Ekstrom: Once Again, the Gophers are Lacking a Useful Bench

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USAF said:
I don't give a rat's ***. I'm not a fan of those teams. I care how many games the Gophers win.

But since you asked, it can only be one of three things...either they have more B1G quality players, or their coaching staff is better, or both.

Any of those three things points towards the Gophers being in need of a new head coach. Stat.
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You should apply. I'm sure you have a lot of experience coaching 5th grade girls hoops ?
 

Parcival said:
You're a clown. I wish intentionally misleading people and taking posts completely out of context was a bannable offense but sadly it's not.
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Another keyboard warrior wanting a poster banned because they disagree with them. How original.
 

scools12 said:
Another keyboard warrior wanting a poster banned because they disagree with them. How original.
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Not because I disagree with you (although I do). Because you intentionally misquote me (and I'm sure others as well) time after time to mislead people and further your agenda of spreading Pitino hate. Thank god you don't have any actual influence on the bball program or it'd be a dumpster fire.

Edit: Pretty ironic how you call me a keyboard warrior after you've labeled half this board 'delusional'.
 

Parcival said:
A lineup of:
Carr / Greenlee / Mashburn Jr.
Kalscheur / Walton
Willis / Omersa
JUCO 4 / Ihnen / Mitchell
Oturu / Freeman

would absolutely be the frontrunner to win the B1G next year. Are you high?
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Yet somehow I misquoted you.
 
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scools12 said:
“A lineup of:
Carr / Greenlee / Mashburn Jr.
Kalscheur / Walton
Willis / Omersa
JUCO 4 / Ihnen / Mitchell
Oturu / Freeman

would absolutely be the frontrunner to win the B1G next year. Are you high?“

Yet somehow I misquoted you.
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Yes only using the bottom of this quote earlier would be misquoting me. Here's what I actually said:

"Everyone's assuming the absolute worst scenario next year in which we lose Oturu. An alternative scenario would be we bring Oturu back, pick up a quality JUCO transfer at the 4 and then bring in Kerwin Walton. We would be frontrunners to win the B1G.

I was one of the first people on here that thought Oturu would leave after this year and caught plenty of shit for it - but if he comes back, we will have one hell of a team."

What kind of BS rebuttal will you try next?
 


Parcival said:
Yeah I suppose having the best player in the B1G in Oturu and likely the best pg after Winston leaves wouldn't be enough to be frontrunners. ?
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Then doubled down on the claim as favorites even without the “ifs”

Yet somehow you were misquoted.
 


cjbfbp said:
As usual, you employ specious reasoning to come to a conclusion that no direct fault can be attributed to Pitino. Perhaps you don't understand the difference between decision making in a civil or criminal trial and an evaluation of coaching. When evaluating a multi-million dollar coach, the standard is "the results speak for themselves."

No one is asking these questions about Fran McCaffrey, who lost one player from last year's team to the NBA, two more to transfer (one to Kansas), his best long-range shooter to injury, his highest rated freshman to sickness, and another player to injury who was one of only 3 scholarship big men on the roster. McCaffey has 8 active scholarship players on his roster and only two of them are taller than 6'6". Nevertheless, his team has a 15-6 record, with 6-4 in conference, and is ranked.

Pitino doesn't have to be "guilty" of any particular wrongdoing to lose this job. His teams just have to perform fairly consistently below their peers, which they have done throughout most of his tenure.
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You just state it perfectly about how DEPTH IS OVERRATED!!! Thank you
 

USAF said:
I don't give a rat's ***. I'm not a fan of those teams. I care how many games the Gophers win.

But since you asked, it can only be one of three things...either they have more B1G quality players, or their coaching staff is better, or both.

Any of those three things points towards the Gophers being in need of a new head coach. Stat.
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Or he chooses to play his best players the most minutes? You can't just completely disregard the rest of the B1G schools when regarding to what you believe quality depth on a team.
 



manderson1984 said:
Or he chooses to play his best players the most minutes? You can't just completely disregard the rest of the B1G schools when regarding to what you believe quality depth on a team.
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Those schools win more games. It can't be anything other than those three things. Better players, better coaching, or both.

If it's a matter of better distribution of playing time, then it's coaching.
 

USAF said:
Those schools win more games. It can't be anything other than those three things. Better players, better coaching, or both.

