Preview: Minnesota Gophers vs. North Dakota State Bison or whatever

North Dakota?  More like North Dasnowka, am I right?  I have no idea why I just wrote that.  But then again, you read it, so I think it was probably your fault.  Let's just agree to disagree.

Anyway, the Bison come to the Barn Thursday to take on the Gophers and I couldn't be more pumped.  Wait, no.  I mean the opposite of that.  Apathetic. That's not right either.  Less-pumped.  Something. 

I guess they aren't terrible.  They do have a 8-2 record and rank as the 107th best team in the country according to Ken Pomeroy's advanced metrics, but even though those take opponent into account this is still a fantastically terrible schedule.  Their best opponent so far has been Arizona State (rank #144) who beat them by ten.  They also have a pretty terrible loss to Western Carolina (#242) and there are only four other top 200 teams on the schedule.  It's hard to get any kind of read on a team with that line of shitbox schedule, but thanks to advanced stats I'll try.

The Bison have done well this season by holding opponents to poor shooting (both from 3 and 2), shooting well themselves (particularly from 2), and taking care of the basketball.  The Gophers don't shoot and can't shoot from three so that's pretty irrelevant, and the Gophers biggest weakness should at least be minimized because although the Bison are a decent three-point shooting team they don't take that many - this game will be played inside the perimeter.  Both teams' strengths are shooting inside the 2-point line and both defend there well, with the Gophers having a slight edge.  The Gophers also commit and cause a whole lot of turnovers, while the Bison don't cause any and commit even fewer.  It's a fairly even match looking at strengths and weaknesses, and I'm going to be honest here - that makes me nervous.

On an individual basis, the Bison employ a very balanced attack with five players scoring between 8.5-14.1 points per game and being involved in at least 20% of the team's possessions.  And oh my holy christ I'm boring myself to sleep.  How do people do this all serious like this all the time.  I'm done.

Here's what you need to know:

NDSU sucks.  They suck.  They don't suck like in a way where the Gophers can't possibly lose like Mt. St. Mary's or some shit, but they're terrible, they've played nobody, they've beaten nobody, and they've been beaten by some piss poor teams.  There is absolutely no way the Gophers shouldn't beat them down like Stephen Davis did to Michael Westbrook.  Or the other way around, I don't remember.  Doesn't matter.  North Dakota sucks.  The team sucks, the program sucks, everything sucks.  I know they had their cute little run with all those white guys who lost to Kansas, but that was a once in a lifetime experience because they just suck.  The one time I somehow ended up in that stupid state even their Taco John's sucked which should be impossible.

If you wanted to be some kind of dicknose and spin things in NDSU's favor you could say that the team is really balanced and has a lot of quality players.  Of course, the real reason they're balanced is because they don't have any good players and are just loaded with adequate ones.  Any one of a half-dozen guys could kill the Gophers, but none of them should.  As an added bonus they only have one good 3-point shooter (Mike Felt "erup"), so as long as the Gophers remember that he's the guy they need to watch (terrifying prospect) they shouldn't get beat out there, and NDSU simply doesn't have the athletes to beat them in any other way. 

When lines come out I fully expect this one to be the Gophers by about 10 (that's what kenpom predicts it at and the lines are usually pretty close).   If they can't beat this crap factory by at least that there's no reason to even bother with this season.  Look I'm sorry.  They're a cute little team who probably makes the folks in Sioux Falls feel all tingly inside when they beat up on Nebraska-Omaho at the Indian Hater Dome or whatever, but if this team can hang with the Gophers it doesn't mean "look out for the Sues" it means "the Gophers fucking suck." 

I don't know.  Maybe I'm just cranky because Kubel left but I'm not ok with an 8 point win or some shit. Blow these fuckers out.  It's like playing five Rudys, and Rudy is one of the worst movies of my lifetime.  No, I'm serious.  If you like that movie you should do a cannonball onto a pitchfork.  So stupid.  Great, so the little wiener gets his big chance and gets a sack.  And then what?  HE'S SPENT HIS WHOLE FUCKING LIFE GETTING PAID TO TALK ABOUT IT.  What a loser.  And now it turns out he might have been stealing people's money.  I don't know, google it.  This shit is bananas.

Gophers 99, Sioux 30.  Also I just realized at some point in this garbage rant I started referring to the Bison as the Sioux.  My bad and all but also not my fault because it's irrelevant because they're both the same because they both suck and should get physically assaulted by the Gophers.  Whatever.  Like it's even a real state.

Will you look at this?  What the shit is this?