That was a hell of a win! How much fun is this...seriously? I thought we really got the short end of the stick from the officiating which forced us to change the way we like to play on offense. Neither Dupree nor Nate could buy a call all night, so their drives were less effective. The key to the entire game for me was how well this team played defensively in the second half. How many times was Northwestern down under 5 seconds before they were even able to get a shot up? Just night and day from early in the first half. If not for a couple of very fortunate bounces and a terrible call when McIntosh drove in three guys, we likely put that away a bit earlier. One major difference between how we defended Northwestern this year compared to last year (when they destroyed us) is that we were able to switch all screens and not create huge mismatches. I'd like to point out Eric Curry switching on smaller players and contrast that to if Joey King had to do that last year.
Individual accolades for me: Amir Coffey was fantastic early and made plays at a couple stages in the game where we looked a little lost offensively and he just created something himself. Bakary Konate gave us great minutes in the first half, rebounding everything, doing much better on pick and roll defense than last year, and finishing a couple of dunks. How about Michael Hurts big three? I was thinking while he was in the game "This might be the weakness of this team, there's 7 minutes left in a two score game on the road and we've got to put in an unproven freshman"...and then he buries the three! Even though Nate Mason was off scoring, he was extremely composed with the ball and made good decisions.
Concerns: Obviously the free throw shooting has to be better. There should be a stat that includes the 2nd FT of one and ones, because the FT% itself doesn't tell the whole story. I HATED the end of the first half. We were down 2 on the road and had the clear opportunity to take the last shot of the half. There's no way we shoud be going in to the half down more than 2. Dupree takes a three (he was wide open) with like 9 -10 seconds left and Northwestern gets the rebound and goes down and gets a transition layup at the buzzer for a two score lead and all the momentum. It was bizarre because it seemed like the Gophers were aware of the situation and were intending to take the last shot. I was also concerned with Dupree's shot in this game it was very clear in the second half that it didn't feel right to him, he didn't have confidence and that the ball was not going to go in. Kimani came out and slapped him on the ass at a timeout because you could tell Dupree was in his own head. Hopefully a home game will remedy that situation. Finally, it's a lot to ask of a freshman, but man Amir really needed to pull that ball out with like a minute to go and a 5 point lead. I understand trying to take advantage of a 2 on 1 situation, but we had a chance to get the clock down to about 30 seconds there. Unfortunately they then fouled Amir and he had to wait at the line for like 3 minutes to shoot the front end of a one and one.
