***OFFICIAL IOWA AT MINNESOTA IN-GAME THREAD!!!***

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rivergopher said:
If I heard correctly I believe the announced was 8923 which i believe is 200 less than the Maryland game. Was hoping for more. I would imagine next Tuesday will be close to 12k but 3-4k will be wearing red. Too bad both teams shot really bad tonight from outside was a winnable game.
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I was thinking you being at the game and having your in person game feelings does not bode well for the season.
 

We were looking really good early until the ref missed an invalid fair catch signal in the lane.
 



This was a bad game (I was there). No question. Basketball can be an emotional game and can be influenced by a number of factors. Decent teams can have bad nights or bad stretch’s and recover. Average teams can play out of their head and win games no one expected them to win. Michigan just won after 5 losses. MSU has had a tough start to the season. N’W beat Purdue in an incredible game, then played lousy the next week. Y’all who follow the game have seen hundreds of examples over the years.

i think this team has a chance to recover and win some more B1G games. This was a bad loss, but I’m not ready to throw in the towel.

No question that they have trouble defending against big inside players, and Iowa took advantage of that. Plus, our guards got badly out played (shooting and turnovers).

This could be the beginning of another horrible B1G season, or a game we rebound from. We’ll see.
 


If we have any post season aspirations, B1G home losses aren't going to get it done, especially with a down B1G. Not sure why we kept chucking threes, but 25-29 in the paint. Do the coaches not recognize Iowa's post defense was awful? Once up by 9, we should have been pounding it inside, their bigs can't defend.
 

Gilthorp57 said:
If we have any post season aspirations, B1G home losses aren't going to get it done, especially with a down B1G. Not sure why we kept chucking threes, but 25-29 in the paint. Do the coaches not recognize Iowa's post defense was awful? Once up by 9, we should have been pounding it inside, their bigs can't defend.
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To be fair to Iowa's bigs, they were a little better defensively inside than the Gophers' shooting percentage would suggest. They outrebounded us by 7 and battled passes inside.
 

TwistingMyMelon said:
To be fair to Iowa's bigs, they were a little better defensively inside than the Gophers' shooting percentage would suggest. They outrebounded us by 7 and battled passes inside.
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Just remembering JOJ just driving in at will and when the passes weren't getting batted, it was almost automatic :(
 




Gilthorp57 said:
Just remembering JOJ just driving in at will and when the passes weren't getting batted, it was almost automatic :(
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I don't understand how JOJ can be so strong for short bursts and then sits for extended periods of time. He played less than Mitchell, Carrington, and Christie tonight and that's not at all unusual.
 

Iowa did anything they wanted offensively. The Gophers did nothing to take Iowa out of its offense. Iowa played harder, beat MN up and down the court. If you don't shoot the ball you better defend and rebound, see Michigan State. Garcia at the 5 gives us no defense and no physical presence. I think he finished with 5 rbds. I would go with Payne at the 5, Garcia at the 4. Disappointing loss my optimism is fading.
 

TwistingMyMelon said:
I don't understand how JOJ can be so strong for short bursts and then sits for extended periods of time. He played less than Mitchell, Carrington, and Christie tonight and that's not at all unusual.
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Maybe his back is locking up again, but I don't think that's case. I think it's a product of Ben's rotations, almost NBA like, no matter who has the hot hand. Him and Christie should have definitely be on the floor, Ben has to recognize situational coaching and go with the hot hands.
 

GrampaGopher said:
Iowa did anything they wanted offensively. The Gophers did nothing to take Iowa out of its offense. Iowa played harder, beat MN up and down the court. If you don't shoot the ball you better defend and rebound, see Michigan State. Garcia at the 5 gives us no defense and no physical presence. I think he finished with 5 rbds. I would go with Payne at the 5, Garcia at the 4. Disappointing loss my optimism is fading.
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I am scared to see how the guards do at Michigan State, just don’t think Mitchell or Hawkins can compete with most of the guards in the Big Ten.
 



