Biggest disappointment of this season became evident tonight

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Personally feel there would be a large drop off by playing Thiam or TT, but also you can't run the team for 40 minutes each. 2 5 minutes spurts for wouldn't have killed anyone and would have helped the starting 5. Don't feel like its the end of the world, but we need to get some transfers that have more than 1 year of elligibility.
 



Lion King said:
Why was their no player development ?
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Only one development player, meaning, having the potential to some day be a meaningful contributor in the league. He has been developing all season in practice and got more game time at Minnesota than he would have anywhere else in the conference.
 

Gopher Teeth said:
The problem was, he was wrong and didn't adjust. It was evident that team was gassed, but still he didn't adjust. Basketball can be a game of my guy beats the guy covering him, to do that you can't be completely spent, especially if you don't start with more talent than the other guy. If you only have two guys that can consistently beat their man and no other options, don't play them at the same time. Rest one of them, so when the other runs out of gas, then you have one who is fresh. Even if you have to put in a player who isn't great, its better to always have a fresh go to player on the floor who can actually be effective, rather than have all your go to players completely gassed on the floor all the time and not able to beat anyone. If your go to has the ball, than it doesn't really matter if the weaker player is on the floor.
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So, if you're down six and your starters are gassed, you should spell them for a few minutes and then put them in fresh and down 16?
 



eker0016 said:
I agree with you. I still have plenty of hope for TT. I found myself watching him like a hawk whenever he was in.

When the other options were playing a backup from Stephen F. Austin, or an injury plagued guy who planned to be a grad assistant, or a D2 transfer, or a slashing guard at our 5 spot..I had hoped he would have had a regular role this year. He played 152 minutes, 25% of those in one game, and averaged 2 pts and 1 reb.

For perspective here are the total season minutes played in their freshman year by other Gophers in the last few coaching regimes:

Ralph Sampson: 668 minutes, 6 pts and 4 rebs
Colton Iverson: 566 minutes, 5 pts and 4 rebs
Elliot Elliason: 571 minutes, 3 pts and 4 rebs
Gaston Diedhiou: 66 minutes, 1 pt and 1reb
Bakary Konate: 222 minutes, 2 reb and 2 pts
Daniel Oturu: 834 minutes, 11 pts 7 rebs

It worries me that Ben saw fit to give TT Konate/Diedhiou minutes when the need was so great...but then again I think TT was the least physically ready of all these players. Really hope to see him blossom in the coming years.
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You answered your own question -- not physically ready to play inside where they needed him. All the other guys on your list were post players. TT still has the wing mentality. He either needs to change that to post player nasty, or compete with 6'6 guys for time shooting threes.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
Yeah, they might be. My point is that when you're in dire need of one, one is better than nothing.

People aren't asking for a robust/dominant bench, they are simply saying we were in dire need of some guys picking up a few minutes throughout some games over the course of the last few months. Our refusal to play players - even bad ones - is kind of strange and it's a criticism some folks are going to continue to have of Ben.
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I have no problem defending the premise that refusing to play bad players is smart.
 

eker0016 said:
I agree with you. I still have plenty of hope for TT. I found myself watching him like a hawk whenever he was in.

When the other options were playing a backup from Stephen F. Austin, or an injury plagued guy who planned to be a grad assistant, or a D2 transfer, or a slashing guard at our 5 spot..I had hoped he would have had a regular role this year. He played 152 minutes, 25% of those in one game, and averaged 2 pts and 1 reb.

For perspective here are the total season minutes played in their freshman year by other Gophers in the last few coaching regimes:

Ralph Sampson: 668 minutes, 6 pts and 4 rebs
Colton Iverson: 566 minutes, 5 pts and 4 rebs
Elliot Elliason: 571 minutes, 3 pts and 4 rebs
Gaston Diedhiou: 66 minutes, 1 pt and 1reb
Bakary Konate: 222 minutes, 2 reb and 2 pts
Daniel Oturu: 834 minutes, 11 pts 7 rebs

