The team has gone 2-0 over the last week, but it hasn’t been pretty
It hasn’t been very pretty, but the Gopher basketball team is 4-1 to start the season. Over the last week, the team has notched two wins over Yale and Cleveland State after their loss to North Texas on the 13th.
As a means to recap this past week of Gopher hoops, let’s play a little game of Good News/Bad News.
Good News: The team took care of business this past week going 2-0 over teams they should beat. Yale is a top two or three team in the Ivy League, but should not be competing with a Big Ten team. Cleveland State is a middle-of-the-pack Horizon League team.
Bad News: They STRUGGLED to come away with wins in both games. In the win over Yale, the Gophers allowed a 23-4 run but the Bulldogs in the first half, trailed by 10 at halftime, scoring only 19 points at the break. They trailed 50-48 with 5 minutes left but managed to secure the 59-56 win.
Against Cleveland State, it wasn’t much better. A 10-0 run by the Vikings in the first half gave them a lead, but the Gophers led at the half and closed out Cleveland State by allowing only 8 points in the final 13+ minutes and secured a 58-47 win.
Good News: The Gopher defense has been decent. They rank 34th nationally in defensive points per possession and 46th in effective field goal percentage. They have held teams to under 60 points in all but one of their games.
Bad News: The offense has been terrible, almost unwatchable. While holding teams to under 60 is typically a good thing, the offense has gone three consecutive games without scoring 60. They are 279th in 3-point shooting percentage and if it were not for Dawson Garcia that ranking would be significantly worse.
Good News: Garcia has been awesome this season. He is 2nd in the conference in scoring, with 23 points per game and he is responsible for 36.4% of Minnesota’s points. KenPom.com has a Player of the Year rating system and Garcia is currently 7th on the list. He has been scoring, rebounding, defending, leading and everything this team needs of him.
Bad News: Nobody else can score. Brendan Rigsby is the team’s 2nd leading scorer with 8.6 points per game. But he’s also shooting just 34% from the field and 27% from three. Lu’Cye Patterson is 3/18 from three, Femi Odukale is 0/8 and Isaac Asuma is 4/14. Aside from just looking at the stats, it is painfully obvious that Odukale and Frank Mitchell offer very little offensively. Rigsby has put up some numbers but is going to be limited, especially in Big Ten play. Patterson and Ausma show some offensive capabilities but they are still trying to figure out how to score and be effective in this offense, at this level.
Good News: They are 4-1 and there are opportunities for more wins before we get into the meat of the Big Ten schedule in June. They should be favored in six of their seven remaining non-conference games.
Bad News: Being favored may very well be misleading. This team is currently underperforming and if they cannot find a way to score on offense they will probably go 4-2.
Good News: There is ample opportunity to get better before January. Tehre are some solid pieces with this team and they still can bring it all together. Garcia is obviously great, Mike Mitchell is a good shooter (when he takes good shots), Patterson can score, Asuma has the look of a solid point guard, Frank Mitchell can be a good rebounder and Odukale can defend. There are pieces.
Bad News: I’m not holding my breath. This team, while there are some talented pieces, does not appear close to putting it all together. And even if they do, this doesn’t look like a team who can compete in the Big Ten where all of the other schools also have talented players.
I was optimistic to start the season, but I now fear that this is going to be a very long season.
UP NEXT: Central Michigan comes to town on Monday. Then the Gophers head to Florida on Thanksgiving to face Wichita State as part of the ESPN Events Invitational and either Florida or Wake Forest on Black Friday.