NCAA Transfer Bias + Lack of Shooting Could Spell Trouble for Gopher Basketball

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US Bank Stadium has yet another kick-off party to host and it will take place on Friday night, when the 1st-ever basketball games will be held under its bird-slaughtering crystal-clear roof. The weekend is essentially dedicated to preparing for the Final Four, which will take place under the same bird (blood)bath this coming April. It should be a good time and it’s certainly appointment television for me. Plus, our favorite college basketball team will be featured on opening night.

The best part about an event that changes the internal organs to a major venue is, without doubt, the tear-down/build-up hyper-speed videos. Do you think the person who made the first hyper-speed video knew what he/she had when they hit play?

WTF did I come here again…. Oh yes, we’re here to talk about the Gophers.

I’m worried.

I talked with Toups about this on his radio show today. I actually felt a little bad when it was over because he set me up to shower praise on Richard Pitino’s 5-1 squad. And why not? It sure seems like that would make sense. They lost to Boston College in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge but we’ve beaten some tournament-caliber teams this year and the record speaks for itself, right?

Instead of hitting the team with back slaps and high-fives, I went sour. There are two things about this Gopher team that is desperately lacking and one of them shouldn’t exist.

– Shooters:

There is one guy on this team that we know is dead-eye from 3-pt land. It’s Freshman, Gabe Kalscheur. Seriously, the Gophers have made 42 three’s in their six games this season and Gabe has hit 20 of those. It didn’t take him long to get to 20 either. The DeLaSalle graduate is shooting a ridiculously stupid 56% from beyond that bonus line.

The team is shooting 34% from distance so far this year. However, take away Gabe, and they drop to a BRUTALLY low 25%… That’s a problem.

– Point Guard Play/Depth

This is the part that is complete bullshit. This shouldn’t be a problem we are dealing with. Marcus Carr was denied a waiver that would have allowed him to play this season, after transferring from Pittsburgh following his Freshman year. Unfortunately, the NCAA granted just about every waiver to play immediately throughout the NCAA but decided to make an example of Marcus, who will have to sit and watch his team struggle at the position he plays for the entire season.

But, that’s the reality right now, and the reality hasn’t been very pretty of late. The Gophers have started Amir Coffey at PG to start the season. He’s their most gifted player but certainly doesn’t look natural running the point. Why should he? The guy is 6-fucking-8 and probably hasn’t played the point since his balls dropped.

Sophomore, Isaiah Washington has come off of the bench. There isn’t much to say on Washington… He’s been disappointing since his arrival on campus and, if I’m being honest, I’m not sold on him being a Gopher next year at all. His position is set to triple inside the depth chart when both Peyton Willis and Marcus Carr become eligible, after a year off due to transferring.

In fact, without any inside knowledge of the situation, I will be surprised if Jellyfam puts the maroon and gold back on again at all after this season… I just don’t know if he is good enough to earn playing time over those two guys and if not, I don’t think he’s going to be ok riding the bench much longer, especially next season when he’ll be an upperclassman.

How far the 2018-19 Gopher Basketball team makes it will be reliant upon any consistency from deep plus how much Isaiah Washington improves. The team would be a lot better if Coffey could play the wing.

We’ll find out soon enough.

Eric Strack
Minnesota Sports Fan

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