Watching practice right now


Only four people on one end of the court for big man drills - Murphy, Oturu, Hurt, Omersa.
 

bummer


edit: crazy that at this point we need Matz. The majority of us were fine with him not playing midseason. The irony is we probably have better season if he gets regular minutes the whole season
 

Half the guards are walk -ons. How’ve many scholarship players do we have available?
 

Carr looks fit. Maybe sneak him into a uniform real quick.
 


bummer


edit: crazy that at this point we need Matz. The majority of us were fine with him not playing midseason. The irony is we probably have better season if he gets regular minutes the whole season

Bad deal that both Curry and Matz went down. I would guess that Pitino thought that Curry would get better and better with minutes and be a big factor by now, but he couldn't stay healthy. Then Matz....

Oh well- it is an opportunity for Hurt and Omersa to play hard and do what they can. It it crucial for Oturu to not get any stupid fouls. If he can play 30+ minutes we should be okay.
 


Murphy and Omersa just hit half-courters. Designated last second shooters?
 





The team looks loose to me. They all gathered around and cheered for a windmill dunk from Omersa.
 

The pep band and cheerleaders are putting in good work.
 




Our point guard is the second tallest player on the floor.
 


Have a bad vibe about tomorrow. Gophers have no bench to speak of, other than Jelly, and he's in purgatory.

This has a very good chance to be like the Michigan game. Hoping they can grind out a win before getting beat by Sparty. Would be nice to put a NCAA tourney win in the record book.
 

Have a bad vibe about tomorrow. Gophers have no bench to speak of, other than Jelly, and he's in purgatory.

This has a very good chance to be like the Michigan game. Hoping they can grind out a win before getting beat by Sparty. Would be nice to put a NCAA tourney win in the record book.

Grim. Your vibes have been pretty on lately. Michigan was an energy less performance. This has to be better than that. But they have to stay out of foul trouble. Purgatory does end in Heaven, too.
 

Grim. Your vibes have been pretty on lately. Michigan was an energy less performance. This has to be better than that. But they have to stay out of foul trouble. Purgatory does end in Heaven, too.

:clap:
 

Have a bad vibe about tomorrow. Gophers have no bench to speak of, other than Jelly, and he's in purgatory.

This has a very good chance to be like the Michigan game. Hoping they can grind out a win before getting beat by Sparty. Would be nice to put a NCAA tourney win in the record book.

They should be fresh and able to go all out tomorrow, I think they have a chance, no chance on Saturday because of depth.
 
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Thanks for the updates Urbandale.
 

So was Michigan State's point guard in 1979. [emoji57]

I was just thinking the same thing!

Friday Strib Headline: "Coffey pulls a "Magic"! Starts at center, leads Gophers over Cards!"
 



I was just thinking the same thing!

Friday Strib Headline: "Coffey pulls a "Magic"! Starts at center, leads Gophers over Cards!"

Hey - that game where Magic started at Center for the Lakers when Kareem was out in 1980, and scored 42 points to help the Lakers win the NBA title - that may be one of the greatest games in NBA playoff history. Magic could have played any position on the floor, and been the best player at that position. Coffey is a good player - but he's not Magic Johnson.
 

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Go Gophers!!
 

DM if you still need tickets. Happy to hand deliver to fellow Gophers in Des Moines area. Section 222.
 

Some thoughts on the open practice today.

If you have kids or nieces and nephews this would be a GREAT event to take them to. There was a group of young kids (10 and under) right behind me who absolutely loved Jarivs Omersa's dunks. Daniel Oturu also put down a pretty sick reverse that they loved. The Gophers finished practice by throwing some t shirts in to the crowd and I saw a little kid who had already put his on few minutes later. The practices are just 40 minutes, so good for short attention spans as well.

An older man in an Iowa sweatshirt sitting just in front of me turned around and noticed my Gopher shirt and started talking to me after the practice had ended. He was really in to the practice (counting along with Gopher student managers the number of shots made in a shooting game for example) and said the combination of the Gophers practice presentation and the band was the second best one he has seen and he has been to all the practices in Des Moines. The only one better was UConn he said.

