Post game notes - Tubby comments on Trevor's play, playing time, etc.

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GopherLady

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Hey guys - as always, rough notes, I type on my phone while they talk, here you go...

Trevor Mbakwe:

Feels great, getting the trust and confidence from coach.

I did a better job rebounding the basketball and defense.

We work best when we're in transition.

On Dre: he had 2 3's back to back, we needed that run.

These are good teams we're playing, but the competition gets harder. We showed our character in the 2nd half.

A lot of us were frustrated in the 1st half, we may have looked past then to Duke and the Bahamas.

After the dunk and scream, was the 1st time he's felt himself.

I felt a little more comfortable with the 1st team. I know coach will make the right choices with lineups.

He was not too happy about turnovers. We just slowed things down, looked for the open man, and patient.

Andre Hollins:

We were being too timid offensively, we were just holding onto the ball.

We played very good transition basketball.

We didn't get worried, we just need to concentrate, and take care of the ball.

Rodney Williams:

Felt real good to play with Trevor, we knew that he was capable of doing it. We knew that when we got to a tougher environment, he'd be there.

I think he'll be that double double guy that he was before his injury, that go to guy.

Our defense intensity got us back in the game, and not turning over the ball.

We played too fast, and they played a d we hadn't really seen. We're definitely ready for duke.

We'll see tomorrow how we're going to prepare.

Tubby Smith:

I thought tonight's effort was a good test for us, we needed to see how our guys would respond, they run the Princeton style offense that takes you off guard. Once again, we did it with our defense. Richmond really exposed us.

Turnovers...it's because our postmen held the ball too much. Most teams don't let them dribble, should post up.

We didn't read it very well, guys need to cut back door. Too many times we made bad decisions with the ball.

With a team like Richmond, they read what the defense does. They shot 20 more shots than we did. We did a good job of guarding the 3's

This game called for Trevor because they had a big post player. He gives is the best chance w his quickness, more of a match-up issue. He looked like he had stamina, and physically able to do it.

You play teams on your schedule, and we play a competitive Non Conference schedule, 2nd toughest in the big 10

Rodney has that take charge attitude, it's the leadership he's found, it's huge for us. His attitude and demeanor is contagious. If he's frustrated, that is too. He's been able to control that.

Our defense has been superb. It's frustrating for them to work so hard on d, and then give it up on the offensive end.

We'll probably tweak our offense. Everyone had a turnover that played except Maverick, that's not good.
 



I've been saying it for the last few games now. Maverick has had 2 turnovers all year. He is shooting the three ball well and is playing WAY better than Julian Welch.

Good for him. He has taken a lot of crap on here.
 






mattw1067 said:
I did not realize that! That's impressive!
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It's only been since we've had locker room access. Tubby does a stand up presser afterwards right outside the locker room. If he's in the media room, I have my computer...trust me, I prefer typing 100 times to hammering away at my phone!

afurry91 said:
I've been saying it for the last few games now. Maverick has had 2 turnovers all year. He is shooting the three ball well and is playing WAY better than Julian Welch.

Good for him. He has taken a lot of crap on here.
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Maverick also only played 7 minutes. With that being said - he had a nice game last game.
 



I thought last night was a good challenge for us and we responded well, especially in the last 12 minutes.

It was evident the first minute of the game that Richmond was far and away the best of the non-conference games so far and the crowd could sense it as well. I thought the crowd reacted well and was in to the game which was nice to see for a November game.

Clearly we have to take care of the ball much better later this week, but last night was a good preparation for the Battle.

Go Gophers!!
 


Looking at the last 10 minutes, from the time it was 49-42, the Gophers committed 2 turnovers. One was after Rodney broke the press and Kendall Anthony stole the ball from behind, and the other was a steal with 21 second left and the Gopher up by 13.

The comback consisted of 2 parts: great defense, and finally taking care of the ball.
 

Its obvious the team is better with Trevor on the court. My roommate was watching with me and he is a casual basketball fan. After watching the starters + Trevor he says "Why doesn't that guy play all the time?"

I understand Trevor is working his way back, had his issues off the court, etc. but if he is on the team and healthy, he needs to start. EE is a nice piece off the bench. He is big, strong and works hard. He is not the caliber of Trevor.

Any updates on Mo? Maybe I missed it in another thread but he played sparingly, but when he was in I thought he looked good. He is a big, big man.
 



Ski U Mah Gopher said:
Looking at the last 10 minutes, from the time it was 49-42, the Gophers committed 2 turnovers. One was after Rodney broke the press and Kendall Anthony stole the ball from behind, and the other was a steal with 21 second left and the Gopher up by 13.

The comback consisted of 2 parts: great defense, and finally taking care of the ball.
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It was the same thing to end the first half. The broadcast had a figure up a couple times, they turned the ball over 10 times in the first 12 minutes and were something like -9 points. From that point on they turned it over twice to finish the last 8 minutes of the half and were +11. There were similar numbers in the second half also. If this team can ever figure out the turnover issue, they will be a competitor. They have looked efficient enough on offense, and they have ridiculous half court/FG% defensive statistics.
 

the most encouraging sign of the night for me was Tubby's willingness to let the best players play instead of playing people that didn't deserve the time. 6 players in double figures for minutes and one of them was Elliot with 11.
 

