Transfer list possibilities, Spring 2020

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Well yeah if we can get those! Ihnen and healthy Curry, rotate in Freeman and Omersa as well.
 

cjbfbp said:
This guy hasn't been mentioned yet: Mattias Markusson. He's a 7'3" 260 lb. center from Sweden who played at Loyola Marymount but redshirted this season. He would be a grad transfer. He did pretty well last year. Perhaps the second coming of Matz?
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Some video on Markusson. Pretty agile for a big guy, decent stroke, not very physical though.
 

Gophers need high end talent that can score more than anything else. Unless Pitino is going to vastly change the offense that we've seen, he's incredibly reliant on individual players making great individual plays to generate offense. Oturu and Carr played a lot of "better than you" offense this year. Last year Amir Coffey played that way and Jordan Murphy controlled had times where he'd dominate the interior. Right now I am only comfortable with Marcus and Gabe as starters and Gabe is a dependent player on offense who didn't get the same quality of looks from 3 consistently this year as he did last year. Isaiah Ihnen is third on my list of returning guys, but he's only shown the ability to take catch and shoot 3's on the offensive end and possess the length and speed to be intriguing. I was really disappointed that there was zero development from Jarvis this past year as he's clearly a B1G level athlete but neither his skills or his feel for the game improved in year 2.

I don't have any reason to believe they will get any of the proven scorers on the market, but they really need a Landers Nolley type impact addition to offset Oturu in addition to one of the available bigs.
 

EG#9 said:
he's incredibly reliant on individual players making great individual plays to generate offense. Oturu and Carr played a lot of "better than you" offense this year. Last year Amir Coffey played that way and Jordan Murphy controlled had times where he'd dominate the interior.
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Exactly right. I just find it hard to believe they're ever gonna be that good under Pitino unless they move the ball and play team basketball. Let stars make plays organically out of a ball movement offense. I don't know if I see it either. Pitino is a roll the ball out and hope my players beat yours. Just will never get you that far. Need ball movement/player movement, more activity, chemistry, connectedness.
 
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skiumah1 said:
Exactly right. I just find it hard to believe they're ever gonna be that good under Pitino unless they move the ball and play team basketball. Let stars make plays organically out of a ball movement offense. I don't know if I see it either. Pitino is a roll the ball out and hope my players beat yours. Just will never get you that far. Need ball movement/player movement, more activity, chemistry, connectedness.
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You mean like they did against Louisville last year in the tournament?
 



DeathClutch said:
We had some interest in Marfo out of HS.

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Those rebounding numbers are really impressive.

He doesn't seem like much of a scorer. Barely averaged 10 ppg on 28 minutes in the MAAC.

I like that he is a 71% FT shooter and he does not foul very much (3.7 fouls/40 minutes). Compare that to Morris Udeze who is a 48% FT and averaged 9.0 fouls/40 minutes.
 


Gopherbbdude said:
Those numbers are pretty impressive.

watched some of the highlights of Mattius.. some nice blocks, nice stroke. not much for post moves
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Yeah I think my preference would be Markusson > Marfo > Udeze. No idea how realistic either of the top two guys are.

I like that Markusson is mature (dude turns 24 in a couple weeks!), has some real size, is a good FG (59%) and FT (76%) shooter.

In his two combined games against Gonzaga in 2018-2019, as a measure of his play against top competition, he played: 39 minutes, shot 8/16 and 1/1 FT, 7 REB, 2 STL, 2 BLK, 3 TOV.

He does not seem like a strong rebounder, though? He averaged 9.9 per 40 minutes which seems really low for such a big guy. I counted 8 different games where he played 22-34 minutes and accrued between 1-4 total rebounds, which is odd to me.
 



eker0016 said:
Yeah I think my preference would be Markusson > Marfo > Udeze. No idea how realistic either of the top two guys are.

I like that Markusson is mature (dude turns 24 in a couple weeks!), has some real size, is a good FG (59%) and FT (76%) shooter.

