***OFFICIAL NEW ORLEANS AT MINNESOTA IN-GAME THREAD!!!***

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We should have gotten 100, not too many chances to hit triple digits.

Along those lines, it should have been our ball with 35 seconds left. NO did an inbounds pass to the backcourt. The player receiving the ball jumped from the front court, caught the inbounds pass in the air, and then landed in the backcourt. That's over and back - should have been our ball with the shot clock still active so we could have taken a three. For it to not be over and back, the receiving player needed to establish position in the back court prior to receiving the ball.
 

Big Dawg said:
Hawkins-Scares me. Surprised he only had 2 TO's. Just watching the way he played I was thinking at least 5.
Mitchell-Solid. Not a game changer but not a liability
Carrington-Missed his 3's but didn't give up. Played better defense. Rebounded well.
Christie-Very nice to have an impact freshman. One of our top 3 players for sure.
JOJ/FOX-same player? Sort of. Energy. Boost off the bench. Don't know if either should start but both should get 20 min/game.
Garcia-Solid in all aspects. Needs his rest. Can't go to him EVERY time. Need others to step up and help.
Payne-I see his confidence growing. Still needs some work. Made strides but still not where I think he should be. He will face much better bigs than he saw last night.
Ihnen-UUUGHHH! So much potential. A floater. Why? If he had the aggressiveness of Fox or JOJ he would be such an asset. Instead he is just a player on the floor not doing much of anything.
I would stay with the starting 5 just for continuity. Not saying they deserve it. With that being said I think the minutes breakdown should be

Garcia-32-36
Guards-15-25 each depending on who is doing what that night. My lean is Christie/Carrington but need to let all 4 know they are valuable and need to have each other's back.
Wing-3- Depends on matchups. JOJ, FOX, Christie. For now, I would keep starting JOJ.
Ihnen?? I guess you keep starting him and hope he does something. If he keeps disappearing, then he see's less and less floor time.
Payne-I do like him off the bench for now. Hopefully limits his foul trouble. Don't see much coming from Betts, Wilson, or anyone else. But, it would be nice if Betts got a few minutes here and there because he may be much more valuable in a year or 2.

My top 9:
Garcia-32-36
Christie-30
Payne-25-30
Carrington-25
Hawkins-25
Mitchell-20
Fox-20
JOJ-20
Ihnen-10-20????

I honestly don't see anyone else (Betts) getting much more than garbage minutes.

Looking forward to Sunday and OSU.
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Why continuity for the starting five now? This is experimental time. No reason going forward not to start Payne and Christie.
 

Off-GridTNgopher said:
I tuned in but wasn't deeply in tune.

Not sure how I feel about guards leading the team in rebounds .. we had a huge advantage in the paint and while Garcia and Payne did their thing offensively, the lack of board domination up front kinda concerns me...
Free throws.... Last night was a revert back to last year....
Lastly turnovers while it didn't determine the outcome last night we need to tighten that up still.. I hate seeing us with more turnovers than our opponent .. we won't be shooting 63% from the field often

Other than that... We destroyed a team any B1G team should destroy.. just glad we didn't let em back into the game in the 2nd half
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I've seen several occasions of guards leading a team in rebounding. Specifically remember a 6"0" point guard who averaged about 6 boards a game for 2 straight seasons explain: " My bigs box out so well that it's not that big a deal for me to cruise in from 10-12 feet out and pick off easy rebounds right in front of the hoop.". I think that one or maybe two seasons, he was a top 10 rebounder in a 12-team conference.
 

Off-GridTNgopher said:
Free throws.... Last night was a revert back to last year....
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When Hawkins first stepped to the line, the announcers said that he was the leading free throw shooter (by percentage) in the conference. He was uncharacteristically bad last night (1-3) and I don't expect to see many repeats of that. Wilson was 1 of 4 and I don't expect him to get 4 attempts in a game often. Take those two out and the team was an acceptable 68.75%.

Payne had the most attempts (frequently the case) and he was only 3-6. We're just going to have to put up with that and hope he improves but he might not.

The good news is that 5 of the team's top 9 players in minutes are shooting 80% or better on free throws and Carrington is at 78.6%. Last year's team had no one shooting over 80% and only 3 of the top 9 shot over 70%.
 

Off-GridTNgopher said:
I tuned in but wasn't deeply in tune.

Not sure how I feel about guards leading the team in rebounds .. we had a huge advantage in the paint and while Garcia and Payne did their thing offensively, the lack of board domination up front kinda concerns me...
Free throws.... Last night was a revert back to last year....
Lastly turnovers while it didn't determine the outcome last night we need to tighten that up still.. I hate seeing us with more turnovers than our opponent .. we won't be shooting 63% from the field often

Other than that... We destroyed a team any B1G team should destroy.. just glad we didn't let em back into the game in the 2nd half
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Thanks for the positive report. Did you see any negatives?
 