It worries me that Ben saw fit to give TT Konate/Diedhiou minutes when the need was so great...but then again I think TT was the least physically ready of all these players. Really hope to see him blossom in the coming years.
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I played pickup BB with Gaston, he is a really good guy, physical specimen, has a nice looking shot (not especially accurate) and athletic but what I think really holds him back is he doesn't seem to have the intensity, determination and creativity on the BB court. Other guys who lacked the size and athleticism on the court would often have success against him. I was impressed with TT intensity on the court and how well he moves. If he can develop an inside offensive game and improve his rebounding he will be a good player for us. What really separated him from curry in my opinion was Curry was a better rebounder and had more intangibles. Defensively, TT blocked shots at a slightly better rate than Curry 0.039Bl/min vs. 0.036 Bl/min (for Curry). Curry rebounded significantly better than TT, 0.21R/min vs. 0.14RB/min ( for TT). TT did a better job of altering shots due to his size but had a harder time keeping guys from backing him down, although I was pretty impressed how well he held his own relative to his mass. Because guys backed him down better they would get shots closer in which made his ability to alter shots less important imo.
 




Flecks first year sucked balls. It's because there was no talent.

Good grief.
 


Dakota2 said:
You answered your own question -- not physically ready to play inside where they needed him. All the other guys on your list were post players. TT still has the wing mentality. He either needs to change that to post player nasty, or compete with 6'6 guys for time shooting threes.
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Last night we just needed him to be a warm body so that a few guys could catch their breath.
 



I can point to one glaring reason why the staff probably didn't give TT more minutes this season like some of you wanted... he doesn't box out very often and even when he attempts to, he really struggles keeping someone behind him. In high school I'm sure he never really had to box out because of his height. I think it's pretty clear his coaches never even worked on it with him. If you watched him play this year, when an opposing team shot, he mostly stood around and just jumped for the ball. His man got so many offensive rebounds.

That said, I still think he should have gotten at least a little playing time last night.

Ben and the coaches need to do a ton of rebounding drills with TT in the off-season.
 


Dakota2 said:
You answered your own question -- not physically ready to play inside where they needed him. All the other guys on your list were post players. TT still has the wing mentality. He either needs to change that to post player nasty, or compete with 6'6 guys for time shooting threes.
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Least physically ready, but absolutely more skilled than Konate or Diedhiou. Time to bulk, TT!
 

Ragnor said:
I played pickup BB with Gaston, he is a really good guy, physical specimen, has a nice looking shot (not especially accurate) and athletic but what I think really holds him back is he doesn't seem to have the intensity, determination and creativity on the BB court. Other guys who lacked the size and athleticism on the court would often have success against him. I was impressed with TT intensity on the court and how well he moves. If he can develop an inside offensive game and improve his rebounding he will be a good player for us. What really separated him from curry in my opinion was Curry was a better rebounder and had more intangibles. Defensively, TT blocked shots at a slightly better rate than Curry 0.039Bl/min vs. 0.036 Bl/min (for Curry). Curry rebounded significantly better than TT, 0.21R/min vs. 0.14RB/min ( for TT). TT did a better job of altering shots due to his size but had a harder time keeping guys from backing him down, although I was pretty impressed how well he held his own relative to his mass. Because guys backed him down better they would get shots closer in which made his ability to alter shots less important imo.
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Thanks for the story. Yeah he always seemed like a good teammate, and wow he looked "good coming off the bus". Like if I saw him on the opposing team when we showed up I would be worried.
 


GopherWeatherGuy said:
At what cost? They lost to the 11 seed by 9 without playing the bench.

You would maybe have a point if the Gophers didn't beat a NCAA tournament team without Battle, Curry, and Stephens, and playing Daniels and TT nearly the entire game.

Daniels and TT deserved to play 5-10 minutes to give players who were clearly gassed a break. It's complete stupidity and a giant red flag for Johnson not to do so.
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No, it's not.
 


jamiche said:
I didn't see the game. The only ongoing head scratcher for me is TT. He showed some ability when given the opportunity, certainly enough to rate 5-10 minutes a game at a minimum on this roster. Thiam looked somewhat athletic, with no ability to shoot. He could have played situationally as the season progressed.

This team had very limited resources and TT was a resource. BJ is a smart guy, so there must have been a reason.
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Well, if the statement is to be believed and taken literally, BJ asked TT to go in the game and he didn't want to.

If that statement is a CYA fabrication or some kind of terse wordplay/figure of speech/half-truth, I'm not sure that either of those are better ...
 