If it's a matter of better distribution of playing time, then it's coaching.
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Better players sure, that doesn't mean more depth is my point. Sure some teams starting 5 is better than ours this year. MSU and Illinois would be an example. They didn't beat us because they were deeper. Also when looking at wins, If you go by season then you have to account for difficulty of schedule.
 

manderson1984 said:
Better players sure, that doesn't mean more depth is my point. Sure some teams starting 5 is better than ours this year. MSU and Illinois would be an example. They didn't beat us because they were deeper. Also when looking at wins, If you go by season then you have to account for difficulty of schedule.
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Among the reasons MSU and Illinois beat us is that they ARE deeper. Both in the starting 5, and on the bench.

The Gophers have two guys who should be starting and playing big minutes on a legit B1G team. 2.

They have nobody on the bench capable of consistently contributing much of anything. Omersa brings some energy and perhaps a few rebounds. A couple freshmen that will possibly be decent B1G players in a year or two, but who really shouldn't be getting significant playing time THIS year.

I'd be willing to bet there are 10 guys on MSU that would start for the Gophers.
 

USAF said:
Among the reasons MSU and Illinois beat us is that they ARE deeper. Both in the starting 5, and on the bench.

The Gophers have two guys who should be starting and playing big minutes on a legit B1G team. 2.
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I don't believe this can be proven true. We can agree on the starting 5 for sure. I also believe that Gabe is good. I'm aware of his shooting woes this year.

USAF said:
They have nobody on the bench capable of consistently contributing much of anything. Omersa brings some energy and perhaps a few rebounds. A couple freshmen that will possibly be decent B1G players in a year or two, but who really shouldn't be getting significant playing time THIS year.

I'd be willing to bet there are 10 guys on MSU that would start for the Gophers.
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Omersa is also a strong defender. This is invaluable. Williams is also a nice piece off the bench. We have 7 guys who can play. Ihnen getting better will get that number to 8. Also no way there are ten guys on MSU that would start here. 8 of their guys? Probably closer to 6 or 7.
 



manderson1984 said:
I don't believe this can be proven true. We can agree on the starting 5 for sure. I also believe that Gabe is good. I'm aware of his shooting woes this year.



Omersa is also a strong defender. This is invaluable. Williams is also a nice piece off the bench. We have 7 guys who can play. Ihnen getting better will get that number to 8. Also no way there are ten guys on MSU that would start here. 8 of their guys? Probably closer to 6 or 7.
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Alright, I give. The Gophers have a deep bench. Recruiting isn't a problem.

The fact the Gophers bench provides the fewest points in the B1G only goes to prove your opinion.
 

USAF said:
Alright, I give. The Gophers have a deep bench. Recruiting isn't a problem.

The fact the Gophers bench provides the fewest points in the B1G only goes to prove your opinion.
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Never said our bench was deep. I said it isn't as valuable as so many make it seem. Also the ppg from the bench is a terrible stat to use. Teams that win by a lot or play some cupcakes will have more bench points. Also some teams choose to keep a high volume scorer on the bench (Lots of time because they cannot defend). Our lack of points from our bench prove two things. We have not had many blowouts either way. Our starters are defending at an incredible clip and avoiding foul trouble. That's the only two true things you can pull from that stat.

I've also been extremely critical of many of our recruiting errors at the start of Pitino's tenure. The last couple cycles have shown a change in direction and I'm quite happy with them.
 

Pitino is improving. I wholeheartedly agree that is roster management has been weak. He has an extra scholarship he didn't use this year which could have been given to a grad transfer who could help. As far as finding bigs who transfer, there aren't very many as compared to PG-SG-SF. There are only 2 centers in the transfer portal right now. Centers and power forwards don't often come in and contribute freshman year. Often they are tall and dominate their competition in high school just based on their size and haven't had to refine their footwork to be successful. In addition, they usually have to bulk up before they can be great contributors. There are so many shorter guys so they have to refine their shooting and footwork skills in order to stand out and they can often contribute as freshmen. I'm confident Williams will be an asset for this team. Whoever said that we only have 2 guys who can play B1G level basketball, I don't agree. Gabe is an asset to this team. Demir is fine too. As is Willis. This is more about the bench/depth which we lack. But Pitino's teams have improved (remember when fan favorite, Joey King was the star?) and he has some bright prospects coming in. The classes are relatively balanced now. He's been to the tourney twice. He's got a Minnesota guy who is going to get drafted 1st round. He was awfully young when we hired him and he is a better coach now than he was. I don't think he is in anyway going to be fired barring a player rebellion which is not in the offing or a bad scandal. We shall see but I am optimistic that although he is not the greatest coach, he's good enough and we have better years ahead. But yeah, there is no way any team should have an unused scholarship..that's bad roster management.
 


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