Konate Thoughts?

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Mulligan

Mulligan

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Good thread on Buggs, now what are the early impressions of Bakery? Great opportunity to get minutes last night and I kept my eyes on him a lot. Obvious potential, but I was surprised at how many times the ball was right there for him, and he failed to secure it. Positioning, anticipation, and footwork have a long, long way to go. Hell of a hard worker and had to chuckle when one of the guards hit the floor hustling. Two Gophers were already there extending their hands and Bakery came sprinting from about 30 feet away with his hand out. With Mo and Elliot graduating, he is probably the starting center next year but can't see him helping much this year.
 

Konate's problems are very similar to Buggs. He doesn't know the offense or defense, pair that with his obvious technical short comings and you've got a very raw, very gifted physical specimen.

Likely won't be getting much from the 5 position next year, he just needs to be able to stop other teams from absolutely dominating us inside and hopefully the rest of the squad can run the opponent to death.
 

Mulligan said:
Good thread on Buggs, now what are the early impressions of Bakery? Great opportunity to get minutes last night and I kept my eyes on him a lot. Obvious potential, but I was surprised at how many times the ball was right there for him, and he failed to secure it. Positioning, anticipation, and footwork have a long, long way to go. Hell of a hard worker and had to chuckle when one of the guards hit the floor hustling. Two Gophers were already there extending their hands and Bakery came sprinting from about 30 feet away with his hand out. With Mo and Elliot graduating, he is probably the starting center next year but can't see him helping much this year.
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Love his potential. A year with this staff and he will be solid next year. I actually am quite surprised to see how far he is along despite the errors. I would agree though, he is going to be only a spot player once the Big Ten starts unless he really surprises.
 

In a perfect world, he'd really benefit from a red shirt. He and Josh have great potential.
 

Konate is very aggressive. Almost too aggressive. He has to adapt to the NCAA refs. I like his hard nose game. In last night's game, there was like one second left and someone from the other team was trying to dunk... of course Konate went up and blocked and fouled him. Again, I appreciate his hustle and hard nose play, but he didn't need to do that with 1 second left. I think his Junior year will be when we see him catch up to his potential.
 


BOUNDOUTPASSDUNK said:
In a perfect world, he'd really benefit from a red shirt. He and Josh have great potential.
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I think he's probably too old to redshirt. So far he has been a little rawer than we were led to believe before the season. He also didn't play last year so he could be a little physically and mentally rusty as well. We'll just have to see how quickly he adapts.
 

Winasota Gopher said:
Konate's problems are very similar to Buggs. He doesn't know the offense or defense, pair that with his obvious technical short comings and you've got a very raw, very gifted physical specimen.

Likely won't be getting much from the 5 position next year, he just needs to be able to stop other teams from absolutely dominating us inside and hopefully the rest of the squad can run the opponent to death.
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+1. Next year is starting scare me a bit. I hope Nwanko can play some center.
 

howeda7 said:
+1. Next year is starting scare me a bit. I hope Nwanko can play some center.
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Nwankwo is a pretty raw offensive player as well. Alot is going to have to go right, for next season, not to be a down year.
 

DeathClutch said:
Nwankwo is a pretty raw offensive player as well. Alot is going to have to go right, for next season, not to be a down year.
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I'd like to see the open scholly used on a JC Center.
 



center spot

I usually look at what recruits are ranked on 247 sports first when setting expectations. I realize there are many more guards that can be sleepers. But athletic big men. Everyone knows about them. Bakary was compositly ranked 24th best incomming c, and 15th by 247. An athletic 6-11 230+ kid that has average skills would be a top 10 player at his position. I expected a raw talent.

Next year. I could see 6 pts, 6 reb in 20-25 min a game and Nwankwo backing him up and giving us 3 and 3 in about 15 min a game. A drop off losing 2 senior centers who have played major minutes over 4 years for sure.