GrampaGopher said:
Iowa did anything they wanted offensively. The Gophers did nothing to take Iowa out of its offense. Iowa played harder, beat MN up and down the court. If you don't shoot the ball you better defend and rebound, see Michigan State. Garcia at the 5 gives us no defense and no physical presence. I think he finished with 5 rbds. I would go with Payne at the 5, Garcia at the 4. Disappointing loss my optimism is fading.
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Swap out Mitchell for Christie and that should be our starting lineup. But our Achilles heel is going to be lack of a backup point guard. Hawkins has to always be on the floor otherwise it is 10 second heaven.
 

TwistingMyMelon said:
I don't understand how JOJ can be so strong for short bursts and then sits for extended periods of time. He played less than Mitchell, Carrington, and Christie tonight and that's not at all unusual.
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It makes absolutely no sense. He starts, scores a bunch of points, then sits most of the second half. Every game. Nonsensical. BJ doesn’t have a clue.

Meanwhile Mike Mitchell is out there most of the second half looking like a complete disaster.
 

TwistingMyMelon said:
To be fair to Iowa's bigs, they were a little better defensively inside than the Gophers' shooting percentage would suggest. They outrebounded us by 7 and battled passes inside.
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We had no one who could effectively defend Iowa inside tonight. Garcia was probably most effective, but when he was taken further out, they dumped it down or back-doored. Payne did not have a good night and got beat several times defensively. Fox got put in to defend and rebound, but is not a scoring threat. JOJ is a scoring threat, but they were going over the top of him for layups.

our lack of 3 point shooting really hurt. Similar problem in first half of Neb game, but we got relatively hot from 3 in the 2nd half in that game. Two schools of thought on shooting: one is if you believe in your shooters, keep shooting. Law of averages says they’re gonna stop dropping. The other school says stop shooting and go inside. Well, we missed a boatload of puppies at the rim in this game, too.

BTW, the coaching staff can’t shoot the ball for the kids, only put them in a position to win. Iowa played better tonight.
 

Garcia scored 30, but was very inefficient and had a lot of turnovers. Payne needs to play more, quit running things through Garcia all the time, and JOJ needs to stay on floor!
 


Garyisawinner said:
Where was PP tonight. Hurt?
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He had some kind of a wrap around his lower back whenever out of the game. Something is hurting. Even when he was getting in the game he was trying to stretch out his back.
 

howeda7 said:
This team is who we thought they were. The talent is below average but still better than Iowa. But Fran can coach circles around Ben. They have a clue what they're doing on offense. They play defense. We either chuck up 3's immediately or as the shot clock expires.
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Fran absolutely coached circles around Ben tonight. Ben should be embarrassed. Iowas just got layup after layup with a ton of movement and always someone cutting to the basket. We had no form of organization on offense.
 

Tucker32 said:
Garcia scored 30, but was very inefficient and had a lot of turnovers. Payne needs to play more, quit running things through Garcia all the time, and JOJ needs to stay on floor!
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Everything is going to go through Garcia regardless who is on the floor. He needs his points.
 

Games like today showed me the biggest worry I have with this team.

That for as much of a pleasant surprise guys like Hawkins and Mitchell have been talent wise, they like almost everyone on this roster simply are not big/strong enough to even slow down big10 bodies much less stop them

Its not their fault, there is no way to magically grow taller for Hawkins. But seeing how Iowa scored at will makes me terrified for what teams like MSU and Illinois could do. Hoggard and Domask might do iso back downs all game long
 


howeda7 said:
Is Dave Thoreson still a defensive guru? I assume that will start showing itself any day now. :(
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Last year I came to the conclusion that Thorson must of been a better recruiter than defensive "guru" at De La Salle. I have nothing to back that up.
 

TwistingMyMelon said:
I don't understand how JOJ can be so strong for short bursts and then sits for extended periods of time. He played less than Mitchell, Carrington, and Christie tonight and that's not at all unusual.
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He is kind of a tough guy to give a ton of minutes to. He almost always flashes when he is playing with three guards, so he is part of the rotation with Garcia, Payne, Fox, and Ihnen.

