STrib: Basketball opponents are exposing Gophers defense

per Marcus:

Before the Gophers men’s basketball team went to play Arkansas on Saturday, coach Richard Pitino talked about making sure his players knew the difference between perception and reality.

Last year’s Gophers team engineered a surprise turnaround and made the NCAA tournament. Because the Gophers already have been told they are good, this year presents a new challenge to his team.

“People are telling us we’re good. So the illusion of people telling us that we’re good should not mean that we’re good,” Pitino said Friday. “We can’t fall into the trap of the illusion that just because people tell us we’re going to beat Miami at home because it’s a great atmosphere. That’s not really why you’re going to win. So it is a challenge. I found it a lot easier when people told us we were going to stink to get everyone to band together.”

Big man Reggie Lynch talked Friday of “not thinking teams are going to roll over” for the Gophers just because they’re ranked.

“We need to flush that down the toilet,” he said, “and understand every team is going to try and come at us this year.”

http://www.startribune.com/gophers-...cess-doesn-t-ensure-future-fortune/463280723/

Go Gophers!!

Lynch needs to stay on the floor, that's the key to the defense, especially without Curry

Our weak side defense and weak side rotations are lacking. When Lynch helps off his man, no one slides down or rotates over creating easy buckets off the pass or rebound.

Teams are also exposing our offense too as they are over playing us (at least Miami, Nebraska and Arkansas did) on the perimeter. We constantly stand around doing dribble handoffs or the weave around the perimeter. Our guards need to cut and go back door once in a while as we do not apply any pressure on offense.

GopherCountry said:

Our weak side defense and weak side rotations are lacking. When Lynch helps off his man, no one slides down or rotates over creating easy buckets off the pass or rebound.

Teams are also exposing our offense too as they are over playing us (at least Miami, Nebraska and Arkansas did) on the perimeter. We constantly stand around doing dribble handoffs or the weave around the perimeter. Our guards need to cut and go back door once in a while as we do not apply any pressure on offense.

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Good point. Pitino needs to do a better job of adjusting to the defense. Teams are obviously aware of the talent and putting in the time to taking away from strengths

JimmyJamesMD said:

Good point. Pitino needs to do a better job of adjusting to the defense. Teams are obviously aware of the talent and putting in the time to taking away from strengths

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The problem is adjustments are difficult when you have no depth or versatility among your starters. All of our 5 best players are offensively limited, with the possible exception of Mason but he is unpredictable which Mason you are going to get from one stretch to the next, let alone game to game. Doesn't even consider our defensive woes...again tough to play defense when your first thought is being terrified one of the five may get in foul trouble.
No coach can magically make these bench guys into solid contributors. IW will continue to elevate his performances with some stinkers mixed in.
An attitude adjustment will make a huge difference and we'll compete and win a bunch of games if we can stay healthy.

GopherCountry said:

Our weak side defense and weak side rotations are lacking. When Lynch helps off his man, no one slides down or rotates over creating easy buckets off the pass or rebound.

Teams are also exposing our offense too as they are over playing us (at least Miami, Nebraska and Arkansas did) on the perimeter. We constantly stand around doing dribble handoffs or the weave around the perimeter. Our guards need to cut and go back door once in a while as we do not apply any pressure on offense.

Click to expand...

Pick and roll is also killing us on both ends. On defense our help is late and our rotations back are slow. Also the slip screen pocket pass.
On offense I think it may help (because of the hard hedge) to have Amir initiate the offense because of his height. I'm just not sure his dribble is strong enough.

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