Amelia blog: Gophers postgame: Zone continues to haunt Minnesota in Iowa loss

per Amelia:

The most discouraging part of Minnesota’s loss – which coach Tubby Smith called the most embarrassing of his career and Trevor Mbakwe called the toughest game he’s played in – was of course, that it came down to the same issues that have plagued the Gophers all year long -- the issues that their losses have been dictated by and their wins have been in spite of:

1. Turnovers
2. Perimeter defense
3. Poor shooting
4. Zone penetration

http://www.startribune.com/sports/blogs/191616071.html

Go Gophers!!

How this team continually struggles against the zone is crazy. High school teams attack zones better than the Gophers. While shooting contributes to it, they do not move the ball, attack gaps with the dribble, go inside (elbow, post or short corner) out, or get any kind of player movement to gaps and weak side - they just don't look like they know what to do as a unit. They attack zone much better when Elliot is in and flashes to high post because he moves ball quick. Trevor doesn't pass we'll so has to stay in low post, which is tough because he struggles to score against a zone with taller players.

It kills me to see a guy stand and hold the ball and just look around. It's a zone, pass fake, attack a gap and pass - anything but stand and look. And, just moving it back and forth around the perimeter does no good. We have no natural inside scorer (Trevor is not). So, we have to get the zone moving so players can get in the gaps.

I agree Trevor is not a scorer against a zone. Scorers are players who can catch a diagonal pass and make an outside shot. Trevor is one of the reasons teams haven't zoned us more though. Our offensive rebounding made them rethink trying it.. no longer. We have so few shooters it is almost laughable, but boy are we athletic (sarc). If Tubby is still around he needs to rethink his philosphy and get guys at all positions who can dribble, pass, and shoot, and hopefully they aren't all to slow so they can play some defense. We set horrible picks in the halfcourt against man defense. I saw the wis game they set picks like you will feel it the next day.

march madness said:

I agree Trevor is not a scorer against a zone. Scorers are players who can catch a diagonal pass and make an outside shot. Trevor is one of the reasons teams haven't zoned us more though. Our offensive rebounding made them rethink trying it.. no longer. We have so few shooters it is almost laughable, but boy are we athletic (sarc). If Tubby is still around he needs to rethink his philosphy and get guys at all positions who can dribble, pass, and shoot, and hopefully they aren't all to slow so they can play some defense. We set horrible picks in the halfcourt against man defense. I saw the wis game they set picks like you will feel it the next day.

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That's a major issue, IMO, Tubbys preference is playing D. He needs athletic guys for his defensive system. His offense requires guys who can shoot, pass, and handle.

The problem is, athletic players who can shoot, pass and handle are usually top 25, 5-star recruits. Which wasn't a huge issue for him at UK. It is an issue at Minnesota. The interesting thing is that we just need Joe and Rodney to be average shooters, not even elite, just average to where you can't leave them wide open.

scher215 said:

That's a major issue, IMO, Tubbys preference is playing D. He needs athletic guys for his swarming D. His offense requires guys who can shoot, pass, handle, and

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That's right- he won't change on the D side so he is stuck with lousy offensive units. Yesterday when Iowa switched to the zone I think Andre had one foul. A nice adjustment would have been for us to also switch to a zone at that point. That protects Andre on D and allows you to put Welch in for Coleman and Eliasson in for Rodney. Now you go big down low with three shooters on the outside, making them respect you both ways. Instead we throw in Maverick who looks like he's playing boot hockey in street shoes. Coleman and Williams are liabilities against the zone.

It's a Tubby staple. He can't coach to beat a zone and he can't teach shooting. I don't know why Iowa even started out of a zone. It was the worst 30 minutes of basketball I have seen in a long time.

Funny how Northwestern didn't start in the 1-3-1 against us. It was always in their back pocket though.