Pitino layed an egg with the play after the technicals

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sal said:
24 hour (or less) news cycles, short attention spans and a full Sunday of frigging NFL will relegate the false “Alabama nearly defeats Gophers 5-3” narrative to irrelevancy. Gophers are 7-0, likely a top 10 team when the polls come out Monday. I’m good.
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Unrelated to FIASCOGATE, how do you think we slip into the top 10? Nobody ahead of us lost, right?
EDIT: AZ moves below us, but Wichita State is maybe the only other team to lose.
 


BarnBoy said:
Unrelated to FIASCOGATE, how do you think we slip into the top 10? Nobody ahead of us lost, right?
EDIT: AZ moves below us, but Wichita State is maybe the only other team to lose.
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everybody moves up!!
 

bemidjigopher said:
No one will even remember this game in a week.
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Except for gopher fans. This will come up quite often on the gopher hole for years....because it was so weird. However point taken this will be old news nationally in a day.
 

Pitino absolutely WAS holding back to be classy. No doubt in my mind. I think he was surprised they made three hail mary threes in a row. Then when we got nervous we seemed discombobulated.
 


nasa35 said:
read what the national sports media are saying, wake the eff up. We're currently an embarrassment and some of you think that's fine? WTF
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WTF? Really? Very silly post. A once in a lifetime bizarre scenario, and we won the game!

The media will move on in....wait- being told they already have.
 

XMan said:
Pitino absolutely WAS holding back to be classy. No doubt in my mind. I think he was surprised they made three hail mary threes in a row. Then when we got nervous we seemed discombobulated.
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I don't think class comes into it at all. Pitino had no reference as to what to do. And the point is you don't allow them to make hail marrys'. You protect the psyche of your players. Moral victories are for wannabes. After the officials debacle, it was a no win situation. It would have been a great opportunity to practice putting them away when it was obvious we had the greater advantage. Winners know how to do this. Wannabes probably like to be nice.
 

Lakers612 said:
Talk about speculation. Your theory is that Pitino, a competitive coach in NCAA basketball, would go easy on his opponent.

As far as the cherry pick idea, I think Pitino would have preferred we get stops on the defensive end. He didn't anticipate Bama making 4 to 5 Hail Mary three pointers to keep the game close.
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They could have poured it on if they wanted to. They crushed them 5v5.....and you really think that Alabama magically outplayed the Gophers 5v3? That's absurd.

Pitino definitely pulled them back. It could have been a complete blowout if they had wanted.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk
 

JCK said:
I don't think class comes into it at all. Pitino had no reference as to what to do. And the point is you don't allow them to make hail marrys'. You protect the psyche of your players. Moral victories are for wannabes. After the officials debacle, it was a no win situation. It would have been a great opportunity to practice putting them away when it was obvious we had the greater advantage. Winners know how to do this. Wannabes probably like to be nice.
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Have you ever coached before? Winning with class is certainly something that almost every coach takes very seriously.
 



nasa35 said:
read what the national sports media are saying, wake the eff up. We're currently an embarrassment and some of you think that's fine? WTF
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Can you let us know which national media sources are calling the Gophers an embarrassment?

Or provide links to these stories you have read. Would like to read them to.


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diehard said:
All a result of Mason deciding to play a little street ball for the hometown crowd. I am sure he matured greatly from this. I think some IW influence may have crept into his game momentarily.

The Alabama coaches allowed this to happen. Hope they straighten up and have a great year. We will.
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Thanks for reminding me why I have you on 'ignore'. Mason is from Georgia, and the idea our new freshman caused him to misbehave is hilarious, and shows your bias perfectly. Go back to the off topic board.
 

nasa35 said:
read what the national sports media are saying, wake the eff up. We're currently an embarrassment and some of you think that's fine? WTF
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The worst outcome of this game is that it's prompted nasa to post, which he usually only does if we lose, or if something bad happens. He must be hell to live with.
 

Lakers612 said:
Talk about speculation. Your theory is that Pitino, a competitive coach in NCAA basketball, would go easy on his opponent.

As far as the cherry pick idea, I think Pitino would have preferred we get stops on the defensive end. He didn't anticipate Bama making 4 to 5 Hail Mary three pointers to keep the game close.
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That Pitino ended up triple-teaming Sexton (to no avail, given his propensity to hit miracle 3's) and put his best defender (Coffey) on the only other guy on their team who could score (and who DID miraculously score, at will), suggests you are correct.