In his two combined games against Gonzaga in 2018-2019, as a measure of his play against top competition, he played: 39 minutes, shot 8/16 and 1/1 FT, 7 REB, 2 STL, 2 BLK, 3 TOV.

He does not seem like a strong rebounder, though? He averaged 9.9 per 40 minutes which seems really low for such a big guy. I counted 8 different games where he played 22-34 minutes and accrued between 1-4 total rebounds, which is odd to me.
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Speculating, but WCC is a perimeter conference. Lots of gunning threes by the better teams and the bad ones. That means lots of rebounds out on the edge which might hurt rebounding numbers of a post player. I like the idea of a big who can shoot and make free throws consistently.
 


Holy Man said:
Speculating, but WCC is a perimeter conference. Lots of gunning threes by the better teams and the bad ones. That means lots of rebounds out on the edge which might hurt rebounding numbers of a post player. I like the idea of a big who can shoot and make free throws consistently.
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Good thinking. l took a look at the numbers from similar sized players on other WCC teams and while he was on the low end for per 40 averages, he wasn't out of line.
 

Otis said:
You mean like they did against Louisville last year in the tournament?
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That was a nice game. Gabe went off. Murphy made a couple 3s. Coffey played a like stud. Wouldn't say it was great ball movement or anything. Guys made plays that day.

Have to judge body of work.
 



skiumah1 said:
That was a nice game. Gabe went off. Murphy made a couple 3s. Coffey played a like stud. Wouldn't say it was great ball movement or anything. Guys made plays that day.

Have to judge body of work.
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That was the best 2-3 hours of work I had last year!
 

skiumah1 said:
Exactly right. I just find it hard to believe they're ever gonna be that good under Pitino unless they move the ball and play team basketball. Let stars make plays organically out of a ball movement offense. I don't know if I see it either. Pitino is a roll the ball out and hope my players beat yours. Just will never get you that far. Need ball movement/player movement, more activity, chemistry, connectedness.
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Our offensive system is fine. It gets the best players with the ball in spots to score which the goal of any offense. I’d argue that lack of ball movement was more of a Oturo not being great at kicking it out on doubles than an offensive system issue. We do agree on the cohesiveness on defense needing to continue to get better.
 

I tend to agree with EG9 and SkiUMah on the offense. It relies on individuals generating a lot of offense on their own in the halfcourt.

I see a lot of standing around by guys who don't have the ball - Kalscheur is mostly an exception on this as he moves around a lot.

The problem this year - and last year with Dupree being a shell of himself and Washington being bad - is that they need multiple ball-handlers/shot-creators. This year it was Carr. Last year it was Coffey. When they had Mason/McBrayer/Coffey together, the offense could get rolling because they do that dribble weave and it just takes one guy to break his guy down. If they only have one guy who can do that, defenses load up on him. That happened a lot this year with Carr.

I don't know if this is a Pitino offensive philosophy problem or just a recruiting problem in that it's really hard to get shooters, but they don't space the floor well. Watch Villanova, Creighton, Michigan and a bunch of others and watch how they space the floor and move the ball. The Gophers don't do that. They don't have shooters, they don't have quick decision-makers and they don't have a lot of guys who can break defenders down and make something out of nothing quickly.

They are capable of some very good offensive showings just like every decent team in America, but the offense is not, in my opinion, fine. It's fine if the goal is to be exactly what they've been the last decade. It's not fine if they want to compete in the top half of the league, get to the tournament regularly and win multiple games in the tournament on occasion.
 

Biggsohnasty said:
I tend to agree with EG9 and SkiUMah on the offense. It relies on individuals generating a lot of offense on their own in the halfcourt.

I see a lot of standing around by guys who don't have the ball - Kalscheur is mostly an exception on this as he moves around a lot.

