Minnesota

[BigGoosie13]

Re: Minnesota

Rick Pitino may have been behind the Gopher bench, but we had Andy North rocking Jackrabbit gear behind our bench.

This game wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. The end of the 1st half and the first 4 minutes of the 2nd were rough, but otherwise we went blow for blow and had our chances to take a lead in the 1st half and drastically cut into the lead when it was 61-49 in the 2nd. The last full game I watched was the TTU game and from that game it looks like we cut down on the amount of bad entry passes we were making. The thing that held us back this game was knocking down that elusive 3-pointer(story of the season right?). We are too good of a shooting team to not be able to start making them. Dykstra was a boss again and it was really nice seing Bittle out on the floor. He is a pesky defender and I really trust him with the ball. Hopefully now that Bittle is back we can start to get things going. Go Jacks!!!

[Hip2daHop]

Re: Minnesota

What's Andy's tie to the Jacks again?

[Nidaros]

Re: Minnesota

One of these years we break the losing string. 17 now but who knows maybe 1-17 next year.

[UWMandSDSU]

Re: Minnesota

What's Andy's tie to the Jacks again?

Family friends w/ Krabbenhoft family (Joe being Assistant now).

[3ptJackrabbit]

Re: Minnesota

What's Andy's tie to the Jacks again?

He's friends with Joe K's dad who's the CEO of Sanford Health.

[jack power]

Re: Minnesota

Rick Pitino may have been behind the Gopher bench, but we had Andy North rocking Jackrabbit gear behind our bench.

This game wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. The end of the 1st half and the first 4 minutes of the 2nd were rough, but otherwise we went blow for blow and had our chances to take a lead in the 1st half and drastically cut into the lead when it was 61-49 in the 2nd. The last full game I watched was the TTU game and from that game it looks like we cut down on the amount of bad entry passes we were making. The thing that held us back this game was knocking down that elusive 3-pointer(story of the season right?). We are too good of a shooting team to not be able to start making them. Dykstra was a boss again and it was really nice seing Bittle out on the floor. He is a pesky defender and I really trust him with the ball. Hopefully now that Bittle is back we can start to get things going. Go Jacks!!!

One of the many things i thought this team would struggle with post Nate, is getting open shots but they have got wide open looks in the games I've watched. Obviously they're aren't dropping. Bittle being back is a huge positive,like you said he's a pesky defender who also takes some chances which you have to do against a team like that.

[Nidaros]

Re: Minnesota

He's friends with Joe K's dad who's the CEO of Sanford Health.

For those like my self who was asking Andy who? He is a pro golfer. I pay very little attention to the PGA.

[jackrabbit1979]

Re: Minnesota

One of the many things i thought this team would struggle with post Nate, is getting open shots but they have got wide open looks in the games I've watched. Obviously they're aren't dropping. Bittle being back is a huge positive,like you said he's a pesky defender who also takes some chances which you have to do against a team like that.

I've noticed the same thing - we seem to be missing good open looks. When you look at the stats for the team, our 3-point shooting percentage as group has went down from 38% last year to 32% so far this year. One could think that some of that is due to the Wolter-less Jacks, and you can make that argument that he delivered more open shots and elevated the confidence of our players to make shots. It's been discussed that we were more of a stand and shoot team with him at the point versus getting those shots in the motion offense this year. However, you could also look at Nate's 3-point percentage last year being lower than the team as a whole, so he was bringing that pure percentage down with his shooting.

The biggest difference IMO this year has been Chad White. He shot nearly 42% on threes last year (amazing) and is only at 29% this year. In fact, if you would bring him back to his percentage from last year, I would guess our overall team percentage would be almost equal or higher than what we shot last year. The rest of our shooters (besides Horstman, small sample size) are shooting at percentages close to equal to or higher than last year. If you have watched the games, Chad has missed a lot of open shots and made a number with folks right in his face (Nagy said as much in one post game). Let's hope that the percentages start to even out and Chad starts draining them as we know he can - I think it will start to happen. I think that is critical to our success. If you watched the game last night, he had a number of opportunities to hit a big three that would have given us a lead or momentum at some key points.

[hareball]

Re: Minnesota

Andy North is a strong supporter of the Wisconsin Badgers and through Joe Krabbenhoft's time with the Badgers has become acquainted with Joe and his family.

[Southeast]

Re: Minnesota

Yes, open shots have been there in most games. I expected less of those without Wolters too. If an extra two or three of those start falling per game we will be ok.

Bittle looked pretty healthy to me last night. He seems to bring some energy. The Big Ten anouncer quoted Nagy as saying that Bittle is his "toughest player by far". I think he'll be a big help once he settles back into the rotation.