***OFFICIAL ALABAMA A&M AT MINNESOTA IN-GAME THREAD!!!!***

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Watched the game late tonight, and man is this team fun to watch even against lower level competition. Jordan Murphy's evolution has been a joy to watch and him and Reggie are just incredibly difficult to deal with on both ends of the floor right now. The only negative I can mention here is that Reggie has continued the disturbing trend of a totally unnecessary early foul. I still have no idea what that first call was against Western Carolina so I don't blame him for that one, but today was another of the preventable ones. As long as these two stay healthy and are able to stay on the court, this team is going to be tough to beat.

Sticking with the front court, Davonte Fitzgerald was another positive tonight. I don't want to make too much of a performance against an out sized and out talented Alabama A&M squad, but he looked so much better tonight. Hopefully that emphatic dunk is a confidence boost for him as there's a huge mental component to having one serious knee injury, so I can't imagine what it's like to have 3. His jumper looked really nice as well and he was very active on the boards. He looked much healthier out there than he did against Providence, so lets hope this game wasn't a mirage.

Michael Hurt had a nice baseline drive for a dunk and continues to do the little things right as far as moving the ball and being in the right position defensively. Obviously the caveat about the competition level is relevant here too, but this was another encouraging game for him.

I haven't read through any other comments yet, but it was pretty clear that Pitino pulled Bakary after some really horrific defensive possessions from him (around the time of Jamir Harris's 3 point barrage) and subbed Gaston in for him. I tried to watch Gaston pretty closely on the defensive end, and he didn't seem like he was handling things very well his first few possessions but did improve as he was on the court longer. I question whether Gaston is big enough to be a 5 against a lot of teams, but I have to wonder if Pitino might be thinking of giving him a shot ahead of Bakary.

My biggest negative takeaway from this game is that the Gophers need their guards to 1. Take better shots and 2. Make shots at a higher rate. With Jordan and Reggie playing so well, the guards really need to be more selective with their own shots. Nate, Dupree, and Isaiah were all guilty here of taking unnecessary shots (usually contested long or midrange 2's from Dupree and Nate and a couple bad 3 point attempts from Isaiah). The Gophers as a team were just 5-16 from 3 in a game where Alabama A&M had no answer down low which lead to a lot of open looks from 3. Against better competition, the Gophers are going to need to knock these shots down.

Speaking of needing to knock down shots, Jamir Harris being the first guard off the bench might need to continue if the Gophers starters aren't knocking down open 3's. It was nice to see Jamir get hot and knock down some shots in the second half. It will be interesting to see if he's able to defend high major guards as a freshman as there has to be some reason that Pitino had him out of the rotation against Providence.

Isaiah Washington took some bad shots and his defensive effort(maybe ability on that end too) leaves something to be desired, but he's a tremendous creator. 8 assists tonight against 2 turnovers and it's impressive to me that he's already shown he can create scores for Bakary, Gaston, and Michael Hurt in the past two games.

Loved to see Pitino coaching hard and holding guys accountable even against an out matched opponent. An unusual quick turnaround for the team after just playing Sunday, and they looked very good.
 

The starting 5 are we we thought they were.

Lynch is a defensive/shot blocking machine, who also rebounds well and gets you 8-10 ppg, but is constantly in foul trouble.

Murphy is great and has taken his game to the next level.

Amir is the best all round player on the team and helps in transition scoring, passing, 3 point shooting, defense, etc. Good at all phases of the game. Would be nice to see him step it up and become "the man".

Mason is All-B1G.

McBrayer is long, versatile & disruptive defensively. His shooting & ball handling are just Ok. With as much firepower as we have, being a defensive minded player who can guard on the other team is enough. Knocking down shots or giving us minutes at the 1 are a bonus.

What's been interesting is watching the development of the bench....

Jelly is what he is. A defensive liability, offensive flow killing, ball handling phenom, who we have to allow to figure it out in game situations.

Harris wasn't great on defense last night, but overall has been pretty good for a Freshman. Knocking down those shots last night gave us a good look at what we can expect as he matures. He'll get some minutes this year, but against strong teams he won't play much (barring injuries). There's just no way to justify taking minutes from McBrayer to play Harris against top teams right now.

Matthew Hurt has a come a long way and looks like he'll be one of the pieces up front. He can spell either Amir or Murphy depending on the line-up and opponent. It appears he'll be able to go out there and making a couple plays a night, without being a defensive liability this season and that makes us better than last year.

I think the Fitz we saw last night is the Fitz we can expect moving forward. He's not going to make us forget about Murph or Amir, but with his length and shooting ability, he's a piece of the puzzle too.

Bakary is going to play, even if people don't like it. At 6'11", he can run the court, defend bigger 5's and give us some semblance of rim protection. It's always going to be frustrating though because you can't teach hands and he still gets lost in team D.

Gaston will be a non-factor imo, but if we can squeeze a few fouls out of him every night that'd be a nice bonus.
 

