uneblinstu's postgame chatter: Vol: 10; ed: 10 - vs. Minnesota

That was the most fun I've had at a home game since no-sit Sunday. Great effort and everybody contributed something to the W. The most encouraging thing for me was the toughness and will to compete for 40 minutes tonight. I hope this kind of effort can be duplicated for the rest of the year. Showing up like that will give us a legit shot to at least win the rest of our home conference games. It was also fun to look at the Gopherhole board and laugh at their meltdowns. For a basketball school, their commentary was far less substantive and basketball savvy than what I read on this board.  

12 minutes ago, HB said:

 

Copeland and Roby dominated All-Americans?   Wow, I'll have what you're having.  

Which All-American scored in isolation when Roby was guarding him?  Which one kept Copeland from getting 12 points on 5 shots?  

I did exaggerate though. 

Expand it to front court:

Murphy/Lynch/Fitzgerald/Hurt/Konate = 19 pts, 24rb, 2a, 4blk, 3stl, 8TO, 14 fouls

7/21 FG = 33%

Copeland/Tshimanga/Roby/Okeke = 22pts, 17rb, 2a, 7blk, 0stl, 8TO, 10 fouls

9/15 FG = 60%

On the surface it's close to a wash, but our bigs were so much more efficient with their shot selection.  

Copeland and Roby can both cause bigs to guard on the perimeter.  That matters.  A lot.  I still love Morrow, but the Jacobson thing is just baffling to me at this point given Copeland's production and Roby's all-around contributions.  Jacobson would've been an enormous liability last night.  

9 minutes ago, big red22 said:

Time will tell, but you really seem to find a way to drag down a quality win!

 

The way you responded to nustudent before the game with the "How can it be a must win" stuff, made it seem like you felt like we were a inferior opponent before the game.  Now they (Minnesota) are over rated? 

 

Put me in the I don't get it club!

Fair enough, but it isn't a real stretch to see that we are indeed the inferior opponent at least for now in pretty much every B1G game we play - a quick look at KenPom or RPI will show that - AND that Minnesota is (at least by the eye test early on) almost criminally over-rated as well.

I want out guys to do as well as anyone else, but one good performance against a team and coach we consistently make our bitch at home doesn't have me swimming in confidence that we have somehow managed to turn the corner yet.  Remember, even our 12 win team last year managed several real nice wins in conference play.

What we need from these guys is consistency.

1 hour ago, 49r said:

Taking a peek over at GopherHole to get a nice dose of schadenfreude to start my day and a big talking point for them this morning is officiating.  Naturally, they feel like they got jobbed mercilessly by the refs and to a certain extent I have agree.  We tend not to think about it after a win but I did think we were the beneficiaries of pretty, um, friendly refs last night.  What say you HHC?

I'm going to disagree with this.  

I thought the refs were consistent in allowing a little more contact down low than in some other games where the refs make the game choppy by blowing the whistle too much.  We had some possessions where we get inside, drew contact, and there was no call.  Just like they did.

Having said that, there were some clearly blown calls and they got the benefit of at least as many of those as we did.

12 minutes ago, 49r said:

 

Fair enough, but it isn't a real stretch to see that we are indeed the inferior opponent at least for now in pretty much every B1G game we play - a quick look at KenPom or RPI will show that - AND that Minnesota is (at least by the eye test early on) almost criminally over-rated as well.

Nate Mason is a great PG.  Jordan Murphy is a great PF.  The rest of their starting lineup is outstanding.  They were neck and neck with Top 10 Miami in their earlier loss.  

I personally think Minnesota has the best starting five in the B1G, but they definitely lack depth, and we exposed that last night.  

I agree that the refs were wearing red for a good majority of the game last night.  I also thought Minnesota had some crybabies who made the refs care even less.  

I love Jordy, but I'm ready for Isaiah to start.

IMO, Jordy and Duby should split time coming off the bench.

I want to see what a starting lineup of Watson, Taylor, Palmer, Copeland, Roby would play like.

8 minutes ago, LK1 said:

Copeland and Roby can both cause bigs to guard on the perimeter.  That matters.  A lot.  I still love Morrow, but the Jacobson thing is just baffling to me at this point given Copeland's production and Roby's all-around contributions.  Jacobson would've been an enormous liability last night.  

The thing is though MJ or EM would have been playing instead of Jordy/Dube, not Copeland/Roby.

Typically we talk about missing those guys when we get killed on the boards. Watson and Taylor crashing the boards to the point we won the rebounding battle helped a lot last night. It was a good effort night for everyone as there were at least a few times where our bigs knocked balls towards the guards.

8 minutes ago, Norm Peterson said:

I love Jordy, but I'm ready for Isaiah to start.

 

IMO, Jordy and Duby should split time coming off the bench.

 

I want to see what a starting lineup of Watson, Taylor, Palmer, Copeland, Roby would play like.

Agree lets do it Saturday!!!!

There might be something to @hhcdimes theory that Jordy was still recovering from surgery.  He looked last night to be a little more like the Jordy we remembered from the end of last season...could be he's just shaking off rust?  Hope so.

Hopefully Jordy realizes that he’s not that far off from being a dominant presence down low.  He’s got work to do, yes.  But he didn’t play any worse really than Minnys supposedly big time bigs.

9 minutes ago, 49r said:

There might be something to @hhcdimes theory that Jordy was still recovering from surgery.  He looked last night to be a little more like the Jordy we remembered from the end of last season...could be he's just shaking off rust?  Hope so.

