***OFFICIAL MINNESOTA AT PENN STATE IN-GAME THREAD!!!!***

Really good win for this beleaguered squad. Great to see Harris get some confidence.

Nice game. Very nice game.

Good win.

Lakers612 said:

that was a must win. proud of the entire team. now win at Maryland and let's see if we can get Coffey back soon

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I wouldn't waste time worrying about Coffey. Sounds like the timeline is re-evaluate on 2/2 then if it looks good it's 4 weeks rehab. Basically, best case is he could be available for an NIT/NCAA run but not much else.

that was a must win. proud of the entire team. now win at Maryland and let's see if we can get Coffey back soon

Some guy said:

Studies have been done. There is no statistically significant difference between the final results if you Foul or don’t Foul.





I would’ve fouled though

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I'm in favor of not fouling. But there's no way you let that guy get the shot. Anyone but him.

Studies have been done. There is no statistically significant difference between the final results if you Foul or don’t Foul.





I would’ve fouled though

What a great bounce back game. Really proud of these guys for putting together a solid game plan and executing at a high level.

howeda7 said:

I wouldn't waste time worrying about Coffey. Sounds like the timeline is re-evaluate on 2/2 then if it looks good it's 4 weeks rehab. Basically, best case is he could be available for an NIT/NCAA run but not much else.

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Ah thanks for clarifying. Haven't been following the day-to-day news with this team for about 2 weeks now. (can you blame me?)

Nice win for the Gophers tonight. Any win on the road in the Big 10 is a good win. Nice to see Mason bounce back after a couple tough games. Good to see Murphy getting back to doing what he's good at. And somebody said on here McBrayer isn't a Big 10 caliber player?? Hope that crow tastes good. He's been solid ever since Coffey/Lynch went out. But the bottom line is this team goes as Mason and Murphy go. If they have good games, the Gophers have a great shot to win. If they struggle, it's going to be a long game.

I've never been a fan of fouling when you're up 3 late in games. Too much can go wrong. The potential shooter can go up if he anticipates the foul, get a shooting foul or even worse, the guy makes it and could give them the lead. We'd be roasting Pitino if the guy went up early, got three shots out of it or a 4-point play. The statistics lean toward not fouling. The kid made a long shot, give him credit.

Major props to Harris for not only stepping up in overtime, but having the confidence to take the shots he took. And then he didn't settle for the baseline 3 and drove the lane for a lay-up. Hopefully that builds some confidence for him the rest of the season. Despite the rock hands, Bakary gave quality minutes and made the 2 big FTs down the stretch.

Go get Maryland on Thursday, Terps lost a tough one to Michigan on FTs tonight.

I think Dick Pitino did a great job between the Purdue game and this game. This Gopher Hoops team will be ok. There are more teams like PSU on their schedule and this was an excellent job by the coach of focusing on what the team HAS rather than what the team has lost. I believe this Gopher team just might be on the verge of having some young players realize that they ARE Big Ten players. Good Job coach! Good job players. Good leadership from Murphy, Mason, McB, et al. I think this team WILL be an easy team to cheer for! Some teams may have too much for them...but I think there are some nice border battles coming up. I think THIS GOPHER TEAM can be and will be a handful for a LOT of Big Ten Teams this season. As a fan, I am going to focus on what this team HAS...not what it does NOT have. Coach 'em up coach. Let the three M's show them the way! Turn the youngsters loose...but...let them learn from the VETERANS on the floor with them. On a given night...this team will have some fire power. It might be coming along a bit faster than it might have otherwise. Show 'em the way Coach Pitino!

Pretty wild ride tonight.

21 points in OT.
PSU gets 8 steals to our 2, and we turn it over 12 times to their 4.
Gophers out-rebound them by 11 and Mason was the only Gopher with 3 or more fouls.
Bostick was the only PSU player to score off the bench with 8 and Gas chips in 4 and Hurt 2.

Way to gut out a win.

This team still has some talent and now will be flying under the radar. This team can hang in any game except for @ Purdue in our final game. Jamir and Isaiah maturing will be huge. It wouldn't be shocking to see us hit 9 or 10 wins in conference. I think expectation is around 7-8 conference wins, however. Let's just get Coffey back with a chip and a chair and a chance.

bfast said:

This team still has some talent and now will be flying under the radar. This team can hang in any game except for @ Purdue in our final game. Jamir and Isaiah maturing will be huge. It wouldn't be shocking to see us hit 9 or 10 wins in conference. I think expectation is around 7-8 conference wins, however. Let's just get Coffey back with a chip and a chair and a chance.