Watching Jelly play, I think of what Clem Haskins used to say about the freshmen point guards he had: "You gotta break 'em down, then build them back up.". Jelly needs a little breaking down right now, imo.
 

Costa Rican Gopher said:
The starting 5 are we we thought they were.

Lynch is a defensive/shot blocking machine, who also rebounds well and gets you 8-10 ppg, but is constantly in foul trouble.

Murphy is great and has taken his game to the next level.

Amir is the best all round player on the team and helps in transition scoring, passing, 3 point shooting, defense, etc. Good at all phases of the game. Would be nice to see him step it up and become "the man".

Mason is All-B1G.

McBrayer is long, versatile & disruptive defensively. His shooting & ball handling are just Ok. With as much firepower as we have, being a defensive minded player who can guard on the other team is enough. Knocking down shots or giving us minutes at the 1 are a bonus.

What's been interesting is watching the development of the bench....

Jelly is what he is. A defensive liability, offensive flow killing, ball handling phenom, who we have to allow to figure it out in game situations.

Harris wasn't great on defense last night, but overall has been pretty good for a Freshman. Knocking down those shots last night gave us a good look at what we can expect as he matures. He'll get some minutes this year, but against strong teams he won't play much (barring injuries). There's just no way to justify taking minutes from McBrayer to play Harris against top teams right now.

Matthew Hurt has a come a long way and looks like he'll be one of the pieces up front. He can spell either Amir or Murphy depending on the line-up and opponent. It appears he'll be able to go out there and making a couple plays a night, without being a defensive liability this season and that makes us better than last year.

I think the Fitz we saw last night is the Fitz we can expect moving forward. He's not going to make us forget about Murph or Amir, but with his length and shooting ability, he's a piece of the puzzle too.

Bakary is going to play, even if people don't like it. At 6'11", he can run the court, defend bigger 5's and give us some semblance of rim protection. It's always going to be frustrating though because you can't teach hands and he still gets lost in team D.

Gaston will be a non-factor imo, but if we can squeeze a few fouls out of him every night that'd be a nice bonus.
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McBrayer shot 41.6% from 3 last year and is shooting 41.2% from 3 so far this year. Those are very good numbers. I don't know why some people on here consider shooting a weakness for him.
 


Keyser Söze said:
McBrayer shot 41.6% from 3 last year and is shooting 41.2% from 3 so far this year. Those are very good numbers. I don't know why some people on here consider shooting a weakness for him.
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They can't under his freshman year but I agree with you
 

bemidjigopher said:
They can't under his freshman year but I agree with you
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His shooting was absolutely brutal the first half of his freshman year, and maybe that is hard for some people to get out of their heads, but he actually shot really well the second half of his freshman year. He made 10 of his last 23 three point attempts that season, which is about 43.5%. He is 54 of his last 129 three point attempts overall, which is 41.9%. That's a big enough sample size to conclude that he is a very good three point shooter.
 


EG#9 said:
My biggest negative takeaway from this game is that the Gophers need their guards to 1. Take better shots and 2. Make shots at a higher rate. With Jordan and Reggie playing so well, the guards really need to be more selective with their own shots. Nate, Dupree, and Isaiah were all guilty here of taking unnecessary shots (usually contested long or midrange 2's from Dupree and Nate and a couple bad 3 point attempts from Isaiah). The Gophers as a team were just 5-16 from 3 in a game where Alabama A&M had no answer down low which lead to a lot of open looks from 3. Against better competition, the Gophers are going to need to knock these shots down.
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I totally agree. Although Mason is a great player, his shot selection has actually worsened since his freshman year. I would love to know his shooting percentage when he takes shots really early in the clock. As you mentioned, our team gets way too good of looks for him to continue to jack up deep contested shots right away for no reason. It's especially upsetting near the end of games when we're up. He can get those looks at any point--no need to rush. I understand that he's a rhythm shooter and I have much less of a problem with him doing it when he's hot, but if you're going to rush a possession, at least attack the basket. It was nice seeing him get to the rim more yesterday. Washington has the same issue but that's more to be expected from him--Mason should know better at this point. His shooting percentage should be so much higher and it's deflating for everyone to have to sprint back on D when he feels like tossing up low percentage shots.
 



Keyser Söze said:
McBrayer shot 41.6% from 3 last year and is shooting 41.2% from 3 so far this year. Those are very good numbers. I don't know why some people on here consider shooting a weakness for him.
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People seem to still be stuck on his freshman year shooting. I think he gets too much crap for his ball-handling too. He's a shooting guard, not a pg, and he's always done quite well in assists/TO. He's a crafty playmaker who generally makes good decisions.
 

Small sample size, but I don't believe Lynch has fouled out yet through 5 games. Come to think of it, I don't think anyone has fouled out yet. He's also down to 2.6 fouls per game from 3.4 last year and playing about the same number of minutes, slightly more in fact.

Murphy has also seen his fouls drop as his minutes have gone up. He's averaging 1.6 fouls per game, down from 3 last year and is so far averaging 4 more minutes per game.
 

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