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

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EasyThere Pilgrim said:
I've suggested that you guys not watch the games during Ben's rebuild attempt. It get you too riled-up. Instead, you should watch the box score results for our freshmen, and you should follow recruiting.
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Such a dumb take. You think our options are either be ok losing by 30 multiple games in a row or don't watch. If you say that then I should tell you to quit looking at this site when we lose, it will just make you happy
 


bga1 said:
I like these three kids. Athletically they are really the only kids + Garcia that we have that are at the Big Ten level. Battle is a one dimensional shooter. Not athletic or quick (at this level). Earlier in the year I was down on Garcia's effort and well....grit, but I like how he has come on. The five guys worth keeping on this roster are the 4 frosh and Garcia. Cut bait with the rest and come back with some speed and play some tough defense. Time to move on. Ben is going to be the coach for a while- he is going to have to make some hard decisions if he wants to last past 4 years.

What we see now is totally unacceptable. Just letting a team walk onto our home court and drill any shot they want....Playing offense like its the playground. ugh
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I like these three as well.

Payne is quick and explosive around the rim, and strong as well around the lane. I was always impressed with Oturo, but Payne is as an impressive freshman post player on both sides of the court as I have seen for a while.

Ola-Joseph is strong, has pretty good instincts, and has great hops around the rim- finishes well with power. If he had a little more confidence in a 14-18 foot shot that could make all the difference. He is not intimidated, nor is Payne by Big Ten physicality - bigger upside than people understand on this board

Henley is the question mark of the three but I like his size, he does have the ability to push the ball up the court hard and make pressure defenders pay for overplaying things. I f he can figure out how to finish, and make some open shots he might be a player

Carrington... no idea so far

This team needs some quick guards and a couple of shooters, obvious to all who watch


other observation, #55 T. Cooper looks quicker than back in the awful DePaul game.... maybe he came into camp out of shape, but he looks like a Big 10 Guard (playable at least) now, as miserable as this team is
 
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skiumah1 said:
Went to the game tonight - Won't change my thinking that Ben needs time.

Watching that type of basketball tonight really tests that way of thinking though.
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I checked Vivid Seats at 7PM and there were some good seats around $20, and I almost bit.. Glad I did not! I have not been to a Gopher game since the big win vs. Louisville in Des Moines.
 

skiumah1 said:
Agreed - Thompson should not be close to seeing the floor in the Big 10. Samuels should not be on a Big 10 roster.

It's just really rough right now. Garcia needs to play to try to keep us within 20.
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The talent level at guard is brutal. The fact that Johnson was able to bring in much more serviceable talent last year in the transfer portal for the one year vs. what he brought in this year is a concern.

Those guys last year were a lot better, than what we are seeing now at the 1 and 2 spots.
 



EasyThere Pilgrim said:
Payne 14 points 6 rebounds.
Henley 8 points 7 rebounds 4 assists.
Ola-Joseph 8 points 3 rebounds.

This is exactly what I'm looking for. These kind of numbers as freshmen translate to being good players as juniors...when our rebuild should show results. Which can be sustainable results with recruiting.
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I'm sure the Marlyand fans were especially jealous of those three freshmen.
 






Bad Gopher said:
On one hand, how can one argue with this? On the other hand, Dick Bennett took Wisconsin to the Final Four in 2000 with Jon Bryant fifth in minutes and playing a key role in their NCAA run and someone called Duany Duany in their nine-man rotation. Their top scorer and minutes guy was Mark Vershaw, who I don't even remember, and I follow the game. You can't tell me Bennett couldn't have gotten Dawson Garcia, Jameson Battle, Pharrel Payne, and T'alon Cooper to play with purpose, value the ball, play a little defense, take good shots, and keep games like tonight's close. I think we all know the answer to this question.
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Bennett had put in years of honing his craft to get to that point. His first college head coaching job was at UW-Stevens Point in the WIAC (after a legendary run as a high school head coach). He coached for a total of 19 years at UWSP and Green Bay before he got the Wisconsin job. He used those years to develop a defined system and knew what kind of players would excel in it. Ben Johnson’s first head coaching job of any kind is at the University of Minnesota in the Big Ten. He clearly has no system and is throwing darts at the wall with roster building, all while trying to figure out how to coach in one of the hardest P5 conferences in college basketball (Update: he hasn’t figured anything out). The ridiculousness of our situation is comical.
 
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howeda7 said:
I'm not familiar with that. But they lost to Maryland (on the road) by less than we just did at home.
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Bad example. They had their magical run in the ncaa then their star player’s transferred out and their coach is now the coach at Seton Hall (he got the job when the Seton Hall coach happened to become the Maryland coach). One of the St Peter stars went to St. Peter.
 




howeda7 said:
I'm pretty sure the home loss to Illinois in Pitino's last year was worse. That's when you knew he was done for certain.
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Not quite. That one was a 31 point loss. Pitino did have a 33 point loss in the Big Ten tournament during the horrible 8 win season but that was without the suspended guards (Dorsey, Mason, and McBrayer) and Joey King (injured) in the lineup. The starting lineup for that one was freshmen Murphy, freshman Ahmad Gilbert, walk-on Stephon Sharp, Buggs, and Bakary. Two walk-ons and Gaston came off the bench. Oddly, that was also to Illinois who had a rare losing season that year.

Good times.
 


scools12 said:
The coaching and player talent gap between the Gophers and the rest of the B1G is of biblical proportions. 😐
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Maryland was able to drub us by 35 while their starters played just over half the game. No starter played more than 25 minutes. Other than the travel- practice is more competitive for them.
 


