2012-2013 Gophers

[DrJ]

I'm a gopher fan but isn't it amazing that 6 BT teams are rated in the top 25 but the only undefeatd team in the conference isn't ranked. DrJ..... Go Gophs

[schmitty3]

They'll be ranked come Monday when the new rankings come out.

[CodyDawg]

As someone said, you GOTTA protect your home court. Big game tonite. Stuffing Michigan behind us in the loss column would be huge.

[Scott M]

This will be the biggest game I've been to in the barn since I was a teenager during the 96-97 run. I'm pretty pumped to hear the noise at those levels again.

[EBass]

I'll be screaming at/with them from my sofa. Go Gophs!

[schmitty3]

Why would Tubby sit Dre the rest of the 1st half after 2 fouls? Can't play scared, Ahamisi and Welch can't handle any ball pressure. Welch did hit some big shots, but turned it over a few times as well. Hopefully Dre Hollins can stay outta foul trouble here in the 2nd half and play most if not all of it.

Side note, when all 5 of the bench players came in did they even get a shot off? It was like watching middle school teams just throwing it around.

[tonkapat]

Nice defense boys. They won't even be .500 in the big ten playing like this.

[schmitty3]

Yea they have to wait until there are down 15+ to turn up the intensity. Seemed like all of Michigan's points in the second half were either dunks or wide open 3's. Then missing free throws that could have got them back into it at the end.

[Snag]

Michigan is good, but they won't win if their outside shots aren't falling. We should have pounded it inside to get the Michigan bigs in foul trouble.

Burke got away with palming the ball about 5 times. Am I the only one who saw that?

[CodyDawg]

I saw the palming too, man it was horrible. I thought that we were a victim of home cooking by the refs at Indiana and then last nite I thought Michigan got a majority of the calls. how does that work????

maybe i am being unfair here, but why does Clem always blame the players for starting slow, etc? Isnt that part of the coach's responsibility to have his players ready to play? he nevers says, "we started slow and I need to do a better job of preparing our players to start faster". Never. Maybe the other team is running something we werent prepared for? I just feel that there is a systemic problem here that we need to get ironed out.

[Huskie]

As far as I know, Clem is working on his farm down in Kentucky and not blaming the Gopher players for the slow start!! But at least we won't have to forfeit the season!

[Scott M]

Left for Lake of the Woods after the game, just checking in now...Tough loss. They started off well, then Dre got 2 fouls and sat the first half, Mav comes in and coughs it up twice in a row for run outs and they never led again. The bench couldn't be counted on in this game. They had a chance to make a run with 2 minutes left and they turn it over and miss bunnies. Go down 6 instead of tied or up. They left Hardaway open the whole first half so he had like 18 at the break. They had a couple moments where I knew if they got another stop or another bucket, the top was gonna blow off that building, but they couldn't get over the hump and really seize control of the momentum. The refs let everything go in teh first half and both teams finish with 5 fouls.

Second half it's another slow start and they let things get really outta control, down 15 at one point. They make their run too late as they play their best ball when the pressure is on. Down 7 with under a couple minutes left, they make a steal then turn it right back over, get the ball back, Rodney catches on free throw extended three point land, hesitates, pass fakes, then jacks a 3 and misses...Another bad game for Rodney. For a senior with NBA aspirations, he should be catching and shooting with no hesitation. Freshman Rodney would have let it fly and probably would have buried.

Officiating was poor in the second half, getting ticky tacky and blowing some calls in the second half. Fans and players got on them, but it didn't matter. They didn't affect the outcome of the game. You can't turn the rock over 15 times at home and expect to win. Take care of the rock, and they would have killed Michigan.

They wasted an excellent effort by Austin Hollins. He shut down Hardaway and Burke when he respectively guarded them. And he sprung for 21 with 4 treys and no turnovers. The Hollins combo played good defense, it was the ball screens with the backups that wrecked havoc on the Gophers.

As someone else said, they should have been pounding the ball inside. Morgan couldn't control Mbakwe and the big freshman could have been exposed. The half court offense at times was atrocious (surprise!) and Tubby declined to press against a couple guys that didn't want to handle the rock. They made their run when they pressed. I still don't know why he doesn't spend more time in press when he has a pair of excellent guard defenders and a team full of long and athletic players.