Lion King said:
Why was their no player development ?
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Player development is mostly done out of season. How do you develop when you can't go 5 on 5 in practice with enough quality players? Example, how is Thompson developing when Curry doesn't practice much and there is one other healthy guy over 6'7 and that guy hardly saw the floor (Daniels).

Fixes will need to come with time as will development. Senior guys leaving are likely all to be filled by Freshmen or at least 4 of the 6. Transfer portal will be important for depth. Fox and Ihnen need to be impactful.

In year one, I'm sure Johnson had to take some guys he may not in the future just to fill out the roster. Heck Thompson, Ihnen, and Willis are the only guys on the roster that had Star Rating coming out of HS. All four freshmen for next year have a rating.
 


MaxyJR1 said:
Player development is mostly done out of season. How do you develop when you can't go 5 on 5 in practice with enough quality players? Example, how is Thompson developing when Curry doesn't practice much and there is one other healthy guy over 6'7 and that guy hardly saw the floor (Daniels).
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That's why you get 13 scholarships. Unfortunately we decided not to use them. I simply cannot believe that a Big Ten team could not have been able to fill out a team of at least capable practice players.
MaxyJR1 said:
Fixes will need to come with time as will development. Senior guys leaving are likely all to be filled by Freshmen or at least 4 of the 6. Transfer portal will be important for depth. Fox and Ihnen need to be impactful.

In year one, I'm sure Johnson had to take some guys he may not in the future just to fill out the roster. Heck Thompson, Ihnen, and Willis are the only guys on the roster that had Star Rating coming out of HS. All four freshmen for next year have a rating.
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So coming back we have:

Thompson- soph
Thiam -jr
Battle - jr
Ihnen - jr
Fox - jr
Frosh - 4
How many senior transfers? all 4 ?
 

Chico Gopher said:
I remember seeing something similar play out on a team I covered 7-8 years ago. Redshirt Freshman who was ridiculously athletic. His first season, he saw exactly 12 minutes of game time over 25 or so games that season. Every time he played, you could see how athletically gifted he was, but he had no idea how to play college basketball. His problems? Turnovers, unable to figure out the offensive/defensive concepts, needed to get stronger and other than jumping passing lanes, not a good feel for defense.

Fast forward to his junior season, a runaway winner of the conference player of the year and the next year, he deferred to teammates a little more because he was the focus of defensive game plans, but also was named to the conference all-defensive team. His game had finally caught up to his talent. What happened? He didn't complain about not getting on the floor as a freshman, put in a lot of work during the summer and concentrated on his weaknesses in practice and over the course of the next year, it all started coming together and the coach started trusting him to do what he needed to do be successful on the floor.

Not claiming that's the probably path for TT, but pointing out that this kid's coach outlined what he had to show in practice every day before he was going to earn playing time, and stuck to that plan.
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Good post,
BTW, who was the player?
 

MaxyJR1 said:
Player development is mostly done out of season. How do you develop when you can't go 5 on 5 in practice with enough quality players? Example, how is Thompson developing when Curry doesn't practice much and there is one other healthy guy over 6'7 and that guy hardly saw the floor (Daniels).

Fixes will need to come with time as will development. Senior guys leaving are likely all to be filled by Freshmen or at least 4 of the 6. Transfer portal will be important for depth. Fox and Ihnen need to be impactful.

In year one, I'm sure Johnson had to take some guys he may not in the future just to fill out the roster. Heck Thompson, Ihnen, and Willis are the only guys on the roster that had Star Rating coming out of HS. All four freshmen for next year have a rating.
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bmb5270 said:
How dare Ben think that he knows his team better than the posters on this board. Outrageous!
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Who does that young whippersnapper think he is?
 

Gopher_In_NYC said:
Good post,
BTW, who was the player?
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A guy I covered who played at Chico State University. A lot of guys at this level are fully capable of getting 15 minutes a game at mid-majors, but prefer the idea of getting 30 at the D-2 level, or in this guys case, he went to Air Force, wasn't ready for that scene and Chico snagged him before anybody else saw him. Once he got his stuff together, he could have easily played in that league.
 


How come Reusse and Barreiro aren’t ripping into Ben and his team? Ben guaranteed the team would not come in last. This is what Barreiro’s show is based on - destroying the local teams when they fail to deliver.
 

You people keep forgetting this last game: no offense, no defense, no coaching equals no win. Regardless of the age of the players or the number of players who played.
 

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