What's wrong with the Gophers? Nerd stats and charts!

There was a lot of optimism around the Gopher basketball team going into this season with a trip to the NCAA Tournament looking likely.  At this point, however, it now looks like a return to the NIT might be the best case scenario.  With the majority of the team intact from last season, I thought it might be instructive to look at the players and see if there's any glaring changes.  Looking at the five starters (comparing Austin Hollins with Carlos Morris) here are their offensive ratings as computed by kenpom.com in 2013-14 and 2014-15:

According to O-rating, Walker and Mathieu have essentially been the same player (I'll look closer at Mathieu later because it sure doesn't seem like it), but massive drop offs from Andre Hollins and Joey King and the switch from Austin Hollins to Carlos Morris have drastically hurt this team on the offensive end.

You think the easy answer on Dre Hollins is that he's shooting terribly, but look at these numbers:

We like to harp on Dre's shooting, but he's actually shooting significantly better this season than last, outside of free throws which have been a team wide problem.  The real issues for Hollins are a decreased assist rate versus an increased turnover rate, as well as a steep drop in free throw attempts.  To put these numbers in a per game perspective, Hollins is averaging the same amount of assists per game as last season at 2.4 while increasing his turnovers from 1.8 to 2.3 per game, a career high despite giving up most of his point guard duties.  At the same time his free throw attempts per game have plummeted from 4.9 per game to 2.7, a number near the 2.5 he averaged his freshman year when he was playing just 20 minutes per game.

The assist decrease coupled with the free throw decrease screams of a player who is no longer creating offense by driving to the rim, and indeed a quick check of hoop-math.com shows he's attempting just 13.5% of his shots at the rim, down from 16.8% last season and yet another career low.  More telling, a teammate has registered an assist on 68.4% of Hollins's baskets scored at the rim this year, well up from 34.2% last season, meaning the majority of his at the rim baskets are a result of someone else creating the offense.  Andre is most effective when he uses all this weapons, especially since he's such a good free throw shooter, but he's settled into the role of jump shooter this year and that's a negative.

Next up is whipping boy Joey King.

Though King's shooting has been fine, though down, and is very similar to last season, his rebounding has taken a dip, his turnovers are up, and, again, his free throw rate has been cut in half.  Similar to Hollins, King's % of shot attempts at the rim has dropped from 27.2% to 21.1%.  The rest of his shooting splits are pretty similar to last year, so it could simply be a case of him spending less time around the rim, a case which would also negatively impact his offensive rebounding rate.  If we want to put this another way, King's playing time has jumped by about 25% this year, and you'd expect most counting stats to jump by the same amount if there's no improvement or regression:

While the assist and block improvement are positives and the turnovers are expected given his increased touches and general trouble keeping hold of the ball, the slim rebounding increase and negative free throw number are huge red flags for someone who is supposed to be a power forward.  Though some of the rebounding regression could be ascribed to Mo Walker both increasing his playing time and rebounding rates, Elliott Eliason has conversely seen both his playing time and rebounding rates dip so at a minimum King's rebounding should have increased at a level similar to his playing time, and there's no excuse for such a drastic free throw decrease.

Next up, a comparison between Austin Hollins last year and Carlos Morris this season:

Despite Hollins taking quite a lot of crap (more than he should have) for his senior year performance, it's clear that he was far and away a better player than Carlos Morris has been this season.  The only place Morris outpaces Hollins are in assist rate and defensive rebounding rate, and those are both by a slim margin where Hollins is significantly better than Morris in most of the other categories.  I like Morris and I think he has a shot to be a pretty solid player next season and a great scorer, but the drop-off from Hollins has been significant this season, more than many would have though, and has certainly contributed to a sub-par season.

Lastly I want to look at Mathieu quickly, because his O-rating being the same as last year kind of surprised me.  I don't feel like making a chart, but despite his recent struggles Mathieu's assists are up, turnovers are down, steals are up, and although his shooting is down a bit it's still a good number.  He's fine, just in a bit of a slump.

I don't expect the Gophers to turn it around at this point and make the NCAA Tournament or anything, but I would like to see Hollins get back towards attacking the rim, King play more like a power forward and take some strides since he's going to be important next year (gulp), and Morris continue to develop his all around game because I think he's improved significantly from earlier in the year.  I mean, there are lots of other things I want to see too, but these are the ones uncovered from this post.

It's been a long year.

Season's Over

I guess I haven't posted in a while and you've probably been sad about it and cried a lot.  For that I suppose I'm sorry.  I've been busy and tired and quite lazy. 

So late congratulations to the Gophers on winning the NIT.  It sucks to be in the NIT, but if you get stuck there you might as well win the damn thing.  No, this is not better than a loss in the First Four as far as being a fan or program-wise, but hey, a bunch of kids worked their asses off, got to spend some time in the NYC, and won a championship for themselves.  Awesome for them, and although I doubt it helps recruiting it probably doesn't hurt to play two games in MSG on ESPN.  Great seeing Austin Hollins win MVP or MOP or whatever too after playing great, especially because somewhere around early mid-season some of the looney tune fans around here (gopherhole) were calling for him to be benched.  Because they're super rational you see.

Meanwhile Joey King reminded us that off the bench scoring guy is probably his upside, not his downside, and Dre Hollins told us the reason he didn't look healthy the second half of the year was because he wasn't healthy the second half of the year. Malik Smith managed to hit a couple of shots to close out his career, Oto Osenieks came back for an encore, and Maverick still fell down a lot.  Mo and Elliott continued to look like two halves of an excellent player, and DeAndre Mathieu looked like a contender for Big 10 Player of the Year next season.  Fun end to the year, even if I only watched 1.5 games of the entire NIT.  Sorry.

So close the books on 2013-2014, and I'd probably give the season a B.  I didn't expect this team to make the NCAA Tournament and they came awfully damn close, then closed with a strong run through the NIT.  It pains me to think that it's likely they were 1 win away from an NCAA bid and that the win could have come at any time, including at home against shitty Illinois.  Of course, it's also possible that even with that win they could have gotten snubbed which would really sting.  Good season based on preseason expectations, but slightly poor season based on mid-season feelings.  Sounds like a B.

Now we move on to Pitino Year 2.  It's a pretty solid roster.  The guards should be outstanding with Dre Hollins (hopefully healthy) and Mathieu forming one of the better back courts in the conference, if not the country and likely, I think, solid back-ups in Daquein McNeil who looked pretty good as a freshman and will be a year older and freshman Nate Mason.  Losing both true 3s in Austin Hollins and Malik Smith will sting, but JuCo swingman Carlos Morris can hopefully fill those shoes.  King and Charles Buggs are the returning PF, but freshman Josh Martin already has a Big 10 body so should be able to give minutes, if nothing else, and hopefully more.  Center will be the same two headed monster but with another year stronger, wiser, and hopefully better.

Plenty of questions and holes, but that describes most teams at this point, and having your starting back court and center position rock solid is a good start.  Plus the Gophers have three open scholarships for next season right now.  One of them is supposed to be filled by Djuan Piper, according to the rumors, and it was supposed to happen tonight.  It sounds like his decision has been pushed to tomorrow (Thursday) and according to the rumors it's either because of academic issues or second thoughts.  Neither is good. He's ranked #147 by 247sports now and is a damn sight better than anything else the Gophers are going to pluck from the high school ranks this late - Spring recruiting can get rough (Mav -> hi!) and Piper and Bakary Konate, who I need to write up at some point, look like about it.