The problem this year - and last year with Dupree being a shell of himself and Washington being bad - is that they need multiple ball-handlers/shot-creators. This year it was Carr. Last year it was Coffey. When they had Mason/McBrayer/Coffey together, the offense could get rolling because they do that dribble weave and it just takes one guy to break his guy down. If they only have one guy who can do that, defenses load up on him. That happened a lot this year with Carr.

I don't know if this is a Pitino offensive philosophy problem or just a recruiting problem in that it's really hard to get shooters, but they don't space the floor well. Watch Villanova, Creighton, Michigan and a bunch of others and watch how they space the floor and move the ball. The Gophers don't do that. They don't have shooters, they don't have quick decision-makers and they don't have a lot of guys who can break defenders down and make something out of nothing quickly.

They are capable of some very good offensive showings just like every decent team in America, but the offense is not, in my opinion, fine. It's fine if the goal is to be exactly what they've been the last decade. It's not fine if they want to compete in the top half of the league, get to the tournament regularly and win multiple games in the tournament on occasion.
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The Villanova offense is beautiful
 

Biggsohnasty said:
I tend to agree with EG9 and SkiUMah on the offense. It relies on individuals generating a lot of offense on their own in the halfcourt.

I see a lot of standing around by guys who don't have the ball - Kalscheur is mostly an exception on this as he moves around a lot.

The problem this year - and last year with Dupree being a shell of himself and Washington being bad - is that they need multiple ball-handlers/shot-creators. This year it was Carr. Last year it was Coffey. When they had Mason/McBrayer/Coffey together, the offense could get rolling because they do that dribble weave and it just takes one guy to break his guy down. If they only have one guy who can do that, defenses load up on him. That happened a lot this year with Carr.

I don't know if this is a Pitino offensive philosophy problem or just a recruiting problem in that it's really hard to get shooters, but they don't space the floor well. Watch Villanova, Creighton, Michigan and a bunch of others and watch how they space the floor and move the ball. The Gophers don't do that. They don't have shooters, they don't have quick decision-makers and they don't have a lot of guys who can break defenders down and make something out of nothing quickly.

They are capable of some very good offensive showings just like every decent team in America, but the offense is not, in my opinion, fine. It's fine if the goal is to be exactly what they've been the last decade. It's not fine if they want to compete in the top half of the league, get to the tournament regularly and win multiple games in the tournament on occasion.
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Our offense was and has been in the top half of the conference many years including last year. Our defense has not and it’s been the main if not sole reason for our poor standings in the B1G. Offense isn’t our issue. Richard gets the ball in his best players hands the most often which from an efficiency standpoint should be the goal of any offense. I get it does have some high usage out of our lead guards but if you watch most any good offensive B1G team they are all similar in that regard. I do agree we could and should continue to try and recruit better shooters and two way players like Gabe. You were right that they are hard to find and even harder to land.
 

manderson1984 said:
Our offense was and has been in the top half of the conference many years including last year.
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Looking through the Pitino era they hover pretty consistently around 6-10th in offensive scoring averages within Big Ten Conference games only (It's hard to judge because they have such variance from year-to-year). The offense has not necessarily been high-end. You're probably right though in that if the Defense would match that range we would be close to consistently making the tournament. I still think inconsistency best describes the offense. I don't necessarily think the best offense is to get the ball in your best players hands. I think it's to put guys in position to score where they're most efficient. I think a good example of this was Carr from this year. We know he could score but if he looks to set up guys for shots where they're comfortable (that's on those guys too) our offense would move from the middle towards the top. I understand Carr set the assist record but he also played 40 min/night and just watching him it was easy to see the times when he was clearly forcing the issue trying to finish highly contested lay-ups against 2/3 guys.

