2011-2012 Gophers

[Scott M]

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone.

Great opening tourney win by the Gophers. DePaul is not a beast of the Big East, but they are a decent big school team. Gophers win a close one, 86-85. Every time you expected them to blow it, they stepped up and made a play. Mbakwe seals the game by drawing a charge with 4 personal fouls, ensuring the win.

Julian Welch has a coming out party, handling the rock in the half court and finishing with 11. Elliason played well in relief with a few solid put backs. Mbakwe was a beast, 16-12. Rodney went to the hole hard, early and often. He led all MN scorers with 18. Austin Hollins chips in 11 and an emphatic dunk.

I really liked what I saw from the Gophers. They could have rolled over a number of times, being down 10 at the half and 12 earlier, but they attacked the press and got some easy baskets. The defense was pretty good, there are places for improvement on that end of the floor, but overall pretty good.

Indiana State tomorrow at noon on ESPN.

[hamrej23]

Tomorrow @ 11 I believe isn't it?

[schmitty3]

Goph's took a double wammy tonight. Get blown out in the championship game, but more importantly lose Mbakwe to a serious injury. Didn't look good at all. He was putting no weight at all on that right knee. MRI schedule tomorrow morning. Hate to say it, but looks like a ACL/MCl injury. Worst case for the gophs.

[Scott M]

Rough championship game for the Gophs. 86-70, first loss of the season. I missed the semi-final while hunting Friday. They came back from down 9 or 11 to beat Indiana State.

Everything goes wrong against Dayton. 21 turnovers, Mbakwe messed up his knee, Gophers once again don't defend their glass and give up a pile of offensive rebounds (11), and they can't guard the three point line (Dayton cashes 12 treys).

The Gophers started off well, leading 21-10 at one point, but absolutely fell apart. I think with Mbakwe they are built to come back, but without him, good luck. This team is showing its weaknesses and is about what we thought they would be. Another year, another bubble team. Hard to pinpoint any good performances in the championship game by Gopher players. Welch looked to score and put in 12, Hollins found 14 in the flow of the game. Still, everybody looked a step late defensively and disengaged offensively. I think these two players will start the majority of game in the backcourt this year; we'll see what Tubby decides to do with Andre Hollins going forward.

Anything short of a tournament championship would be a disappointment because of such a weak Old Spice Classic Field, and a 2nd place finish is just that.

Now a rebuilding Virginia Tech is coming to town and the Gophers are without their best player. If anybody gets an Mbakwe injury update in the coming days, please post here.

[Snag]

Wow!

Nice start today then too bad for Mbakwe. Sampson and Williams couldn't put up 20 points playing for the Women's team. Sampson may be hurt, but he still has moves from 8th grade basketball. I don't know if Williams scored or even shot in the first half. Does Tubby make any players better?

Drive and dish for open threes seems to work against us pretty well.

Please recruit one guard that can beat somebody off the dribble and score or pass the ball to an open shooter or big man.

Another wasted year of Gophers b-ball.

[CodyDawg]

Watched most of the games this weekend and my summary is this: Tubby is a dope. Pick a rotation and go with it for Pete's sake! This mix and match stuff does nobody any good. A bunch of disjointed, fragmented plays, nobody knows what the other players are gonna do and there is no flow. Whoever said bubble team...I assume you mean for the NIT. Tubby has been here long enough, these are his players and we are not going to be a good team. Losing Trevor hurts as he was fun to watch. Beyond that, what exactly is there offense anyway??? Send the bigs out to the 3 point line to get the ball and then watch them fumble around? Can we get a big to catch the ball on the block? Can we have Ralph Sampson the Freshmen back? I think he was better then. Very dissapointed in this team. Maybe better put, very dissapointed in the coaching of this team.

[Bryce]

Just announced that his acl is torn.

[schmitty3]

Any chance he gets redshirted? Well don't think I will watch another game of theirs. They are just so boring to watch, absolutely no offense. Mbakwe was the glue, and now that he's gone I just hope they can make the NIT. Beyond me why year after year they can't get a good guard who can handle the ball and make plays happen off the dribble.

[Scott M]

Season's done. Just the way he couldn't put weight on it you knew it was a torn ligament but you just hoped it was strained.

I expect he'll put in for a redshirt, but he did use a redshirt already. He played in only 7 games this year. He was projecting as a NBA lottery pick and was attracting a lot of attention. I hope he took out an insurance policy. I doubt he'll be rated that highly again unless he comes all the way back and plays next year. But then again he is getting old and he's got a kid or two and probably needs the money. Might go pro even if he could play. He will likely stay on campus to rehab at least and graduate soon.

Things were looking up despite an ugly loss to Dayton...top 10 RPI, lots of minutes for developing guys.

[Dotch]

Yupper, was hoping it was just a bad sprain. Knees are not designed to move sideways very much. For those of us who are U of M alum we'd better hope the hockey team continues to play competitively or this is really gonna be a long winter, again.