My take, the next morning:
I don't fault Pitino's D selection. You cannot guess that the other team would continue to make miracle shots again and again, and the refs started getting very ticky-tack against the Gophers too, late, which made pressure defense precarious anyway, given the Bonus+ situation Alabama was already in.

Where I think Pitino messed up was on the other end of the floor:
1. IW is not enough of a team distributor yet to beat a good zone with crisp passing; and apparently he isn't yet a good enough distributor to beat a 3-man zone either. Pulling up for 12-foot clankers when better shooters like McBrayer and Harris and Coffey are wide-open at the 3 line is really bad decision making. Not taking the ball to the hoop to distribute to an offensive monster like Murphy, or a dominant big like Lynch is worse. The Offensive problems revolved around the Gophers settling for 2-point jumpers, and then failing to gain position to get the offensive boards, of which they were dominated 3v5 on that end of the floor.
2. Pitino needed to get Lynch in there for the inside presence on D and on the offensive boards. Also, it seemed that Pitino relaxed far too early in not having the combo of Murphy and Lynch on the floor together.
3. Pitino needed not to milk the clock and allow the 3 Iron Man Tide players to rest on the defensive end to save their energy for the other end. He needed to get people on the floor who would pass the ball around the 3-man zone until the easy layup was presented. Instead, the very way that the offense sat around and did nothing on that end of the floor allowed Alabama to remain within reaching distance.

I realize that you cannot practice for that situation. But you shouldn't have to. You don't have to cherry-pick and beat them by 40. But there is little excuse to not present a situation in which you extend the lead to 20, and play your subs as you coast to victory.
 



XMan said:
Have you ever coached before? Winning with class is certainly something that almost every coach takes very seriously.
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Would it not also have been "classy" to extend the lead to ensure the game was in hand, then play 5 subs (or especially your dedicated walk-ons) instead of your regular players? I find it hard to believe Pitino intentionally allow this game to almost slip away. He had his best available lineup in there to close the game. Clearly he felt the game was threatened.
 

nasa35 said:
read what the national sports media are saying, wake the eff up. We're currently an embarrassment and some of you think that's fine? WTF
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I just threw my remote through my TV because I am so mad. Now what? Is the embarrassment gone? It's over, nothing we can do about it.
 

scools12 said:
Can you let us know which national media sources are calling the Gophers an embarrassment?
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perhaps "inferring" is a better word.

"Alabama, using three players in second half, edged by Minnesota" - ESPN

"Alabama played Minnesota 3 on 5...and almost won" - The Ringer

"Alabama men's basketball nearly beats Minnesota with only 3 players" - Washington Post
 

brucekaupa said:
perhaps "inferring" is a better word.

"Alabama, using three players in second half, edged by Minnesota" - ESPN

"Alabama played Minnesota 3 on 5...and almost won" - The Ringer

"Alabama men's basketball nearly beats Minnesota with only 3 players" - Washington Post
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Makes for a snappy headline doesn’t it:confused: Mine would read: “Minnesota declines to ‘pile on’ in 5-3 advantage. Tops Alabama to stay undefeated” - The Gold Post.
 


brucekaupa said:
perhaps "inferring" is a better word.

"Alabama, using three players in second half, edged by Minnesota" - ESPN

"Alabama played Minnesota 3 on 5...and almost won" - The Ringer

"Alabama men's basketball nearly beats Minnesota with only 3 players" - Washington Post
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These look like headlines.

Anyone watching the game or reading the stories will know this is stretching the truth on what really was going on.

In no way do these claim the Gophers are an embarrassment. However, won’t stop some from freaking out over nothing.
 

scools12 said:
These look like headlines.

Anyone watching the game or reading the stories will know this is stretching the truth on what really was going on.

In no way do these claim the Gophers are an embarrassment. However, won’t stop some from freaking out over nothing.
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Nothing new here. That's how the media works in the USA.

They have the power of the pen and the mic and are one of the reasons why our country is in such a mess.
 

brucekaupa said:
perhaps "inferring" is a better word.

"Alabama, using three players in second half, edged by Minnesota" - ESPN

"Alabama played Minnesota 3 on 5...and almost won" - The Ringer

"Alabama men's basketball nearly beats Minnesota with only 3 players" - Washington Post
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It's called "clickbait".
 

The only person that should be embarrassed is the Alabama coach. Interesting that only his bench players were ejected. Done.
 

