(STrib) Carlos Morris; "the kid is going to be special"

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Shaun Brown on Carlos Morris: If he can gain enough weight, "the kid is going to be special"

"University of Minnesota strength and conditioning coach Shaun Brown jokes that the Gophers coaching staff keeps a daily lottery on how much weight JUCO transfer Carlos Morris has added."

http://www.startribune.com/sports/blogs/270762631.html
 

Jon said:
Shaun Brown on Carlos Morris: If he can gain enough weight, "the kid is going to be special"

"University of Minnesota strength and conditioning coach Shaun Brown jokes that the Gophers coaching staff keeps a daily lottery on how much weight JUCO transfer Carlos Morris has added."

http://www.startribune.com/sports/blogs/270762631.html
Click to expand...

Gain a pound a week and oh ya, get a better shot too. Which of those is a greater need?
 

So it sounds like he arrived at 6'5" and 161 pounds?? Jesus, don't these community colleges have any sort of training staff at all? Is food not part of a JC scholarship?

Hopefully the added weight doesn't diminish his quickness. He sounds like a Caris Levert type player (Levert also came into college really skinny and has bulked up).
 

60's Guy said:
Gain a pound a week and oh ya, get a better shot too. Which of those is a greater need?
Click to expand...

You do realize the quotes were coming from the strength and condition coach right...
 

from the link ...
"That's the biggest thing he's got to do, Brown said. "If he can do that and work on his shot, then the kid is going to be special."

Seems like after Andre we have lots of questions marks in regard to shooting the 3....

Last year we put up 773 3s and made 272 <> 147 of those made 3s and 440 missing were by Austin, Malik, Oto, Maverick, and Wally who have moved on...

Put another way over half our points scored from 3 point land has left; 147 made three left while 125 have stayed...

Is our offense going to be different with more points in the paint and more players driving to the hoop? Or who is going to make up the outside shooting; maybe Mason? DeAndre shot 22-45 0.489 last year from 3 and I am not sure that will go up... Seems like McNeil, Morris, Buggs all can shoot but need to work on their shot...

Thoughts?...

http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/minn/sports/m-baskbl/auto_pdf/2013-14/stats/season_stats.pdf
 


Jon said:
Thoughts?...
Click to expand...

Turn Shell loose.

_

King, DeAndre and McNeil will shoot more threes... Mason & Morris will have plenty of attempts.

For playing under 20mpg Malik sure got a lot of shots, I could see Lofton putting up around 200 attempts the following year.
 

Jon said:
from the link ...
"That's the biggest thing he's got to do, Brown said. "If he can do that and work on his shot, then the kid is going to be special."

Seems like after Andre we have lots of questions marks in regard to shooting the 3....

Last year we put up 773 3s and made 272 <> 147 of those made 3s and 440 missing were by Austin, Malik, Oto, Maverick, and Wally who have moved on...

Put another way over half our points scored from 3 point land has left; 147 made three left while 125 have stayed...

Is our offense going to be different with more points in the paint and more players driving to the hoop? Or who is going to make up the outside shooting; maybe Mason? DeAndre shot 22-45 0.489 last year from 3 and I am not sure that will go up... Seems like McNeil, Morris, Buggs all can shoot but need to work on their shot...

Thoughts?...

http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/minn/sports/m-baskbl/auto_pdf/2013-14/stats/season_stats.pdf
Click to expand...

I hear what you are saying...you make a good point but I'm guessing we shoot as many 3's this year and make a similar number as well.
Not sure how it breaks down individually but I doubt our style changes. It's what we emphasize and often you get what you emphasize and expect your team to accomplish.
 

Overall - I am thrilled with these updates. Last year we didn't hear much about Deandre except that he was fast and the only other major development I recall hearing about was Mo's weight loss. Yet they produced pretty well. This year I am sensing that the staff is very excited about what we have for the coming year.
 

3 production will likely be the exact same as others have said.

Austins #s will be made up by Morris, more total minutes from Andre Hollins (more shots), and DeAndre shooting more and to a lesser extent I would expect McNeil to hit a few threes
Mav will be made up by Mason
Oto's will be made up by a combination of Martin and Buggs
Wally's will be made up by ......... Shell?

Every year players graduate and the system stays the course. Thats what good programs do, plug and play. I would assume since Pitino is still working with a roster comprised with 30% or more of the minutes from kids he didn't recruit, the system will shift slowly as his types of players roll in.
 



Extremely excited to have 3 legit ball handlers in our starting line up and then another 2 off the bench. Mathieu, Dre, Morris, McNeil, and Mason are all strong ball handlers. It's amazing how much Pitino has remade this roster in such a short period of time. It wasn't that long ago that we were rolling with Blake Hoffarber as our starting PG. All 5 of the guys I listed on the current squad would be better PGs than Hoff.
 

Winasota Gopher said:
3 production will likely be the exact same as others have said.

