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book

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I think for this team to be in the top 3 in the Big10 we have to find some long range shooters - Fast break, inside game, slashing to the basket looks great so far but who can shoot the 3 ball???
 

shooters and more

book said:
I think for this team to be in the top 3 in the Big10 we have to find some long range shooters - Fast break, inside game, slashing to the basket looks great so far but who can shoot the 3 ball???
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I would say our 3-some of Welch and the two Hollins boys might be the 3rd best set of returning shooters behind #1 Indiana and Northwestern. Wisconsin takes a hit with Gasser going down. Iowa should have good shooters as well.

I am more worried about our ball handling and who can run this team against a half court man to man. Hoping Andre can make the leap as the other options are slow.
 

I watched the entire Mankato game and the first half of last night on All-Access, and right now we look very similar to how we've looked the last couple years. Now, I'll give them the right to improve....obviously Trevor will only get healthier and maybe we're not showing everything against these crappy teams. I don't see greatness, though. It's really tough to pull off upsets without the 3-point shot.

Also, I don't have a good handle on the rest of our conference at this point but if we have the 3rd best shooting team that's a sad statement for the rest Big 10.
 

I'm not concerned about 3 point shooting. That will take care of itself, I'm only concerned with turnovers. I think our defense will stretch teams to the breaking point but if we have 10+ turnovers a game we won't make it real far this year. If we can dominate the glass, not turnover the ball, and play relentless defense, we will be a very hard team to beat with below average 3 point shooting
 

What concerns me is free throw shooting. The Gophers improved a lot going into last year, but with a lot of big bodies on the team (Trevor, Mo, Elliot, and even Rodney) we will be drawing a lot of fouls on offense. If this team can improve on free throw shooting yet again it will be a huge boost.
 


GopherHomer said:
Also, I don't have a good handle on the rest of our conference at this point but if we have the 3rd best shooting team that's a sad statement for the rest Big 10.
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Just because we don't have a gunner like Hoff anymore, doesn't mean 3 pt shooting is a weakness. Looking at the season numbers it is not a weakness. Were there games when we couldn't throw it in the ocean yes, but even HOff had bad stretches. Welch made 43% and connected on 46, Andre 38% made 44, Austin 37% made 51. Chip is gone and he was a 25% 3pt shooter and he had 67 attempts. Even Rodney who gets ripped for his outside shot made 31%. So there is no evidence to suggest we would take a step back this year? Other teams lost good 3 pt shooters: Gatens at Iowa, Taylor and Gasser-Wisconsin, buford-Ohio St., Michigan lost Novak and Smotrycz, Mich st lost Wood and Thorton. All of the better teams lost some big time shooters except us.
 

It all boils down to turnovers and free throws. If FT % is 70 or above and the team averages less than 10 turnovers/game - look for an excellent record.
 

Hopefully Tubby finally dials into a 8-9 rotation so the guys can get into a flow. This would help eliminate turnovers. Do I see it happening? Not at all.
 

gall0249 said:
Hopefully Tubby finally dials into a 8-9 rotation so the guys can get into a flow. This would help eliminate turnovers. Do I see it happening? Not at all.
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Agreed. My biggest concern which I'm almost convinced will be a reality is that we're going to see healthy doses of Maverick, Oto and Ingram in the first ten minutes of big games.
 



My biggest concern is closing out games where we have the other team on the ropes. Those were frustrating on a variety of fronts (obviously leaving should-have-been wins on the table hurts, but it also sucks fan momentum out of our sails when we see a game that we should have won and then we let the lead evaporate late). In these early games that we should win, if any of them have us with about an 8-10 point lead at the 4-5 minute mark, I am going to be watching team very closely. If we are not still looking to create offense and those leads shrink, it will be a red flag for me heading into the conference season. I think the one from last year that still burns the most was a stretch of 5 consecutive possessions against MSU where we went 0-1 shooting (we did not go 0-1 on each possession, we literally took 1 total shot over the course of 5 possessions) and the 1 was a desperation airball. MSU scored on all of the possession in between and their went our lead. You've got to keep scoring in this league.
 