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I am a fan, but I think you are smoking some sh!t if you think we get 9-10 wins in conference. 7 is the ceiling with the bigs we currently have on the roster.

tikited said:

Foul every time there. Dumb move by coach. Very dumb.

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Just a reminder that fouling when up 3 in the closing seconds is not nearly the no-brainer decision that like 6 people in this thread have made it out to be. This kenpom blog post from a few years ago suggests that, while you're very likely to win whether you choose to defend or intentionally foul, defending, as the Gophers did here, is a slightly better decision.

https://kenpom.com/blog/yet-another-study-about-fouling-when-up-3/

I see 9-9 as likely as the conference is as bad as i have ever seen.

Things that need to end with Gopher basketball (not specific to Pitino, has been going on since we Clem was fired)

1. The comfortable to almost insurmountable lead that is blown: Tonight, the Gophers were up 11 with about 6:30 left. Somehow, that lead completely evaporated in like 2:30 of game play.

2. The missed clutch free throws: Tonight it was Mason going to the line and making 1 of 3 with like a minute left in the game. Kudos to Bakary for knocking down two in a row after clanking his first chance at a one and one.

3. The unlikely to flat out miracle 3 by the opposition to win/tie a game: That was a difficult shot by Carr, not in his "normal" motion/off the dribble/Dupree's hand was right there.

They showed a stat, similar to one I have tracked that the Gophers and Penn State have played a league high 50 games decided by 6 points or less over the the last 6 years. Unsurprisingly, the Gophers are a painful 18-32 in these games (as is Penn State). I bet that record would look even worse for the Gophers if you took out wins where the they were up by like 12 plus with under 3 minutes to play. It's obviously been a combination of horrible luck and poor play, and it would sure be nice if we could turn that number completely around over the next 6 years!

Really liked how this team responded to getting down 20-12 early. I'd be lying if I said anything other than it seemed like they were going to fold and that lead was going to snowball. Instead, they battled back and Mason and Murphy combined for two straight 3 point possessions to quickly turn the game around.

Not enough good can be said about Jordan Murphy's rebounding tonight. He accounted for 19 of the teams 45 rebounds! Because Bakary has such bad hands, there is so much pressure on Murphy to secure almost every defensive board. He did that tonight including several where he was sandwiched between two Penn State defenders and still came down with the ball. If there was one negative to Murphy's game tonight it was that he left his guards out to dry twice on the same action where he didn't come to meet the pass and his defender beat him to the spot and had a breakaway dunk. That can be corrected, but you can't teach what he did on the boards tonight.

In reviewing the box score, I was surprised Dupree wasn't credited for any blocks or steals. He was really active on the defensive end, in addition to his fantastic 8-13 from the floor, 3-4 from three, and 5-6 from FT line. He struggled with Carr at times, but was clearly our best option against him. This Dupree and the Dupree against Indiana were the two best games we've seen from him in conference play. Hopefully, that leg is getting better because we could certainly use this version every night.

Nate Mason was the best player on the floor in the first half. Didn't do as much in the second half which could have been due to even more attention from the PSU defense or from some fatigue from his illness. Regardless, it was nice to see Nate bounce back in a big way.

I was really encouraged by Jamir Harris'play tonight. With the caveat that it was just one game, I loved seeing him take it to the basket several times in the first half as well as look competent as a ball handler, he also had a nice drive and dish to Bakary that should have resulted in a basket. The results were great obviously, but I also loved that he had the stones as a rarely played Freshman to take those two 3's in OT on the road. The second one in particular(off the dribble, from a few feet behind the line) was the type of play that has to excite you.

Finally, the response to the heartbreaking 3 to force OT was tremendous. With the way things have been going for this team/staff/program, you had to worry about how that OT would go. From the jump, Murphy got a nice post up and finish with contact (make the FT Jordan), then Mason found McBrayer who drilled a corner 3. From that point on it was pretty clear the Gophers weren't going to lose this one. Hopefully the fight and resolve they showed tonight in getting a win will be the catalyst to getting this season back on track (or at least avoiding a 6-12 type disaster).