Austins #s will be made up by Morris, more total minutes from Andre Hollins (more shots), and DeAndre shooting more and to a lesser extent I would expect McNeil to hit a few threes
Mav will be made up by Mason
Oto's will be made up by a combination of Martin and Buggs
Wally's will be made up by ......... Shell?

Every year players graduate and the system stays the course. Thats what good programs do, plug and play. I would assume since Pitino is still working with a roster comprised with 30% or more of the minutes from kids he didn't recruit, the system will shift slowly as his types of players roll in.
Click to expand...

You're missing Malik Smith, a volume 3PT shooter (7th in the conference in season 3PTA).

I think attempts will be down after losing Austin and Malik. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing though as long as the guys we are replacing with them are a legitimate threat to shoot. As Madtown said, we are introducing some ball handlers to the mix.
 

Gold Vision said:
You're missing Malik Smith, a volume 3PT shooter (7th in the conference in season 3PTA).

I think attempts will be down after losing Austin and Malik. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing though as long as the guys we are replacing with them are a legitimate threat to shoot. As Madtown said, we are introducing some ball handlers to the mix.
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knew I was missing someone....

He was definitely a volume shooter, and you are likely correct in that attempts could be down with the absence of a clear cut gunner on the team.

The system still encourages guys that are open to shoot, and we have guys that will shoot from that range at 4 positions at all times. Not like we suddenly will be less open than last year with the ball around the 3 point line. The missing link is the guy that shoots when he is covered, and we don't really have that guy this year.
 

If I were game planning the Gophers, I would let McNeil and Morris shoot the 3 until they prove they can hurt you, but put the screws to Dre and be aware of where King is at all times. Mathieu can beat you in so many ways, he probably does less harm around the 3 point line than anywhere else. I like Mason's future, but there's nothing tougher on a freshman scorer than learning to attack the basket and find their shot while learning the 1 and 2. I can't imagine Martin will take more than a handful of 3's as a freshman. Need him under the basket and not roaming the perimeter. Lots of challenges next season.
 




howieramone said:
If I were game planning the Gophers, I would let McNeil and Morris shoot the 3 until they prove they can hurt you, but put the screws to Dre and be aware of where King is at all times. Mathieu can beat you in so many ways, he probably does less harm around the 3 point line than anywhere else. I like Mason's future, but there's nothing tougher on a freshman scorer than learning to attack the basket and find their shot while learning the 1 and 2. I can't imagine Martin will take more than a handful of 3's as a freshman. Need him under the basket and not roaming the perimeter. Lots of challenges next season.
Click to expand...

Offensively, I think the team will be better at every single position through player improvement and the additions. I'm not real concerned about the offense. We will rebound a little better and get more transition scores. Austin is a big loss on defense, I hope we can find someone that will play it like he did.
 

bga1 said:
Offensively, I think the team will be better at every single position through player improvement and the additions. I'm not real concerned about the offense. We will rebound a little better and get more transition scores. Austin is a big loss on defense, I hope we can find someone that will play it like he did.
Click to expand...

How do you think we're better at the 3? McNeil and Morris over McNeil and Hollins?
 


98VQueens said:
Not getting into the Morris vs. Hollins part, but year two McNeil should be a helluva lot better than freshman McNeil.
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He'll definitely get more run. Just not sure that outweighs year 4 of Hollins to year 1 of Morris.

Every other position we add depth. A healthy Dre Hollins would be the #1 improvement on the team over last year.
 

Gold Vision said:
He'll definitely get more run. Just not sure that outweighs year 4 of Hollins to year 1 of Morris.

Every other position we add depth. A healthy Dre Hollins would be the #1 improvement on the team over last year.
Click to expand...

Absolutely agree. If he performs like he did sophomore year, this team is suddenly pretty dangerous!
 



Gold Vision said:
How do you think we're better at the 3? McNeil and Morris over McNeil and Hollins?
Click to expand...

You are probably right. I do think Morris will hold his own versus Hollins' offensive performance but better is probably a stretch. Hollins really struggled offensively in a lot of the Big Ten games as he went through a pretty serious shooting slump.
 

bga1 said:
You are probably right. I do think Morris will hold his own versus Hollins' offensive performance but better is probably a stretch. Hollins really struggled offensively in a lot of the Big Ten games as he went through a pretty serious shooting slump.
Click to expand...

He was benched many times in Gopherhole circles. Charles Buggs was considered as a worthy replacement.

Replacing Hollins production throughout last year will not be as difficult as we all feel like it is considering how he ended the year. Replacing his ability will be challenging.
 

Gold Vision said:
How do you think we're better at the 3? McNeil and Morris over McNeil and Hollins?
Click to expand...

I personally think Morris and an improved McNeil will be a net 0 vs. Hollins and a freshman McNeil. People are forgetting that Austin turned it up in the NIT but disappeared for the majority of the BIG schedule. I mean he averaged less than 9 ppg in January and people are talking about him like he is Stauskas.

