I was impressed with A&M's athleticism against Gonzaga and felt like they played them pretty tough in the first half (didn't watch the second half, but they ended up getting blown out) they just didn't shoot it well. I felt like they could give the Gophers some trouble, and part of them getting back in the game was them hitting some low percentage shots (for good shooters, much less what A&M had shown previously).
The good: This team was good enough to be up by 10 at halftime (same amount Gonzaga lead A&M by at home) while committing SIXTEEN turnovers and going 5-10 from the line. The response in crunch time on the defensive end was also a major positive. The Gophers were the victims of at least one horrific call late that game A&M two free throws, but I don't believe they allowed a made FG in like the last 3 minutes (ESPN doesn't have the play by play for me to check). How about Brock Stull's game? He hit a couple 3's including a big one in the second half that seemed to help push this game back to comfortable win territory (how nice would that have been? I didn't need this stress) and was really solid with his decision making. Matz Stockman also stepped up with a couple huge baskets in the second half when things started to get shaky (the first time).
The bad: Wow was there a lot of bad. I could be wrong, but I would guess Amir Coffey was like -15 in the on/off metrics at one point. When the lead got away from us in the first half and again when it went away for good in the second half, Amir was a key factor. Maybe Isaiah had to have a blow in the second half, but I didn't like removing him for Amir given his struggles in the game even though I realize he's the only other option. It's concerning to me how badly Amir struggled as the primary ball handler because A&M doesn't even really have the prototype pitbull get up in your chest PG to hound him. We needed Isaiah to handle the ball and Pitino is going to have to depend on Isaiah whether he want to or not. The turnovers are the biggest concern as I think Murphy will always be turnover prone, so we really need other guys to take care of the ball. The lack of a clutch factor on Gopher rosters seems to be a never ending issue. We've got out best players going to the line late, and they can't step up and knock down a couple of free throws? Meanwhile guys like Happ who can't shoot at all hit two clutch ones in the Barn or like tonight A&M's big guy goes 4-4 late. The other thing that is concerning is blowing huge leads. At some point, Pitino teams need to learn to put the game away early.
Edit forgot to add a couple things I really loved: The Gophers had one possession that ended with Jordan Murphy having the ball just outside the paint with about 5 seconds on the shot clock, he was kind of stuck without a shot but made a beautiful big to big pass to Matz for a layup as the clock expired. The second thing I loved was in the first half where Jarvis Omersa ripped the ball out of an A&M players hands. That was a physical, bordering on mean, play that we haven't seen much of since the days of Stamper and Puchtel.