Two road tests coming, neither are cake walks. Gotta beat Northwestern, and they should have plenty of motivation to take it to Wisconsin away. They only slid a few spots in the polls, they can be back in the top ten with a winning streak and some help.

[Scott M]

Good grief, looks like they are making good strides taking care of the ball. 14 turnovers against a slow-paced Northwestern team...good grief. How many years has Tubby played against Carmody 1-3-1 zones? They look lost. It's ridiculous. It's a good league, but if you want to make some noise, you have to pick up these valuable road wins. They will need to pick up an upset down the road to offset this loss. Yuck. Poor shooting and poor decision making all game.

[schmitty3]

That was some of the worst basketball from a Big 10 let alone top 15 team I have ever seen. How can you grab more than 20 offensive rebound and have the opponent shoot under 50% from the free throw line and still lose.

Half court offense is still god awful. Thank god for Mbakwe without him this would've been worse. They could not stop him at all, but yet we never went inside to him. All dribbling and passing 5 ft outside the 3 point line until there is under 10 on the shot clock. I keep wanting to give Tubby the benefit of the doubt, but man we gotta have some movement on offense. With Rodney and Trevor playing the 4 and 5 you would think we could come up with something better. I'm also questioning why Austin Hollins was left in the game after he picked up his 4th. Granted that 5th foul was pathetic he shouldn't have even been in there.

Whenever I start to think this team is for real, and made to make a deep run they pull off games like this. Turrable!

[mrklean]

NIT here we come

[mr_jman]

HORRIBLE HORRIBLE GAME! When the plane lands send them all to the gym to shoot free throws. As lost as the players looked tonight, Tubby looked just as lost. Horrible player and time management with Austin Hollins. Dre was horrible tonight as well and should have sat a little more. All around bad and now we go into Wisconsin where it will be over at halftime if we play like that again!

Might just spend saturday fishing and coming home to watch Gophers hockey!

[schmitty3]

NIT here we come

Wouldn't surprise me. Only a MN team could go from top 10 to NIT lol.

Hopefully they can turn this around in Madison, but wow did they look bad tonight. I just can't get over how atrocious that offense was. Coleman dribbling completely out of control and throwing it away. Dre traveling every 3rd time down the floor. Everyone throwing up wild shot, and not making the open shots. It was tough to watch.

[Dotch]

Gawd awful from the Gophers players, to the coaching, to the officiating. Total stinkeroo! How they manage to play down to the level of these schlubs at their place time after time is beyond me.

[CJH]

Fugly!!! Why they didn't move Rodney from the corner to the high post (free throw line) is beyond me. At the very least he should have been running the baseline to overload the zone.

[Snag]

They had a chance to blow it open in the first half, but Tubby has to play everyone and they don't get into any kind of offensive flow with the multiple substitutions. It looked like varsity vs. jv except the score.

Second half, Tubby was so out coached it was ridiculous. We always react to the other team, but never do we put a full court press or change up our d until we are way down. Hollins 5th foul should have been a no call. Rodney gets no love from the refs. I don't get it, he gets hammered on his way to the hoop by multiple players and they hardly ever call fouls.

Every other Big 10 team has 1-2 stiffs that come into the game, don't turn the ball over and make every 3 pointer they look at. Tubby needs to find the best high school shooter in Minnesota and give the kid a scholarship. Teams just pack it in unless Hollins and Hollins can hit their shots.

[EBass]

The game was so exciting that I fell asleep. Go ^yawn^ Gophers. So I assume they will drop from the top 25?

[Huskie]

Poor performance all around, Tubby has never figured out how to attack the 1-3-1. I have to think they will be seeing that a lot the rest of the year if we drill the opponents man to man. Outplayed and outcoached again, just wish Tubby would admit that instead of laying it all on the players. But look at the bright side, ticket prices should go down. Not many people will want to pay $100-$200 per ticket prices that I'm seeing on C...list!!!

[Bryce]

Top 10 to looking forward to NIT. Tubby has to go. No way around it.

