Good afternoon Gopher fans,
Before I forget, let's take a trip down memory lane and revisit our successful trip to Vancouver. First and foremost, I wouldn't be surprised if the Vancouver Showcase becomes a popular destination amongst college basketball teams moving forward. The hotel and venue were first class and right across the street from each other. For those who haven't been, Vancouver is a world class, top notch city. I can't wait to go back! Of course, if we lost I would have said I hated the city! That's how coaches remember the places they visit during the season. Thank you so much to our loyal fans who traveled out to support our guys. It definitely helped us get three wins!
I have asked our team often "how would you describe the Gophers if you were watching us play?" Good teams have an identity. In our league, if adjectives such as toughness and grit aren't used then you're not going to win. Plain and simple. We showed great mental and physical toughness in Vancouver. We got stronger as the game went on. We didn't allow fatigue and poor free throw shooting to affect our defense. We won ugly. We need to take pride in that. We are a man down.
Eric Curry is extremely important to this team. We need to scratch and claw for everything right now. All three wins will be quality wins down the road.
We laid an egg mentally and physically vs. Boston College. I'm not sure what the problem was but we looked tired. Clearly we couldn't make a shot. That's not an excuse or something I care to elaborate on. When you're trying to get a road win you have to fight through all the elements. That's why it's hard to win on the road. You are going to get in late and be fatigued. We have to get stronger as the game goes on and we didn't. We let our offense affect our effort and intensity. We stopped attacking the basket because we missed a few around the rim. We kept shooting threes because we wanted to make one so that we could get the weight of the world off our shoulders. Below I will break down the Boston College game. I won't give a breakdown of the three big wins in the Vancouver Showcase for obvious reasons. Go negative if you want people to read your blog. That's rule number one that my favorite local media members have taught me and let's face it - I only do this blog for clicks!
Offense: D
We missed a lot of open shots. A lot! That's what our players will take from that performance. In my opinion that's just an excuse. We didn't adjust our attack throughout the course of the game. If shots aren't falling, make the adjustment, and drive the ball. Go inside. Hit the middle of the zone and attack. We were stubborn. Clearly we were cold from three but we also missed three point-blank dunks and several layups. We totally abandoned what we did well vs. Washington's zone. We were 1 for 9 on challenged shots. We sprinted the court properly only 82 percent of the time. Only converted 9 for 23 times on the break as well. We better be prepared for more zone because teams are going to watch that film and surely game plan accordingly.
Defense: D
Coaches often talk about how nothing should impact your effort and intensity on the defensive side of the ball. Clearly that wasn't the case with us. They didn't throw anything at us offensively that we didn't prepare for. We got lazier, not tougher as the game went on. Our post defense on Popovic was horrendous and we let Tabbs do whatever he wanted in the lane. Some positives were we did a solid job on Bowman and Chatman. That's about it. Defense and rebounding needs to be our identity! We did draw three charges which was good to see. Only 14 deflections is 21 below our goal of 35.
Rebounding: D
Minus-7 on the glass won't cut it. Gave up 10 defensive rebounds to their point guard. Hint, hint to our guards. Get in there and scrap! Mitchell got several 50/50 balls as well. I would have given us an F if it wasn't for 13 offensive rebounds.
95%: F
The little things win games on the road especially when your shots aren't falling. Boston College won the loose ball battle 11 to 4. We bailed on at least three charges. Our guys complained to the refs on several occasions. Let's leave that to Mike Grimm. Several people have tried to give us a pass by saying the travel made us look tired. Who cares. Those are excuses. We have to overcome any adversity that is thrown our way.
Coaching: F
Mike Leach has a sign on his wall in his office that reads "You're either coaching it or allowing it to happen." I love this quote. In our staff meeting the next day our coaches, myself included, frustratingly complained about all the things our guys did during the game. I had to stop my guys and tell them it's on us. We didn't play hard for 40 minutes. That's my fault. We didn't execute properly vs. the zone. On me as well. We got outworked, out-toughed, and outcoached. It will be fixed.
Friday night vs. Oklahoma State:
I am going to be honest. I wasn't initially very excited about losing a home game to play in U.S. Bank Stadium. Those feelings went away yesterday when we took the team over to practice. What an amazing setup. To see our guys faces up on that Jumbotron in a world class stadium is something they will never forget. We hope to see everyone out there. I have been told there is less than 60,000 seats available so get online and buy them before they run out! Oklahoma State is playing at a high level. They just had their way with a LSU, a top-20 opponent. They will deny every pass which will make it difficult to run our set plays. It's going to be a great opportunity for our guys and could potentially be a quality win come March. Put the kids to bed, head downtown for dinner, then head over to U.S. Bank! Gopher fans will love our new purple uniforms. Just kidding! Wear gold everyone. See you there!
Go Gophers!
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Aaron GleemanVerified account@AaronGleeman
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Trinity High School@GoRocks
