Basketball Minnesota defeats Penn State, 69-61

[Lion_Backer]

I felt that the team did not play for him last night. They look like they did not want to be there and really didn’t care about the outcome of the game. And that scares me. He may have lost the team.

With the hiring of Coach Knowles as DC for the football program, the university has demonstrated that they are 'all in' when it comes to that program.

I have no inside info but NCAA men's basketball is the other major revenue generator for the athletic department and perhaps the basketball team isn't feeling the love $ that the football program is receiving.

I'm not certain what the problem(s) are with this team, but their recent results speak for themselves.

 

[bdroc]

Last year's team was competitive and they returned all impact players except Wahab. He was replaced by Konan who might be an upgrade.

Why should we be worse? The only logical answers are that Ace is hurting quite a but or the team lost it's spirit.

 

[Texas Lion]

The problem here is we have a really good coach and a really good staff. However, in order to try and compete right away they went the way of the portal and IMO portal guys make good fill in guys to a roster that has already been there.....not a full team.

 

[bcspsu]

The problem here is we have a really good coach and a really good staff. However, in order to try and compete right away they went the way of the portal and IMO portal guys make good fill in guys to a roster that has already been there.....not a full team.

As is usual with this program which usually doesn't have great or any depth, they've predictably suffered many injuries which they just couldn't have afforded to suffer. However, if you watched this team closely even at the start of the season when they were scoring over 100 points a game several times, you could see that they were a fundamentally unsound and poorly coached team. Now, maybe this group just doesn't want to be coached. However, this looks like a poorly coached team that has no identity and does very little to mitigate their deficiencies.

This program has experienced mostly low moments since they joined the Big 10, but this last month and change may be the nadir of the Big 10 era. I don't believe that this coach has the requisite personality to transform this program into a top half Big 10 program. If you really are being honest with yourself, do you really believe that this program under his leadership is going to be much better in the next several seasons than what we've seen this season? I surely don't. I think that we all know that it's just going to be more of the same.

 

[PSU4U]

I felt that the team did not play for him last night. They look like they did not want to be there and really didn’t care about the outcome of the game. And that scares me. He may have lost the team.

I had the same impression but don't want to be too critical at this point. However, there has to be a reason. It's either him in some way or a bad mix of player personalities. But something seems wrong to me.

 

[PSU4U]

As is usual with this program which usually doesn't have great or any depth, they've predictably suffered many injuries which they just couldn't have afforded to suffer. However, if you watched this team closely even at the start of the season when they were scoring over 100 points a game several times, you could see that they were a fundamentally unsound and poorly coached team. Now, maybe this group just doesn't want to be coached. However, this looks like a poorly coached team that has no identity and does very little to mitigate their deficiencies.

This program has experienced mostly low moments since they joined the Big 10, but this last month and change may be the nadir of the Big 10 era. I don't believe that this coach has the requisite personality to transform this program into a top half Big 10 program. If you really are being honest with yourself, do you really believe that this program under his leadership is going to be much better in the next several seasons than what we've seen this season? I surely don't. I think that we all know that it's just going to be more of the same.

Not buying the poorly coached theme at this point. Could be a bad mix between style and players or players who want to run the show. My guess would be a mix of things.

 

[Marylovesthelions]

No one will ever build a championship bb team at Penn State. Red Auerbach and Phil could not have. We are cursed.

 

[bison13]

Not buying the poorly coached theme at this point. Could be a bad mix between style and players or players who want to run the show. My guess would be a mix of things.

yeah we are not playing anywhere near the same type of defense we did before Jan. Ace is about 50% of what he was defensively. Hicks has reverted back to his mean, below average defensive player and not getting as open of looks against good comp. Losing Puff really hurt with the rotation and allowing Kern to be energy off the bench and not have to play as small as much. Coach beat Purdue and NW and then thought they had a chance to win more games than they normally would so he tried to play the starters more minutes than he needed to. Now I think the young guys arent happy and the old guys are tired.

 

[johnmpsu]

I'm no basketball x an o guy but from my couch it seems like they are playing much less full court pressure on defense. On offense there is much less ball movement. Lots of dribble drives and then put up a very contested lay up but rarely passing out to an open shooter.

Is that all due to injuries? I get that on the D side as that kind of pressure is tough to maintain. Maybe the team is just tired. Tired legs usually results in poor shooting. If tired that's on the coach to see that and attempt to remedy it.

 

[Richie O]