Of course, the great thing about the Gophers' position is they have space and they have needs, and with the transfer happy NCAA culture these days (which I enjoy) a graduate transfer PF or shooter guy would make a whole ton of sense for both parties.  A lot of names are starting to surface and there are a lot more sure to come, not to mention non-grad transfers who could hope to get waivers or just sit a year before playing.  The Gophers have a lot of flexibility with the roster for next season, and there's no way they're done yet.  This should be fun.

Gophers 67, Florida State 64

Well they won.  Winning is better than losing, right?  Even in the NIT which forces me and you to watch another game that we barely care about.  They certainly tried to lose, but FSU just wanted the loss more.  Anyway, here are ten things I liked and didn't like.

1.  Joey King was a total spaz.  For someone who was such a big part of the offense in this NIT run to win with him scoring just 3 points is a good thing.  He only played 7 minutes due to foul trouble from the get go and I have no idea what he was doing out there.  With Eliason out the Gopher "bigs" were in such bad shape Oto had to come back and play, yet King's out there jumping around like a little kid up past his bedtime.  Maybe he was trying to hard to be a major factor, but the majority of his fouls were just stupid and caused by hyperactivity and lack of body control.  It was probably the worst game anybody has ever played in the history of basketball.  Probably.

2.  Speaking of Oto, was it all just a lie?  It has to be, right?  Just a month or so ago we were all told Oto had such a serious injury that he had to hang it up for his career, yet here the Gophers are short handed and all of a sudden he's not only playing, but playing 32 minutes.  He mostly looked like a guy who hadn't been playing basketball, but he made due with a hell of an effort and was pretty key for the Gophers - that rebound off a missed FT he grabbed in overtime was 100% pure hustle as he was boxed out by two Seminoles and just forced his way through.  But clearly Pitino told hm he probably wasn't going to get minutes next year and Oto chose to retire rather than transfer, and they concocted this bogus story.  I get it, but it sucks when it blows up like this.  I can never trust anyone ever again.

3.  Florida State did the Gophers a lot of favors.  With Minnesota undermanned and undersized in the paint FSU should have attacked the basket all night.  They grabbed 43% of their misses and were clearly better and bigger, but for some reason the majority of the night they were content to shoot perimeter jumpers, going 1-9 in the first half from three and then still doing it, going 3-9 in the second half and overtime.  When they made their big run to take the lead as the game was winding down they did it by pounding the ball inside, mainly to Okaro White, and it worked (helped by a Gophers shooting slump).  I have no idea why this wasn't the game plan consistently, especially when everyone on the Gophers ended up with foul trouble.  I assume it's because Florida State is a dumb team, year after year.

4.  Speaking of FSU, their defense was really horrible.  It's surprising because Leonard Hamilton almost always has his Seminole teams as top defensive squads and their size, but the Gopher guards had their way with FSU driving to the paint last night.  Fifty-one of the teams 67 points came from their guards, which shouldn't be surprising given the team make-up I guess, but Austin Hollins was as driving machine all night and Dre Hollins and Dre Mathieu were able to waltz in for easy layups on back to back plays near the end of regulation. With Florida State's size and shot blocking (23rd in the country by percentages) two little guys like that shouldn't be able to get to the rim, but they did it consistently either scoring or finding others for open looks.  FSU also turned the ball over a ton, but enough about FSU.  They done.

5.  The A topic on twitter last night was the horrible announcing team.  And they weren't wrong.  Bobby Knight was terrible.  Long stretches with no talking, rambling Abe Simpson like stories about wearing an onion on his belt (it was the style at the time) and his old teams and players, harping on the same points over and over, and asking his colleagues questions about the game he was allegedly watching.  I usually like Knight as an announcer and I'm not going to make the obvious joke about him being drunk and/or senile because it was pretty clear he was just completely bored with the game.  Even as it got towards the end and was supposedly getting pretty exciting he was still droning on about some dude from his 1978 team or something.  He clearly has no interest in the NIT, and honestly I can't even blame him.  Even I just wanted that game to hurry up and end.

6.  The court was left alone, unlike NCAA games.  You remember how back in the day the host schools court for the NCAA Tournament basically looked the way the court always looked?  Maybe they'd change a logo or two but it was basically the same?  And now how they white wash all courts to look identical, so if you're watching a game in Orlando and switch to a game in Anaheim it looks exactly the same except the location name is on the baseline?  I was afraid they'd do something similar to MSG, but luckily they left it alone other than replacing any Knicks stuff with NIT stuff.  Maybe it was apathy because it's the NIT, I don't know but I liked it.  I'm actually now realizing I didn't notice if they changed it for the Sweet 16/Elite 8 games.  This would be a way better point if I remembered to notice.

7.  Malik Smith is broken.  It's to the point where I'm actually feeling bad for him since this is the way his career is ending.   He missed three of his four free throw attempts including two with eight seconds left and the Gophers up 3 so one make wins the game, and all four of his three-point attempts which drops him to two makes in his last 34 attempts and a line of 8-58 since he exploded against Nebraska.  Did that game wreck him?  It shouldn't considering he had a few games like that in his FIU days, but the results since are pretty remarkable.  If you watch him his fundamentals are all over the place now too - he's not even squaring up to shoot a lot of the time.  It would be nice for him to have a good game to close out his career against SMU, but at this point I think you have to hope for just a non-shitty game.

8.  The Gophers did a really nice job of shutting down Aaron Thomas.  Thomas played 36 minutes before fouling out and managed just 3 points on 1-8 shooting.  Thomas led the team in scoring this year at 14.1 per, hit double figures in 16 straight games and 27 of their last 30, and had been over 20 points in each of their NIT victories before the Gophers stopped him.  This is where I'd write about how they did it but I forgot to pay attention to it and by the time I realized they had completely stymied him he was in the process of fouling out.  I'm a really good blogger.

9.  Dre Hollins looked a lot better.  His shot is still iffy, but he seemed much more lively to me and was attacking the rim more like he did prior to his injury, and his defense was a lot better too.  He's had 2 steals in three of four NIT games, and prior to that the last time he had more than 1 was the Ohio State, two games prior to getting hurt.  He's also had 7 and 4 assists the last two games with the last time he had more than 3 the Purdue game in Minneapolis on January 5th.  I was of the opinion that shutting him down for the NIT and making sure he's healthy for next season might have made some sense, but everything seems to be coming up Milhouse so party on.

10.  So now the Gophers have a chance at a Championship.  And what do you hear over and over?  "Making a deep run in the NIT is a springboard to success the following season."  Is this true?  I don't know, let's look.

NIT CHAMPIONS (next season results):

2013:  Baylor (sweet 16) over Iowa (First Four)
2012:  Stanford (missed tournament) over Minnesota (second round)
2011:  Wichita State (first round) over Alabama (first round)
2010:  Dayton (missed tournament) over North Carolina (elite 8)
2009:  Penn State (missed tournament) over Baylor (elite 8)

That's the last five years which is all the effort I'm going to put into this.  Seven of the 10 teams made the NCAA Tournament the following year with four of those recording a victory.  I'm going to say that making the NIT Championship is a decent indicator of a team that makes the NCAA Tournament the following season but that's about it - and I'll take it.  With only two seniors departing from this team they fit the profile.  Maybe next year is the year I will finally see LOCK:  Minnesota in ESPN's Bubble Watch.  Still waiting.

Up next is SMU, a really good team who probably should have made the NCAA Tournament.  I might preview it if I feel like it later.  No promises.

Gophers 81, Southern Miss 73

Good win, and on to Madison Square Garden.  Here are 10 things I liked and didn't like about the Southern Miss game.  And it's going to be fast, because I have some sweet 16 stuff I need to ignore my real work for tomorrow.