He doesn’t always play great defense and isn’t as active as you’d like on the backboard. So I can’t really blame Ben except maybe give all of Ihnen’s mi minutes to him.

I don’t think the answer is to play him at the 3. He just really gums up the works when he is playing “wing”
 

Four observations from the game last night:

1. Iowa has average talent at best, but they are well coached. On offense they move super well without the ball. No standing around. On defense, their positioning was consistently excellent. I've never seen McCaffrey so relaxed. Ninety percent of the time he stood on the sideline with his hands in his pockets like he was at a Sunday morning peewee game.

2. The gophers had terrible body language on the court and on the bench. It sure looks like something is going on.

3. You aren't going to win many games in the B1G when JOJ, Christie and Payne play 23, 24 and 14 minutes respectively. Despite JOJ's defensive deficiencies, he puts the ball in the basket. When the team is getting killed in the paint all night, there's no excuse for Payne playing 14 minutes. (I'm not buying the cramping story.) Christie has the most offensive upside on the team. He's young and skinny but talented. When the team is struggling to score, I'd be willing to ride with him. All three of those guys need to be above 30 minutes a game.

4. If the substitution pattern and the bad body language continues, there will be another mass exodus after the season.
 

That was a bad loss. I thought they would come back from a bad shooting performance on the road and shoot it well at home. When you are shooting poorly, you need to pick it up on the defensive end. The players off the ball on defense are lazy, they would relax and kept getting beaten on backdoor cuts. They need to have intensity for the entire defensive possession including securing the rebound.
 

Go4POV said:
This was a bad game (I was there). No question. Basketball can be an emotional game and can be influenced by a number of factors. Decent teams can have bad nights or bad stretch’s and recover. Average teams can play out of their head and win games no one expected them to win. Michigan just won after 5 losses. MSU has had a tough start to the season. N’W beat Purdue in an incredible game, then played lousy the next week. Y’all who follow the game have seen hundreds of examples over the years.

i think this team has a chance to recover and win some more B1G games. This was a bad loss, but I’m not ready to throw in the towel.

No question that they have trouble defending against big inside players, and Iowa took advantage of that. Plus, our guards got badly out played (shooting and turnovers).

This could be the beginning of another horrible B1G season, or a game we rebound from. We’ll see.
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THIS^^^^^

one or two games doesn't make them a bad team...it just make them a struggling team..

The next 2 games will be tough ones and I really don't see us winning unless we can dig our way out of this shooting slump.
 

jamiche said:
Four observations from the game last night:

1. Iowa has average talent at best, but they are well coached. On offense they move super well without the ball. No standing around. On defense, their positioning was consistently excellent. I've never seen McCaffrey so relaxed. Ninety percent of the time he stood on the sideline with his hands in his pockets like he was at a Sunday morning peewee game.

2. The gophers had terrible body language on the court and on the bench. It sure looks like something is going on.

3. You aren't going to win many games in the B1G when JOJ, Christie and Payne play 23, 24 and 14 minutes respectively. Despite JOJ's defensive deficiencies, he puts the ball in the basket. When the team is getting killed in the paint all night, there's no excuse for Payne playing 14 minutes. (I'm not buying the cramping story.) Christie has the most offensive upside on the team. He's young and skinny but talented. When the team is struggling to score, I'd be willing to ride with him. All three of those guys need to be above 30 minutes a game.

4. If the substitution pattern and the bad body language continues, there will be another mass exodus after the season.
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Excellent post! My sentiments exactly -- especially the "No standing around" comment in #1.
 

WilliamsArenaGuy said:
It makes absolutely no sense. He starts, scores a bunch of points, then sits most of the second half. Every game. Nonsensical. BJ doesn’t have a clue.

Meanwhile Mike Mitchell is out there most of the second half looking like a complete disaster.
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Mitchell is a FLOATER, only wants to shoot the 3 he needs to go!!
 

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