Could we borrow Bakary Konate for a few weeks for Jordy to go against to gain confidence?

1) That was the best we have pushed the ball and moved offensively that i have seen, S/0 to Tim and Coach Michael. 

2) Our defense lead to constant run-outs and chances to score in transition.

3) That was sick 

8 minutes ago, hhcdimes said:

 

The thing is though MJ or EM would have been playing instead of Jordy/Dube, not Copeland/Roby.

Typically we talk about missing those guys when we get killed on the boards. Watson and Taylor crashing the boards to the point we won the rebounding battle helped a lot last night. It was a good effort night for everyone as there were at least a few times where our bigs knocked balls towards the guards.

I don't agree.  EM was a better rebounder than anyone on our current roster.  That I agree with.  Jacobson was not.  Both of them were a huge defensive liability against opposing centers.  I'll take missed shots over a few rebounds all day.  

I love the fact that we have two true centers (Duby is a true center by strength and sheer leaping ability) playing center and nothing else.  I think it's a bad idea to overlook FG% from opposing bigs, and I think Miles is aware of this.  Defense matters.  True centers alter shots.  They draw fouls.  They wear down opposing bigs.  They set more annoying screens.  

Look at the last time we played Minnesota:

Murphy/Lynch:  31pts on 12/16 shooting:  75%

56 minutes

Last night:

Murphy/Lynch:  19pts on 7/18 shooting:  39% 

61 minutes

I know they had an off night, but we also have the 1-year-later improved version of them here.  We were not physically overmatched inside last night on either end of the court.    

38 minutes ago, Norm Peterson said:

I love Jordy, but I'm ready for Isaiah to start.

 

IMO, Jordy and Duby should split time coming off the bench.

 

I want to see what a starting lineup of Watson, Taylor, Palmer, Copeland, Roby would play like.

I think it depends on matchups, but I generally disagree, especially in conference play.  I have really liked the rotation of late.  The subs between Copeland and Roby were more frequent last night.  Having both of them fresh basically the entire game was  pretty demoralizing for our opponents last night.  I kept waiting for a lull, and then Roby or Copeland would be checking in and I'd think, "Oh yeah.  We lose nothing with this substitution."  

I wish I could see +/- stats.  

I could not find it anywhere, so i will ask here.

Is Nate Mason of Minnesota the son of former QB at Nebraska Nate Mason (I see on his bio that his father is a Nate Mason), but in my limited search time, i could not figure out if it was the same Nate Mason that played in the early 80s for the Huskers.

Does anyone have video of the guy getting ejected last night?? That was awesome. 

durp

On a scale of 1-10, I'd say Minnesota's intensity was a 2 or 3; Nebraska's was at least an 8. But the way we substituted players (especially defensively) allowed us to stay fresh and give Minnesota different looks. Minnesota was never able to find a rhythm. Kenya Hunter's defensive game plan worked great!

Fun night at The Vault. Kudos to the coaching staff. Congrats to the kids on a great win. GBR.

4 minutes ago, hhcdimes said:

durp

 

That has got to be the worst blown call on a phantom illegal screen. I was at the game and didn't see the replay 'til now. Horrible call! Even Minnesota's 2 guys were wondering what was called.

2 hours ago, 49r said:

Another common theme I'm seeing over there is just how high their expectations are for the Gophers this year.  They're pissed because they expect to challenge MSU for the league title and view their team as a top 10 or top 5 type team.  

Richie P paid for so much more than what they got last night. Need some ROI soon. It's the Pitino legacy.

19 minutes ago, jason2486 said:

That has got to be the worst blown call on a phantom illegal screen. I was at the game and didn't see the replay 'til now. Horrible call! Even Minnesota's 2 guys were wondering what was called.

My goodnes I guess so!  Holy cow!  Maybe, MAYBE call an illegal screen on the Minnesota guy, but Roby came closer to touching their bench than the other player.  Referee was not even in position to make that call. 

2 hours ago, Norm Peterson said:

 

If I'm remembering correctly, it was right in the spot where Evan Taylor got the inbound/backcourt pass and was trapped on the sideline and tried to dribble through the trap down the sideline, and there was contact and, instead of calling the foul, they called out-of-bounds off Evan.

 

Before they inbounded the ball, the official went and got a towel (which he then did NOT use to wipe the floor where Evan had fallen, so I have no idea why he wanted a towel) called a security person over, pointed out the guy, and had him removed.

 

I'm guessing the gentleman provided his candid views on the no-call on the sideline.

I told my son at that time, that guy could most likely buy the BIG so maybe shouldn't try to make him look foolish in front of the home crowd. 

I was worried at that point that we weren't going to get a call and loose because of a mad ref.

Just something I was thinking about last night, and I always get in trouble when I think, just ask my wife.

But to me it looks like Copeland was on a team once where the other players yelled at him for taking a bad shot or called him a ball hog or something.  There are times if he just drove or put up a shot I think it would be good, but he often passes up on those moments.

Kind of like those after school specials where the kid has the ball and we can hear his voice as he is thinking to himself, "Should I drive here, or pass, Jimmy told me he would take my tennis shoes if I screw this up so..."

I like he game, But I think I could love his game.

Anyone got a clip of the technical foul situation? I loved it. Got me fired up just watching.

1 hour ago, jason2486 said:

That has got to be the worst blown call on a phantom illegal screen. I was at the game and didn't see the replay 'til now. Horrible call! Even Minnesota's 2 guys were wondering what was called.

Ha!  Since we won, that’s pretty funny!!!  This video should go on some “bloopers” show.