1.  Obviously the A topic here is Austin Hollins's monster game.  32 points.  6-11 from 3.  2-3 from 2.  11-11 from the line. 4 assists and 3 steals with no turnovers to boot.  Plus he was as active as I can ever remember seeing him, just running all over the court especially without the ball which is a place he can disengage from a game from time to time.  Great going away game from Austin in his final game at the Barn and I'm glad he got to have a huge moment in front of the home crowd after he's been beaten up pretty hard by a certain segment of fans (*cough* gopherhole).  A good well rounded player who cares as much about defense as offense is always a nice luxury to have and although I wouldn't call him a Gopher legend (he's no Stan Gaines) he will be sorely missed next season.  I'd slot him somewhere below Damian Johnson and above Travarus Bennett.  Pretty good spot to be in.

2.  The other A topic should be the freaking horrible announcers and actually all around production by ESPN.  Good lord are Dan Dakitch and whoever the other guy was terrible.  How many times did they get Austin and Andre Hollins confused?  And every time the Gophers had the ball all they could talk about was how the Gophers needed to get Austin the ball, even though I'm positive they meant Andre because they had no idea he wasn't 100% because I don't think - no, I know - neither of them has seen a Gopher game this year.  Then what happens?  The show a graphic to show Austin's great stats and the picture is Andre.  Good lord we could have expected this in year 1 with both of them, but it's year 3.  I was surprised, however, they never mentioned that they are brothers.  Odd.

3.  Great job handling pressure......until the last two minutes.  The Gophers turned the ball over 10 times which for them I would consider good.  But two of the ten came in the last two minutes and it felt like a lot more because the Gophers suddenly seemed all panicky.  Southern Miss is a big time turnover creating team, which makes the overall numbers very impressive.  I said they'd have to take care of the ball to win and they did.  If they had played like this more often, well, we probably wouldn't have any more Gopher ball to watch, but we'd all be a lot happier with the season.

4.  Someone in the middle of the zone - unstoppable.  Against that matchup zone, and really any zone, is getting someone in the middle of the zone, right about the free throw line, and getting them the ball.  Tonight it was usually either Joey King (more on him later) or Elliot Eliason there - when someone was there - and almost every time they got the ball either King hit a jumper or King or Eliason were able to find an open shooter, and the team was actually hitting open shots tonight so everybody was all smiling and stuff.  Sadly, far too often nobody bothered to get in the middle, which is like why not?  I would love to have some kind of breakdown of points per possession when they got a touch in the middle vs. not.  One led to easy shots, the other a ton, and a mean a ton, of contested long jumpers and three pointers.  Just some terrible shots tonight.  Some great offense too.  Schizo team, as usual.

5.  The rebounding and defense kind of sucked.  A 14-4 edge on the offensive rebounds is not very good, and letting Southern Miss shoot over 50% on twos is not ideal.  No reason to harp on this, because it's been a season long theme, luckily tonight their offense was good enough to overcome it.  Moving on.

6.  This Mavsurgence is not real.  Mav has made some headlines after scoring 21 in the first round game against High Point, but that was High Point.  Since then he's come back to normal but is at least hitting his shots which is really his only role or should be.  Tonight he had a possession where he basically like, kicked the ball away from himself and then fell down.  It felt like a metaphor for something, but I'm not sure what.

7.  Joey King is good?  Seriously, is he?  I hated him at first, he slowly won me over, but after scoring 15 points tonight that makes four straight games in double figures, which I'm told is the first time he's done that in his career, I'm wondering if he's actually good.  Like, starting Big 10 caliber good?  He looked awfully good as the middle guy against the zone, he's started to get better from three without relying on it, he's gone from zero post moves to something like 0.8 post moves, and just, stopped being such a tit.  I can't believe I might be a fan.  Not what I was expecting.

8.  Dre Hollins is still broken.  He's shooting like shit, yes at 6-38 in his last four games (not a misprint) but other than a down tick because he can't get to the rim as easily as he used to that's not what I'm talking about.  There were two plays tonight that made it crystal clear he doesn't have the burst he did before he hurt his ankle.  One was a run out where he had one of those one on two breaks but the two are out of position so you generally take it right at the rim and he tried but was turned back because he was too slow and the other was a trap towards the end of the game that he usually would be able to dribble out of with his quickness but was unable to.  It makes this win (and the last one) even more impressive by the Gophers doing it with a best player who is max at 90% of his capability.  Hopefully he's all back next year.

9.  I am far too excited about Mo Walker next year.  I can't get over about how good he's been since his breakout against Ohio State.  He's learned to trust his body and can just bull his way into lay-ups, even against good defenders.  He's got a semi decent jumper out to about 16 feet, and he can pass the ball very well for a man his size.  If he adds 1-2 post moves other than his jump hook and the drop step lower your shoulder he could end up nearly unstoppable.  Generally I don't trust college kids to work all that hard because I remember being a college kid, but this is a guy who lost 60 pounds or whatever, I can see him busting his ass to add a dream shake and a fall away or something.  So excited.  Unreasonably so.

10.  Why not win it I guess.  The NIT mostly sucks.  It's hard to care about, you play mediocre teams who you have no idea whether they're at all interested, and many of the games run up against NCAA games and as such go unwatched.  But hell, as long as you're stuck in it you might as well win it, right?  And wins over St. Mary's and Southern Miss are nice wins you can build on?  I don't know.  The Gophers are still playing, and god help me I'm still watching.  Let's hope they win two more.

New Mexico, Day 2

Oh my god you guys I am so full I can barely drink all this beer.  For dinner we went to this little Mexican dive called El Patio and wow was it good.  I got the tacos and ordered a bowl of the green chile stew since that's like the #1 specialty of New Mexico and it did not disappoint.  Green chiles, pork, pinto beans, and potatoes in a broth that was insanely flavorful.  So, so, so good.  You really need to travel to New Mexico to try it.  If you don't you're kind of a failure as a human.

-  Some weird things I saw in New Mexico today:

1. An entire aisle of pinatas in Walmart
2. An electronics/movies store with a complete section dedicated to VHS
3. A flyer taped to a pole advertising "Mechanical Bull for Rent" with a phone number
4. A vending machine for nothing but beef jerky

All of that was awesome.  Not awesome is the cell service in this town.  You will just lose service for like an hour or two randomly, then all of a sudden your phone will blow up with texts and you'll think you're all popular but it turns out those texts are from a two hour period.  My co-worker thinks it's because of all the military bases around here and they have cell phone jammers.  I'm not sure if that's true or how much he actually believes it, but we're running with it.  So hey, there are a lot of military bases in Albuquerque that send out cell phone jamming frequencies.  Be warned when you come here to get that sweet green chile stew.

-  Basically everybody I told I was going to New Mexico made a Breaking Bad joke, which makes sense since Breaking Bad is better than anything else you watch and what else are you going to joke about when New Mexico comes up?  One of my co-workers asked our shuttle driver about the Breaking Bad houses and I actually thought he might be all annoyed but he was super proud of the show being shot there and told us how it was such a big thing for the city.  So he told us where a bunch of them were.  Tonight we checked out Jesse and Jane's place.

Sup, bitch?

-  I finally watched Dawger's favorite movie Snatch and $nake's favorite movie Super Troopers last week.  I enjoyed them both, but I suspect both get better upon multiple viewings.  Snatch because you aren't missing half the joke's trying to figure out what the previous line was, and Super Troopers because it's just one of those movies that gets funnier over time.  I'd recommend them both to people, but I'm pretty sure I'm the last one to see either of them.