[CJH]

So Tubby, are you happy you chased Colton Iverson out of town now?? Its a repeat of last year with Nolan and Devoe Joseph. Starter gets hurt and you have no one. Its a bad ground hogs day. How can Rodney Williams have played that many games in three years and still be the exact same player he was out of HS??

Tubby has the worse offense ever. They might as well just plan on pressing the entire game with all the guards/wings they have.

Feel bad for Mbawke, he looked terrible on the bench afterwards.

[Scott M]

CJH, I was thinking the same thing yesterday on my drive home. The guy has a great Puerto Rico tourney, a great Big Ten tourney the year before, and he can't hardly see the floor. Guys need consistent minutes to build confidence, and Colt 45 never got em. Yes, he had foul trouble at times, yes, he made mistakes around the bucket, but if he had time to get his confidence up, I think he would have been a beast. Now he's gone.

So much for this front court. No depth at all. If Royce had his head screwed on straight. If Colton wasn't run outta town. It's always a bunch of ifs with Tubby. It stinks when the injury bug hits good players, but injuries happen to every team. His lackluster recruiting will keep this team on the bottom of the Big Ten for at least 2-3 more years. Have you seen the other B1G recruiting classes? It's shaping up to be a tough 4-5 years.

Will Tubby adapt and play small ball and press with all these guards? Or will he once again not adapt to his roster and fail like last year? He's certainly not earning his contract, and you can only blame bad luck for so long.

[Ice Shack Baby]

What ever happened to Maurice Walker? I know that he had a knee injury last December. I see that he is still on the roster.

[CJH]

What ever happened to Maurice Walker? I know that he had a knee injury last December. I see that he is still on the roster.

He's not recovering very well, probably going to be red-shirted this year.

[EBass]

So how bad will the ACC beat our beloved Gophs? I was really excited for this season and finally caught them on TV and watched Trevor go down.

Well we can watch Coleman.

[Scott M]

Well, with every reason to roll over, the Gophers came out and played good defense and won the game, 58-55 over Virginia Tech. Almost a game tying shot by Erick Green, what a baller.

How about the performance by freshman Elliot Eliason? 8 and 7 with a few assists and blocks. It was a completely different game with Eliason in the game as he was playing excellent position defense, grabbing rebounds, cleaning up the garbage, hitting Rodney in the high low, giving his teammates help on defense. An inspired effort. It's been a while since I've watched a Gopher player and came away...proud. His calm and collected performance seemed to settle everyone down and if everyone can chip in a little, they can overcome the injury. They won't be the same team without Trevor, especially in the conference season, but they can start to put the pieces together and reform their identity playing small ball.

Nice job stepping up by Welch. He leads the team with 15 points. Rodney had a solid 14. They are going to need him to step it up, whether it is tip dunks or drives, he needs to use his athleticism to get to the hole, now more than ever.

Armelin had a couple nifty drives and finished with 9.

The rest of the bench didn't see much time and wasn't able to contribute much, but I liked that Tubby let the guys that were holding tough stick it out.

They needed this win. Virginia Tech isn't a powerhouse, but they will help the RPI. This team was a bubble team with Trevor, but one that I thought had potential to develop into a solid team. Without him, I think they are NIT team but they need to eke out some wins. Tonight helps, if nothing else, to stem the thoughts of "oh no, we're in trouble" when the players saw Trevor wincing Sunday night.

[hamrej23]

I was at the game tonight, just got home. I really like the way the gophers played tonight- the main thing I noticed is how we didn't get beat up inside. The rbding advantage was zero for v.t.

Chip, and rodney were definetly the heroes I thought. Not taking anything away from welch and elliot. And dchise u are right, eliason was a difference maker when he was in.

Chip hit a few huge shots, and rodney was the difference in the last 2 minutes on the defensive end and his dunk also.

I don't know, I am excited, this was a huge win for them against a mid acc team. Home court yes, but I will take it. Usc will be tough, but if we get through that, we have an outside chance for twenty wins with penn st,indiana,iowa,nebraska in the big ten it is possible.

[Scott M]

Too early to say by far, but I see 7-11 in conference play. I think Indiana is going dancing this year.

[EBass]

Congrats Gophs - I'll eat my post.

Next Game is USC at 1:15 this Sat on the Big Ten Network.

[Scott M]

Elliot Eliason...the rich man's Jeff Hagen

If he continues to play well he might achieve avatar status.

[CJH]

CJH, I was thinking the same thing yesterday on my drive home. The guy has a great Puerto Rico tourney, a great Big Ten tourney the year before, and he can't hardly see the floor. Guys need consistent minutes to build confidence, and Colt 45 never got em. Yes, he had foul trouble at times, yes, he made mistakes around the bucket, but if he had time to get his confidence up, I think he would have been a beast. Now he's gone.

