BleedGopher
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RandBall Strib blog: "Gopher Hole was starting to turn into Vitriol Hole"
- Thread starter BleedGopher
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Yes, let's just accept mediocrity and a half-a**ed effort by the coaches. Tubby has been into the last two games more than the cumulative games of the last two seasons.
Mulligan
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For Christ's sake, can we just enjoy the damn win without your "I'm a holier than thou Gopher fan" act? We get it, you don't think much of Tubby, and only your lofty standards are acceptable. Hate to break it to you, but your refusal to accept mediocrity stance isn't changing the landscape at all, despite your self-importance.
I did enjoy the win, but didn't enjoy the homily from PUD
"lofty standards" Who has lofty standards? It's sad to me that it takes 9 (NINE!!!) straight conference losses for the GopherHole to turn in to the "Vitriol Hole". There should be bitching, there should be complaining, it's not lofty standards, it's the complete lack of standards. The only division one basketball team in the state of Minnesota, located in a top 15 media market, should not go 4 years without an NCAA tournament win. From my end, there is a perceived acceptance of the Gophers being non-competitive. Jamalo's "refusal to accept mediocrity" as you say might not change the landscape, but it's better than accpeting what we have seen through 4 plus years of Tubby's tenure (and the Monson tenure before that). A good road win against Indiana doesn't change the fact that the Gophers are (at best) a bubble team for the NCAA tournament. Without an impact recruit in the Spring period, this team will have many of the same issues next year as it does this year: no point guard, no power forward, and still no go to scorer.
These conversations are becoming very much like the ones that took place during the last couple of seasons during Monson's tenure. This doesn't bode well for the program, Tubby or Maturi.
I think the 9 months between between consecutive conference loss numbers 5 and 6 probably had something to do with that. I know after the loss to Illinois I wasn't thinking, "This makes it 6 straight conference losses now," I was thinking, "We lost our first conference game of the 2011-12 season on the road in double overtime." I was disappointed because we were shooting free throws with a two point lead with something like 10 seconds left on the clock and still managed to lose the game, but I, and probably most Gopher fans watching the game, probably even you, didn't have the conference losing streak from last season on my mind.
As for expectations and standards, I think some people have difficulty discerning the difference between accepting mediocrity and tempering expectations. If you thought back in 2009 that we would be competing for a Big Ten title this year or last, that would have been a reasonable expectation, Tubby had taken us from 8 wins to 20 wins the next year, he got us to the tourney in his second year, we had some very nice recruits coming in, Blake, Al, Devoe, Colt, Trevor, Paul, and Ralph would have been upperclassmen, we would be getting very good play from Royce and Rodney as well, our success would have in turn attracted more highly rated recruits. Things were looking up for us.
However, nearly 3 years, 5 transfers, and 3 season-ending injuries later, here we are, not nearly where we hoped we'd be at the time. Just because someone in October 2011 had the expectation that we would win a conference title this year, does not make that person a better fan for "demanding excellence." It just means he or she had formed an expectation years ago that we would be competing for a title in 2011-12 and refused to change that expectation when a plethora of players got injured and transferred.
To me the difference is this:
Tempering expectations: Seeing that, after Colt and Devoe transferred late and having replaced them with spring recruits, maybe the season won't go quite as well as you had hoped it would at the beginning of the 2010-11 season
Accepting mediocrity: Being okay with getting 8 or 9 conference wins year in and year out even though the amount of talent on the team indicates that they are probably capable of doing better, or accepting Glen Mason's 3-5 Big Ten records and not really having the desire to see the team do any better than 5 to 7 wins in a season
Given the current circumstances, I would be happy with 9 wins this season. If Royce, Trevor, Devoe, Justin, and Colt were on it, I would have gone into this season expecting 12 or more wins.
Cayman, I enjoyed your post. After Trevor went down, I would be fine with 9-9 in the conference, but I wouldn't go out of my way to pat Tubby on the back for it. From what we have seen so far, 9-9 certainly seems like a longshot, though the effort on the road so far should be commended (and the effort at home should be criticized). The larger issue is that we can't look towards 2012-2013 and envision the Gophers as a conference contender either. If next year is excused for one reason or another, then we are 6 years in to Tubby's tenure and would have still have zero presence on the national stage. I do think it's reasonable to expect Tubby to have rebounded better than he has from losing Royce White and Justin Cobbs by now. I think it's alarming that it can still be argued today that Nolen, Hoffarber, and Damian Johnson are 3 of the 4 best players that have hit the floor under Tubby (with Mbakwe being the other).
If Tubby would have held a scholarship or two when guys transferred the past two years, I would have had more patience for what has gone on this year and last year. Instead, Tubby used those scholarship in the Spring on guards who couldn't play the point better than Blake Hoffarber last year and this past Spring took a JUCO PF who is unable to get many minutes despite Trevor being out for the year.
If Tubby would have held a scholarship or two when guys transferred the past two years, I would have had more patience for what has gone on this year and last year. Instead, Tubby used those scholarship in the Spring on guards who couldn't play the point better than Blake Hoffarber last year and this past Spring took a JUCO PF who is unable to get many minutes despite Trevor being out for the year.
station19
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howieramone
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I don't disagree with alot of points made but Tubby has a seven year contract and the U even if so inclined, has no money to buy him out. Unlikely we will contend next year but will make the dance. We will be able to contend the next two years. The sophomore class to be will make everyone forget about the four players mentioned when they become juniors.
Maybe we should have higher expectations and standards. But the reality is no money, the carrot is the strong class on campus. We can look to the future, watch our young players develop, or whine on an anonymous board. Each poster has to decide for themselves.
By the way very perceptive posts on EE, Oto, and Joe recently. Though decidedly in the minority, I'm far from the only one who likes the future of this group.
Maybe we should have higher expectations and standards. But the reality is no money, the carrot is the strong class on campus. We can look to the future, watch our young players develop, or whine on an anonymous board. Each poster has to decide for themselves.
By the way very perceptive posts on EE, Oto, and Joe recently. Though decidedly in the minority, I'm far from the only one who likes the future of this group.
Or personally attack posters who bitch about the bitchers. It makes for good reading.
Gopher Warrior
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This can be corrected.
I've been curious about this. I know I kind of smacked myself in the head after seeing that Tubby had brought in Mav, Chip, and Ingram, (Welch I was I fine with, we would have no upperclassmen guards without him, and he's just a good player and gets a lot of minutes) and wondered, "Why couldn't we have held the scholarships to get a better player for next year in the fall?"
In retrospect, perhaps it was a good thing last year that we got Mav and Chip, as without them, and with Oto unexpectedly riding the pine for the season, EE's redshirt, Al and Mo's season-ending injuries, and Devoe's midseason transfer, our bench would have consisted of Austin Hollins and Dom Dawson. That's it.
But I've been wondering, how often to teams just bank a scholarship for a season if they can't find a good player to give it to? I was looking at some rosters about a week ago, and saw that Texas only has 11 players on their roster currently, and they have 5 players coming in next season.
So how often do other teams just hold onto a scholarship after a player transfers in the spring?
FanSinceTheFifties
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What is with this recent phony-familiarity technique of referring to basketball players by their given names?
For me, first names are shorter and since most ppl on here know their first names, I'll just do that.
Because when you just call them by their numbers, it's too hard to know whom one is talking about.
howieramone
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