gophers/ncaa

Wow - what an ugly win. This Missouri team may be a BCS league team, but they are going to lose A LOT of games this year playing in the SEC. The first half was about the worst half of basketball I've seen the Gophers play this year. Riche must have been called for 5 travels (at least 3 of which were bogus) and the whole team just looked flat and out of synch. Good news, I guess, is that the Gophers are now 2-1 in games that they looked terrible in (WSU, Richmond and Missouri). On the bright side, Hirt was icewoman with the mid-range jumper down the stretch to salt this one away. Hirt is going to be a DOMINANT player on this team down the road. Mercy...Banham (soph), Riche (jun), Kellogg (jun), Noga (jun), Hirt (fresh), Bailey (fresh), Mullaney (fresh) - this team is stacked with talent coming back next year and if they all bring it on the same night, watch-out! It could be a lot of fun being a Gopher fan for the forseeable future. Go Gophers!

Good analysis InformedOne. I agree that this team is really fun to watch at times, but then excruciating to watch at others. It's obvious that they have talent, but they really need to cut down on some of the dumb decisions and sloppy play they exhibit at times. I watched the Gophers play against Mizzou and James Madison, but I didn't see the Richmond game. I'm glad I didn't. For this team to be held to 46 points for an entire game would have been too hard for me to watch. I don't know what happened in that game, but I'm glad they snapped out of it and played better in the next 2 games.

I agree InformedOne, it does look like this team has a bright future; however, I would temper that assessment with the fact that Coach B has shown no ability to coach up talent. Look at the two seniors she has left on this team (from a total of 4 she should have had). One has been a perpetual bench player her entire stay here and the other is a former stater that was benched (whether due to injury or a degradation of talent). The hallmark of a good coach is the ability to bring out the best in even average players and Borton and her staff have not shown this ability.

raymondb62, If you would just preface each statement with "I just don't like Coach Borton" people could just disregard reading the rest of your statement. Loberg has been injured, that's it. She's slowly working her way back into the line up. I'm assuming the other player you're talking about is Cotton, who still contributes valuable minutes in most games. Doesn't develop players? Short memory. She took a team to the final four with a team that only had 2 players who would've started for any top 20 team. In toher words, the rest were average players. McCarville, Riche, Banham, Kellogg, etc. have all developed under Coach Borton.