It's bad: The aftermath of an ugly Gophers loss (Part 1)

I am here to stop you all from jumping off the cliff. But I will also acknowledge your gloom in this two-part blog.

The Gophers shouldn't have lost 87-79 to Virginia Monday. Or any day.

They held a 13-point advantage at the start of the second half but blew it down the stretch. Before they knew what hit them, they were down by 14 points against an unranked Virginia team that lost to Washington by 43 points last week.

The Bad

-The Gophers opened up the game with a lot of energy and momentum. Trevor Mbakwe got the crowd going with a pair of monster slams. He scored six straight points.

Blake Hoffarber hit a couple of threes in the opening minutes. We're rolling, baby!

Not so fast. Tubby Smith put both players on the bench (Mbakwe at 14:51, Hoffarber at 14:21).

Maybe 22-9 would have been 30-9 and negated Virginia's Mustapha "I'm Kobe at the Barn" Farrakhan, who scored 14 points in the final 10 minutes of the first half and kept his squad alive.

Virginia's top three scorers (Farrakhan, Mike Scott and Joe Harris) played 34, 38 and 35 minutes, respectively.

On a team with a lot of youth, I think the Gophers will find themselves in similar situations throughout the season. Freshmen are freshmen. They'll look good in stretches and young in others. I wonder if Smith will consider leaving his starters in the game if they get off to another quick start in the future. I think they earned the extra minutes against Virginia but didn't get them.

-The Gophers are a liability at the free throw line. Their opponents will become more comfortable fouling late if they can't correct their problems from the charity stripe.

Think free throws are minor?

Now that six-point deficit with two minutes to play is a three-point gap. Potentially changes the final stretch. The Gophers don't have to foul late. They're less aggressive on defense. New game, better opportunity for a comeback.

They have to hit free throws to win tight games. They lost a lot of close games last season. That trend will continue if they don't improve at the free throw line.

-The Gophers didn't make the necessary defensive adjustment to put more pressure on the perimeter. Virginia got hot. It happens in basketball.

But the Cavaliers confused the Gophers with a lot of high screens that resulted in open shots. The same Virginia team that went 10-for-13 against the Gophers was shooting 39 percent from beyond the arc entering the game.

-Mbakwe's greatest asset is also a weakness. He's aggressive on both ends of the floor. Virginia used that to its advantage. While Mbakwe focused on shot-blocking (he had five of them), Virginia set screens inside to give Scott more room to work.

If Mbakwe is healthy, he has the potential to have an all-Big Ten kind of year. But foul trouble could prevent him from reaching his ceiling.

-When I have time, I try to play pickup ball on the weekends. I hate it when one or two guys try to live out their NBA dreams in the middle of a casual game. They just shoot and shoot and shoot without regard for shot selection.

The Gophers played that kind of basketball down the stretch. Quick shots. Bad shots. Prayers. "What was that?" shots.

They lacked the poise that could have helped them climb out of that hole against Virginia.