-  Somebody recently asked me for my opinion of Wichita State, sorry I can't remember who because I generally don't pay attention when people talk, and I think they're definitely a good team no doubt, but it's obviously tough to figure out how good.  30-0 is 30-0, and I tend to think they're better than that St. Joe's team (Jameer Nelson/Delonte West) from a while back who went undefeated through the A-10, and they made the Elite 8 (might have been Sweet 16, not 100% and don't want to bother to look it up).  Saying I think Wichita State is better than that team, and they already have a handful of guys with Final Four experience, it saying quite a bit.

But Snacks made a great point to me today.  Let's say the latest bracketology on ESPN is at least a close approximation of what actually gets pulled in the tournament and Wichita State is a one seed.  In the second round then they'd face either Stanford or Kansas State (or similar team), both of whom would be the best team the Shockers have faced since DECEMBER 14, and the second or third best team they've seen the entire season depending on your opinion of BYU.  And then the next round, and the next round, and the next round and all the way through they'll be facing teams so much better than anything they've seen with much more pressure and less time to prepare.  Wichita's strength of schedule is awful and their non-conference wasn't anything special either.  Man that is a ton of pressure.  I don't think I can take them any further than the Sweet 16.  Not like New Mexico, who is clear Final Four material.

-  Just went down to the bar to get a double Maker's because I'm too full for beer.  These two dopes get on the elevator with me and start laughing about how they're so wasted and they need to email each others' boss to cover their ass.  Guess what?  They don't remember they have to hit the button for the floor.  I'm on the top floor because I'm awesome and then they realize they never hit their buttons so they hit the five and seven and ended up spending like, 30 extra seconds in the elevator.  Way to go, amateurs.

-  One of the main reasons I'm out here is to look at this entertainment store called Hastings and maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan we need to get one in Minnesota.  It's like a Best Buy/Barnes and Noble/Shinders/Spencer's/Toys R Us all in one.  It's awesome.  Plus they buy and sell used stuff and even rent movies for 49 cents a day.  I could probably spend all day in one.  I have to find a way to make this happen.

-  You know that thing called the Peter Principle which says that as people excel in their roles they keep getting promoted until all of a sudden you have a bunch of people in roles they aren't qualified for?  Just google it I don't want to explain.  Well it generally applies to the working world but it exists in college basketball too.  I mean to do a whole big post on this (I'm currently reading Dean Oliver's Basketball on Paper which is excellent and you should read it so my advanced stats brain is like a hamster on blue meth) but exhibit A is the terrible Glenn Robinson III.  He was amazingly efficient last year playing his role and using a small amount of possessions for the Wolverines.  This year he's using way more possessions but every single metric and is still a terrible rebounder.  His raw numbers are in line with what he did last year, but he's really regressed if you look deeper.  Definitely not ready for/capable of the more increased role. 

I actually thought this same thing would apply to Austin Hollins, but really it doesn't.  His overall offensive rating is down a bit, but not all that much, and his rebounding numbers are far better this season.  Everything else is right around the same but with assist rate a tick down and turnover rate a tick up.  And here's a fun fact I never realized, he's shooting a career high 55% on two-pointers this year, which is a career high and a huge improvement from last year (48%).  Yeah he's struggling from three but that's amplified because the team lacks quality shooters, and he's actually taking fewer of them this year (percentage wise).  Really, I guess, for those that keep saying he's having a horrible year or is a disappointing senior shouldn't play so much (gopherhole -> hi!), you're wrong.

- One thing I forgot to mention about the Pit is how the people don't get up for you.  Like they'll stand on damn near every possession (no joke) but if you get up to go to the bathroom or go get a souvenir or food or anything during a timeout they don't stand up to let you out.  Every other arena I've ever been to the people get up to give you room to walk, but at the Pit they just do that thing where they turn their legs to the side and it sucks for everyone.  And this wasn't just one group of people, it was everywhere.  It struck me as very odd, especially because these people seemed to live for standing up.

-  I think that'll do it.  So tired and full of delicious green chile stew.   I kind of want some more.

There's a New Mexico now?

This was a long day.  I flew to New Mexico today, which included a 4-hour layover in Denver.  I finally get to my room, and see the Gophers are actually leading at halftime and have scored 50 points, which was weird.  Then I look and see Charles Buggs had 11 of them.  Even weirder.  I tried to watch some of the game on the btn2go thing but the internet here sucks.  Then I had tickets to the New Mexico/Utah State game at The Pit and we had to leave, and since the Pit is underground there's no cell service really and last I saw the Gophers were up 6 with 2:30 or so left, a perfect place to blow a game.  Not until after we left did I get to find out they actually won.  Shocker.

Thoughts on the game, looking only at the box score since I barely saw any of it:

-  Obviously the Buggs thing is like WTF.  More important than the 13 points is he didn't turn it over.  This Buggs thing is something I'm going to have to go back and watch the first half.  I also see Oto didn't see the floor, and I have no clue if this was expected or an injury or if he was just straight benched (twitter tells me it was a knee injury), but it sounds like Buggs looked great so that's pretty odd but excellent news.

-  Obviously it's great to see the much maligned Austin Hollins have a breakout game (and not just because he's on my Big 10 Fantasy team and we're in the playoffs).  8-10 from the floor overall and 4-6 from three are great, and maybe even better was the 7-7 from the line.  The offense must have been clicking like crazy looking at their shooting numbers of 61%/58%/83%.  The 1.32 points per possession have to be a season high for this team, and with assists on 63% of their made buckets it must have looked awfully good.  Bummed to have missed it.

-  The defense, of course, was brutal again, allowing 1.24 points per possession.  Iowa is at 1.21 for the season, so even playing a great offense like the Hawkeyes the Gophers still managed to make them look better than normal.  Turnovers were ugly again as well at 19.4% of possessions, but you know what?  In the end, it only really matters if you outscore your opponent, and the Gophers did, so I'm happy.  I haven't stopped to think what this means for their NCAA hopes, but it most certainly is a nice boost.

-  So anyway I got to see The Pit today and it was awesome.  It goes straight down from street level to where the playing surface is actually way underground, thus the nickname.  It's about as loud as I've ever heard any place.  The Barn can certainly get there at its peak, but the New Mexico fans are just loud the entire game.  If things are going well, they're loud.  If things are going poorly, they're louder.  The only place I can remember watching a game that kept that constant level of noise was Iowa State's Hilton Coliseum and that was back when I went when they were playing #1 Kansas, this was just against Utah State.  The seats are really packed low to the ground and it has a really low ceiling so it just amplifies the noise.  The other noticeable thing was everybody, I mean everybdoy, was in Lobo gear.  Every old person, every kid, and I think every little girl was in a Lobo cheerleader outfit.  It was pretty neat.  The only place I remember seeing it like that was when I went to a game at Utah State.  Really, really cool place to see a game and I'm glad I got to go in my lifetime.

-  As for the team, New Mexico won by 9 and I was impressed by them.  They won 67-58 despite shooting just 11-21 from the free throw line and they're going to be tough in March.  They have this inside combo of Cameron Bairstow (6-9, 250 lbs) and Alex Kirk (7-0, 245 lbs) who just dominate their offense.  Both can step out and hit a mid-range jumper and both are really good passers from the high post and they just play really well together.  They are also both exceptionally good at screening off their man when a guard drives.  Like if they're being fronted in the post and a guard drives baseline they'll just box their man out to give the guard an easy lay-up.  Really underrated skill.   Oh, and they also have Kendall Williams who averages 17pts and 5 assists per game, plus a bunch of shooters to surround those guys with.  They can't defend the three for shit and Preston Medlin went 4-5 tonight because those bigs don't come out far enough on a pick and roll, but I'm a Lobo fan.  Probably because it was so fun and they actually aren't very good but whatevs.