One concern to watch: With two more games this week, the Gophers got just 28 combined minutes from their bench. For the most part, I think minutes is an overblown concern in college (younger bodies recuperate quicker, the game isn't played at the same pace as an NBA game, they play 30-40 games total, etc etc) but in this specific situation it might cause a bit of an issue. Dupree played 41 and is still in a walking boot when not playing, Murphy played 43 and they were 43 really hard minutes of battling for nearly every board, Nate played 45 with an illness, Bakary played 32 which is something I don't think he's done before (or at least since his Sophomore year), and Jamir played 36 which probably triples his career high. That's not to say it wasn't the correct strategy/minute distribution, it absolutely was and this team needed a win in the worst way... just that it might show up in a negative fashion at Maryland on Thursday or against Ohio State in the Garden. Finally, wow did the B1G screw us with this schedule: we lose a home game to play in NYC AND we have to play that game as the final game of a 3 game in 6 day voyage? They talk about "schedule losses" in the NBA, imagine if we were in the B1G title race (actually not that tough to imagine, even with all the setbacks if this team just beats Nebraska and Indiana they would be right there in the standings though not realistically in it ) and a loss in this stretch proved to be pivotal?

That stat that you showed about losing games it the last 6 years has everything to do with defense and effort. Flat out, these guys are plumb lazy on defense and think they should win just because they step onto the court. That HAS to change. Springs alone changed it last year. You need that bulldog mentality on defense. If Richie doesn't know how to bring it, he needs to hire a defensive wiz and let him have at these guys.

Cayman said:

Just a reminder that fouling when up 3 in the closing seconds is not nearly the no-brainer decision that like 6 people in this thread have made it out to be. This kenpom blog post from a few years ago suggests that, while you're very likely to win whether you choose to defend or intentionally foul, defending, as the Gophers did here, is a slightly better decision.

https://kenpom.com/blog/yet-another-study-about-fouling-when-up-3/

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If done correctly, it makes the most sense. Don't foul too late so you don't get caught fouling while the opponent is shooting. Foul right when the ball handler gets to half court. The notion of making the first...missing the 2nd on purpose...getting the rebound and making the shot before time expires is just not going to happen very often. And it would still be a tie-game.

tikited said:

If done correctly, it makes the most sense. Don't foul too late so you don't get caught fouling while the opponent is shooting. Foul right when the ball handler gets to half court. The notion of making the first...missing the 2nd on purpose...getting the rebound and making the shot before time expires is just not going to happen very often. And it would still be a tie-game.

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The other viable option is defending the shooter. McBrayer didn't have so much as a hand up until it was too late.

tikited said:

If done correctly, it makes the most sense. Don't foul too late so you don't get caught fouling while the opponent is shooting. Foul right when the ball handler gets to half court. The notion of making the first...missing the 2nd on purpose...getting the rebound and making the shot before time expires is just not going to happen very often. And it would still be a tie-game.

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My issue with it more the timing. If you do it right when he crosses half court, there's still like 6 seconds left. They probably make both and try to steal the inbound one more time. And we've certainly thrown away a few. Combine that with the risk of fouling on the shot, getting called for an intentional foul or having Konate trying to secure said rebound and too many things can go wrong. I'd rather give them one 10% contested 3. We just never should have let Carr be the guy to take it.

tikited said:

If done correctly, it makes the most sense. Don't foul too late so you don't get caught fouling while the opponent is shooting. Foul right when the ball handler gets to half court. The notion of making the first...missing the 2nd on purpose...getting the rebound and making the shot before time expires is just not going to happen very often. And it would still be a tie-game.

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There's also the possibility that they make the first, miss the second, and we foul them when going for the rebound, putting them at the line again with a chance to tie. That's pretty much exactly what happened right before Blake Hoffarber's buzzer beater against Indiana. We were actually up by 2 with 3.5 seconds left, but we fouled Indiana on TWO consecutive rebound attempts off missed free throws, allowing them to take a lead, before Hoff stole it back.

Your opponent could also hit both free throws, and then your team commits a turnover inbounding the ball. Or your opponent senses that you're about to intentionally foul them and heaves a half court prayer and gets three free throws with a chance to tie. You're more likely to go to overtime by defending, but you're more likely to lose in regulation by fouling.

The kenpom article also states that getting an offensive rebound off a missed free throw happens a little over 40% of the time in these endgame situations because the shooting team doesn't need to have any concern for getting back on defense like they would at any other point in the game, because if they don't get the offensive rebound on the missed free throw, they're just going to lose. He says teams normally get offensive rebounds off missed free throws at a rate of about 15-20%, but it goes up to 40% when the only chance of winning the game hangs on getting that offensive rebound.

He does say that in a situation where your opponent has good three point shooters and you have good rebounders (which Murphy is obviously, not sure about Konate/Diedhiou), then fouling could be better, but in general you should defend.

tikited said:

If done correctly, it makes the most sense. Don't foul too late so you don't get caught fouling while the opponent is shooting. Foul right when the ball handler gets to half court. The notion of making the first...missing the 2nd on purpose...getting the rebound and making the shot before time expires is just not going to happen very often. And it would still be a tie-game.