It is hard to predict how his leadership will be missed as you still have a solid senior core.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

gopherlaney said:
I personally think Morris and an improved McNeil will be a net 0 vs. Hollins and a freshman McNeil. People are forgetting that Austin turned it up in the NIT but disappeared for the majority of the BIG schedule. I mean he averaged less than 9 ppg in January and people are talking about him like he is Stauskas.

It is hard to predict how his leadership will be missed as you still have a solid senior core.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

+1. We'll definitely miss Austin's defense, and probably won't be as good at the 3 on that end of the floor, but I wouldn't be surprised if we get as much or more offensive output from Morris / McNeil in the B1G.
 

Morris won't immediately preform defensively at the same level as Hollins, there are few who could. McNeil however has the potential to be a shutdown defender. This is the primary reason he saw the flood last year as a freshman. From Amelia's summer series (http://www.startribune.com/sports/blogs/269071021.html), "McNeil averaged 1.6 points and 1.1 rebounds in 9.7 minutes a game but became somewhat of a defensive specialist while playing multiple positions". Hopefully he will take the next step and become a lockdown defender!

Comparing JUCO numbers, Morris was not as much an offensive threat as Little Dre (17 PPG vs 13 PPG), but Morris was rated much higher than Mathieu (I only looked at 247 profiles). Comparing stats put up by JUCO players (and JUCO players at 2 different positions for that matter) is certainly not a realistic way to anticipate success/failure in the B1G, but it's the only thing available until the season tips... With that said, I suspect Morris will be just fine and combined with an improved McNeil, the two should be able to combine and match Hollins' stats from a year ago (12 PPG 5 RPG 2 APG .35% 3pt). As others have said, the coaches have been raving about Morris, and this makes me even more hopeful that he is another successful JUCO grab for Pitino and company.
 

Assuming our offense is modeled on the Cardinals offense: it is interesting to compare the Gopher stats with the cardinal stats from last year. Our 3pt numbers 272/773 or 35.2% compare pretty close to the Cardinal numbers 288/783 or 36.8%...
The difference I see this year is that we will be more athletic and deeper allowing us to play more pressure defense. This year even if we take and miss a 3 we should get more rebounds and therefore run more offensive possessions…
The Cardinals had 1396 rebounds while the Gophers had only 1282; here with our added size and athleticism we should close this gap some. This should in turn increase our average points per game from 71 closer to the Cardinals average of 81 points per game…
The Cardinals did not have any player average more than 29.3 minutes per game while we 3 players average more than 30 minutes per game; here I hope to see a deeper rotation that will bring down the average minutes played allowing us to increase our tempo of play…

ESPN 2013-2014 Gopher stats
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/team/stats/_/id/135/minnesota-golden-gophers

ESPN 2013-2014 Cardinal stats
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/team/stats/_/id/97/louisville-cardinals

Note Cardinals played 38 games while Gophers played 37 games…
 

On Defense it is all good we lose Mav's and Smith's defense <> And seem to have players that can help replace Austin's Defense... Plus we have Gaston and Martin to reduce King's minutes...

Jon said:
Assuming our offense is modeled on the Cardinals offense: it is interesting to compare the Gopher stats with the cardinal stats from last year. Our 3pt numbers 272/773 or 35.2% compare pretty close to the Cardinal numbers 288/783 or 36.8%...
The difference I see this year is that we will be more athletic and deeper allowing us to play more pressure defense. This year even if we take and miss a 3 we should get more rebounds and therefore run more offensive possessions…
The Cardinals had 1396 rebounds while the Gophers had only 1282; here with our added size and athleticism we should close this gap some. This should in turn increase our average points per game from 71 closer to the Cardinals average of 81 points per game…
The Cardinals did not have any player average more than 29.3 minutes per game while we 3 players average more than 30 minutes per game; here I hope to see a deeper rotation that will bring down the average minutes played allowing us to increase our tempo of play…

ESPN 2013-2014 Gopher stats
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/team/stats/_/id/135/minnesota-golden-gophers

ESPN 2013-2014 Cardinal stats
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/team/stats/_/id/97/louisville-cardinals

Note Cardinals played 38 games while Gophers played 37 games…
Click to expand...
 

individual-matchups-we-cant-wait-to-see (bleacherreport)

Pitino v Pitino November 14, 2014
"
Richard's Gophers are likely to seek a slower pace than his father's Cardinals, seeking to minimize the number of attempts that forward Montrezl Harrell gets to run over junior Joey King. The ability of King, Walker and Eliason to slow Harrell down will be key, as the Cards don't have much else in the way of interior scoring.
"
slide 2 0f 12 is Gopher write up

Scott Henry , Featured Columnist Aug 12, 2014
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...t-to-see-in-2014-15-college-basketball-season
 


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