What has been the biggest problem this year?

What is our biggest problem this year?

  • Westbrook not playing better

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Overall guard play

    Votes: 12 17.1%

  • Finishing games

    Votes: 35 50.0%

  • Coaching and prep

    Votes: 4 5.7%

  • Heart

    Votes: 8 11.4%

  • Bad Luck

    Votes: 11 15.7%
  • Total voters
    70
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gopherbadgerman

gopherbadgerman

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What do you think the biggest problem with the BB team has been this year?
 

No White - No Mbakwe - Lost Nolan...huge losses of athleticism at the PF and PG...
 


Biggest Problem

The biggest problem on this team is lack of player leadership. Tubby really needs a coach on the floor. Great teams have talent and leadership. This team's talent is better than its leadership.
 



Lack of a legit scorer.
Closest thing would be Westbrook or Hoff.
Westbrook is probably the most inconsistent player in the conference.
Hoff would be the best 4th scoring option in the country, would be good as a 3rd option. As the batman or robin, he just doesn't have the athleticism to get to the rim. Has he ever dunked in a game?

One go to scorer would make most of the other problems go away. Westbrook could play less, the guards would have someone to go to, would allow the team to finish. Winning more games would cause you to no longer think about the bottom 3.
 

Senior leadership. Westbrook isn't a leader, and Damien is too laid back to be an effective leader.
 

Senior leadership. Westbrook isn't a leader, and Damien is too laid back to be an effective leader.
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I also agree with this. The players have to hold each other accountable on the floor. Someone, anyone, needs to do it. That's not something that appears to be within Damian, which really is fine, Westbrook is too self centered.

Who will be the leader(s) next year?
 

Our handling of team problems!!! Start with Maturi and go down the list.
 



Blizzard said:
I also agree with this. The players have to hold each other accountable on the floor. Someone, anyone, needs to do it. That's not something that appears to be within Damian, which really is fine, Westbrook is too self centered.

Who will be the leader(s) next year?
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Nolen and Carter
 

Nolen and Carter
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I've thought a bit about Nolen and I'm wondering what his role will be on the team next year. Tubby, according to his comments from his show the other day, is obviously pretty displeased with Al's failure this year to keep his academics in order. If we should be fortunate enough to land Cory Joseph do you think Al will land on the bench or at least have to earn his playing time back?

Funny scene with Carter and Westbrook last night when Carter was trying to help Westbrook off the floor and after two tries Westbrook didn't get up and rolled over and did it himself. Westbrook looked pissed as usual, Carter was like whatever.
 

Not sure if this is the biggest problem but the play that typified the season most for me last night involved our 2 seniors. Johnson passing the ball to Westbrook breaking into the lane and bouncing it off the back (of his head I believe) and Michigan scores on a fastbreak on the other end. What a change in directions.
 

Finishing games is the obvious answer, considering how many games we led late only to mess up. Win a few of those and everything changes, which leads to more confident play, which leads to even fewer blown leads. Wouldn't fix our obvious matchup problem and lack of confidence against Michigan, but we'd overlook it considering we'd have like 22 wins already.
 



From the Barn said:
Senior leadership. Westbrook isn't a leader, and Damien is too laid back to be an effective leader.
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I also agree with this. I'll add no fire on the floor in some games. I've seen more 'fire' from a girls 9th grade team than this team has shown at times this year.
 

Inability to finish close games. Win half or close to half of the games we choked away and we'd be looking at a decent season.

Nothing else is close.
 

SelectionSunday said:
Inability to finish close games. Win half or close to half of the games we choked away and we'd be looking at a decent season.

Nothing else is close.
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I'd argue that the root cause of that is the poor leadership. I don't once recall either of the seniors getting in their teammates faces when the collapse began and pulling things together.
 

Funny scene with Carter and Westbrook last night when Carter was trying to help Westbrook off the floor and after two tries Westbrook didn't get up and rolled over and did it himself. Westbrook looked pissed as usual said:
Looked like Westbrook expected him to literally pick him up off the floor. Looked pretty awkward.
Click to expand...
 

Inability to finish close games. Win half or close to half of the games we choked away and we'd be looking at a decent season.

Nothing else is close.
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I voted for Guard play because better guard play would have led to close wins. We needed guard scoring and poise down the stretch and haven't gotten it in any game with the exception of maybe the Indiana game with Joseph.

Agreed, closing close games is the biggest miss of the season, but guard play is the reason for not finishing the close games.
 

Bad luck...you can't expect what happened with Royce, Trevor, and Al.
 

Lack of talent. White and Mbakwe would have helped, but I dont know if they would have gotten this team to the second weekend of the tournament. Which, I think is what the goal for a program such as UofM should be.
 

Lack of Athleticism, in my opinion

Watching other games from around the country it is clear that we lack the following.

Good foot speed/quickness/lateral movement, etc.. It is a big reason our man defense stinks and why we are unable to get good shots against quality defenses

Nolen, White and Mbakwe would have surely addressed this at least partially.
 


Lack of senior leadership.

Not having Nolen hurt, no doubt. Not having White and Mbakwe is harder to assess. White, for all his talent, would still have been a freshman and prone to freshman inconsistency. Mbakwe would have been coming off of a year of less intense competition and may have needed the year to get his game together for the intensity of big ten play.

If all goes well next year, if Nolen rejoins the team and if White and Mbakwe have their off-the-court problems resolved and can play, if the team learned from the failures of this year, and if there is a senior able to assert leadership, this team could very, very good. That is a lot of ifs, though. In any event, I'll be rooting for them.
 

It must be Maturi, for the following reasons:
1. Nobody else is AD
2. He is present at nearly every home game
3. A couple of dozen Gopher Hole minds cannot be wrong
 

balds said:
Watching other games from around the country it is clear that we lack the following.

Good foot speed/quickness/lateral movement, etc.. It is a big reason our man defense stinks and why we are unable to get good shots against quality defenses

Nolen, White and Mbakwe would have surely addressed this at least partially.
Click to expand...

Or defend them(especially from the 3).

Also; LW's attitude and inability to play in a team concept.
 

In LW's defense, I think he sometimes decides that the "team concept" isn't working. Rather than giving up, he opts to try taking over the game and attempting more than he can handle. It's worked a time or two, but more often he looks way out of control.

He'd be MVP in a 6-footer league.
 

The bad offense meme needs to die. The offense is not even close to the problem.
 

The biggest problem this year is that we did not have any of the expert posters from GopherHole show up as walkons and play with no weaknesses, no drawbacks, no turnovers, make every shot, make every free throw, lead the team in rebounds and steals, be the leader, and to top it off, tell Tubby how it should and will be done.
 

Dr.Don said:
The biggest problem this year is that we did not have any of the expert posters from GopherHole show up as walkons and play with no weaknesses, no drawbacks, no turnovers, make every shot, make every free throw, lead the team in rebounds and steals, be the leader, and to top it off, tell Tubby how it should and will be done.
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I bet that one guy that claims he had a full ride on the Gopher baseball team - and earned his keep - but hates everything Minnesota, would be a great team leader.

<b>The biggest problem</b>, other than not being able to finish a game, is the dry cleaning bill.
 

GopherJake said:
I bet that one guy that claims he had a full ride on the Gopher baseball team - and earned his keep - but hates everything Minnesota, would be a great team leader.

<b>The biggest problem</b>, other than not being able to finish a game, is the dry cleaning bill.
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+2, Jake...either that or we needed m2s/ml to be the AD and Head BB Coach along with playing all 40 minutes of every game and earning a 4.0 GPA.
 

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