Phil Riewer
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Joined: 8/24/2007
From: MN
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In today's closed scrimmage, Minnesota defeated Iowa State 77-68. GI goes "Inside the Numbers" to see that players from last year's Gopher roster led the way in the nine point victory.
Each year teams can play a closed scrimmage instead of public exhibition game and like they have commonly done the Gophers decided to play a closed scrimmage against a local high major opponent. Minnesota faced Iowa State in Ames and were led by a Daniel Oturu double-double.
How good is Iowa State expected to be? The Cyclones lost four of their top five players so they were commonly picked in the bottom three spots of the Big XII in preseason predictions (the Big XII predictions are all over the map so tough to tell). They do return two starters in Tyrese Haliburton and Michael Jacobson.
Here are the numbers to know from the Gopher victory:
Minnesota's starters were Marcus Carr, Gabe Kalscheur, Payton Willis, Alihan Demir, and Daniel Oturu as expected. The guard core of Kalscheur, Carr, and Willis each played between 30 to 35 minutes in the three backcourt spots and I believe you are likely to see a lot of that until some depth can be established. Daniel Oturu played 29, Alihan Demir 23, Jarvis Omersa played 20, and Michael Hurt played 17 minutes.
The four freshmen were split into two groups: Tre Williams, Bryan Greenlee, and Isaiah Ihnen played about the same (10-12 minutes) while Samuel Freeman played one rotation of four minutes. In the One & Done Podcast released today, Marcus Fuller talked about Jarvis Omersa playing the back-up five a lot of minutes plus some four, Ihnen and Hurt playing the back-up minutes at the four (some at the three), and then Greenlee and Williams backing up the veteran guards. That's pretty much what we see in the box score today.
Haliburton and Jacobson were held to a combined to shoot 5 of 21 from the floor for 13 points total. Penn State transfer Rasir Bolton (who will be immediately eligible despite not being hurt last year or having a known hardship - word is Penn State was ok with his immediate eligibility and helped the process) shot 3 of 13 leading the team with 15 points. The Gopher defense held the top three Cyclone players to 8 of 34 shooting which is very encouraging. As a team Iowa State shot 30.6 percent (22 of 72) so the Gopher defense that we expect to be very good, must of been very good.
Worried about the Gopher rebounding? So far so good as Minnesota won the battle of the boards 51-40 vs ISU with Daniel Oturu grabbing 13. Seven Gophers grabbed 4 or more boards.
We've been looking at Marcus Carr and wondering what he will be in terms of playmaking for himself vs playmaking for others. Today he scored a team high 17 making all five foul shots and shooting 6 of 15 plus dished out four assists. But he also missed all four threes and had four turnovers.
The Stability. That's why I feel like calling Gabe Kalscheur and Payton Willis this year as that is what I think they will be. Six of the seven Willis shots came at the arc and he made half those threes scoring a dozen. Gabe made four triples scoring a game high 17 but he shot 5 of 14. You have to believe they both played a huge role in 6-foot-5 Haliburton and 6-foot-4 Bolton shooting as poorly as they did.
Difference in the game? At least from what we can tell in the box score... Daniel Oturu. He had 13 points and 13 boards, ten on the defensive end, plus made 5 of 6 foul shots. Not it's not 30 and 20 but I'm not seeing anything near double-double numbers from any ISU bigs.
Jarvis Omersa and Alihan Demir. Alihan only took three shots in 23 minutes, Jarvis missed six of seven shots in 20 minutes. Not exciting shooting numbers but they combined for 11 boards which is important.
Michael Hurt played 17 minutes and looked to be efficient making the two shots he took, making the two foul shots he attempted, and finishing with six points and four boards with no turnovers and a steal.
The freshmen (Williams, Ihnen, Greenlee, Freeman) shot 2 of 8 for the game. Williams was 0 for 2 and had a couple turnovers, Greenlee chased down four boards, Ihnen was 1 for 3 from the field, his make was a three.
Minnesota shot 19 of 23 from the foul line (very good), they were better than ISU from the field (38 percent), the three numbers looked like last season (8 of 28).
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SSG Riewer, Greg A Co 2/136 CAB
KIA 23 March 2007 Habbaniyah Iraq
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RE: Gopher Basketball (Mens) - 
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