gophers/ncaa

A sloppy win against a bad 2nd-tier school with an enrollment of 4000 students. I hope Coach Borton gets better results than she has the last three years, when the Gophers went 16-34 in the Big Ten.

Three down, two to go. Though sloppy, the Gophers pulled away comfortably as the game went on. I don't think Banham took a shot for the first 10 minutes or so (I'm not sure this was by design but it may have been - she really didn't look like she was trying to score early on). As bad a Robert Morris is, they are better than their record. Iowa struggled against them at home and staggered to a 14 point win against this team so I don't think this performance is a bad omen for the upcoming B1G season. It's nice to see Mullaney coming along nicely. This really is a team with A LOT of young talent. When Amanda Zahui B. joins the team (although I suspect she will redshirt), Borton could literally START a team consisting of all freshmen and a sophmore (Mullaney 1, Banham 2, Bailey 3, Hirt 4, and Zahui B. 5) and probably be very competitive. The next two games will be tougher than the previous three, though. UNI will probably be looking for some revenge for their loss in the WBI championship last year and Creighton is 5-2 and 1-2 against AP top 25 teams. Gophers need to close the non-conference out strong after a finals break. Go Gophers!

I son't know about the youngsters being all that good. The competition we've faced so far hasn't been all that tough. Though Mullany has made great strides, the offense still seems to lag a bit when she's running the point and Banham is on the bench. And I don't think Riche will be as dominent once she starts facing the bigs in the B1G but hopefully she can hold her own. What baffles me the most about this team is that Borton went out and recruited a player that was ranked in the top 20 of her graduating class, then has her collecting splinters on the end of the bench. What gives??

I don't know raymondb62, I think you're being a little hard on the youngsters. It's true the Gophers haven't played an RPI top 50 schedule, but they have a few quality wins and no bad losses in the non-confrence sitting at 9-3 (including an RPI top 25 win against Villanova - 'nova's only loss). These kids have played a total of 12 collegiate games and to be ringing up double digits and have solid stat lines at this point (14 pts and 7 rebounds for Hirt against Virginia, 18-3-3 for Mullaney yesterday, 12-3-1 for Bailey against Maine) is pretty good for players that shouldn't even fully know the system and haven't faced a B1G opponent in their careers yet. If Zahui B. is as advertised, Borton should be in good shape for the next three years talent wise. While one can never predict the future, her recruiting seems to be solid over the last three seasons. As long as she can keep bringing in good players with the occasional blockbuster (Banham, possibly Zahui B. and Hirt longer term), the talent base will be in pretty good shape IMO.