-  So yeah I had a four hour layover at the Denver airport today.  You know what they have in Denver?  A shit load of really great beer.  My favorites were the Upslope Brown Ale and the Oskar Blues Imperial Red, but really they were all good.  They were also really strong, so yada yada yada, I slept the entire flight into Albuquerque.

-  There was this one lady having lunch with her friend and they were sitting next to me at the airport bar and I couldn't help but notice how much I wanted to murder her.  First she wanted to order one of their fancy cocktails, but didn't want any alcohol.  So the server said they could use coke or something and she turned that down and then something else and she turned that down until finally they agreed on Sprite.  Then she wanted a small.  They only come in one size, but she haggled and begged and harassed until she got a smaller one.  Then she ordered the veggie burger with nothing on it and wanted a plain bun instead of a pretzel bun, which she asked her friend, "what's a pretzel bun."  Everything about her enraged me.  Then when she got up to leave, of course she had brought a pillow for the plane.  Oof.  Good luck with all that some guy probably.

-  Shabazz Muhammad had 20 points tonight?  I told you dorks he was awesome.

-  Since the hotel is so close to the University of New Mexico they had a free shuttle to go to the game.  The guy started talking basketball with me and mentioned how The Mountain West had the son of the first NBA dunk contest winner.  I said, "Yeah Larry Nance right?"  And he said "yes" and then I said, "he just blew out his knee didn't he" and the guy was like "wow you much really watch a lot of college basketball" and I was both embarrassed and proud.  But it made him like me so on the way back from the game I was able to get him to stop at a store for me so I could grab a six pack (went with Bud Light Platinum - don't judge me I've had a lot of heavy beer today and don't have a bottle opener - not all that bad, actually) so that was cool.  Pretty sure they aren't supposed to do that or at least that's what I'm telling myself so I feel cool. 

-  Dinner tonight sucked.  We got back to the hotel so late and it was such a long day I just went with room service.  Decided to go with the New York strip encrusted with red chile since that's supposed to be a New Mexico specialty, and also because their best known for their Mexican and I'm pretty sure we'll be eating a lot of that the next two days and I don't want to overload because of my tum tum.  Anyway it was horrible.  Fatty steak, over cooked, and the chile sauce was pretty tasteless with very little spice.  The herbed fingerling potatoes were mushy and I think the only herb they used was butter, and the spinach was just blech.  I know I shouldn't expect much at a hotel, but I didn't expect total crap.  Looking forward to crushing some good meals the next two days - you know I'll tell you about it.

-  One thing that never ceases to baffle me is how guys who were terrible shooters/scorers in college can suddenly thrive in the NBA.  Kendall Marshall is averaging 10.1ppg this year for the Lakers and shooting 47% from three.  He never broke 9ppg or 40% shooting in his two years at North Carolina.  It's not like he's been around forever either, it's just his second year in the NBA.  Michael Carter-Williams is averaging 17ppg for the Sixers this year, and he was a terrible scorer for Syracuse.  I guess he's actually a terrible shooter still as his percentages still suck, but it's just weird to see him scoring that much.  I just saw Kendall Marshall on ESPN doing a fancy swoopy woopy lay-up thing and there's no way he could have pulled that off at UNC and that's why I wrote this part.  Thank you for asking. 

-   I really need some sort of locking device on my computer that keeps me from playing online craps.  Anyway, I'm pretty wiped out from the long day so I'm done here now.  Hopefully I get really drunk at least once in the next two days and write some stupid crap.

Northwestern 55, Gophers 54

Am I really supposed to write about this game?  I've now had an entire day, including a very unsatisfying Super Bowl, to get over the disappointment and I still don't want to write about.  However I am pretty sure if I pass on writing on this game I will just quit altogether and as much as I'd like to do that I don't want to do that.  So here is a very quick 10 Things I Liked and Didn't Like.  Unless I do that thing I sometimes do where I just vomit words all over the screen, then it won't be short.

1.  Meet the old boss, same as the new boss?  There are a whole lot of things I like about Richard Pitino when compared directly to Tubby Smith.  Energy.  Players improving.  Uptempo game.  More imaginative offense.  Gameplanning for specific opponents.  I am a fan.  A big fan.  But what is this shit where February is just a shit bath every year?  I don't care that Northwestern has some good wins lately and is looking frisky, you don't lose to them at home.  There recent success has seen their RPI creep up into the top 100 (#83) so technically this won't go down as a bad loss, but this was a bad loss.  I will get into NCAA bid chances later, but even if this one didn't hurt as much as you'd think because of that non-horrible RPI, it really hurts because this is a game you just don't lose if you're an NCAA team.

2.  The Gophers got shredded by a terrible offense.  Northwestern has shown some success lately due to their tough defense, not a good offense.  The Wildcats scored 1.02 points per possession and shot 48% from two and 38% from three.  Their season numbers are 0.96, 46.5%, and 30%.  Their in-conference numbers are 0.87, 45%, and 27%.  They have been awful all year and even worse in Big Ten play, and they lit the Gophers up (at least comparatively).  I will grant that Northwestern seemed to hit an awful lot of tough shots, but that shouldn't make a difference.  Horrendous defense, and it's been a problem all year.  This, however, was the worst.

3.  Whining about the refs is really not the way to go.  Did the refs miss a foul call on Mathieu and/or Walker at the conclusion of the game?  Seems like a strong possibility.  I haven't gone back and watched it because I have better things to do like impale each of my fingers with a bamboo skewer, but I've read enough, even from none raging homers, that it sounds like a case can be made that both were fouled.  Doesn't matter.  First of all, they both had lay-ups and even with a minor foul those shots need to be made.  Secondly, the Gophers played so shitty that leaving the final result to the refs is their own fault for letting it get to that point.  There are one billion things to worry about from this game before you get to the refs.  Not an exaggeration.

4.  This team is still way too careless with the ball.  I know it seems weird to complain about turnovers after a game where the Gophers only turned it over 8 times and on a percentage basis were below their season average and even below Northwestern's defensive season average, but they're just so careless sometimes.  There are turnovers where a team's pressure forces you into bad situations, and then there are turnovers where you just give the ball away for no real reason at all and the Gophers' turnovers yesterday were almost exclusively the latter.  I mean you just can't turn the ball over on a simple post entry when the defender isn't even attempting to deny the pass, and that happened at least 3 times with two passes going through Mo Walker's legs like he was some shitty hockey goalie guy.  Northwestern doesn't care if they turn you over, so there's no reason to help them out.

5.  On the positive side, Austin Hollis appears to be registering a pulse again.  13 points on 5-10 shooting, five rebounds, two assists, and three steals with zero turnovers.  Most importantly he looked confident again.  Starting with the open scrimmage thing and carrying into the early season Hollins was carrying himself with some serious senior swagger and in general that bodes well for a breakout type final year. I have no idea what happened or when, but he lost all that.  The crazy thing about watching college kids is you never quite know what's happening.  His girlfriend could have broken up with him or he's struggling in chemistry or he discovered weed (Sammy J -> hi), it could be anything but he just didn't look the same on the court.  He still can't shoot for shit, but he's finally doing that thing where he flies all over the floor and grabs boards and gets steals.  That's a bunch of games in a row now where he's looked like the old Austin, and with Dre still out hopefully he keeps that up and forgets about that devil woman or derivatives or precipitates or whatever.

