The Barn: Hoosiers @ Gophers

My wife and I attended the Big Ten home opener between two awful 0-2 squads...here were some of the highs and lows of the night:

* 6 pm start times blow. I left work early, picked up my wife and parked at around 4:50 pm. We walked into Pagoda's (I believe...Asian cuisine nonetheless) where I shoveled my face with vegetable fried rice and slammed three beers (because no alcohol is served in The Barn)...this was a horrible idea on my part, and I knew it while I was doing it.

* We left the restaurant at around 5:40 pm...witnessed a car accident while walking to the arena, where some dumbass chick hurried to make a light only to crash into the back of another vehicle to cause a three car pile up.

* We get to our seats...and I cough/puke (the sharting of the mouth) up some mucus of chinese food/beer. Great.

* Gophers PA announcer calls Jerimiah Rivers..."Jeremy" during introduction and all throughout the game. He did this around 8-10 times and only corrected himself twice. He's the fucking son of Doc Rivers...how do you screw this up that many times?

* Al Nolen turned it on late in this game...but, there have been major stretches in the last two games where he's on the court, but not really on the court on the offensive end. He may be "running the offense" but he's pretty much dribbling side to side on the perimeter. I'm not sure if he's more hurt than he's letting on or conserving himself for later in the game. But the offense isn't good enough to have lameduck possessions where they're not getting efficient, productive possessions on offense.

* The perimeter play for the Gophers is terrible. It's a bunch of spare parts. Al can drive and dish, but not finish. Blake can shoot, but can't get open or create his own shot. Rodney is athletic as all hell, but can't shoot or dribble to create anything for himself or others. Chip Armelin looked decent and at least isn't scared with the ball in his hands (even though he didn't convert some layups). Austin looked weak with the ball. And Maverick hit two threes, but outside of that I don't know what he really brings to our team yet.

* The departure of Devoe sucks. He wasn't great...but, he was 6'3'' and had good enough handles to at least create a shot (or at least a good look at the basket) of his own. And he didn't publicly carry around a "me" attitude much like Westbrook often did. And, I don't really understand the transferring decision during the middle of his junior year on his part. Is it jealously of his brother getting major minutes at a major college while he's only a freshman? I don't know...but, I'm pretty sure Fred Hoiberg has already placed a phone call to Devoe with the Cyclones picking up other misfits such as Royce White and Chris Allen in the past year.

* Tubby bashers...meet Tom Crean. He's in year three of rebuilding and no sign of even sniffing an "expanded" (mind you) NCAA tourney invitation. Tubby has done more with less and that is still true today. Tom can recruit (see: D. Wade @ Marquette)...but, can he actually coach...because all I see is him just standing on the sidelines and clapping constantly as if he's a coaching a girls' house league team every minute of every game.

* For having one of the largest student enrollments in the country...our student section is pretty lame. I'm not saying the play on the court inspired any more cheers (besides highlight type plays by Mbakwe and Williams)...but, the originality and effort to antagonize the opponent throughout the game is a FAIL.

* Did anyone miss my great insight on the Lions-Vikings matchup in week 17? Yeah, I didn't think so.

SBG