[CodyDawg]

I am sooooo sick of Tubby blaming the players and taking NO responsibility. He did NOT have his team prepared and his in-game decisions were horrible. He got outcoached worse than the players got outplayed! He is the most gutless coach I have seen in a long time. He has lost the respect of his own team...evidenced by Rodney's tweet about getting thrown under the bus LAST week. As far as I am concerned, 100% of this one can be layed on Tubby's head. The players are playing scared and that is a coach's job to make sure never happens. I have way more respect for a coach of an untalented team that plays hard and loses than a very talented team like this that is so screwed up mentally that they lose.

I really hope Norwood has a sit down with Tubby and chews his arse big time. Maybe even says, "Our coach just didnt give the effort to get his team to play hard" to the media and see how he likes it. Here is the first call boys.....I want to see Tubby fired.

[Musky Buck]

Don't know squat about the game really, Tubby said NW had a limited roster or guys out, we had a full squad no excuses, hmmmmm. What is up ? Minnesota magic eh ? Is the Tubby a good recruiter or was his previous success a result of stud players or ?

[Scott M]

I too was surprised with some of the quotes...good coaches take the heat with losses and pile on the player's praises when they win. Listen to Crean, Izzo, Matta...a last resort is to get on a player in the media, but for Tubby it's chapter 1. He's got the same warts he's had since he got here: no half court offense, bad free throw shooting, turnovers, mentally fragile squads.

I hope they can rise up. A bad loss doesn't end the season and they have the health and depth that won't result in 9 straight losses or whatever it was last year. They aren't going to the NIT just cuz they split the season series with NW.

A win in Madison this weekend will get the positive juices flowing for the players again.

[schmitty3]

Yea Saturday's game is big. We've seen how fragile this team can be, and we can't afford to go on a big losing streak.

This team is really lacking that bench player that can come in and turn around a slow start. Osieniks and Ingram are terrible. Ingram has improved a lot, but is still not division I talent. Osieniks is just plain out awful. I could see him getting playing time if he were a good defensive stopper, but that certainly isn't the case. Then he air balls every other shot he puts up. It makes me wonder why Wally isn't getting any playing time. He supposedly is a deadly shooter from 3 point range which is exactly what this team needs. Then you add his athleticism to that and he could be a good asset coming off the bench. Mo Walker has been hugely disappointing. I thought he would be a key piece coming off the bench, but the guy can barely move out there. Eliason has shown glimpses, but it seems like Tubby has it out for him. Also Welch should be coming in for Dre, not Ahamisi. Ahamisi can NOT handle any ball pressure at all, and the turnovers are killer.

Side note, where has the aggressive Rodney Williams gone? He tends to get real passive against some of the Big Ten teams. I also think Dre has got to do more off the dribble. Get in the lane, and open up some lop passes to Mbakwe and Williams.

[CJH]

Does anybody wish we still had Cobb? I like Andre HOllins, but he just turns the ball over way to much for a point guard. I'd almost move him to the 2 for a while, move Austin Hollins to the 3, have Coleman come off the bench, and have either Maverick or Welch at the point for a while until Dre calms down.

Anybody wish Cobb was still here (from the Strib today):

• Former Gopher basketball player Colton Iverson continues to play tremendously for Colorado State. The senior forward/center leads the Rams in scoring at 14.5 points per game and is second on the team with 9.3 rebounds per game.

• Another Gophers transfer, junior guard Justin Cobbs, is second in scoring for the University of California Golden Bears at 14.8 points per game, and he leads the team in assists at 4.1 per gam

[schmitty3]

Ahamisi running the point is a gong show.

[CodyDawg]

welch isnt a ball handler either. The best ball handler we have is Austin Hollins I think. The lug nuts are loose boys, I fear the wheels are in danger of coming off. Sure, one loss to NW doesnt ruin our season, but to see the WAY our team is playing and the total and absolute lack of leadership from the coach is what concerns me.

against NW, they doubled the guy up top....but it looked rather easy to split that double team and create a 5 on 3. yet we rarely tried to beat the zone that way. penetrate and dish would have broke that zone quickly. instead, we kept throwing the ball around the top until someone noticed we were running out of clock and jacked up a prayer. and then we did it again. and again. and again. Tubby calls a TO and I think okay, this will get us back on track. then we do it again. and again. and again. Was Tubby's plan to throw the ball around until a defender fell down?