GopherHoopsFan
Member
- Joined
- Jan 17, 2011
- Messages
- 650
- Reaction score
- 12
- Points
- 18
If you think the effort in the first half against Nebraska was acceptable, much less worthy of praise, I just can't respect your opinion on basketball. Someone started a thread during the week without a game asking what the they hoped the Gophers would work on/improve during that break. The majority of the responses had to do with improving the defense. Since that point, we've given up 90 plus points to Iowa and Nebraska in 2 of the 3 games played (not exactly MSU and Purdue).
Once again, in the 10 games since Lynch was suspended the Gophers are 1-9. They are 2-8 against the spread in that time and have lost as favorites (at HOME) according to Vegas and Ken Pom 3 times during that stretch. How can you rationally claim this team is doing something worthy of praise when presented with these facts? If they were merely doing what the current roster was expected to do, they would be a minimum of 4-6 during these past 10 games. Exactly how could the past 10 games have gone worse? The team is underachieving by virtually every tangible metric you could look at. I don't see how it's helpful to the program to accept, much less praise, what we've seen on the court the last 10 games or really all season when you consider some of the uninspired performances during December.
Perhaps you can enlighten all of us here. I for one would love to know what goes into the creation of a point spread, and a Ken Pom prediction. I consider myself extremely tuned into Gopher basketball, and would have bet the house against the Gophers straight up in each of the past six games.
This team has effectively been playing without a center for the past eight games. Vs Michigan it was a layup line when Murphy went out with foul trouble. If you put in BK in it's still a layup line, plus they get to the line in addition.
It's incredibly laughable to me that Vegas is putting the Gophers as favorites in any match-up, when the ordinary Gopher fan can see that we're obviously underdogs.
For all of your whining about the praise they're receiving, I don't think anybody on here is super excited about the results. Nobody likes watching them repeatedly lose, but at least the scores are closer than the 20-30 point blowouts they've received lately. Also, IW has played better, and Pitino has removed BK and GD from the equation. These are tangible things that we can point to to say, well heck, at least I can watch them play without wanting to vomit all over my living room. THAT is an improvement over the past few games. Which is the ONLY point of this thread. So yeah, count me among the fans who are mistaken in trying to find a SHRED of optimism in the most disappointing season ever. SOOOOO many on here just want to kick them while they're down, and it's pathetic.