6.  Daquein McNeil looked pretty good.  I was impressed.  He played a career high of 24 minutes on Saturday (previous high was 13) and although the box score doesn't jump out at your stupid face if you watched him he looked good for an unheralded freshman.  He's clearly passed Maverick on the point guard depth chart, which is a good thing considering outside of a wide open shot Mav is basically a complete disaster with the ball in his hands, and after some early season jitters he seems to have settled in and belies a calm beyond his years.  I mentioned to Snacks that McNeil was started to look like he might end up a pretty decent Big Ten player, and we wondered how good he would have ended up being in the Sun Belt or wherever the hell FIU plays.  There was a lot of understandable skepticism about a Sun Belt recruit suddenly being taken to the Big Ten and I wasn't sure about it myself, but I'm now glad he ended up a Gopher.  I'm sure Dawger still prefers Maverick, but he also thinks Cal Ripken was overrated so what are you gonna do?

7.  The Gophers have developed a couple of pet plays and I like them both a lot.  The first is pretty basic, but you have to have the right personnel and the Gophers do with Mo Walker.  A guard simply enters the ball to Walker at the free throw line and he turns and looks for a baseline cutter.  Walker has the basketball savvy and passing skill to make this work (skills that were evident his freshman year as well, unlike his sudden ability to dominate the paint and score like it's his job).  This worked a few times against Northwestern which was surprising considering how fundamentally sound they usually are.  If the Gophers had won I would probably go back and rewatch these to see how it happened, but as it stands I'd rather rewatch World War Z than this game so forget it.  The other play they will break out 2-3 times a game and it's the one they used to get Malik Smith that huge three pointer against Michigan.  Dre Mathieu will drive from the right side and take the ball baseline, while two shooters spot up on the opposite side - one in the corner and the other on the wing. With the defense collapsing to stop the drive one of them almost always seems to be open.  It seemed to be the corner guy earlier in the season, but as teams have gotten more tape on the play usually it's the wing guy these days, and luckily Mathieu seems to make the right decision.  It would be a better play if anybody could shoot on this team, but I like it anyway.

8.  Tre Demps is a stone cold assassin.  Demps is becoming the kind of guy who you can look at the stats and laugh and stuff but god damn would I love him on my team.  Much like Malik Smith is a chucker but he's our chucker, Demps is the same for Northwestern except he's been hitting huge shot after huge shot.  Three pointer against the Gophers in a tie game with 54 seconds remaining.  Five points and three assists in a four minute span against Wisconsin to give Northwestern control of the game.  Game tying 3-pointer with a minute left in overtime against Purdue and then 4-4 on free throws in double OT to close it out.  Thirteen straight points at the end of the game against Indiana.  Three 3-pointers in a row down the stretch against Illinois.  In every single Northwestern Big Ten win this year, and there are a shocking number of them, you can find a stretch where Demps controlled the game for the Wildcats, whether it was a single huge shot or a stretch where he carried their offense.  Guy is just owning the Big Ten right now.

9.  This team desperately needs Andre Hollins back.  It sounds like it's possible he'll be back for Purdue, but more likely Indiana and it can't happen soon enough.  I love DeAndre Mathieu a lot, but he's better when he's not forced into being the only creator, and with Hollins down he's the only one who can get into the paint off the dribble.  Not to mention he's your best shooter, one of your top defenders, and the clear team leader.  I was hoping the team could tread water while they waited for him to get healthy, but this has been more like treading bricks.

10.  NCAA hopes aren't dead or anything so calm down nancy.  This loss was definitely a hit, but as it currently stands (per ESPN) the RPI is 37 and Strength of Schedule still a robust #6.  The Gophers are 2-3 vs. the RPI Top 25, 4-4 vs. the Top 50, and 5-8 vs. the Top 100 - these are all good numbers.  Thanks to Northwestern's RPI jump, the Gophers still don't have a bad loss (outside the Top 100), and that's probably just as relevant as anything else on their resume.  The issue now is that the home game vs. Northwestern was one everyone was counting on as a win, and with them dropping the game at Nebraska as well suddenly the margin for error is razor thin.  The Gophers probably need five more wins, and now only the home games against Penn State and Illinois look like "sure" wins.  The next two games are huge, @Purdue and home vs. Indiana.  The Gophers don't necessarily need to win both, but it would be awfully nice and then they'd only need to "steal" one of the remaining five games, which is doable.  On the one hand, it's nice to even worry about this because I wasn't sure the Gophers would even be a bubble team at the start of the year.  On the other hand, this sucks because one week ago the Gophers weren't a bubble team but were solidly in the tournament.  Looks like this year is going to be like every other, down to the bubble wire.  I really need a year where this isn't the case.

Game Preview: Gophers vs. Cornhuskers

Nebraska is not a great team.  Depending on your definition, they may not even be a good team.  They have, after all, lost six of their last seven games and hold only a win over Miami as anything remotely quality outside of conference play.  Nebraska, however, is certainly not the shitty team we've become accustomed to.  Of their last seven games only two were at home and many were against quality opponents, and the two home games resulted in a win over Ohio State (you can decide how much that is worth right now) and a near win over Michigan (1-pt loss where Nebraska had two chances to win).  This isn't going to be an easy walk over for the Gophers, especially with Andre Hollins almost certainly on the shelf.

On paper the key to this game will be if the Gophers stick to the offensive game plan of dribble penetration and getting the ball to the big guys on the block.  Nebraska really only has one decent interior defender in Leslee Smith (6-8 junior).  Their only other "big" is 6-10 Walter Pitchford, and he's more of one of them perimeter types.  As a result, Nebraska blocks very few shots and their overall interior defense is terrible.  Even with Hollins out, Dre Mathieu should be able to get into the paint for his suddenly unstoppable jumper and both Eliason and Mo Walker should be able find success when they get the ball down low.

Of course, Tim Miles will know this, and Tim Miles is smart, so the real key to the game will be Gopher perimeter shooting.  Nebraska is mainly a man-to-man team, but they played almost exclusively zone against Ohio State and it led to a victory, so I fully expect to see it on Sunday.  On the season the Gophers aren't exactly lighting it up from three at 35.4%, and you take Dre Hollins out of the equation and they're hitting just 34%.  The Gophers will have to hit enough shots to get Nebraska to open up that gooey soft inside.  Malik Smith can't be off, Austin Hollins has to hit at least a couple of shots, and I'm even going to say Maverick (you know he'll get some PT) will have to hit a shot or two.  If Minnesota can hit from the outside this could be a rout, but that's a pretty damn big if.

Nebraska's offense is not very good, but neither is the Gopher defense.  Unless Nebraska gets hot from three, which could happen but isn't particularly likely (although Ray Gallegos is still there, *shudder*), they're going to put up 65ish points.  The Gophers just have to score more, and they'll need some 3-balls to do it.

Gophers 74, Nebraska 65

Gophers 63, Ohio State 53

I had really hoped the Gophers would manage to snag one win out of this brutal four game stretch, and here it is - so now I hope they can get two.  Sure, this win loses a little bit of luster since it was Ohio State's third straight loss, but they're going to be fine and this will still end up as a big time signature win at the end of the year.

Once again, 10 things I liked and didn't like about the game:

1.  I never thought I'd type this sentence this season, but the Gophers dominated the inside.  How good was Eliason yesterday?  No, his footwork is never going to make you think of Olajuwon, but he's managed to harness his post up game into something good enough to at least make defenses pay attention to him, and his rebounding and defense have been absolutely top notch this year to the point where he has a legitimate case as Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year if they hadn't already decided to give it to Aaron Craft before the season started.  Also have to mention Mo Walker last night, who did more good for this team in a 60 second span than he has the rest of his career combined.  I knew Ohio State had some issues in the paint but Amir Williams is Rickert-soft, and the Gophers bigs made the Buckeyes pay.