Fun game to be at and a great test for this team. Richmond is a very good team they will make the NCAA tournament
 

gopherhoopsguy said:
Fun game to be at and a great test for this team. Richmond is a very good team they will make the NCAA tournament
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Thank god finally someone mentioned how good Richmond was. This team is very good. Gophers would have lost to them with the same lineup last year. It reaminded me of Viginia game a couple of years ago. It is amazing how mature this team is. Tubby always preaches easy baskets. We had tons of them last night. It is a great sign. I know some people still talk about half court offense and how bad Tubby is. Richmond really played like they 5 Aaron craft (OSU) in their team. They gave no inches to our players for the whole game.

Go Gophers
 

The-Real-Truth said:
Thank god finally someone mentioned how good Richmond was. This team is very good. Gophers would have lost to them with the same lineup last year. It reaminded me of Viginia game a couple of years ago. It is amazing how mature this team is. Tubby always preaches easy baskets. We had tons of them last night. It is a great sign. I know some people still talk about half court offense and how bad Tubby is. Richmond really played like they 5 Aaron craft (OSU) in their team. They gave no inches to our players for the whole game.

Go Gophers
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I agree that Richmond looks good, but if you're referring to the Virginia game in 2010, I wanna say that Virginia team never ended up accomplishing much and finished with an RPI around 100. It was Nolen's first game out and Devoe's first game back, and the Cavaliers shot like 10-13 from 3 that night. I remember threads popping up occasionally throughout that season whenever Virginia beat a team of note, which was not very often, just so we could try to say that we lost to what ended up being a legitimate team. They eventually went 16-15 overall, 7-9 in conference. So I don't think that game was really a test against a surprisingly decent team like I think this Richmond game was, but more just a perfect storm of shake-ups in our lineup and hot shooting by our opponent.
 

Cayman said:
I agree that Richmond looks good, but if you're referring to the Virginia game in 2010, I wanna say that Virginia team never ended up accomplishing much and finished with an RPI around 100. It was Nolen's first game out and Devoe's first game back, and the Cavaliers shot like 10-13 from 3 that night. I remember threads popping up occasionally throughout that season whenever Virginia beat a team of note, which was not very often, just so we could try to say that we lost to what ended up being a legitimate team. They eventually went 16-15 overall, 7-9 in conference. So I don't think that game was really a test against a surprisingly decent team like I think this Richmond game was, but more just a perfect storm of shake-ups in our lineup and hot shooting by our opponent.
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Very true Cayman. What I was trying to say was that we were about to give the game away like that game but our kids played very hard to avoid it. I did not compare anything to anything other than the maturity of the team now vs 2 years ago.

Go Gophers
 

Best takeaway from this game for me, it forced Dre Hollins and Mbakwe to break out and take charge a little bit. That has to be a good boost going into Bahamas for them. We'll need them to be on their games to do well in this tournament I believe. They just seemed to get a spark from Richmond challenging them. It's easy to say cause we always look for positives from games, but I do really think this team needed that push to bring a little spark out of them. Of course, if they had been challenged and responded poorly, then that would be different lol.

This team needs to just figure out how to value the ball more. They are an extremely dangerous team if they ever figure that out. Some of the passes they made were just so careless, lacking focus, like they were throwing the ball hoping their guy would somehow come up with it. Gotta be stronger with the ball and more assertive with it.
 

Minnesconsin fan said:
the most encouraging sign of the night for me was Tubby's willingness to let the best players play.
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Agree. I like seeing our best players play. We have 6 guys (Coleman, Holllins, Hollins, Mbakwe, Welch, Williams) that should be getting the lion's share of the minutes when we're playing teams capable of beating us, and two bigs (Eliason, Walker) who should always be in the rotation (moreso when the matchups dictate we play our bigs). When push came to shove Tubby went with his crunch-time players, and he rode them to the finish line. That was good to see.

That doesn't mean the rest of our bench doesn't get minutes, just means when every possession is critical the rotation should chopped down from 10 or 11 to 6 or 7.
 

afurry91 said:
I've been saying it for the last few games now. Maverick has had 2 turnovers all year. He is shooting the three ball well and is playing WAY better than Julian Welch.

Good for him. He has taken a lot of crap on here.
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Agreed, 100%. Mav has been steady, Welch is off. What happened anyhow, didn't Welch lose a bunch of weight to get quicker? He looks like he's wearing ankle weights out there.
 

Monty519 said:
Best takeaway from this game for me, it forced Dre Hollins and Mbakwe to break out and take charge a little bit. That has to be a good boost going into Bahamas for them. We'll need them to be on their games to do well in this tournament I believe. They just seemed to get a spark from Richmond challenging them. It's easy to say cause we always look for positives from games, but I do really think this team needed that push to bring a little spark out of them. Of course, if they had been challenged and responded poorly, then that would be different lol.
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Exactly.
 

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