All Things 2018-19 Other College Basketball Games Thread

Isn't it amazing what happens when a team plays hard and with full energy?

That's what really frustrates me about the Gophers this year, and I think it's the main reason they haven't reached what I thought would be their potential. It appears that they play at 75-80% effort the majority of the time, which includes defensive lapses, throwing nonchalant passes, posting up on offense far from the basket, and settling for outside jump shots (with their main rebounders away from the basket in many cases). They are nearly out of time to right the ship at this point.
 



Because if you do not have the athletes and the depth for it good teams will shred you with 2 on ones and 3 on 2's. Plus you will be fatigued.

I still don't understand why you can't do it often enough to be a changeup defense, serve as a threat, and be good enough at it that you can be competent doing it when you need to in desperation situations late in games. You can't tell me that other teams don't have this as a part-time competency.
 

I still don't understand why you can't do it often enough to be a changeup defense, serve as a threat, and be good enough at it that you can be competent doing it when you need to in desperation situations late in games. You can't tell me that other teams don't have this as a part-time competency.

There are teams that have it and do it but you only have a fixed to practice time as a rule and you practice what you think you will do best.
 


There are teams that have it and do it but you only have a fixed to practice time as a rule and you practice what you think you will do best.

We have players with long arms and sneaky speed. We could be good at it.
 

Pressing constantly is less effective than pressing situationally.

I'm a big fan of pressing after a made bucket. Especially if it is a free throw! Great time to throw on a zone press.

My guess is Pitino isn't confident with team speed to implement full-court D.

I really think a 3-2 match-up would be very effective for the Gophers with Kalesheur and Coffey on the wings and Murph and Oturu down low. Up top? I'd love to see an athletic freak like Omersa up there! Could be pretty frightening for the other team.

Murph is our biggest defensive limitation.
 

Are they smart enough, devoted enough. Pitino sees something that tells him it is a bad idea. It took people a long time to realize the best way to beat Bo Ryan was to stop trying to speed the game up and to try and beat him at his game. It is very difficult to speed teams up and you better be great at ball security yourself if you play fast or you will make more mistakes yourself. Besides, pace of play for those that have few posessions is dictated by the following, if the other team is already back on defense you walk it up thus taking on average 3 seconds but what you gain is limiting turnovers by running offense for a good shot. A novice will think they are stalling but there is no such thing with a 30 second shot clock witness by the time it takes to get a shot. Second, if you turn it over a whole bunch you will have more possessions thus a faster pace of play and then finally, if you do not give up easy shots and defend well the whole possession then your defense is slowing the game by creating fewer possessions. If you have athletes like Duke or UNC you can play fast with great efficiecny numbers because your able to get better looks sooner and still have a low turnover % of possessions. If your not a blue blood this is a winning formula. I did not even address the physical and mental toll you impose on the other team as a result of running them through screen after screen and varying those sets with rolls, pocket passes, slips and lobs, ball fakes, moving the defense side to side and finally when you guard somebody well, possession after possession it just saps them of everything. Plus it ingrains in your own team a mental toughness that when someone does it to you and points are tough that you never give in because you know and take pride that your defense will keep you in it. Again, that wears on the opponent because they just can not shake you.
 

They have bought in to Underwood all the way. They understand that who they are is pressure,physical play all game long. All credit for instilling a culture and staying with it as you add your own guys.

More than most, I tend to believe coaches get too much credit for winning and too much blame for losing. For instance, I believe if went back and replayed the big ten season and mixed the coaches of the teams up, the standings would be similar to what they are today. I think the separating factor is recruiting, which I think should be the main consideration in any Coyle decision. However, have to admit Underwood is the outlier in my theory, not sure any other big ten coach could have accomplised as much with his team this season. Has to be big 10 COY favorite.
 



I think players win and lose games but coaches build and teach those teams. Greg Gard would not be 6-8 with our roster. Your vastly underrating great teaching, position, movement, details. How do you think guys like Ryan and Bennett win big, year after year with recruiting classes ranked below 30th nationally ? How come great coaches get offered huge jobs at elite schools without a giant recruiting reputation. Many teams in the top 25 annually recruited no where near that level. Why not just hire anyone that can recruit . Now how coaching works. It is in the eye for what your trying to do, how well you teach. I have been to hundreds of practices at dozens of programs and the difference between good and bad is night and day. There is a mile wide canyon between those great coaches and those that are not.
 

Are they smart enough, devoted enough. Pitino sees something that tells him it is a bad idea.

Fair enough, and I can take that at face value. But don't you think it's a curious thing for a coach to come in and say they're going to do something 100% of the time and it actually ends up as 0% of the time?
 

I think players win and lose games but coaches build and teach those teams. Greg Gard would not be 6-8 with our roster. Your vastly underrating great teaching, position, movement, details. How do you think guys like Ryan and Bennett win big, year after year with recruiting classes ranked below 30th nationally ? How come great coaches get offered huge jobs at elite schools without a giant recruiting reputation. Many teams in the top 25 annually recruited no where near that level. Why not just hire anyone that can recruit . Now how coaching works. It is in the eye for what your trying to do, how well you teach. I have been to hundreds of practices at dozens of programs and the difference between good and bad is night and day. There is a mile wide canyon between those great coaches and those that are not.


If Coyle makes a change, the new coach would have essentially the same players so would be interesting to see if gets different results. Also, I feel Gard's style of play
helps to equalize talent difference. Maybe Bennett is one of those superior coaches and maybe Underwood will turn out to be as well. Blue blood coaches always have superior talent so hard to judge their coaching, I think. I am jealous that you get to observe practices, if there is a big disparity between how big ten team practices are conducted, would certainly not help my thought that not much difference between most coaches, other than recruiting.
 

Fair enough, and I can take that at face value. But don't you think it's a curious thing for a coach to come in and say they're going to do something 100% of the time and it actually ends up as 0% of the time?

My opinion is that is fine to think it and then junk it when it becomes apparent that it will not be effective because the other teams are equipped to deal with it and because you can not get the guys to do it. I have been amazed at what we did not do from day one. Never compromise character and teach top 25 defense every year. I understand how hard it is to find and get great shooters but there is never a excuse for shoddy defense.
 



Pressing constantly is less effective than pressing situationally.

I'm a big fan of pressing after a made bucket. Especially if it is a free throw! Great time to throw on a zone press.

My guess is Pitino isn't confident with team speed to implement full-court D.

I really think a 3-2 match-up would be very effective for the Gophers with Kalesheur and Coffey on the wings and Murph and Oturu down low. Up top? I'd love to see an athletic freak like Omersa up there! Could be pretty frightening for the other team.

Murph is our biggest defensive limitation.

I was thinking they should try pressing more, but then I came to the realization that they are even getting beaten down the court at times when they are just supposed to be getting back to set up on defense (which should never happen if they are hustling back). It seems most noticeable when they play Michigan State...every year, MSU gets some easy buckets against the Gophers because they hurry down the court on offense and the Gophers are not ready. It's frustrating, and those easy buckets make it even more difficult to defeat teams like MSU.
 






At least Rutgers got hosed by the refs.
 




Any way we get Iowa in the Big 10 tourney? I want to play them again.

They are hitting 3 pointers at the buzzer at ridiculous rates.

How the fu-- do you bank it in from that angle? LMAO
 

damn that's big for the Gophers. We need every Quad1 win we can get
 

Looks like its working out for Reid Travis at UK.
Top 3 teams in the SEC are in a different tier from our top 3.
 








Top Bottom