Charley Walters: Bobby Jackson says Gophers should speed it up

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BleedGopher

BleedGopher

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per Shooter:

There has never been a better point guard at the University of Minnesota than Bobby Jackson.

Now 45, Jackson was at Target Center last week as player development coach for the Sacramento Kings, who were playing the Timberwolves. Jackson follows his alma mater Gophers closely.

“My honest critique? The Gophers are a good, young team, but I think they play too slow,” he said. “Especially for a young college team. I’d like to see them play faster, get up and down the floor, pick up full court, trap the ball. I want my guards to pick up 94 feet, get steals, push the tempo.

“But,” he added, “not everybody’s like me.”

For sure. As a Gopher, Jackson was omnipresent. In the NBA for Sacramento, he was popularly known as “Action Jackson.”

These days, his mission is to develop players.

“Helping them improve, but also helping myself improve,” he said. “I’d like to coach, be a head coach at some point in time. I wouldn’t rule out college. I’ve got my college degree.”

Coaching at Minnesota?

“Of course — it’s my alma mater,” he said.

If the criteria is on-court success, you can make an argument that Jackson’s jersey should hang in the rafters at Williams Arena.

But that’s unlikely to happen. There’s that 1999 academic fraud scandal under coach Clem Haskins that resulted in severe NCAA penalties for Minnesota. Jackson was a star player for Haskins.

“I would love that, to go up there in the rafters,” Jackson said. “But you’ve got to talk to the NCAA on that. Because of the academic scandal, that’s why they won’t retire it.

“But if not, I’m not mad or disappointed about it. I want what’s best for the university. I don’t hold grudges — that’s the thing about me — I move on, and I’ll always support the University of Minnesota.”

https://www.twincities.com/2019/03/02/charley-walters-bobby-jackson-says-gophers-should-speed-it-up/

Go Gophers!!
 

BleedGopher said:
“I’d like to coach, be a head coach at some point in time. I wouldn’t rule out college. I’ve got my college degree.”

Coaching at Minnesota?

“Of course — it’s my alma mater,” he said.
Click to expand...

Interesting.
 

It is puzzling that Pitino came to Minnesota promising an up-tempo, balls-to-the-wall style of play. What's evolved instead has been...something else.

When the Gophers have run this year, they've generally been pretty successful.
 

Pitino wanted to speed it up, but we end up with 20 turnovers per game because our kids are not disciplined. Add to that, we are mid-level in regard to athleticism. We don't have enough quickness going 10 deep to do what Bobby says he'd do. We'd get killed if we sped it up.
 

Tough to go uptempo in the B1G. It’s a grind it out conference. Though plenty of teams after a made basket against do get the ball into the front court quickly.

Pitino’s first couple of years it did seem he ran more 3/4 court trap stuff. Like to see that on a regular basis. With the way this team struggles in their half court offense try and get as many easy baskets off turnovers and in transition.
 
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When you play 7 and trust 5, you have to slow it down.
 

We are not quick enough to run

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk
 

BleedGopher said:
per Shooter:

There has never been a better point guard at the University of Minnesota than Bobby Jackson.

Now 45, Jackson was at Target Center last week as player development coach for the Sacramento Kings, who were playing the Timberwolves. Jackson follows his alma mater Gophers closely.

“My honest critique? The Gophers are a good, young team, but I think they play too slow,” he said. “Especially for a young college team. I’d like to see them play faster, get up and down the floor, pick up full court, trap the ball. I want my guards to pick up 94 feet, get steals, push the tempo.

“But,” he added, “not everybody’s like me.”

For sure. As a Gopher, Jackson was omnipresent. In the NBA for Sacramento, he was popularly known as “Action Jackson.”

These days, his mission is to develop players.

“Helping them improve, but also helping myself improve,” he said. “I’d like to coach, be a head coach at some point in time. I wouldn’t rule out college. I’ve got my college degree.”

Coaching at Minnesota?

“Of course — it’s my alma mater,” he said.

If the criteria is on-court success, you can make an argument that Jackson’s jersey should hang in the rafters at Williams Arena.

But that’s unlikely to happen. There’s that 1999 academic fraud scandal under coach Clem Haskins that resulted in severe NCAA penalties for Minnesota. Jackson was a star player for Haskins.

“I would love that, to go up there in the rafters,” Jackson said. “But you’ve got to talk to the NCAA on that. Because of the academic scandal, that’s why they won’t retire it.

“But if not, I’m not mad or disappointed about it. I want what’s best for the university. I don’t hold grudges — that’s the thing about me — I move on, and I’ll always support the University of Minnesota.”

https://www.twincities.com/2019/03/02/charley-walters-bobby-jackson-says-gophers-should-speed-it-up/

Go Gophers!!
Click to expand...
Interesting, quite a Subtle message given.
 

You need enough lock down defenders to play full court press. I think Pitino will do more as he gets more of the guards he wants.

It would be nice to get Jackson on the staff.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 



Tough to play up tempo when you’ve opted to play the season without a point guard
 

Shaka made that same promise to Texas too. Tough to do against better athletes and better coaching.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk
 

Urbandale said:
It is puzzling that Pitino came to Minnesota promising an up-tempo, balls-to-the-wall style of play. What's evolved instead has been...something else.