TwistingMyMelon said:
When Hawkins first stepped to the line, the announcers said that he was the leading free throw shooter (by percentage) in the conference. He was uncharacteristically bad last night (1-3) and I don't expect to see many repeats of that. Wilson was 1 of 4 and I don't expect him to get 4 attempts in a game often. Take those two out and the team was an acceptable 68.75%.

Payne had the most attempts (frequently the case) and he was only 3-6. We're just going to have to put up with that and hope he improves but he might not.

The good news is that 5 of the team's top 9 players in minutes are shooting 80% or better on free throws and Carrington is at 78.6%. Last year's team had no one shooting over 80% and only 3 of the top 9 shot over 70%.
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If Payne can shoot 6-8 free throws a night in the Big Ten and only makes half, we can take that because he is drawing fouls on the opponents big guys.
 

Gold Vision said:
Anyone else catch Thorson coaching his ass off from the bench the entire game? Every single defensive possession, he was screaming and directing traffic. He was extremely animated, I’m not sure if he’s been like that all year, but he was incredibly loud and animated.
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I watched that guy coach teams since 1990. He’s always animated, coaching his ass off. Except, he’s never that way when he’s not coaching. It’s funny really. You wouldn’t know him at all if you didn’t know him in both environments. Crazy contrast!
 

Dakota2 said:
Why continuity for the starting five now? This is experimental time. No reason going forward not to start Payne and Christie.
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I think the most important question is how much those guys will play. Even if those guys don't start, I expect them to play more than some starters. Ihnen started last night but he played less than anyone else of the top nine (certainly understandable). Only the four guards played more than 20 minutes each last night. Payne had 17 points in 17 minutes. I suspect he would have played more in a game where his presence was more necessary.
 

forever a gopher said:
I will say the Barn was the most fun tonight when he was in. He was entertaining to watch and brings energy. With that said, it looks like he's been playing organized basketball (of any level) for about 2 years. If you told me he hadn't picked up a basketball before he played at Wazzu, I would believe you.

That New Orleans team looked like a YMCA rec league team. Not a ton can be gleamed from playing such bad competition, but it was fun, so whatevs.
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If you told me he hadn't picked up a basketball before he played at Wazzu, I would believe you.

You do know he was a 4* BASKETBALL recruit out of high school and was a legend in Bay area. Mitchell is a little younger and was also an elite high school basketball player in the same area and looked up to Jack as a basketball god at high school level.
 




Gold Vision said:
Anyone else catch Thorson coaching his ass off from the bench the entire game? Every single defensive possession, he was screaming and directing traffic. He was extremely animated, I’m not sure if he’s been like that all year, but he was incredibly loud and animated.
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It’s an all-the-time thing. We sit directly across from the Gopher bench, and you can hear him screaming throughout the game. With the small, quiet crowds, it becomes annoying pretty fast.
 

Lou Hudson said:
It’s an all-the-time thing. We sit directly across from the Gopher bench, and you can hear him screaming throughout the game. With the small, quiet crowds, it becomes annoying pretty fast.
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Is this unique to the Gophs?
 

Dakota2 said:
Any time Big Jack sees the floor it will just provide an interlude of hilarity when Bob L. is compelled to write a 500-page pleading arguing how terrible he is and what a waste of scholarship it was to bring in a guy who inspires his teammates. All worth it.
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I agree with Bob on most of what he thinks about Wilson, just without the obvious passion. I don't think it was a WASTED scholly. My bar for him is very low. Only want to see him is blow outs. Win's or losses. Maybe go in for a minute or 2 here and there to bang on say an Edey or some other big man. If Bob or anyone else feels we wasted a scholly on Wilson, they must also think we wasted more scholly's on those last 4 guys on the bench. Reader, KK, Purcell, and Ramberg. If any of those 4 play significant minutes in a game, it is either a blow out win (doubtful) or blowout loss. There might be some of them. Hopefully not. I did enjoy watching the big guy last night.
 




Big Dawg said:
I agree with Bob on most of what he thinks about Wilson, just without the obvious passion. I don't think it was a WASTED scholly. My bar for him is very low. Only want to see him is blow outs. Win's or losses. Maybe go in for a minute or 2 here and there to bang on say an Edey or some other big man. If Bob or anyone else feels we wasted a scholly on Wilson, they must also think we wasted more scholly's on those last 4 guys on the bench. Reader, KK, Purcell, and Ramberg. If any of those 4 play significant minutes in a game, it is either a blow out win (doubtful) or blowout loss. There might be some of them. Hopefully not. I did enjoy watching the big guy last night.
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Thirteen scholarships. Two are walkons.
 

