Gophers vs. Colorado State

The Rams are not a scary team. In fact, they're pretty much another cupcake, but at least they come from a second tier conference, the Mountain West, and not the Summit or the Southland, even if they were predicted to finish last in the conference. They've also been terrible for a long time. I thought I remembered them being decent in the last few years with three 7-footers, but the best season they've had lately was last year at 17-13 (6-10 in conference) so I was wrong and they're just a terrible program.

Pretty much the scariest thing about the Rams is that they have Tim Miles as their head coach. Miles was the coach at NDSU when the Bison won at Marquette and at Wisconsin when both were ranked. He's a very good game coach, and was rumored to be a candidate for the Gopher job at one point. The good news is that Monson isn't here anymore, so Miles would have to outcoach Tubby, not Monson's assistants, since they did all the coaching anyway. I don't see Miles outsmarting the new guy.

Colorado St looks like the have a balanced attack, with three players scoring in double figures, guards Marcus Walker (15.9 ppg) and Willis Gardner (12.8 ppg) and seven foot center Stuart Creason (12.4 ppg). That looks impressive, but the Gophers stats would have looked good from last season as well, and it was clear how that team turned out. The fact is the Rams have those three and little else, and overall as a team are horrible. They only shoot 28% from three as a team, and have more turnovers than assists on the season. They are 5-3, but their wins are over teams like Denver and Arkansas-Pine Bluff, while their three losses are by an average of 23 points to Montana, Northern Colorado, and Stanford. Last year, this probably would have been a close game, but this year the new Gophers roll: Minnesota 76, CSU 59.

Also, I just want to point out that the following people all are currently employed by teams in the NBA:

Matt Carroll (Notre Dame)
Ryan Hollins (UCLA)
Aaron Gray (Pitt)
Steven Hunter (DePaul)
Linas Kleiza (Missouri)
Von Wafer (FSU)
Matt Barnes (UCLA)
Travis Deiner (Marquette)
Brian Cardinal (Purdue)
Casey Jacobsen (Stanford)
Chris Quinn (Notre Dame)
Dan Gadzuric (UCLA)
Jake Voskuil (UCONN)
David Noel (UNC)
Royal Ivey (Texas)
Michael Doleac (Utah)
Mark Madsen (Stanford)
Ryan Bowen (Iowa)
Adam Haluska (Iowa)
Jared Jeffries (Indiana)
James Augustine (Illinois)
Kevin Ollie (UCONN)
Shavlik Randolph (Duke)
Sean Marks (Cal)
Matt Bonner (Florida)
Jacque Vaughn (Kansas)
Darius Washington (Memphis)
Maceo Baston (Michigan)
Jason Hart (Syracuse)

How the hell is this possible?

Pitt -3.5 @ Washington (L)
Kentucky +8 @ Indiana (L)
Mich St +3 vs. BYU (W)
South Florida -2.5 vs. UAB (W)
North Colorado -2 @ Denver (L)
Marquette +2.5 @ Wisconsin (W)
Illinois -2.5 vs. Arizona (L)
Michigan +23.5 @ Duke (L)
DePaul +24 @ Kansas (W)
Dayton +12.5 @ Louisville (W)
Purdue +8 @ Missouri (L)
West Virginia -13.5 vs. Duquesne (W)
Colorado St +21 @ Minnesota (W)
Montana St +14 @ Nevada (W)
Santa Clara -4.5 @ San Jose St (W)

Yesterday: 1-2
Season: 87-74