A little CYA from Tubby (From Pioneer Press - Marcus Fuller):

Eliason and Iverson are similar in size, but Iverson was more of a physical player and more defensive-minded. Smith said Eliason is "a lot different" and "much better" because he's versatile.

"He's more of an offensive player," Smith said. "He does a lot of things extremely well. He did an excellent defensive job. He's in the right place. I just think he's got much more upside."

I like Eliason, but let's not play revisionist history here Tubby!!! Can't remember the last time I heard a coach complain about someone being "more physical" and "defensive minded". Especially when the guy that started in front of him (Sampson) is severely lacking in both departments!!!!!

[Scott M]

55-40 Final Score, Gophers beat USC. Not a great win but the Gophers will take every one that comes their way. USC looks like they've been rocked by the O.J. Mayo scandal. For Minnesota, it's all cake until the conference season starts.

Nice game by Julian Welch. Played under control today, cut down on the turnovers. 14 point, 6 assists. No turnovers in the second half. I've been disappointed with Tubby's spring recruits, but this guy is really stepping up. Read some quotes of his from an interview in his hometown, and he said after Orlando, he feels he can play with anyone. Very confident with the ball right now, seems like he's got a great offensive game. This guy could be a Vincent Grier type catalyst for a strong season if he plays within his means.

Rodney Williams. The worst thing that could happen to this team was Trevor going down. The best thing that could happen for Rodney Williams was Trevor going down. He gets off the wing where he's never been comfortable and he plays inside where he can use his athleticism to grab rebounds and finish plays at the rim. Nice highlight reel 360 dunk for Rodney in the first half.

[Scott M]

Just got caught up with the DVR.

Gophers down Appalachian State, 70-56. Game was tied with under 5 minutes to go but a strip and score by Welch, a couple late in the shot clock baskets by Rodney, and some closer free throws from Julian finished off the frisky Mountaineers.

Gophers give up 11 offensive rebounds and 9 made three pointers, while only making two triples themselves. Despite outshooting the Mountaineers, 54 to 35%, the extra attempts and three kept the visiting team in the game.

Joe Coleman finally showed up. He mostly got garbage but sometimes the best players in a given game are distinguished by timely cuts and offensive rebounds. Coleman with an efficient 10 and 2 assists in 13 minutes. Sampson goes 10 and 5 in 19 minutes of spot duty.

Armelin and Ahanmisi were nice little spark plugs combining for 11 points, 4 steals, 6 rebounds, and 6 assists.

Rodney had a team high 18 points to accompany 5 blocks and 6 rebounds. Everything came in the flow of the game, so nice showing for him.

Julian Welch continues to show why he needs to be in the last 5 minutes of each game. He hasn't missed a free throw in a long while, going 6-6 today en route to 15 points.

Interesting fact, App State head coach Jason Capel played at North Carolina. (I remember watching him in High School). He is the youngest head coach in Division 1 basketball.

Three point defense and rebounding were again problematic, as they will undoubtedly be all year, but the Gophers did some nice things on defense and in transition. I just wish they had more transition opportunities, but without pressing I don't see it coming.

BTN App State vs. Minnesota Highlights

Kind of a clompfest to finish off the year...St. Peters, Central Michigan, and NDSU. I believe CMU is on ESPN and NDSU is on BTN.

[Scott M]

69-47 Gophers edge St. Peter. Everybody played. It was a steady lead throughout the game. Sampson had 15 points, 8 rebounds, 4 blocks, and 4 assists.

Here's the recap from ESPN. The game was only available with subscription to the Big Ten Network.

Associated Press:

MINNEAPOLIS -- Ralph Sampson III scored a season-high 15 points and grabbed eight rebounds in his return to the starting lineup, leading Minnesota to its fourth straight win, 69-47 over Saint Peter's on Saturday.

Sampson, who also had four assists, had played as a reserve but hadn't started since injuring his ankle Nov. 17. He helped the Gophers (10-1) dominate inside against the smaller Peacocks.

Darius Conley led the Peacocks (2-6) with a career-high 20 points and Chris Prescott scored 12, but Saint Peter's didn't get much from anyone else.

The Gophers never trailed and led by as many as 22. They kept Saint Peter's searching for jump shots for most of the game, allowing them to maintain a comfortable cushion. Minnesota outscored the Peacocks 38-22 in the paint and shot 27 free throws to Saint Peter's 10.

On to Central Michigan on Tuesday.

[Scott M]

Too early to say by far, but I see 7-11 in conference play. I think Indiana is going dancing this year.

Indiana is no pushover. They just beat #1 Kentucky at home. They are going to be ranked now and I think they are going to be a handful. The Big Ten is wide open from #'s 5-9. But, I don't see the Gophers dancing. They have a favorable conference schedule, but I don't know if it will help. I might long for 7-11.