-Hollins looks to be in sophomore year form.
-Lil Dre will be fine, stop overreacting people!
-Mason could contend for newcomer of the year in the Big10.
-team aggressiveness.

Bads:
-Joey King period.
-EE period.
-I went back and forth about putting Konate on the goods and bads and I just feel that his presence on the court did not help us. Not saying that he couldn't move up to the goods later in the year.
-Rebounding.
-transition defense.
-offense movement.
Click to expand...

Bakary played better vs Louisville than UMD. It was his first game in yet another country and he needed an escort to arrive separately. I'd say he
offered a lot of promise.
The transition defense is an offensive decision making problem putting the team in impossible to defend situations.
The offensive movement issues were the total disruption Louisville's defense forced us into. They took away timing and caused spacing issues.
The rebounds are 35 to 37. We are playing LOUISVILLE! How in the world is that in the bad column?
In the good: Mathieu likely will be fine but he wasn't good.
Teams aggressiveness could be in the good column if we didn't have sooo many reaching fouls. Adjust to the refs. There was aggressiveness but Louisville outworked us. That is not good.
 


Watching part of the game back, and Nate Mason is not afraid to put a teammate in his place. I LOVE THAT!

With 8 minutes left in the first half, EE got called for an offensive foul and started complaining to the refs to the point where the announcers thought he was on the verge of getting a T. In comes Nate. I'm pretty sure I saw Nate tell him "Shut up. Shut the f*** up", saving EE from getting the technical.

Getting leadership from a true freshman backup point guard is awesome.
 

Same with Hollins. There is a point during the ESPN playback (2:36:00) where a guard brings the ball up the court, gets harassed and a foul is called. I could be wrong but it APPEARS Hollins tries to talk to the guard in question and then yells "I'm the point". Pitino hears him say it then yells back "NO he is the point " to Hollins. The very next possesion we have, Hollins brings the ball up the court an initiates the zone offense.

I can do without the timid play of some of his teammates displayed but fully expect Hollins to strap on his work hat and simply lay it all out this year. I feel that he will be dialed in every game ready to step up when it looks like others can't and that is a positive from our most experienced player.
 




book


"Try a zone to keep from fouling so much?"



Yes! Absolutely, I was wondering why they weren't making them shoot it a bit when they started fouling out of control. EliteOpinionGuy, you are partially right but partially wrong. In a zone, there is the understanding that your teammates are going to slide over and help, therefore you feel less of a need to reach in and go for a strip. You're correct in stating that experience will help limit those fouls, that's just having faith in your teammates to deliver help defense.
 

The case against the zone was that Louisville is a great 3pt shooting team even without Harrell adding that to his aresenal this year.

Good: Mason impressed me as well as a freshmen has in a very long time!
Mo post scoring against some athletes.
Dre's mental toughness.

Bad: Mathieu is still stuggling.
When King isn't hitting 3's his neg sometimes outweight the pos. He did rebound fine from what i saw.
EE not being refined at all with the ball in his sr season.

Some of both:
Morris, jr college guys take some adjustment no matter the potential.
McNeil, 0-5 from 3 the one place i see him scoring against a superior defensive team. But rebounded well.
Buggs looked active but also had 2 to's in 6 min.
 

You find out a lot about yourself when you play a great team. Same last year when the Gophs played Syracuse. What we found out a year ago was that the Gophers were overwhelmed athletically but had good skill and scrap. What we found out the other night was that the Gopher centers and big forwards still lack the athleticism you need to defend and rebound against an elite team. Josh is plenty athletic but needs seasoning.

The game showed the potential of the team and its players to an extent, but it also exposed its weak points. Last year's team learned to mask or compensate for their deficiencies and turned out to play the athletic teams pretty well after a while. This year's team will have to do the same.

Amazing how good Morris and McNeil looked against Duluth and how bad they looked against Louisville. And that's more than getting beat by good players. They made open shots against Duluth and missed the same shots against Louisville. That belies a lack of confidence and/or a lack of scrap/fight. Or maybe they both just had a bad game. One way or another - same as last year - this team will go as far as their toughness and savvy will take them.
 

One of the reasons Morris and McNeal missed shots against Louisville was the speed of the game. Every thing was quicker and they rushed their shots. Hollins had a couple of rushed threes as well.
 

kiedro said:
One of the reasons Morris and McNeal missed shots against Louisville was the speed of the game. Every thing was quicker and they rushed their shots. Hollins had a couple of rushed threes as well.
Click to expand...

Yup, "Be quick, don't hurry." UMD and and the rest of these home games in Nov. Dec will not create real adversity like Louisville did. We'll see what January brings. Last year usually somebody got "hot". I wouldn't say Hollins was hot. He did play a good game. So we need guys to emerge and have a night in the Big Ten. Hopefully they find the confidence against the cupcakes to do it when it counts.
 

I think Morris can play with that kind of athletism and speed but just needs time as a juco to adjust. He really didn't have a bad game considering what a daunting first game at division 1 level we had.
 

The bad is that we lost this game and certainly could have played better, but the good is that Louisville is a great team, very well could be a 1 or 2 seed come March, and their stud players all played ridiculous, yet we hung with them. We had a chance to cut into an 8 point lead down the stretch of that game. It is fun knowing that if this team plays better than we saw the other night we could be a very good team at any point this season as well.
 


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