Who Guards Pre Season All American Montrezl Harrell?

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BOUNDOUTPASSDUNK

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He's 6'8" and has NBA written all over him. He will likely average a double/double.

BKonate? Josh? They seem the most logical physically. Perhaps there was some logic to their starts against Duluth? Can this duo stay out of foul trouble? I can't see King being able to body up with Harrell.

Louisville also has 4 other bigs 6'10" or taller, including Gopher recruit Anas Mahmoud.
I think D. McNeil and Morris will be asked to contribute to deny Harrell the ball.

Can the Gophers' overall defense deal with an inside presence of Harrell's magnitude who they may not see in the B1G?
It's a tall order.

Let the games begin!
 

Too many questions in one thread, when there are no answers yet.
 

I'd be very surprised

BOUNDOUTPASSDUNK said:
He's 6'8" and has NBA written all over him. He will likely average a double/double.

BKonate? Josh? They seem the most logical physically. Perhaps there was some logic to their starts against Duluth? Can this duo stay out of foul trouble? I can't see King being able to body up with Harrell.

Louisville also has 4 other bigs 6'10" or taller, including Gopher recruit Anas Mahmoud.
I think D. McNeil and Morris will be asked to contribute to deny Harrell the ball.

Can the Gophers' overall defense deal with an inside presence of Harrell's magnitude who they may not see in the B1G?
It's a tall order.

Let the games begin!
Click to expand...

If Bakary or Josh are being counted on as individual defensive stoppers vs Louisville we are having a very bad day. They do not have that ability yet. We can't match up playing straight man to man. We'll have play some zone and mix coverages. jmo We absolutely need to pressure the ball in whatever we do.
 

I think we'll play a lot of zone. EE will have to have a big game defensively and on the glass. He has to stay out of foul trouble.
 

2-3 zone. Make Harrell shoot 10 foot jumpers and crash the boards with all our might.

EE in the middle staying out of foul trouble will be key to stopping Harrell.
 


Konate will have 5 good minutes on him before fouling out.
 

Personally I think you put EE on him and just pressure the heck out of their guards. If they can't get set and make a post feed, we don't have to worry as much about defending him one on one.
 

Zone is a must.

But if we put EE (and can EE stay out of foul trouble???) on Harrell, then King/Josh/Bakery have to guard their 7'er. It will really be interesting to see if we are versatile enough to contain a big team that also has the ability to kick it out and hit the 3.
 

That is a little bit scary. Certainly not King or Konate. Maybe Josh Martin.
 



I don't think any of the Gophers front court players is a great match-up for Harrell. The one advantage the Gophers have this year is that they have Mo, Elliott, Bakary, Joey and Josh to go against the Louisville front court. That's 25 fouls to spread throughout the game. Has anyone seen an update on Buggs?
 


EE is a better defender than a lot of teams have to play him.

You put EE on Harrell and you coach him to body him before he gets the ball and limit hit to one shot. King 6-9 225 would play 6-10 220 Mathiang who averaged a whopping 3.6 pts per game, and is not much of a post threat. Almost all of Harrell's scoring is within 5 feet of the basket.
 

He only shot 46% from the free throw line last season so Hack-a-Harrell in certain times during the game might be a good idea.
 



This is why we got a guy like Josh Martin. Obviously he's not going to spend a lot of time on Harrell being that it's his first official college game, but further down the line Harrell's the kind of guy he's going to be guarding.
 

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