Minnesota

[mr76]

Re: Minnesota

Nothing against Monaghan, but Bittle is the better player. He is going to be very important to us this year and throughout his career.

[NorCalJack]

Re: Minnesota

I think Bittle is the reason that Monaghan left. (Purely speculation and I have no facts). But if I was Monaghan and knew Nate had another year and Bittle was coming, Monaghan would be a backup his whole career.

[jackmd]

Re: Minnesota

I think Bittle is the reason that Monaghan left. (Purely speculation and I have no facts). But if I was Monaghan and knew Nate had another year and Bittle was coming, Monaghan would be a backup his whole career.

Nagy said as much. Coach was very disappointed when Zach decided to leave. He knew he needed Zach's experience and talent to bridge the gap between Nate and Bittle as well as Zach's skill when teams pressured Nate and forced the ball to someone else. Zach clearly wanted a greater role and knew he wasn't going to get that at SDSU. I really like Zach's game and wish he would have sacrificed his playing time to fill a role on this Jackrabbit team. Jackrabbits would be a better team with him on the bench.

[Jacks#1Fan]

Re: Minnesota

FWIW (probably not much, but haven't had time to read the board since returning from Minnesota), I always get a bit amused by how many people jump off the train and then run like hell to get back on. Here's what I saw in the UM game: not only our best player, but our floor general who makes most things happen on the team, is out. Our sixth man can't play. That means a freshman point guard steps in where an All American is on the bench injured, and Marcus Heemstra, our seventh man, starts. That left on the bench Horstman (50 minutes this season), Jacobson (19) and Fielmeier (2). So do any of you really think that the game situation only had us missing our top player? I saw the lack of depth as just as big a factor, and throw in two other facts...Minnesota is Big 10, ranked 14th in the current poll and 10th in the Sagarin ratings...and there was no time for the Jacks to have any time to adjust to a different and very inexperienced point guard.

I think Jake Bittle is going to be just fine when we don't have to put him on the raised floor of a very good Big 10 team in his first college start, six months after playing in high school. I think we are much better than we looked Tuesday, but considering our liabilities I also think that Minnesota's talent had a lot to do with how we looked. So, I'm disappointed just like a lot of posters, but my main disappointment was not getting to watch Nate play on a night when there was a stage that I know he wanted desperately to be on.