Post game Iowa win: What got away from you in the 2nd OT? Fran: Nothing.

Hey everyone - here are my quick notes.

Fran McCaffery
• What got away from you in the 2nd OT? Nothing.
• It was a different feel for me (than the Nebraska game)
• Fran, asked about the disputed tie-ball call at end of regulation that let Gophers keep ball: I can't. I can't. Just don't, don't do it.
• He was terrific, he played with great energy, I always thought a lot of him when he came into the league this year.
• It's disappointing, but I thought we showed tremendous fight. We had great activity level, we moved the ball extremely well, made good decisions with our dribble penetration.
• Coffey has got more length, Springs is probably heavier.
• Moss was tremendous, but when we had that one line-up he was out. Would have liked to get him in more. I put him back in a little bit, but it was tough with the flow.

Richard Pitino:
• Jordan did that by shear will. Lot of respect for Iowa as a team, some of those young guys will be a force to be reckoned with. Great environment, I thought the students were awesome. The most proud I've been of our guys. I was refusing to sub, they were tired, they squandered a lead and fought through it. Nate Mason and Jordan Murphy made winning plays at the end.
• On Murph - I didn't run a play for him, he didn't make any jump shots, I made that comment that he's not a great scorer, that's not a knock on him, he needs to go find it. Guys were finding him. I challenged him on getting more shot blocks, 14 blocks is great, as good as I've seen.
• On showing the Kansas game: We talked about winning plays, Frank Mason dove into the crowd at Kansas State, came back, stole the ball, to win league games, those are the plays you need to make. I thought maybe it worked.
• In the 2nd OT - We've got good length, I didn't see our deflection total, but has to be high. Amir has got great length, but he's an underrated defender.
• It's a fun team to root for, because we've lost some games at home, I'm not sure the town has seen it yet, since we've had some wins on the road. We're sitting in a great spot, we have to play on the road, Rutgers is playing better bball. We've been able to steal 3 road wins. We're going to get some rest, which is extremely important for an early game.
• On Murph - We didn't run a whole lot for him, it was more penetrating and finding him, that's kind of his bread and butter right now. It was getting out on the break.
• On the trapping - They did an awful job for a couple minutes, then I got them together and fixed it, just kidding. The biggest thing is, go attack it, you're showing them that you don't want to attack it. We had a really bad couple minutes there.
• Vs. Jok 2nd half - it was bad the 2nd half, it was good in the 1st half (joking). We sent him to the line a lot, he's a terrific player, we switched some things we shouldn't have, the biggest thing was sending him to the foul line, fatigue had to be a factor.

Murphy:
• We were mentally and physically strong
• A lot of our losses have been really close, it gives us confidence going into the next game.
• It started with my rebounding, I got it going on the rebounding end. My team was finding me, I was just really confident down the stretch, then Nate took over the game.
• More focused on offensive rebounding, doing what we needed to win.

Nate Mason:
• Sending into OT - Coach trusts me enough and got the ball into my hands for 30 seconds.
• Difference - the mentality that we came into practice with. After IL, we came in wanting to work and get better. Tomorrow will be the same way, even though we went 2 OTs
• Handing the trap - we were playing timid, we didn't know if we should just pass through it, and he (Pitino) told us to attack it.

Thanks GopherLady!

I love this answer - love his humor. It was a disaster of a few minutes, like really, really bad, but they did make adjustments after blowing a big lead.

"• On the trapping - They did an awful job for a couple minutes, then I got them together and fixed it, just kidding. The biggest thing is, go attack it, you're showing them that you don't want to attack it. We had a really bad couple minutes there."

Go Gophers!!

I honestly cannot stand watching Fran McCaffery, he's much more annoying than Bo Ryan was. While I hate the Badgers more in football, I now loathe Iowa more in basketball. SO NICE to win tonight.

I was at game and the Jump Ball with Murphy happened RIGHT in front of me...and his foot was very much out of bounds. I kept waiting for them to catch it on the review...but apparently they didn't. Not sure if this was brought up at all on the broadcast...

I'm a Pitino fan, as big as any one here. But he has to do a better job with offensive sets late in games. Having Mason dribble back and forth, then get a on-ball screen late in the shot clock shouldn't be the offense every time down. He also should have done a better job attacking the 1-3-1

JimmyJamesMD said:

I'm a Pitino fan, as big as any one here. But he has to do a better job with offensive sets late in games. Having Mason dribble back and forth, then get a on-ball screen late in the shot clock shouldn't be the offense every time down. He also should have done a better job attacking the 1-3-1

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There were 2 possessions in a row like that, where I wanted to pull my hair out. 4 guys standing there doing nothing???

JimmyJamesMD said:

I'm a Pitino fan, as big as any one here. But he has to do a better job with offensive sets late in games. Having Mason dribble back and forth, then get a on-ball screen late in the shot clock shouldn't be the offense every time down. He also should have done a better job attacking the 1-3-1

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This. I get they want to run time off the clock but getting a good shot is more important. They get so tentative towards the end of games. Just play!

And about the trap, they just needed to be aggressive. Like Pitino said, attack it. Mason looked like the Harlem Globetrotters in OT. He was faster than any guy they had. Not saying he should have just attacked it all by himself, but they were playing too scared.

I've asked this a few times throughout the years so apologies to those that have to read it again...why don't the gophers ever throw a press on? Last night was a perfect opportunity against an Iowa team with young guards. We have so so much length where I could see a gopher press being a disaster to break.

tmvander said:

I've asked this a few times throughout the years so apologies to those that have to read it again...why don't the gophers ever throw a press on? Last night was a perfect opportunity against an Iowa team with young guards. We have so so much length where I could see a gopher press being a disaster to break.

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Not deep enough. No one really wants to see Gilbert, Hurt, Konate get more minutes. There level is far enough below the top 7 that the top 7 tired is way better than the alternative. We basically have two subs McBrayer and Curry, so one small guy and one big guy and we have one of the starters (Lynch) who fouls out of 75% of important games. So we basically expect to finish a game with one sub. Pressing with that lineup is suicide for late game energy. Last year when the talent was worse (but more even) we could press because the difference between Konate/Diedhou, McBrayer/Dorsey was a lot less than trading Lynch/Konate Mcbrayer/(Hurt or Gilbert)

LakerFan said:

Not deep enough. No one really wants to see Gilbert, Hurt, Konate get more minutes. There level is far enough below the top 7 that the top 7 tired is way better than the alternative. We basically have two subs McBrayer and Curry, so one small guy and one big guy and we have one of the starters (Lynch) who fouls out of 75% of important games. So we basically expect to finish a game with one sub. Pressing with that lineup is suicide for late game energy. Last year when the talent was worse (but more even) we could press because the difference between Konate/Diedhou, McBrayer/Dorsey was a lot less than trading Lynch/Konate Mcbrayer/(Hurt or Gilbert)

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Ok good points but a team like Iowa pressed us just fine last night and I wouldn't call them deep. They played 8 guys more than 13 minutes last night and we played 7.

they were running a 3/4 court zone press. Not a man to man full court press. Big difference

tmvander said:

Ok good points but a team like Iowa pressed us just fine last night and I wouldn't call them deep. They played 8 guys more than 13 minutes last night and we played 7.

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Iowa on average plays ten guys more minutes than our #8 guy Konate. So I'd call that 3 guys deeper. Last night Iowa played 12 guys total (with 2 real limited) we played 9 (with 2 real limited ). So basically 10 on 7.