When the Gophers have run this year, they've generally been pretty successful.
Click to expand...

That was my first thought as well. I don't buy that you can't run in this league, but you have to do it the way MSU does it: opportunistically, originating with good rebounding. They get enough easy baskets this way that it becomes the difference in some games. And I'll go to my grave saying that every team should press enough that they're good enough at it, so they can roll it out as a change-up defense as well as for end-of-game comeback situations.
 

Everybody but Wisconsin wants to run, yet relatively few actually do it. As many state, you need the defense and rebounding to make it happen, but you also need a lot of bodies. One of the few things most of us agree on is that the Gophers have not had enough bodies that can play to even think about being able to push it all the time.

Shooter should know that Bobby wasn't a point guard. He was an undersized two guard, that they would call a combo guard now. Eric Harris was the point guard and a pretty good one his junior and senior years.
 



You need a ton of guard depth, length, and athleticism to press and run.
We are a good front court team.
Next year we could have good depth at guard it could be possible.
 

alchemy2u said:
You need enough lock down defenders to play full court press. I think Pitino will do more as he gets more of the guards he wants.

It would be nice to get Jackson on the staff.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

I don't think he'd leave the NBA to be anything other than a head coach.
The fuddy-duddies in the Board of Regents would never approve of him as head coach here.
 

march madness said:
You need a ton of guard depth, length, and athleticism to press and run.
We are a good front court team.
Next year we could have good depth at guard it could be possible.
Click to expand...

Presumably the amount of running Jackson is talking about is the amount of running they did when he was here, and they went only three guards deep for the most part: him, Harris and Thomas. But it helps if your small forwards are rangy and swift like Jacobson and Lewis.
 


You can't run when the other team scores, so it is all starts by the defense causing a turn over or getting the rebound. You can say you want to play fast, but you have to stop the other team from scoring in order to get the quick transition into offense.

IW does an excellent job of moving the ball quickly and passing, but he has to play lock down defense in order for the team to play fast. That could be the main reason he doesn't play as much as most of us want him to play. I think Pitino expects more out of IW's defense and won't settle for less than what he wants out of him.
 

So Mychal Thompson is honored in the Barn's rafters despite committing an NCAA violation of scalping tickets, so somebody in the administration had to overlook that ethical transgression for it to happen. Would anybody among the U's modern day leadership have the guts to overlook whatever role Bobby played in the Gangelhoff scandal and put him in the rafters too? I mean, he wasn't expelled for cheating, and he says he got his degree, so he had to remain in good standing as a student. The dude was such a special player and deserves to be recognized for his greatness.
 

Assuming Amir has the stamina of a triathelte, we should have no problem running more. As some have said, we lack for bodies to run as much as we'd probably like to; maybe next year with 3-4 extra bodies we could try to do this more (assuming Carr, Willis, and one of the recruits or Omersa become contributors)
 

Iowa game is an example of what we can look like if we run. Looked pretty good to me... I also realize we shot out of our minds. I loved Bobby,... I wonder if another strike against getting into the rafters might be that he was only a 2 year player as a juco transfer.

Sent from my VS501 using Tapatalk
 

All teams should do some form of pressing/picking up full court as much as possible. Advanced analytics have greatly improved efficiency on the offensive end with more 3s and less mid range jumpers but basketball has regressed when it comes to defense by not pressing you are letting teams automatically get 50% of the way to your basket unguarded. While slightly different it would be like only playing defense in football once the opponent got to the 50 yard line, it’s just stupid not to guard the whole way. You don’t need to do full court pressing man to man trapping press the whole game either, as a 1-2-2 zone press puts additional pressure on the defense.

Hopefully the coach we currently have or will have understands that and leads a new Moneyball revolution for college basketball with the gophers as lead revolutionaries.
 

The Bubble said:
All teams should do some form of pressing/picking up full court as much as possible. Advanced analytics have greatly improved efficiency on the offensive end with more 3s and less mid range jumpers but basketball has regressed when it comes to defense by not pressing you are letting teams automatically get 50% of the way to your basket unguarded. While slightly different it would be like only playing defense in football once the opponent got to the 50 yard line, it’s just stupid not to guard the whole way. You don’t need to do full court pressing man to man trapping press the whole game either, as a 1-2-2 zone press puts additional pressure on the defense.

Hopefully the coach we currently have or will have understands that and leads a new Moneyball revolution for college basketball with the gophers as lead revolutionaries.
Click to expand...

When Rutgers incessantly pressed the Gopher women, the Gophs weren't able to set their half-court offense until there were 10-12 seconds remaining in the shot clock. That was a huge disadvantage and, to your point, indicates how pressing can be a bigger advantage than ever compared to the days with longer shot clocks.

It's worth noting that the Scarlet Knight Women played their full-court scheme without exerting undue energy. They just play solid position defense down the court, slowing the offense down, and they're obviously coached well to anticipate errant passes.
 
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