Turnovers could be a problem for this team, but only if we fall back into the slower style of play which has happened most years under Tubby. If we are running, we are going to have to accept a certain amount of turnovers (probably a little higher rate than the Big Ten average). But, that's who we should be. We are long, athletic runners and jumpers. We need to slash, drive, and fastbreak our way to easy buckets. Sometimes that leads to turnovers. But, with this roster, I'd rather we attempt to up-tempo the game, and have a few more turnovers while trying to get easy buckets, than to slow it down and grind out a long possession only to miss a terrible shot with :04 left on the shot clock (to me that's worse than a turnover with this roster).

If we play fast and furious, this team can win a lot of games while still turning it over 15-18 times per game. If we play slow, this team might only turn it over 12 times per game, but very easily lose.
 

To address the topic heading, my gut says the Gophers have a chance to be very good, but I'm not so sure about great. "Great" to me implies conference championship material and/or Final Four quality. Not seeing that. That said, there's nothing wrong with a very good season. I'll start with that expectation, and adjust on the fly (think bigger) if the Gophers show us more.
 



lakesgopher said:
I'm not concerned about 3 point shooting. That will take care of itself, I'm only concerned with turnovers. I think our defense will stretch teams to the breaking point but if we have 10+ turnovers a game we won't make it real far this year. If we can dominate the glass, not turnover the ball, and play relentless defense, we will be a very hard team to beat with below average 3 point shooting
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Great take on the Gophers!

Turnovers and weakness on the glass are two major statistics that determine the outcome of a game.

I think we can be an above average rebounding team, but our ability to handle the ball is very suspect and could result in a number of close games ending in losses. I don't see a pure point guard on this team and that makes me very concerned about dealing with change of tempo and turnovers.
 

tjgopher said:
Turnovers could be a problem for this team, but only if we fall back into the slower style of play which has happened most years under Tubby. If we are running, we are going to have to accept a certain amount of turnovers (probably a little higher rate than the Big Ten average). But, that's who we should be. We are long, athletic runners and jumpers. We need to slash, drive, and fastbreak our way to easy buckets. Sometimes that leads to turnovers. But, with this roster, I'd rather we attempt to up-tempo the game, and have a few more turnovers while trying to get easy buckets, than to slow it down and grind out a long possession only to miss a terrible shot with :04 left on the shot clock (to me that's worse than a turnover with this roster).

If we play fast and furious, this team can win a lot of games while still turning it over 15-18 times per game. If we play slow, this team might only turn it over 12 times per game, but very easily lose.
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The NCAA tournament and B1G season is all about half-court execution and ball control. It is precisely why Tubby's teams have never ended up higher than 5th in the conference and why Tubby has yet to win a game in the NCAA tournament with the Gophers.
This team is not athletic enough or skilled enough to run and force the tempo to high speed all the time. This is not like the old UNLV teams and Houston's Phi Slamma Jamma. If we cannot be successful in a half-court tempo then this team is a .500 team at best in the B1G.
 

tinyarch said:
The NCAA tournament and B1G season is all about half-court execution and ball control. It is precisely why Tubby's teams have never ended up higher than 5th in the conference and why Tubby has yet to win a game in the NCAA tournament with the Gophers.
This team is not athletic enough or skilled enough to run and force the tempo to high speed all the time. This is not like the old UNLV teams and Houston's Phi Slamma Jamma. If we cannot be successful in a half-court tempo then this team is a .500 team at best in the B1G.
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I don't know how you get much more athletic than a lineup of Andre, Joe, Austin, Rodney, and Mbakwe.
 

tinyarch said:
The NCAA tournament and B1G season is all about half-court execution and ball control. It is precisely why Tubby's teams have never ended up higher than 5th in the conference and why Tubby has yet to win a game in the NCAA tournament with the Gophers.
This team is not athletic enough or skilled enough to run and force the tempo to high speed all the time. This is not like the old UNLV teams and Houston's Phi Slamma Jamma. If we cannot be successful in a half-court tempo then this team is a .500 team at best in the B1G.
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Make that 6th.

