Just re-watched the game...my thoughts on why we lost....

1. We missed a ton of easy shots. The boys were so tight the first half. We missed about five 2 footers. Devoe missed an uncontested layup. Hoff missed some 3's that were more wide-open than any he's had all year. LW missed a wide open 3 that he usually buries.

2. We were outmuscled. Xavier killed us on the boards. I don't know what the numbers say, but Xavier got the rebounds and putbacks when it mattered. They were physically stronger than us and the refs let them push and go over the back. We couldn't answer the bell. Royce and Mbakwe would've made a HUGE difference here. I really hope RSIII, Carter, and Rodney hit the weights in the offseason. We need them to look like Xaviers upperclassmen.

3. Nobody stepped up other than LW's 1st half. Devoe, Hoff, and RSIII all had below-average games. Damien pulled a dissapearing act.

4. Strange reffing. Three overturned out-of-bounds plays in the 1st half (none were clear overturns). A terrible call on one out-of-bounds of the back of the backboard and blatent missed travel lead directly to 9 Xavier 1st half points. They were struggling, but we couldn't take advantage.

5. Crawford. He was unconscious the 2nd half. Made some huge shots. However, I've reffed a ton of HS basketball games and the jump stop, skip, re-establish pivot foot move he made 3 times is a travel in my book. IMO, the only place that is legal is the NBA. I've seen Al Nolen try that move about a 1/2 dozen times and never get away with it. He also got away with a number of carries, etc. Superstar treatment, but I guess that's OK.

6. Last, but not least, we have no real go-to-player. LW tries, but doesn't have the right attitude. I hope Devoe can move out of the point next year, because he has go-to-guy in him. I hope it's a Joseph to Joseph combination next year.

Go Gophers.

#6 is most relevant

We dont have the guy that can take a game over. We have about 9 nice players but no one that game in and game out will bring it---that is a notch above the other players on the court. The Willie Burton type. I wonder if we have that even next year. If not it will be another so so year.

Count me in as thinking #1 was the primary problem (though your post is very good analysis throughout). We were 7-26 on threes and many of them were barely contested. Not to mention some of the closer in shots. We could've been leading by 10 at halftime.

Shoot 40% and we win.

Colt doesn't play enough

We would have still lost, but why does Colt not play the minutes he deserves. Xavier killed us on the boards, but it was twice as bad when he was on the bench. This is the one thing I really question Tubby on. Colt has been onfire when he gets the ball deep, yet we stopped trying. He is our only eligible banger. Why Sampson start and gets more minutes is beyond me?

Colt was the one guy who didn't get outmuscled today.

No.1 was so key almost nothing else matters. A team can maybe get away with shooting the ball terribly against a significantly inferior opponent, but a team cannot overcome it against a team that's in there same stratosphere talent wise. The announcers went on and on about Xavier's struggles shooting the ball, but included in their shooting percentage in the first half were 10 blocked shots, the Gophers were the team missing the uncontested shots.

The Gophers need a power forward and/or Colt/Ralph to become significantly more physical. The rebounding was about even by stats, but the Gophers gave up far more second chance points on putbacks, etc than Xavier gave up.

The only thing your analysis missed was I thought Devoe struggles with the quickness of the Xavier guards today. He did not seem comfortable dribbling the ball which made the Gophers half court sets even more stagnant than usual. On defense, we didn't force our normal amount of turnovers largely due to the inability to bother Xavier's ballhandlers.

I don't feel like the officiating was a factor at all, the Gophers got the bad end of a couple calls, but nothing that was unusual enough to say it affected the outcome.

We didn't give up all those offensive rebounds because we were outmuscled or forgot to box out.

If you really watch closely you will see the reason. Crawford and Holloway were too quick for us to defend. As they were driving and kicking, etc, the bigs had to roll over to help out defensively. So - nobody is underneath the hoop now to rebound.

The reason we lost was:
1) Missing shots we normally make
2) Unable to match up man-to-man with their guards
3) We still don't have a guard that can break down a defense and score

Poor Shooting

Especially in 2nd half.

Gophers can't W if FG % is in 30% range.

Doc1001 said:

We dont have the guy that can take a game over. We have about 9 nice players but no one that game in and game out will bring it---that is a notch above the other players on the court. The Willie Burton type. I wonder if we have that even next year. If not it will be another so so year.

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Exactly, I don't think we played that bad. We were just very cold shooting, missing a lot of wide open shots and they had a go to guy in Crawford. We need a Willie Burton, Bobby Jackson, Vincent Grier guy. With Vincent Grier we win that game.

Friend Of Tubby said:

Especially in 2nd half.

Gophers can't W if FG % is in 30% range.

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Yep, and, again, these shots were largely uncontested. I think I'm objective when I would attribute X's shooting percentage to our defense and our shooting percentage to missing a lot of makeable shots.

There were several shots in the second half - in particular Blake a couple times, LW one time for sure - where I said to my wife, "you won't win many games against good competition if you don't make that shot."

Very happy they made the tourney. Wish we could have been one of the upsets.....

GopherJake said:

Yep, and, again, these shots were largely uncontested. I think I'm objective when I would attribute X's shooting percentage to our defense and our shooting percentage to missing a lot of makeable shots.

There were several shots in the second half - in particular Blake a couple times, LW one time for sure - where I said to my wife, "you won't win many games against good competition if you don't make that shot."

Very happy they made the tourney. Wish we could have been one of the upsets.....

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Gophers averaged 47% FG and 40% 3-pt FG all season long.

But they shot 30% FG and 27% 3-pt FG yesterday.

The Gophers didn't win a single game this year when they trailed by a 7 or more points. This year's roster was a bad mix of players.

Fine analysis, CHGFan. I agree with everything you said...I was nervous for the guys, and they were nervous as heck in the first half. Perhaps the Tubby-to-Auburn rumors surfaced prior to the game, and they figured this was their last hurrah together? In any event, Xavier benefitted greatly from past tourney experience in yesterday's game.

Our guard play was as expected, minus Al Nolen to handle the ball. Devoe does his best, but simply is NOT an elite PG, nor should he have to be. He's a terrific shooting guard, and I hope & pray his brother joins him next year. We'll be extremely improved if that happens.

It was great to see our bigs grow up this year. I love watching Hoff stroke the 3. I like Paul Carter's emergence, too. The future can be very bright...just a couple of breaks going our way in the off-season and we could be set for a great, great ride in the next few years.

Great analysis, in every game I've watched so far, at lest one player from the winning team has stepped up and played out of their head.

The Gophers had Westbrook the first half and nobody in the second. Our guard play (we miss you Al Nolen) defensively wasn't strong.

I really like the core of our team, though, and look forward to next year.

I am really confused when people group Sampson and Iverson together and say they need to be more physical. Can Iverson get more physical without getting thrown out? Sampson has been playing like he's 6'5". Iverson has been playing tough. Everyone get a clue.