The first thing I noticed was Matz wasn't on the court. I also didn't see Eric Curry anywhere, so I am not sure if he made the trip. The Gophers didn't do anything at more than 60-70% effort at most with the notable exception of a couple of the dunks/dunk attempts. Jarvis in particular was trying some crazy stuff. When they split up in to guards/bigs, it was Ed Conroy who worked with the bigs on one end of the court. One thing that was particularly cool to me was being right behind the Gophers as the took corner 3's one after the other. You were able to get such a good view of their shot that you could get a better idea of why a guy was a good/bad shooter beyond just the form is weird. It was kind of alarming how poorly the team shot as a group in uncontested/warm up situations.

The Gophers split in to two groups, one on each of the court, and played a game where each group had to make 4 3's from each of 5 spots around the arc. When they had made 4 from each spot they ran to half court and starting shooting from there. I believe they only had to make one half court shot to "win" but not sure about that. The losing group had to do push ups, but they did may be 5 with dubious form so not exactly a punishment. They then switched ends and played the game again. Each group ended up winning once. They finished practice by taking/posing for a group photo at center court and then threw out the t shirts.

I don't want to make a big deal about this as I assume/hope the Gophers are having another more serious practice later in the day. Having said that, I stayed for most of Bradley's practice and that group practiced with a purpose. They were running the same/similar drills as the Gophers, but doing them at much closer to game speed. You could hear coaches instructing and the player were engaged and talking with each other in a serious manner. It was really night and day to what I had just seen from the Gophers in terms of energy/intensity/focus. I had to leave to meet someone for lunch, but would have been curious to see Louisville's practice (who was up next) to see how it compared to Minnesota's and Bradley's.
 

Some thoughts on the open practice today.

If you have kids or nieces and nephews this would be a GREAT event to take them to. There was a group of young kids (10 and under) right behind me who absolutely loved Jarivs Omersa's dunks. Daniel Oturu also put down a pretty sick reverse that they loved. The Gophers finished practice by throwing some t shirts in to the crowd and I saw a little kid who had already put his on few minutes later. The practices are just 40 minutes, so good for short attention spans as well.

An older man in an Iowa sweatshirt sitting just in front of me turned around and noticed my Gopher shirt and started talking to me after the practice had ended. He was really in to the practice (counting along with Gopher student managers the number of shots made in a shooting game for example) and said the combination of the Gophers practice presentation and the band was the second best one he has seen and he has been to all the practices in Des Moines. The only one better was UConn he said.

The first thing I noticed was Matz wasn't on the court. I also didn't see Eric Curry anywhere, so I am not sure if he made the trip. The Gophers didn't do anything at more than 60-70% effort at most with the notable exception of a couple of the dunks/dunk attempts. Jarvis in particular was trying some crazy stuff. When they split up in to guards/bigs, it was Ed Conroy who worked with the bigs on one end of the court. One thing that was particularly cool to me was being right behind the Gophers as the took corner 3's one after the other. You were able to get such a good view of their shot that you could get a better idea of why a guy was a good/bad shooter beyond just the form is weird. It was kind of alarming how poorly the team shot as a group in uncontested/warm up situations.

The Gophers split in to two groups, one on each of the court, and played a game where each group had to make 4 3's from each of 5 spots around the arc. When they had made 4 from each spot they ran to half court and starting shooting from there. I believe they only had to make one half court shot to "win" but not sure about that. The losing group had to do push ups, but they did may be 5 with dubious form so not exactly a punishment. They then switched ends and played the game again. Each group ended up winning once. They finished practice by taking/posing for a group photo at center court and then threw out the t shirts.

I don't want to make a big deal about this as I assume/hope the Gophers are having another more serious practice later in the day. Having said that, I stayed for most of Bradley's practice and that group practiced with a purpose. They were running the same/similar drills as the Gophers, but doing them at much closer to game speed. You could hear coaches instructing and the player were engaged and talking with each other in a serious manner. It was really night and day to what I had just seen from the Gophers in terms of energy/intensity/focus. I had to leave to meet someone for lunch, but would have been curious to see Louisville's practice (who was up next) to see how it compared to Minnesota's and Bradley's.

The public practices are for show. Not really a practice. Wouldn't be concerned about that. The real stuff goes on behind closed doors.
 

The public practices are for show. Not really a practice. Wouldn't be concerned about that. The real stuff goes on behind closed doors.

I agree. Plus I imagine they want them as rested as possible with them being so short handed.
 




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