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Pretty nice qualifier

“If done so correctly” could also apply to playing defense and not giving up a bucket.


If we are operating under the assumption that whatever we said is 100% going to be done correctly then playing defense is the obvious answer.

Some guy said:

Pretty nice qualifier

“If done so correctly” could also apply to playing defense and not giving up a bucket.


If we are operating under the assumption that whatever we said is 100% going to be done correctly then playing defense is the obvious answer.

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It shouldn't be that hard to foul someone on purpose... The chance of fouling the 3pt shooter is also there when playing defense. They obviously don't practice it, so it is safe to assume Pitino is not a "foul them" coach. I still like my chances making them have everything go right with free throws.

I’ve already said I would’ve fouled but those acting like it is a no brained are kidding themselves

Defense, timing, rebounds, steals, overtime, making free throws...it's a complicated decision.

There have been lots of college basketball games over the years - somebody should do a statistical analysis of whether fouling when you're up by 3 at the end of the game makes you more likely to win.

Oh wait, somebody already did that, wrote up an analysis, and it was linked to from within this very discussion.
https://kenpom.com/blog/studying-whether-to-foul-when-tied-part-3/

(And the answer is that unless you are a major underdog that is highly likely to lose in overtime, or you have the opportunity to foul a very bad free-throw shooter, you should JUST PLAY DEFENSE. You still might lose, but that's not the point.)

((And by the way, the Gophers won. So it was the right call. Fouling would have given Penn State a chance to win in regulation.))

I would have definitely fouled in the Gophers situation last night. That said, it would have been tough to execute last night. Coach Pitino was out of timeouts and had Bakary at the line for a one and one. You don't want to say anything about fouling before he goes to the line for fear that someone will foul with a one or two point lead. So the one chance to communicate to the team to foul is after Bakary's first make. Do you risk getting Bakary out of his routine so everyone understands that if he makes it you foul? Unless this is something you drill consistently, you would need to make sure all 5 guys on the floor knew the plan exactly. I still have to remind myself that some extremely talented basketball players have terrible court/game IQ. How many times have you seen a guy drive in for a shot when his team is down 3 in the waning seconds of a game? How many times have you seen a guy make a foul and not realize that the other team is in the bonus? You'd like to have a team full of really aware players, but that's not the reality for the majority of teams. I personally think it's very much worth it to drill this specific late game situation often enough so that you trust everyone to know that they need to take a foul up 3 with under 5 seconds to play. I remember reading this Ken Pom analysis (or similar) when the Gophers had a couple of near debacles in the Garden in the Semi-Finals and Finals of the NIT. I still feel like fouling would be the clear right play IF you can trust your players to execute. A make/miss/rebound/successful putback is just a much tougher thing to pull off than just having to hit a 3 from the college line. I'd personally feel much better forcing a team to execute more than one success (a made 3) to force OT or win.

The buzzer beater 3 might be a tougher make than a normal 3 because the defense doesn't have to worry about defending the paint. You can defend better against the 3 when you know it's your opponent's only offensive option.

As you said though, fouling could maybe be wise if it's a situation your team has practiced a lot and everyone knows exactly what to do. I think people are maybe overestimating the likelihood of making the buzzer beater 3, because it's the only offensive option and the defense could theoretically key in on it, defend closer because they don't have to worry about a pass or drive into the paint. And then getting the offensive rebound on the missed free throw becomes more likely than usual because going hard for the rebound is the shooting team's only option.

I mostly wanted to point out that not fouling is not the complete boneheaded coaching move that some seem to think it is.

Bordergopher said:

OMG Konate is inept at finishing. How can a guy that athletic and tall not be able to score right under the basket? Baffling.

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It is... Watched his bother the other night vs. Kansas... Kid is a stud.

Cayman said:

The buzzer beater 3 might be a tougher make than a normal 3 because the defense doesn't have to worry about defending the paint. You can defend better against the 3 when you know it's your opponent's only offensive option.

As you said though, fouling could maybe be wise if it's a situation your team has practiced a lot and everyone knows exactly what to do. I think people are maybe overestimating the likelihood of making the buzzer beater 3, because it's the only offensive option and the defense could theoretically key in on it, defend closer because they don't have to worry about a pass or drive into the paint. And then getting the offensive rebound on the missed free throw becomes more likely than usual because going hard for the rebound is the shooting team's only option.

I mostly wanted to point out that not fouling is not the complete boneheaded coaching move that some seem to think it is.

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The debate that will continue as long as the game is played... I will admit that things could have gone wrong with Konate flailing his arms at a missed free throw..