Hoffarber

There have been a lot of comments about Hoffarber's shooting woes over the past couple of weeks.

First of all, its sort of ironic that we hit 9/9 from beyond the arc and Hoffarber didn't even have an attempt.

Second, I was extremely pleased with his play yesterday. He had that great tip-in basket and got that other easy lay up on some great off the ball movement.

Blake also contributed 3 assists and did not have a single turnover. It's nice to see that he is maturing into a player that can do things other than just shooting.

NateDawgUM said:

There have been a lot of comments about Hoffarber's shooting woes over the past couple of weeks.

First of all, its sort of ironic that we hit 9/9 from beyond the arc and Hoffarber didn't even have an attempt.

Second, I was extremely pleased with his play yesterday. He had that great tip-in basket and got that other easy lay up on some great off the ball movement.

Blake also contributed 3 assists and did not have a single turnover. It's nice to see that he is maturing into a player that can do things other than just shooting.

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One of those assists was a beautiful entry pass to Ralph. It looked like he put some top spin on the ball to make it bounce quicker off the floor, which gave the defender less time to react.

Not sure if its shooting woes or just that he's not getting a lot of open looks. I'd guess the later -- I'm curious how many shots he has taken over this apparent shooting drought. Its quite possible that he may be disciplined and doesn't see the need to force shots for the stat keepers.

Hoff getting attention

From what I saw yesterday, Hoff certainly got lots of defensive attention from PSU. Teams know that he can shoot and they account for him. That opens up opportunity for others. If other players continue to cash in, the opposing D will have a major problem in deciding who to concentrate on. It just might open up more room for the bigs to operate in the paint.

The word got out on Hoffarber rather quickly in the Big Ten, and teams just simply aren't going to give him any space. This in-and-of-itself is a good thing because it changes the way teams play defense against the other 4 players. Much of Hoff's value will not always show up on the stat sheet. I even thought he had the play of the game against Iowa when he rebounded Bostick's airball and, while falling down, kicked it out to Busch for the shot clock buzzer beating 3 that gave us the lead for good. He's a more complete basketball player than people realize.

PSU

I'm sure another factor was, if I recall correctly, the PSU game at State College last year was sort of Hoff's coming out party. I think he knocked down five 3's in that game, huge in helping pull out the win in a game the Gophers probably didn't deserve to win.

PSU gave him no looks yesterday whatsoever, it was pretty evident.

WAGopher said:

One of those assists was a beautiful entry pass to Ralph. It looked like he put some top spin on the ball to make it bounce quicker off the floor, which gave the defender less time to react.

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That assist by HOFF was to Bostick - making it even more impressive since Devron made the basket underneath almost uncontested while the PSU center was caught flat-footed as the much shorter Bostick scored the layup.

Edit - I saw a replay of B10 Tonight and saw both assists - the one to Sampson and the one to Bostick --- both pretty amazing. "threading the needle" on the one to Bostick as Frink says is the way to describe that one along with the 'high top spin' bounce pass to Sampson. Now if Hoff starts shooting his 3's on top of 9 for 9 from the team Wisky will have their hands full.

I'm think forward but I believe when Blake breaks out of it he'll break out big and it will make the difference in a game.

His assists.

Actually both the assists to Bostick and Sampson were very good passes. He threaded the needle from a few feet to Bostick without throwing it too hard and threw a bounce pass that came up high enough so that Sampson didn't have to take time to go down and get it.

Bohannon & Hoffarber

People may argue this, but I think Bohannon is a half-step quicker than Hoffarber. Not saying I'd trade the two, but I think there is a similarity in the progress of the two sharp-shooters.

As a freshman Jason Bohannon was a great shooter. Now he's in his third year and he's shown an increased court savvy and intelligence that is fun to watch. The guy makes the smart pass and he plays a team game. He's a deadly shooter, so his GREAT pump fake makes defenders fly by leaving him with a couple more options.

A few people commented that even as early as Tubby's Tipoff we saw a new element to Blake's game. He was making the cut to the basket and getting other guys free on the offensive end. Like has been said here, he seemed to be coming into his own as a passer.

Yesterday, his offensive put-back off of Busch's miss was a thing of beauty too. He cleared out a taller defender and muscled him under the basket while tapping the rebound back up with his left hand. Stuff like this, and all of the other elements previously mentioned, can't be going unnoticed by Tubby.

Ogee Oglethorpe said:

I'm sure another factor was, if I recall correctly, the PSU game at State College last year was sort of Hoff's coming out party. I think he knocked down five 3's in that game, huge in helping pull out the win in a game the Gophers probably didn't deserve to win.

PSU gave him no looks yesterday whatsoever, it was pretty evident.

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I inferred as much from DeChellis' post-game remarks. He noted how hard the Gophs are to prepare for b/c they have so much depth, and you can't prepare for all the different combinations. To me, that meant that they had a defensive game plan that didn't work because the gophs found an alternative. The game plan was to not let hoffarber beat them the way he did last time, and they succeeded at that, but had no answer for the guys they hadn't seen much of.