Defense, the good news...

[spartcat]

The cats struck me as night and day better on D than against MSU, especially in the zone. No real foul trouble except for Lumpkin, good help on the dribble drives that are Minn's bread and butter, and not a lot of points from their bigs. Yes, there were some wide open 3's (early, mostly) but not when we zoned them.

Now if we can find the basket, we could go on a run, one which we really need at this point.

 

[Medill90]

I didn't think Law and Lindsey, and others, were sufficiently aggressive on offense. And I mean mostly without the ball. B Mac and Dererk are the exceptions. There wasn't enough speed and power on the cuts and screens. And the ball moved a little too slow. Minny is too talented and too athletic to slowly roll through your sets until something opens up.

Kudos to Pitino for completely turning it around.

 

[ubercat]

And at the same time, I thought Minny's ball movement on the perimeter was fantastic against our zone. They got a lot of wide open looks from 3 point land. Their cold spell kept us in the game.

 

[Wrestlerneverdiesasacatfan]

We need Ash out there 20-25 minutes! He is our quickest and best defender! Minnesota was open all day from three point land!

 

[Smokejumper]

The cats struck me as night and day better on D than against MSU, especially in the zone. No real foul trouble except for Lumpkin, good help on the dribble drives that are Minn's bread and butter, and not a lot of points from their bigs. Yes, there were some wide open 3's (early, mostly) but not when we zoned them.

Now if we can find the basket, we could go on a run, one which we really need at this point.

To my untrained eyes, i think conditioning played a major role in the game. I give the team great credit for a very strong defensive effort all night long, but you could see the fatigue set in for almost every player - hands on the hips gasping for air during the first 20 seconds of every offensive set. The top of the key dribble weave at the beginning of every offensive set looked slow and not sharp - lots of missed looks on open cutters and shooters. And most of the missed threes looked like they missed short.

If they hit 1 or 2 of those threes, or an easy pick and roll then the outcome of the game is totally different - they are so close. Hopefully this just reinforces the importance of conditioning and drives those guys harder to be hell on wheels on both sides of the court for a full game. And maybe CCC gets more confidence in his bench to give Taphorn and some other capable players a bit more time on the floor. There is certainly more than one occasion when i would have liked to have seen taphorn take a three instead of (whomever)...

Anyways, another strong effort in their progression towards becoming a tournament team (which they clearly are now with the level of defense).

Onwards and upwards...