The clubs we are modeled after: Louisville, Florida dont typically have big time post scorers, not that they wouldnt take one if they could get one. But they all are athletes especially at center who can block shots and get rebounds. These teams score off turnovers and their guards and wings can light it up, especially from 3. That is where we are heading.




cjbfbp said:
I think he's probably too old to redshirt. So far he has been a little rawer than we were led to believe before the season. He also didn't play last year so he could be a little physically and mentally rusty as well. We'll just have to see how quickly he adapts.
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march madness said:
I usually look at what recruits are ranked on 247 sports first when setting expectations. I realize there are many more guards that can be sleepers. But athletic big men. Everyone knows about them. Bakary was compositly ranked 24th best incomming c, and 15th by 247. An athletic 6-11 230+ kid that has average skills would be a top 10 player at his position. I expected a raw talent.

Next year. I could see 6 pts, 6 reb in 20-25 min a game and Nwankwo backing him up and giving us 3 and 3 in about 15 min a game. A drop off losing 2 senior centers who have played major minutes over 4 years for sure.

The clubs we are modeled after: Louisville, Florida dont typically have big time post scorers, not that they wouldnt take one if they could get one. But they all are athletes especially at center who can block shots and get rebounds. These teams score off turnovers and their guards and wings can light it up, especially from 3. That is where we are heading.
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Thanks--makes sense
 

march madness said:
I usually look at what recruits are ranked on 247 sports first when setting expectations. I realize there are many more guards that can be sleepers. But athletic big men. Everyone knows about them. Bakary was compositly ranked 24th best incomming c, and 15th by 247. An athletic 6-11 230+ kid that has average skills would be a top 10 player at his position. I expected a raw talent.

Next year. I could see 6 pts, 6 reb in 20-25 min a game and Nwankwo backing him up and giving us 3 and 3 in about 15 min a game. A drop off losing 2 senior centers who have played major minutes over 4 years for sure.

The clubs we are modeled after: Louisville, Florida dont typically have big time post scorers, not that they wouldnt take one if they could get one. But they all are athletes especially at center who can block shots and get rebounds. These teams score off turnovers and their guards and wings can light it up, especially from 3. That is where we are heading.
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Agreed. I also think there will be multiple lineups where our tallest guy isn't of the 6'10" variety. Said differently, there might be some lineups that hit the floor where Joey King is patrolling the middle of a 2-3 with Martin and Morris on the wings or something similar. If they never get the ball across half court what do you need a rim protector for?
 

Winasota Gopher said:
Agreed. I also think there will be multiple lineups where our tallest guy isn't of the 6'10" variety. Said differently, there might be some lineups that hit the floor where Joey King is patrolling the middle of a 2-3 with Martin and Morris on the wings or something similar. If they never get the ball across half court what do you need a rim protector for?
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This is exactly what I hope to see more of from the Gophers. Last year their press didn't impress me a ton. They made things somewhat difficult for opponents to get the ball in but once the ball was in everyone backed off and it was a one on one match up the court. I want to see some traps being set either in the backcourt or right after they get it across half court.

We certainly will have the depth at the 1-3 positions to make this happen.
 



Winasota Gopher said:
Konate's problems are very similar to Buggs. He doesn't know the offense or defense, pair that with his obvious technical short comings and you've got a very raw, very gifted physical specimen.

Likely won't be getting much from the 5 position next year, he just needs to be able to stop other teams from absolutely dominating us inside and hopefully the rest of the squad can run the opponent to death.
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Wrong. Konate is on his way to becoming a beast.
 

HOOP DREAMS said:
Wrong. Konate is on his way to becoming a beast.
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I don't know about beast, but you can see some progression from last season. He is still late sometimes on his D rotations, but this is just the beginning of his Soph year. He'll get better. The bottom line is that we will have a nice center rotation next year with BK and Lynch.
 

Today he was unable to defend the goal. At the same time, they couldn't defend him on the other end. I suspect that the reason he sat out so many minutes in the second half is that he was too much of a liability on defense to be a safe risk out there.
 

Bad Gopher said:
Today he was unable to defend the goal. At the same time, they couldn't defend him on the other end. I suspect that the reason he sat out so many minutes in the second half is that he was too much of a liability on defense to be a safe risk out there.
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We had a lot if defensive liabilities today. Morris and King are really weak defenders. We need more out if them on the defensive end of the court. It would help Konate immensely if someone could take charge of defensive rotations and get him in position to help. Hopefully this will happen over the course of the year.
 