2.  The half-court offense was top notch.  I said the Gophers would need to take advantage in transition if they were going to try to compete, but once again it shows why I'm not a coach and instead just write about basketball while drunk.  I was concerned the Gophers would do that thing where they rely on the 3-ball in the half court and with OSU's perimeter defense that was never going to work.  Well it didn't work as they made just 3, but they didn't rely on it either, shooting only 14.  Instead they worked the ball around, were more patient than I can remember this team being - ever - and found good shots to where they shot 64% on two-point shots.  64%!!!!  That's insane.  Great game.

3.  I don't think I'll ever feel comfortable with the power forward spot.  Oto had a decent game, and I do like that he seems to have become the dude on the team who won't take any shit from anybody (something about having an Eastern Europeaner as the "enforcer" feels right), but it seems just about impossible for me to feel comfortable when he's in the game.  What's worse, is that I actually audibly groan when he's taken out because King is even worse.  I guess what I'm saying is, screw you NCAA for not giving us our Buckles (averaging 13 and 9 for FIU).

4.  The defensive game plan was solid too.  The pressure was soft with little to no trapping, which is a good plan against Craft and Shannon Scott if you're going to insist on pressing at all (and we know Pitino does) and half court was strictly zone, forcing the Buckeyes to beat you from the outside.  I mentioned in my preview that this was a good plan, and it worked well with solid rotations in most cases and good overall fundamental defense.  Their was a bit of an issue with LaQuinton Ross getting the ball at the free throw line and being able to score from there (he had 22) but they didn't let Craft or Scott beat them with penetration for the most part and the rebounded very well.  Excellent game on both ends, both in planning and execution. 

5.  Craft and Scott are as good as advertised defensively.  For all the hype I still came away impressed.  Very quick feet, fundamentally sound, and both have about the quickest hands I can remember seeing.  They also both have the basketball smarts to "jump routes" for lack of a better term, and each did it with success last night.  I was also impressed with Craft's ability to go over a screen but slip between his man and the screener so he doesn't give up any ground.  One other thing I noticed was that when the man they're guarding picks up the ball to pass sometimes rather than jump at him they'll jump back to try to get into the passing lane from close up, not every time, but it's not something I can recall seeing many guards do.

6.  Daquein McNeil has clearly jumped Maverick in the rotation.  Once again McNeil got the playing time that could have gone to Ahanmisi, and it's clear at this point that Pitino prefers the freshman.  Could simply be he knows neither of them is great now, but McNeil figures into his future plans while Mav is gone after this season.  McNeil certainly looks every bit the part of a freshman playing in the Big Ten for the first time, but to be fair most of the time so does Maverick.  All I know is Dawger thinks it should be Mav, which pretty much tells me that going with McNeil in those spots is the absolute right move. 

7.  I have no idea what's going on with Austin Hollins.  He did finally seem to snap out of his funk or whatever when he got his own rebound off a missed free throw and put it back in, later making a couple more FTs and getting a key steal, but he just looked lost out there for much of this game and really outside of the Purdue game hasn't been much of a factor in Big Ten play - or at least not a positive factor.  At this point he seems to be having trouble with basic skills like dribbling and catching, and it's really weird.  I don't know if it's a confidence issue or what, but given that Pitino seems to have raised the confidence level of pretty much every other player that seems unlikely.  I'm going to chalk it up to he's pressing a bit given it's his senior year, and assume at some point the real Austin Hollins comes back.  That would be helpful.

8.  Did you ever think a late signing, 5-9 Juco point guard would be this good?  I know I didn't, but thank god for the Honey Gopher who has clearly taken the point guard position over and allowed Dre Hollins to move to the #2, a move that helps the team immensely.  There was a string there in the second half when it looked like Ohio State might be making a move, but Mathieu hit a couple of short jumpers in order to keep the Gophers ahead - as big as Mo's big stretch was, Mathieu's might have been even bigger.  His assist to Dre to hit that monster three towards the end of the game was a thing of beauty, and a sign of a perfect match of player to coach as, in reality, the best move may have been to slow things down and run clock, but Mathieu has the freedom to run and create, and it worked to perfection.  He's one of the most fun players to watch I can remember in a while.  If you ever hear anyone say that Honey Gopher needs to slow down or play more in control I'm going to need you to hit them in the face with a shovel.  Please.  I don't ask you for much.

9.  Turnovers remain an issue.  18 turnovers and a 29% turnover rate is absolutely horrendous, and pulling out a win despite those numbers just shows how well every other facet of the game went for the Gophers last night.  In their five Big Ten games the Gophers are turning the ball over 21.8% of the time, dead last in the conference.  This might be skewed a bit because the Gophers have already played the top two defenses in the conference in Michigan State and Ohio State, but no doubt this is a major concern.

10.  An NCAA bid now becomes a very reasonable goal.  The Gophers are now 14-4 and 3-2 in conference play, with an RPI of 26 and SoS of 13 (per ESPN), and two wins already over RPI Top 25 teams (Ohio State, Florida State) - those are some pretty awesome numbers, and based on the fact that the SoS will probably go up rather than down and the RPI is so good right now, I'll say nine Big Ten wins gets the Gophers in.  Simple math says that means six more victories.  These games are there for the taking:  @Nebraska, Northwestern, @Northwestern, Illinois, Indiana, and Penn State.  Those games will likely see the Gophers favored, and those are your six wins right there.  There is also Purdue on the road which is certainly winnable.  If the Gophers win all those they're in.  If they lose one and win at Purdue they're in.  And if they manage to win any of the other games, any at all, any other major upset, and it would take a pretty bad collapse to keep them out.

So, you know.  Let's not do that.

Minnesota 68, Penn State 65

After the Purdue game I wrote "a win is a win."  After this game, I'll say a road win in the Big Ten is a road win in the Big Ten.  Despite one of the worst stretches of the season since the Arkansas game, the Gophers played a little better down the stretch, took advantage of some luck with Penn State's two best players fouling out, and got a conference road win.  I'll take it.  Mostly because I don't exactly have a choice.  Anyway, here are 10 things I liked and didn't like about the Penn State game:


1.  No matter how ugly the game was, the Gophers made the plays they needed to down the stretch.  And yes, it was crazy ugly, but they did what they needed too.  Malik Smith nailing four key free throws after not hitting a thing all day.  DeAndre Mathieu with a huge steal and a huge tip in after struggling to score most of the first half.  Austin Hollins, having maybe his worst game as a Gopher which is hard to envision after how he played against Michigan, coming up with an absolute monster steal right when the Gophers needed it.  Maybe it doesn't get to that point if Frazier and Newbill don't foul out, and maybe none of those plays get made and Penn State coasts to a W.  But guess what?   They did, they didn't, and the Gophers did what they needed to win.  It probably seems a bit Pollyanna-ish, which is generally against my character, but screw it, this is most likely a lost year between coaches anyway, so I'm gonna take what I can get.

2.  Nobody, and I mean nobody, could stop Tim Frazier.  Mathieu tried, both Hollinses tried, even Ahanmisi tried and it didn't matter, because Frazier could get into the lane whenever he wanted - and he wanted to a lot.  And I don't know if it was by design as an overreaction to the end of the Purdue game, but it seemed like every time Frazier (or one of their crappy guards, even) got into the lane the Gopher help hung back, giving Frazier floater after floater after floater as the world's worst announcing team was happy to tell you over and over and over again.  Luckily he fouled out right as we were getting down to it, and I don't think the Gophers win that game if he's still on the floor because, like I said, the Gophers had zero ability to stop his dribble penetration.