Alabama almost won the game? Seriously, saying that is like saying Minnesota almost ran up the score and won by 100 points (which would have been easier to do by the way...) What actually happened? Minnesota chose to let it play out, let the players run down the clock and Sexton hit some threes during the inevitable game ending process.

They had no chance with 3 players
They had no chance with 4 players
They especially had no chance with 5 players
Minnesota completely outclassed their competition with basketball skills and edged Alabama on the Sportsmans ship side (even including the Mason/Pitino T's)
Im not even sure that Alabama could have won the game last night if they were allowed to play 6 players.

Alabama has a nice young team and when they get all healed up and some experience they may do well. I like them and wish them well but this game was never in question. I am especially happy that nobody else was injured on the Alabama side during the final minutes as I thought the Alabama coach screwed up by not throwing the towel in after Petty rolled his ankle. He put his players at risk and if any coach should get a stern chat on how to do his job it is not Pitino

Sheesh, Pitino made his decision on how to proceed and won the game. Ya'll really that thin skinned? Ya'll get scared when Sexton hit a couple of threes. ESPN hurt your feelings? Please... cowboy the BLANK up or find another sport to follow. I heard the Vikings coach might need some direction on how to do his job.
 

I was never nervous the entire game. All we had to do is full court press and it would have been done.

Classy thing to do in that situation
 

Rouser said:
BAMA Fiasco? Holy smokes folks are losing their **** over nothing. It was a random and freak thing that happened...oh, and we were crushing them 5v5. Nobody will remember this a week from now if we beat Miami. If we lose to Miami the only folks that remember are the folks calling it a Fiasco. Come Feb and March, who gives a rip if we got outscored 5v3. Are folks really that upset and worried that the next time Coach Pitino faces a 5v3 situation we won't know how to handle it?

For the love of God, stop it, everyone!

Now, if we get the 3 v 14 seed and the 14 is Middle TN State and they decide to only play 3, I may get a little worried, other than that scenario, stop it.. Just stop.
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Yeah people are making way too much out of it and some are acting like we lost the game. I would challenge everyone to think hard and come up with the last time they saw 5-3 basketball played at the college level. It was a messed up situation that will never happen to the team again. I honestly think if Mason is still on the court we probably win by quite a bit but without him things broke down some and the game got out of hand. The bottom line is we won and at the end of the year nobody is going to care how many people were on the court for the final 10 minutes.
 

Guys -- A lot of this is not just a bad coaching job to handle the 5v3 situation. Remember if we took Murphy and Mason out of the equation for this game we were only shooting 25% from the field. This is the squad who played the minutes in the 5v3 situation. On the defensive side you can't do much more than putting your 2 fastest players to guard Sexton. He went lights out as a NBA quality guard can do. There's not much more you can do against him other than break his leg.

If Murph and Mason didn't step up in this game we would have lost this game.

Now you could argue that we could have driven to the hoop to play our style of game in this situation and that was a difference maker, but our 25% from the field across the team (sans Murph and Mason) is awful. This is what I would be more concerned about. Our shooting went down in both games in New York let's hope this was just a road bump and all of the guys will get back on shooting form.
 

During the 5-3, when Alabama had the ball, if Richard would have left one guy down by the hoop we were shooting at and had a rebounder stand under the basket they were shooting at, and played man-to-man with the other 3, we would have won by 40.
 

GopherJake said:
During the 5-3, when Alabama had the ball, if Richard would have left one guy down by the hoop we were shooting at and had a rebounder stand under the basket they were shooting at, and played man-to-man with the other 3, we would have won by 40.
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Or if we would have pressed.

What's clear after reading all the interviews and re-watching the last 10 minutes is this: RP decided to take it easy on a team that had not yet given up trying to win. That's dangerous.
 

brucekaupa said:
Or if we would have pressed.

What's clear after reading all the interviews and re-watching the last 10 minutes is this: RP decided to take it easy on a team that had not yet given up trying to win. That's dangerous.
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Right. Pressing brings danger of injury. Having a guy standing at the other end of the court waiting for the outlet pass does not. I bet he didn't think of it.
 

GopherJake said:
Right. Pressing brings danger of injury. Having a guy standing at the other end of the court waiting for the outlet pass does not. I bet he didn't think of it.
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Can't really fault him for not being prepared to play 5-3, that just doesn't happen.....ever. Had we been in true danger of losing I am sure they would have switched up their approach to exploit the mismatch more, as it was it was just a crazy end to a game in which the Gophers dominated until it all went nuts.
 

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