Why did the Gophers struggle down the stretch of so many games?

Why did the Gophers struggle down the stretch of so many games?

  • Lack of senior leadership

    Votes: 12 41.4%

  • Coaching

    Votes: 9 31.0%

  • Bad guard play

    Votes: 7 24.1%

  • Lack of depth

    Votes: 1 3.4%
  • Total voters
    29
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Stan

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This bugged me as much as anything this season that we continued to struggle down the stretch. Sometimes we got the win but more times than not we either lost or let them back in when we shouldn't have. Why did the Gophers struggle down the stretch of so many games?
 

Foul trouble making guys tentative, not having a good set for taking the air out of the ball (expecting a guy to just make a play to get a shot), inexperience.
 

No Go-to-Guy. Voshon Lenard, Willie Burton, Bobby Jackson, Vinny Grier, Larry Westbrook were not walking through that door. Rodney and Dre stepped up in the NIT and need to continue that next year.
 

gopherinpain said:
No Go-to-Guy. Voshon Lenard, Willie Burton, Bobby Jackson, Vinny Grier, Larry Westbrook were not walking through that door. Rodney and Dre stepped up in the NIT and need to continue that next year.
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True. True. Look at tonight when Dre and Rodney fell silent the team really really struggled.
 

The lack of experienced guard play in the last 5 minutes of a game without a go to scorer made the Gophers turnover prone and tentative in the absence of a turnover, resulting in shots of desperation. Dre's improvement and reliability at the foul line may be the difference next year along with Trevor as a true down low option.
 


Stan said:
This bugged me as much as anything this season that we continued to struggle down the stretch. Sometimes we got the win but more times than not we either lost or let them back in when we shouldn't have. Why did the Gophers struggle down the stretch of so many games?
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We go into our "prevent" offense when we have a lead late in the second half. We run the shot clock down to 10 seconds and then take a poor shot. In the meantime, the defense doesn't have to work hard because they just watch us stand or dribble the ball up top and they only have to defend for 10 seconds.
 

Too young and inexperienced. Last thing a young team learns is how to win.
 

No true point guard. Andre got better as the year went along, but there still isn't a true quality point guard on this roster.

Dre and Welch are much more combo guards. And when a game gets tight and it's a possession by possession game, a team really needs someone who can take care of the ball, handle pressure and make the right decision.

The Gophers don't have that. Dre's getting better, but he has work to do.
 

anonymous said:
No true point guard. Andre got better as the year went along, but there still isn't a true quality point guard on this roster.

Dre and Welch are much more combo guards. And when a game gets tight and it's a possession by possession game, a team really needs someone who can take care of the ball, handle pressure and make the right decision.

The Gophers don't have that. Dre's getting better, but he has work to do.
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I've been watching the best PG the Gophers have had in years. To be a PG, you do not have to be a pass first PG. I agree he has alot of work left to do. Eric Harris was the last very good one I recall, and he didn't real shine til his senior year. He almost made the NBA. I'm guessing Dre is better.
 



I didn't want to do a hit and run casting a vote for "coaching" without explaining. A big part of it was the stall offense late in games that we were leading. Some teams can run it, we can't. Yet after being shown time and time again that it wouldn't work for us, Tubby kept going back to it. After we went from a big lead late to a close game, our momentum was gone, and we had no offensive rhythm or flow.
 


We don't have a PG that can create penetration and beat his defender. Nor do we have a big man who can command the ball inside and score with his back to the basket. Bottom line, we are a very poor half court offensive team. This team needs to score in transition or we get exposed.
 

indygopher said:
We go into our "prevent" offense when we have a lead late in the second half. We run the shot clock down to 10 seconds and then take a poor shot. In the meantime, the defense doesn't have to work hard because they just watch us stand or dribble the ball up top and they only have to defend for 10 seconds.
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This is the exact thing that frustrates me. We use our flex offense all game, then we go to a stall/isolation offense and we start to take bad shots.

Lets play to WIN!, not to not lose.
 



Outside of Dre there are no perimeter players that are good ball-handlers or playmakers.
 

Echo what others have said,

Too many times we played not to lose. Too much dribbling, not enough ball movement.
 



Where is lack of movement?

Maybe this is coaching or lack of. The reason the Gophers struggle so much is when they slow the game down and stall late in games they dont really run much offense. The points guard at the time just dribbles the clock down while everyone stands and watches him do it. They then move to one side of the floor while on player looks to set a screen. For this team to get better late in games and at running down the clock they need to continue to move their feet. The offense should still be moving for no other reason that to force the defense to move as well.
 

Stan said:
This bugged me as much as anything this season that we continued to struggle down the stretch. Sometimes we got the win but more times than not we either lost or let them back in when we shouldn't have. Why did the Gophers struggle down the stretch of so many games?
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Lack of a practice facility, not the man.

Couldnt be anything else.....
 



howieramone said:
BarnBurner is a minngg wannabe. Looks good on my ignore list.
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No, minngg is a BB wannabe. BB has been doing it much longer than minngg, he just disappears when the team is winning.
 


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