6, 7, 6, 9, 9.
 


tinyarch said:
I was thinking 6, but since I didn't have the data right in front of me I decided to err on lower number in case a hater came along... ;)
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You have no haters on GopherHole.
 

tinyarch said:
If we cannot be successful in a half-court tempo then this team is a .500 team at best in the B1G.
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Precisely why we absolutely should stay out of a half-court tempo as much as possible. This team does not have skilled enough mid-range shooters, not enough good ball handlers/passers, nor is Tubby's plan conducive to run a half-court offense successfully. Push the tempo, live with a few extra turnovers, utilize the length, the athleticism, and the slashing/jumping abilities (basically the strength of your roster) to win games in the 70s, not lose games in the 50s. I'm not suggesting this team has to be UNLV or Loyola Marymount. I'm suggesting with Andre at point and Joe and Rodney running the floor, we should transition at every opportunity. Push the ball, drive to the basket, move the ball down floor using the pass, etc. If that means Andre/Joe/Rodney on occasion commit a turnover, so be it. That's how we will win games. Trying to have this team run this offense in the half-court only to hoist up a terrible shot with :05 on the shot clock will result in bad news. Exactly as you indicated.
 

tjgopher. I think you are right on. We should push the ball at every opportunity. We should use our depth and press whenever possible. I think we should play man mostly but every now and then throw 1-3-1 half court traps. I see us playing similar to lots of acc and big east teams. I think we will have our biggest trouble against those teams that play half court and slow the tempo.
 

Let's put this in to perspective. Top 3 in the Big Ten would essentially be a top 10 team in the nation. It's gonna take player's we don't have to do that.
 

After the American game I still stand by my opening thread statement. We are very good but still need to hit some 3's to be excellent!
(and free throws too) Nice game Austin!
 

lakesgopher said:
but if we have 10+ turnovers a game we won't make it real far this year.
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freshtrout said:
It all boils down to turnovers and free throws. If FT % is 70 or above and the team averages less than 10 turnovers/game - look for an excellent record.
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Kentucky was 38-2 and won the national championship last year, while averaging 11 TOs per game.

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/team/stats/_/id/96/kentucky-wildcats

2 teams in all of D1 basketball averaged less than 10 TOs/game (Purdue and Wisconsin).

http://www.ncaa.com/stats/basketball-men/d1
 

I have to agree with book. While I think the three point shooting percentage will end up better than average, we simply don't have an obvious 3 point shooter a la The Hoff or even Westbrook.

If we ever needed a 3 at the end of a game, I think either Hollins would be a good choice but neither gives me the same level of confidence as did Hoff or Westbrook.
 

GopherJake said:
Kentucky was 38-2 and won the national championship last year, while averaging 11 TOs per game.

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/team/stats/_/id/96/kentucky-wildcats

2 teams in all of D1 basketball averaged less than 10 TOs/game (Purdue and Wisconsin).

http://www.ncaa.com/stats/basketball-men/d1
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Kentucky had 6 nba players on that roster, apples and oranges IMO. There are a lot more teams that had double digit turnovers that struggled than there were that had success guaranteed!
 

shooting

Tubtastic said:
I have to agree with book. While I think the three point shooting percentage will end up better than average, we simply don't have an obvious 3 point shooter a la The Hoff or even Westbrook.

If we ever needed a 3 at the end of a game, I think either Hollins would be a good choice but neither gives me the same level of confidence as did Hoff or Westbrook.
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4-22 on 3's is very ugly. They haven't shot the 3 well in any game yet. I hope thats just a fluke and we aren't even on the road. Williams seems like a good shooting gym as our opponents shoot it very well there. Austin looked to have a great game but was still 1-7 on 3's.

I guess if we keep shooting like this teams will just pack in a zone and dare us to shoot it.
 

So far Ahamisi has been the most consistent from the 3 point range, he really needs to play off ball though, his productivity really goes down when he plays PG and handles the ball, he got two last night and also hit a couple last Monday.
 

jovs said:
So far Ahamisi has been the most consistent from the 3 point range, he really needs to play off ball though, his productivity really goes down when he plays PG and handles the ball, he got two last night and also hit a couple last Monday.
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He is nothing but gold against a zone defense. Just stick him outside the arc and let the kid shoot.
 

afurry91 said:
He is nothing but gold against a zone defense. Just stick him outside the arc and let the kid shoot.
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I'd rather he was stuck at the end of the bench and let the kid pass down the water bottles...
 

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