This year's team is better than last year's

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CPTMidnight

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Nice win vs. Michigan!

The team appears to be passionate, talented, balanced, multiple go-to players, gritty, well coached, having fun and getting better every game. They play hard, adjust as the game goes on, bounce back under adversity (they won't go away) and appear to be genuinely good kids. I really like this team.

Winning 10 of the last 14 big ten games is a tall order but there isn't a game left on the schedule that they cannot win if they stay healthy.
 




If last year’s team had this schedule I think they’d have similar records. That’s the risk/reward of scheduling tough opponents.
 


CPTMidnight said:
Nice win vs. Michigan!

The team appears to be passionate, talented, balanced, multiple go-to players, gritty, well coached, having fun and getting better every game. They play hard, adjust as the game goes on, bounce back under adversity (they won't go away) and appear to be genuinely good kids. I really like this team.

Winning 10 of the last 14 big ten games is a tall order but there isn't a game left on the schedule that they cannot win if they stay healthy.
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Why do they need to win 10 of the last 14? They don't need to go 13-7 in the conference to get in. I'd guess 11-9 in conference does the trick.
 

CPTMidnight said:
Nice win vs. Michigan!

The team appears to be passionate, talented, balanced, multiple go-to players, gritty, well coached, having fun and getting better every game. They play hard, adjust as the game goes on, bounce back under adversity (they won't go away) and appear to be genuinely good kids. I really like this team.

Winning 10 of the last 14 big ten games is a tall order but there isn't a game left on the schedule that they cannot win if they stay healthy.
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Luckily we shouldn't even need to win that many. Looking forward to seeing our NET ranking after this win is factored in.
 


One of the biggest differences I'm noticing from previous years is that when this team is behind in a game, how often they bounce back to get the game close again and stay with it. Previous years they would get socked in the mouth early, and the game would just be over...they wouldn't have the ability to fight their way back into the game.

This team has so much upside, both this year and the following 2 years. It's been awhile since I've been this excited about a team's prospects.
 






mplarson7 said:
Washington, Stull, Stockman...
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Washington didn't play that much at all. He is like Hurt this year.

I'd definitely argue Williams is better than Stull was.

Stockman had a couple big games near the end of the year, but was also a non-factor a lot. Omersa is a different player but he is giving solid minutes on par with Stockman.
 



theczar said:
Not a chance... razor thin bench
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Man you bring a lot of fun to this discussion. Bench is still easily better than last year and we have pieces that will only develop and get better (Ihnen and Greenlee)
 


Roland Brooks said:
10-10 they are in
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10-10 makes their overall record 16-14. The lowest number of total wins for an At-Large team last year was 19 wins (Ohio State, Baylor, Florida, and Oklahoma).

Would a solid showing NET ranking system be enough? Seems like we would need a few more wins or a deep run in the Big Ten tourney.... I'm no expert on the selection process.
 

I think 11-9 with a big ten tourney win would make me feel decently comfortable as long as none of those are bad losses. Would put us at 18–14 with a good enough NET that I think we’d be fine. Would also feel a lot better with a winning conference record than .500
 

I think they're about the same as last year but the non-conference schedule is hurting. Hopefully they reward the Gophers for playing tougher opponents and staying within 10 on all of them. Losing both true road games and the Black Friday game hurt though.

I'm guessing 11-9 with 1 tournament win and no more than 1 conference home loss will be the magic number. Probably 10-10 with 2 tournament wins as long as the losses are on the road or at home against the top team and relatively close. I doubt 10-10 with 1 tournament win would do it.
 

I believe the biggest difference between this year and last is Marcus Carr. The team last year probably had more talent, with Coffey and Murphy, but it was forced to play Amir out of position. At times the offense would grind down and we would go through ugly stretches were we couldn't put points on the board. This year it seems that we can get better looks with Carr's dribble penetration and Oturu in the post.
 

Let's get to tournament and season play out
 



CPTMidnight said:
10-10 makes their overall record 16-14. The lowest number of total wins for an At-Large team last year was 19 wins (Ohio State, Baylor, Florida, and Oklahoma).

Would a solid showing NET ranking system be enough? Seems like we would need a few more wins or a deep run in the Big Ten tourney.... I'm no expert on the selection process.
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UGA made the tournament one with a record of 2 games above .500. Granted they had the #1 SOS that, year, but Minnesota's is projected to finish in the top 10 this year.
 

WriterGoph said:
Washington didn't play that much at all. He is like Hurt this year.

I'd definitely argue Williams is better than Stull was.

Stockman had a couple big games near the end of the year, but was also a non-factor a lot. Omersa is a different player but he is giving solid minutes on par with Stockman.
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Yeah. Bench last year was like a torn piece of tissue paper, it was all starters and not much else going on.
 

mplarson7 said:
Yeah. Bench last year was like a torn piece of tissue paper, it was all starters and not much else going on.
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Was awful. Stull made 2 big 3s vs wi and stockman was serviceable back up center with few moments, that's it
 

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