Villanova has had many high-end talents come through, and yet year-after-year the ball is moving quickly and often, up and down the floor.
 

skiumah1 said:
Looking through the Pitino era they hover pretty consistently around 6-10th in offensive scoring averages within Big Ten Conference games only (It's hard to judge because they have such variance from year-to-year). The offense has not necessarily been high-end. You're probably right though in that if the Defense would match that range we would be close to consistently making the tournament. I still think inconsistency best describes the offense. I don't necessarily think the best offense is to get the ball in your best players hands. I think it's to put guys in position to score where they're most efficient. I think a good example of this was Carr from this year. We know he could score but if he looks to set up guys for shots where they're comfortable (that's on those guys too) our offense would move from the middle towards the top. I understand Carr set the assist record but he also played 40 min/night and just watching him it was easy to see the times when he was clearly forcing the issue trying to finish highly contested lay-ups against 2/3 guys.

Villanova has had many high-end talents come through, and yet year-after-year the ball is moving quickly and often, up and down the floor.
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All valid points about the our offense that I don’t necessarily disagree with. When you run offenses predicated by ball screens like ours, high usage is hard to avoid. I also prefer Novas offense, but what allows them to do that is the ability to have those high end talents. We don’t have NBA level perimeter guys who can break down guys off the dribble. I think if we win more we get more guys like that and it’s allow us to run offense with more ball movement.
 


skiumah1 said:
Looking through the Pitino era they hover pretty consistently around 6-10th in offensive scoring averages within Big Ten Conference games only (It's hard to judge because they have such variance from year-to-year). The offense has not necessarily been high-end. You're probably right though in that if the Defense would match that range we would be close to consistently making the tournament. I still think inconsistency best describes the offense. I don't necessarily think the best offense is to get the ball in your best players hands. I think it's to put guys in position to score where they're most efficient. I think a good example of this was Carr from this year. We know he could score but if he looks to set up guys for shots where they're comfortable (that's on those guys too) our offense would move from the middle towards the top. I understand Carr set the assist record but he also played 40 min/night and just watching him it was easy to see the times when he was clearly forcing the issue trying to finish highly contested lay-ups against 2/3 guys.

Villanova has had many high-end talents come through, and yet year-after-year the ball is moving quickly and often, up and down the floor.
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manderson1984 said:
Our offense was and has been in the top half of the conference many years including last year. Our defense has not and it’s been the main if not sole reason for our poor standings in the B1G. Offense isn’t our issue. Richard gets the ball in his best players hands the most often which from an efficiency standpoint should be the goal of any offense. I get it does have some high usage out of our lead guards but if you watch most any good offensive B1G team they are all similar in that regard. I do agree we could and should continue to try and recruit better shooters and two way players like Gabe. You were right that they are hard to find and even harder to land.
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If offense includes FT shooting, MN need some help. Making FT is crucial to staying in and winning games. Lots of room to improve FT shooting, imo.
 

Can We Return to Talking About Transfers Please?

Would like to hear more about this Marfo guy from Quinnipiac. Like how big is he? What where his stats? What are our chances? anyone got fil on him?
 

BarnBurner said:
If offense includes FT shooting, MN need some help. Making FT is crucial to staying in and winning games. Lots of room to improve FT shooting, imo.
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Had a basketball coach tell me this: "You treat poor free throw shooting the same way football handles fumbles, you don't talk about it. Just keep working on them (FT and Ball Control Drills) like every coach already does. The last thing you want is a kid going to the line even considering the chance they might miss.". "Don't harp on it, it just puts negativity in their mind, and you never want that.". What's interesting is that pretty much every free throw shooting drill we fans can suggest, most coaches can honestly reply "Already doing that" or "Already tried that".
 

manderson1984 said:
Our offensive system is fine. It gets the best players with the ball in spots to score which the goal of any offense. I’d argue that lack of ball movement was more of a Oturo not being great at kicking it out on doubles than an offensive system issue. We do agree on the cohesiveness on defense needing to continue to get better.
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It is the coach's job to help the player understand the right play makes him a better player and the team better. Offense is based on trust. If I trust you will get me the ball when I am open and you the same, it is a *completely* different game.

Our offense has been average. Fine implies it does not need improvement. It needs improvement.
 

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