Bad Gopher said:
Today he was unable to defend the goal. At the same time, they couldn't defend him on the other end. I suspect that the reason he sat out so many minutes in the second half is that he was too much of a liability on defense to be a safe risk out there.
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I actually thought while most were getting blown by on the perimeter he was solid as the last defense around the rim. Had some blocks and altered many shots. Maybe my memory is going.
 

dtrain19 said:
I actually thought while most were getting blown by on the perimeter he was solid as the last defense around the rim. Had some blocks and altered many shots. Maybe my memory is going.
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Felt the same. Could tell he was getting tired at times and had some lapses. Hopefully that goes away as he gets in better shape.

Overall thought Konate played really well.
 

Clearly his best game as a Gopher and what you want to see - development. He finished much better on the offensive end. Having said that, when he faces B1G big men, he's entering a whole new level. The intrigue of this season will be how much progress can he and the underclass men make.
 

Konate has shown some improvement. He fouls less and his offensive game has shown some improvement. It would be extremely helpful if he could improve his rebounding. He is still learning that it is necessary to block out before rebounding. His improvement will be important to the success of this team over the next couple years.
 

CDH27 said:
Konate has shown some improvement. He fouls less and his offensive game has shown some improvement. It would be extremely helpful if he could improve his rebounding. He is still learning that it is necessary to block out before rebounding. His improvement will be important to the success of this team over the next couple years.
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Agree totally. Not there yet, but he's already come a long way. He and Murphy were the biggest reasons to be optimistic today. As for the senior whipping boys, as maddening as they are, we don't win without them.
 

CDH27 said:
Konate has shown some improvement. He fouls less and his offensive game has shown some improvement. It would be extremely helpful if he could improve his rebounding. He is still learning that it is necessary to block out before rebounding. His improvement will be important to the success of this team over the next couple years.
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FWIW the Gophers help D was atrocious at times. Forcing Konate to try and help and putting him (as well as all others) out of position for rebounding. I think that was a huge part of their rebounding woes in general too. So many defensive breakdowns when guys drove.
 

Konate was credited with 3 blocks today, I remember one which occurred in the 2nd half. In the first half I posted in the game thread that I am beginning to wonder about Konate's potential because he doesn't get off the ground. There were a number of instances in this game where you could barely slide a sheet of paper under Konate's feet on his block attempts. I missed the tip-off today, but I believe Konate had lost every opening tip going in to this game (which is no big deal in a vacuum, but speaks to his general lack of explosiveness that's been observed elsewhere). On his coaches show this week, Pitino mentioned that Gas and Bakary didn't have shot blocking instincts yet. I hope that's the case, but you'd think a guy who probably has been tall his whole life would have developed such instincts by now, if he was going to.

There were a number of positives from Bakary today too: the baseline jumper was a thing of beauty, he continues to show a nice stroke from the line, he continues to show better hands in the post, and he continues to finish better once getting the ball in the paint than he did last year.
 

dtrain19 said:
I actually thought while most were getting blown by on the perimeter he was solid as the last defense around the rim. Had some blocks and altered many shots. Maybe my memory is going.
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Make no mistake - I'm very happy with his progression. On offense, he was one of a couple things that were unstoppable at times (King's 3's were the other). But I recall at least a couple sequences where he was too passive on defense, just standing under the basket, within the semicircle, waiting for the driving player to arrive. I agree with the coach that the fear of fouling probably has something to do with that. Bakary will eventually learn to play D with his feet. He'll be fine.
 

Bad Gopher said:
Today he was unable to defend the goal. At the same time, they couldn't defend him on the other end. I suspect that the reason he sat out so many minutes in the second half is that he was too much of a liability on defense to be a safe risk out there.
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Like a number of other players on the team, he was caught watching the ball too much instead of the man slipping out of his vision. It's a familiar weakness of less experienced players. When he focused on a player taking the ball into the post, he was not so bad. Overall, at this point of the season, I'm fairly pleased with him especially considering that he's recovering from a foot injury.
 

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