The Minnesota Gopher men won a pair of exhibition games this month–beating D2 Bemidji State 90-65 and D3 Hamline 74-57. The won the 1st and 4th halves (the 1st half against Bemidji and the 2nd against Hamline) just 78-72. Against D2 and D3 opposition, this is an alarming score. But, they did manage to win the 2nd and 3rd halves (the 2nd half against Bemidji and the 1st against Hamline) 91-50. Will the real Gophers please stand up.
Considering that the Gophers are widely regarded as the 17th best team in the 18-team Big 10 (I have the 15th), this is no cause for an alarm over and above that already being felt as it regards the Gopher program. And so almost any positive sign is, well, a positive sign. Are there any positive signs to be drawn from these 2 games? Well….
The Depth Chart
Center–Frank Mitchell will be the starting post unless his injury the other night against Hamline proves to be serious. He played 18 minutes against Bemidji, scoring 6 pts and grabbing 7 boards. He went out against Hamline after just 4 minutes, having scored 4 points. So he’s averaging almost a point every 2 minutes and a board every 3 minutes. If he played 32 minutes, as is not unlikely, he might be looking at 14 ppg and 10 boards. Gopher fans would be good with that.
After his injury he was replaced very largely by 6-10 Trey Edmonds, like F. Mitchell a portal catch for the Gophers. He played well with 9 points and 7 boards in 20 minutes. In 35 minutes over the 2 games, he is at 5.5 ppg, 5 boards and 1.5 blocks. These 2 give the Gophers what looks like a decent rotation in the post, and of course Dawson Garcia can go down there if he has to. Mitchell and Edmonds are not going to average 20 ppg, but they also do not represent a big decline from Pharrel Payne, just (honestly) a small decline.
Power Forward–Obviously the Gophers would vastly prefer to keep Dawson Garcia at the 4 where his mid-range shooting and passing are better featured. So far this year he’s averaging 13 ppg and 5 boards while shooting about 67% in limited minutes. In a more normal number of minutes he could be 50 percent above that.
His backup looks right now to be Kaedyn Betts. The 6-8 sophomore is being given every opportunity so far, starting one game and playing 35 minutes total, scoring 10 points with 5 boards. On the other hand, it may be that Edmonds ends up as the backup at both the 4 and the 5 spot.
Small Forward–It’s not obvious that the Gophers have a small forward. Parker Fox at 6-8 is a big 3 who plays mostly around the rim. And he didn’t start either of the 2 games. It looks like Ben likes him off the bench and I’ve got no real problem with that. But in the Big 10 the Gophers are going to need his size alongside Garcia and whomever. But there’s also no obvious backup to Fox at the 3. Freshman Grayson Grove is another big 3 (6-9) though he is in fact more of a perimeter player, and one who almost certainly is going to need some seasoning before he’s ready for the Gophers’ big-time opponents.
Wing–And, so, I would suggest that the Gophers will go small as much as they can (that is, to be clear, with 3 guards) and, again, in the Big 10, they’re going to be forced to get a little bigger. But in game 2, the Gophers started 3 guards, one of whom was Brennan Rigsby, the transfer from Oregon, who in fact started both games and played a second-high of 55 minutes. After Garcia, he appears to be the Gophers top scoring threat, scoring at 16.5 ppg in 2 games while shooting 67%. He’s just 6-3 but he also grabbed 7 rebounds, so if anybody among the Gophers guards is a wing, its Rigsby. If this is the starting lineup (3 guards), the Fox and Grove are the backups at the 3 or the wing when the Gophers want that extra size.
Point Guard–Mike Mitchell will quite obviously be starting at the 1. In 37 minutes, he scored 28 points with 12 assists and 3 steals, and shot 42%.
His backups at the point are Lu’Cye Patterson and Isaac Asuma. Patterson is the biggest wild card in the Gophers rotation (well, along with F. Mitchell if his injury is anything serious) for the simple reason that Patterson did not play against Bemidji. But, he started against Hamline. In 19 minutes against Hamline he had 5 points, 2 assists and shot 33%.
Coach Johnson started 3 guards against Hamline and none of them was Isaac Asuma, who came off the bench to post a team-high 30 minutes (and a high of 61 minutes in the 2 games). It may be that Ben will want to bring the freshman Asuma off the bench, but right now it looks like he’ll be out there at crunch time. In 2 games, he is averaging just 5.5 ppg but is shooting 45% and has a team-high 6.5 assists per game.
Shooting Guard–There’s probably no true shooting guard unless it’s Grigsby. Mitchell, Patterson and Asuma are all combo guards, guys who can and will play both the 1 and the 2. (Caleb Williams, the transfer from Macalester, is an obvious backup at the 2, by the way. He played 18 minutes in 2 games and scored 1.5 ppg and shot 50%.) So rather than split the guards out into 1s, 2s and 3s, it’s probably more enlightening right now to just note their minutes so far:
Asuma 30.5 per game; Grigsby 27.5; Patterson 19; Mitchell 18.5, except that I’m not sure even that is very enlightening because right now I can’t imagine Mitchell (and this again is M. Mitchell, not to be confused with F. Mitchell) is going to be 4th in minutes. 1st or 2nd more likely. But, then, again, consider the following.
Asuma 30.5 minutes 6.5-1 assists to turnovers 45% FG
M. Mitchell 18.5 minutes 6-1 assists to turnovers 48%
Patterson 19 minutes 2-1 assists to turnovers 33%
Rigsby 27.5 minutes infinity (5-to-0) assists to turnovers 57%
The cumulative total so far of 19 assists to 3 turnovers with a 46% FG percentage, well, we would take that, right. But of course, the Big 10 is going to be a little bit tougher than Bemidji and Hamline. Just a little. Bottom line: If Frank Mitchell is healthy, the Gophers look good on paper. The real problem is that at least half of the Big 10 is going to be more than “good.”
