Game Preview: Gophers vs. Ohio State

Because the schedule says they have to the Gophers are going to play Ohio State on Tuesday night and they are going to get killed.  The Gophers do one thing well on defense - create turnovers - and they suck at everything else.  Well the Buckeyes don't really turn the ball over and they shoot the ball at an incredible rate if you prefer the ball going in the basket.  They hit 41% from three and 58% from two which rounds out to the third best shooting team in the entire country by effective field goal percentage.  Does this really sound like a team the Gophers beat?

Did you watch these guys the last two games?  Unfortunately I did, other than the 10 minute stretch I fell asleep during the Maryland game because I was really sick.  So sick I couldn't even drink.  Oof.  Anyway, the Gophers press the shit out of you and try to create turnovers and when it works it's glorious.  When it doesn't, however, there are open shots all over the place and you have to hope the other team misses more than they should.  That's not going to happen against Ohio State.

The Buckeyes have three guys in the top 254 in the country in effective field goal percentage.  D'Angelo Russell shoots the ball so much he'd be a great chucker if he didn't make everything, Sam Thompson decided he is in fact not Rodney Williams 2.0 and has decided to make a ton of shots, and Marc Loving defied my prediction and is, in fact, awesome at making the ball go in the hole. 

Six of the other seven guys who play would actually also all rank in the top 254 if they played and/or shot more.  Amir Williams, Jea'Sean Tate, Trey McDonald, and Anthony Lee make everything they shoot because they know what shots they should take, Kam Williams is some kind of deadeye shooter, and Keita Bates-Diop is 6-7 and shoots 62% from two and 44% from three.  The one guy who is a little bit of a suspect shooter is Shannon Scott the world's greatest defender who is one of the few guards in the conference who could shut down Dre Mathieu and who has a world class assist rate because he's really good at setting up all these good shooters for easy shots.

Pretty simple equation for this one.  Gophers give up a ton of easy shots, Ohio State hits all easy shots.  The Gophers would have to score a ton to keep this one close, but Ohio State has no real defensive weaknesses so I'm not seeing how that happens.  Short of the Gophers creating a ton of turnovers, which not even Louisville could do against these guys, this is a bloodbath.

Ohio State 80, Minnesota 56.