EasyThere Pilgrim said:
I've suggested that you guys not watch the games during Ben's rebuild attempt. It get you too riled-up. Instead, you should watch the box score results for our freshmen, and you should follow recruiting.
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So if this was a real team I’d see zero playing time, I’d be psyched by these guys
 

USAF said:
How TF can 19 year olds not be "conditioned" enough to play 30 minutes?

That's ridiculous. They sure as **** better be.
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You seriously don't understand the jump from high school to college ball....do you?
 

cjbfbp said:
Not quite. That one was a 31 point loss. Pitino did have a 33 point loss in the Big Ten tournament during the horrible 8 win season but that was without the suspended guards (Dorsey, Mason, and McBrayer) and Joey King (injured) in the lineup. The starting lineup for that one was freshmen Murphy, freshman Ahmad Gilbert, walk-on Stephon Sharp, Buggs, and Bakary. Two walk-ons and Gaston came off the bench. Oddly, that was also to Illinois who had a rare losing season that year.

Good times.
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Sharp came out of that stretch really impressing some people. I would take that Sharp as our starting two guard.
 

oak_street1981 said:
The talent level at guard is brutal. The fact that Johnson was able to bring in much more serviceable talent last year in the transfer portal for the one year vs. what he brought in this year is a concern.

Those guys last year were a lot better, than what we are seeing now at the 1 and 2 spots.
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Lots of teams make big turnarounds through the transfer portal. Look what Pitt is doing. Just last year they were miserable like this (and they had been miserable for years). If Pitt can, MN can too. Rebuilds take time. And with the injuries they continue to have, yes, being blasted at home can be the result.
 

stocker08 said:
You seriously don't understand the jump from high school to college ball....do you?
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What TF does that have to do with conditioning?

I get that you've tied yourself to a "must. defend. johnson" position, but other than illness or injury, there's ZERO reason any player shouldn't be able to play 30 minutes. None. Zip. Zilch. Players play 30+ minutes ALL THE TIME. The Gophers alone have 3 players averaging more than 30 minutes, FFS.

If true, that in inself is reason enough to fire Johnson.

You just look ridiculous making statements like that.

"Not talented enough," "needs development," "needs strength," sure.

"Needs conditioning?" As I said originally, that BETTER NOT be true.
 
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cncmin said:
Lots of teams make big turnarounds through the transfer portal. Look what Pitt is doing. Just last year they were miserable like this (and they had been miserable for years). If Pitt can, MN can too. Rebuilds take time. And with the injuries they continue to have, yes, being blasted at home can be the result.
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Actually you contradicted yourself. Pitt’s turnaround didn’t take time because of the transfer portal. “Rebuilds take time” no longer has to be the case. No time in CBB history is it easier to make a dramatic 1 season turnaround. That’s on Johnson, he needs to recruit the Portal much better, he can’t miss on guards like he did this year.

Go Gophers!!
 

BleedGopher said:
Actually you contradicted yourself. Pitt’s turnaround didn’t take time because of the transfer portal. “Rebuilds take time” no longer has to be the case. No time in CBB history is it easier to make a dramatic 1 season turnaround. That’s on Johnson, he needs to recruit the Portal much better, he can’t miss on guards like he did this year.

Go Gophers!!
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agreed. maybe a better statement would be if I said that getting lucky in the transfer portal can correct a lot of roster problems.
 


LongLiveMilesTarver said:
Is 38 field goal attempts as a team a typo? How is that even possible?
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Not a typo. They were 33-63 FG, and we were 13-38 FG, according to the box score.

I assume each team in basketball has an equal number of "offensive possessions"? How can an offensive possession not end in a FG attempt???

I assume there weren't 25 turnovers before an attempt could be made. I guess if you air ball, it doesn't count? Blocked shot doesn't count?
 

cjbfbp said:
Not quite. That one was a 31 point loss. Pitino did have a 33 point loss in the Big Ten tournament during the horrible 8 win season but that was without the suspended guards (Dorsey, Mason, and McBrayer) and Joey King (injured) in the lineup. The starting lineup for that one was freshmen Murphy, freshman Ahmad Gilbert, walk-on Stephon Sharp, Buggs, and Bakary. Two walk-ons and Gaston came off the bench. Oddly, that was also to Illinois who had a rare losing season that year.

Good times.
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Prior to the suspension of those three players for the last three games of the year, that team had actually played pretty well for the last half of the conference season. We talk about youth a bunch as it relates to the current Gophers team, but the Pitino year three outfit wasn't blessed with nearly the experience of Battle, Garcia, Cooper, and Samuels. It was basically Joey King and a bunch of freshman and sophomore Nate Mason They played a number of ranked teams tough, eventually knocking off #6 Maryland (ironically). It would be nice to see our current young guys show some growth in the last ten games of the conference season. The first two? Uffda. Eight more.
 

Wow

I really tried but could only stomach 10 minutes. By this point you'd expect some improvement but the losing average margin just seems to be growing.
 

60's Guy said:
Obviously, you have never coached or likely played at a high level. If you don't think good players take responsibility and put that pressure on themselves to be the difference makers...then you just don't have the experience yet to comprehend what happens.

Pilgrim, if Thompson is the one guy to transfer and we add a point guard from the portal who is decent...and everybody is healthy... if your four freshmen, plus Betts (5) are all back....they won't get very many minutes. too many better guys ahead of them for playing time.
Please, rethink your bit.
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Most coaches and guys at a high level like Coach Johnson. Their opinions & behavior are night-and-day compared to this board.
 


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