Dakota2 said:
Thirteen scholarships. Two are walkons.
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Reader and Purcell, right? The last 2 scholarships are Ramberg and Wilson. Hopefully neither will have much of an impact on the Gophers season. If push came to shove and I could only keep one, I would keep Wilson. Can't teach height/size. Ramberg is versatile but can't guard 5's. Ramberg can only guard 2-4's. We have 8+ guys on the roster that can guard 2-4's. We really only have a couple of guys who can guard 5's. Difficult to get excited because I don't know what I want. What if Ben wins enough to come back for year 4? Then what? I think he MAY BECOME a decent coach in 3-5 years. Pretty sure it will not be at Minnesota. But, if this season becomes a train wreck and Ben goes away, what happens to the roster?
 



tikited said:
Solid rebounder, active defender, can handle the ball..... Shooting 35% and 17% from three. Not improving there.
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He can be a really good piece of the rotation though even if he isn't scoring a ton by playing good defense and rebounding. Hopefully the shooting comes around over time but has been nice to see him bring a lot to the floor in those other areas so far this year. Need guys willing to fight and go after all the lose balls and he definitely seems willing to do that.
 

MNVCGUY said:
He can be a really good piece of the rotation though even if he isn't scoring a ton by playing good defense and rebounding. Hopefully the shooting comes around over time but has been nice to see him bring a lot to the floor in those other areas so far this year. Need guys willing to fight and go after all the lose balls and he definitely seems willing to do that.
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As soon as we went up by 30 last night, I wanted Ben to tell Carrington to shoot, shoot, and shoot some more. Allow him to hopefully shoot himself out of this incredibly bad slump. Ben took him out immediately.
 


Full Speed Ahead said:
We should have gotten 100, not too many chances to hit triple digits.

Along those lines, it should have been our ball with 35 seconds left. NO did an inbounds pass to the backcourt. The player receiving the ball jumped from the front court, caught the inbounds pass in the air, and then landed in the backcourt. That's over and back - should have been our ball with the shot clock still active so we could have taken a three. For it to not be over and back, the receiving player needed to establish position in the back court prior to receiving the ball.
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Let's keep the stats as low as possible.
 

tikited said:
As soon as we went up by 30 last night, I wanted Ben to tell Carrington to shoot, shoot, and shoot some more. Allow him to hopefully shoot himself out of this incredibly bad slump. Ben took him out immediately.
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I'm still waiting for Michael Hurt to shoot his way into some confidence....
 


Big Dawg said:
Reader and Purcell, right? The last 2 scholarships are Ramberg and Wilson. Hopefully neither will have much of an impact on the Gophers season. If push came to shove and I could only keep one, I would keep Wilson. Can't teach height/size. Ramberg is versatile but can't guard 5's. Ramberg can only guard 2-4's. We have 8+ guys on the roster that can guard 2-4's. We really only have a couple of guys who can guard 5's. Difficult to get excited because I don't know what I want. What if Ben wins enough to come back for year 4? Then what? I think he MAY BECOME a decent coach in 3-5 years. Pretty sure it will not be at Minnesota. But, if this season becomes a train wreck and Ben goes away, what happens to the roster?
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Purcell has Ramberg's scholarship this year
 

Big Dawg said:
I agree with Bob on most of what he thinks about Wilson, just without the obvious passion. I don't think it was a WASTED scholly. My bar for him is very low. Only want to see him is blow outs. Win's or losses. Maybe go in for a minute or 2 here and there to bang on say an Edey or some other big man. If Bob or anyone else feels we wasted a scholly on Wilson, they must also think we wasted more scholly's on those last 4 guys on the bench. Reader, KK, Purcell, and Ramberg. If any of those 4 play significant minutes in a game, it is either a blow out win (doubtful) or blowout loss. There might be some of them. Hopefully not. I did enjoy watching the big guy last night.
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KK came in very late, missed most of season preparation. He is acclimating to US, UMN, NCAA Basketball. Isn't it just a little early to given up on him? Reader needs a little time also to see if he is a BIG player after some development, or not. For him this was a planned development year after which they will know if he was a diamond in the rough or should transfer to St. Thomas or below. One thing nice about this team and the fact that Andrew Rhode transferred to Virginia is there is no longer the incessant worry and chatter about whether we would beat St. Thomas. We would.
 

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