That's now three straight Big Ten games and dribble penetration has been a major, major issue in all three, and most of it is coming off ball screens.  Early in the game, when the Gophers had control, the big men were hedging well and pushing the ball handler out until the screened man could recover and all was well.  Then it all went to shit.  The Gopher bigs started hedging too early or too late, and when Penn State started doing the double pick at the top of the key for Frazier the Gophers basically started committing four players to dealing with it, which meant there were skip passes available.  I'm starting to think the Gophers just don't have the personnel to handle most Big Ten teams defensively, and that's no good for anyone.

3.  Elliott can kind of control the paint.  Another double double with four blocks, and it looked early like the Gopher game plan was going to force feed him the ball on the block and it was working.  Even when Mo was in getting him the ball down low was working offensively.  Then the Gophers decided to go completely away from that strategy and become a jump shooting team again.  Do you know that Eliason only had two field goal attempts in the second half, and one of them came on a tip in?  Not that he should be getting a ton of FGAs, but when he's demonstrated already that Penn State struggles to guard him I wouldn't mind seeing a touch or two, you know?  And I'm not even sure Walker played in the second half.  I can't believe I'm saying this, but against most teams Elliott needs to be an offensive focal point, just for variety's sake.  Not against Michigan State.

3.  I've always been an Oto defender, but he's just lost out there far too often.   He has no idea where to go on defense, and that goes for both his positioning as well as things like hedging on screens and help defense.  These things aren't new, but as his playing time becomes more and more high profile they just stand out more and more.  Then he does things like, let's a pass go through his legs five hole style and then falls down trying to go after it which leads to a Penn State lay-up, or he let's himself get pushed under the basket on a Penn State free throw leading to a Nittany Lion rebound in a big, big, big spot.  And it's not like it's just this game, you can point to at least 2-3 mistakes of his each game, easy.  I think he's got some offensive ability as the jump shot seems to have come back as Pitino's given him more confidence to take open shots, and he brilliantly slipped a screen at one point and then nailed the 18 footer, but I really don't know if he can offset his piss poor defense with his mediocre offense.  Then again, the only other choice at the 4 spot is a Joey King who completely panics any time he has the ball in a non scoring position, so really Pitino is pretty well screwed here.

4.  Speaking of things that are horrible, Stephen Bardo is just the worst announcer ever.  Repetitious, stating the obvious, creating a narrative and sticking with it no matter what, repetitious, infatuated with anyone banking in a shot, and he tends to repeat the same thing over and over again.  Honestly, how many times did you hear that the Gophers were the best free throw shooting team in the Big Ten but were having a bad game?  Or that it was a miracle Penn State was winning even though Newbill was barely playing due to foul trouble?  How about him trying to sell the fact that bad free throw shooting is contagious.  Seriously, once I noticed how horrible he was I kept waiting to see if he'd bring any insight at all to the broadcast, and he did - once.  When Oto slipped that screen mentioned above, Bardo made sure to point it out and even explain it.  But that was it.  There was literally not one single other word he uttered that added to the broadcast.  Someone should light his car on fire.

5.  I'm all for consistency and installing a system, but if it's not working I'm not sure sticking with it makes sense.  Naturally I'm talking about the press, which wasn't working and was creating easy buckets for Penn State who kept beating the Gophers down the floor and creating odd man rush situations and wasn't creating any turnovers or easy baskets for Minnesota.  I suppose I shouldn't have expected it, given that he never backed off when Arkansas was shredding the Gophers.  Normally I would say you need to adapt your system to your personnel and if it's not working it's not working, but in this case I think I'm ok with it.  Pitino likely knows his ceiling is an NCAA bid this year and next and it's not likely either team will have much of any chance to go further, so it's all about building his brand for the class of 2015 and beyond.  Let those kids see how Minnesota basketball is balls to the wall and fun fun fun for 40 minutes and hope it pays dividends.  It's going to cause some ugly situations, like tonight, but it should pay off down the road.  I hope.  Please. 

6.  Penn State doubled on a lot of ball screens, and neither team took advantage.  The point of doubling on a ball screen of course, is to create turnovers, and although the Gophers turned it over an uncomfortable 14 times I can't remember even one coming off of a Penn State double.   If you're not turning it over on a double, that means you should be able to find an open man and unless the defensive rotations are very tight you should be able to get an open shot.  That didn't happen either.  And it wasn't because Penn State's rotations were so great, more that the Gophers were slow to swing the ball, or hesitant to drive the ball, or just couldn't make the right pass.  Overall the Gopher offense was pretty rough tonight, and getting a win on a night when things just aren't working properly is probably a good sign.  Or not.  I don't know.  This team is frustrating.

7.  Malik Smith has proven himself to be a very valuable Gopher, but I'm not exactly sure he should be driving the paint.  I love a lot of what he brings, and my buddy, "The Bear" has taken to calling him J.R. after J.R. Smith which is pretty much perfect, but when he puts the ball on the floor and drives it's an adventure.  As with all true chuckers, which Malik most definitely is even though he has toned it down a bit from his FIU days, once he has the ball in the paint he's damn sure he's going to be able to score which leads to some, um, creative moves.  And creative can work, just look at Mathieu and Dre Hollins when they get into the lane, but that's not exactly something that's in his skill set.  When he puts his head down and heads to the hole it's kind of like Mav bringing the ball up against the press - just hope things don't go too terribly wrong and somebody gets lucky.

8.  Dre Mathieu's gambling finally paid off.  Dre has a habit of going after a steal, and I don't mean jumping passing lanes, I mean he tries to pick pockets all the freaking time.  He loves both not moving his feet and swiping at the ball in front of him and trying to sneak around behind a ball handler and poke the ball out from behind.  I can't actually remember any of this working for him this year, although with a steal rate in the top 70 of the country it must have happened, but I remember plenty of times he put himself completely out of proper defensive position.  Tonight, however, he managed to poke the ball away from whoever it was that's Penn State's third ball handler is in one of the biggest spots of the game and, I guess, the season so far.  I've said I like my point guard a little bit reckless, and that includes defense when you're as fast with hands as quick as Mathieu's, so I'm ok with all this, I'm just happy to see it pay off in a big, big way.

9.  Speaking of the Honey Gopher, he just doesn't quit and I love it.  Mathieu's best move is to drive way into the lane, probably too far truth be told, and then figure out what he's doing from there.  At just 5-9 and against Big Ten big men, both in size and ability, this can lead to some really ugly shots and/or turnovers - and it has, no doubt.  But in a situation where that wasn't working many less confident players would change their game and start playing differently, but Honey Gopher just kept pounding away and it paid off huge for Minnesota with him scoring the team's last four field goals including two absolute monsters.  He's proven himself to be a huge late get for Pitino, and he's perfect for what Pitino wants to do on both sides of the court. I am a big, big fan.

10.  Illinois is ranked?!??!?!  How can this be?  I'm watching the game and all of a sudden the flash up "Next, #23 Illinois takes on #4 Wisconsin" and I was like, wait, Illinois is ranked?  The same team who lost to Georgia freaking Tech?  The same team who almost lost to UIC, IPFW, and Dartmouth?  The team whose best win was a lucky one over Missouri? Sorry folks, but Illinois is terrible.  Completely terrible.  Fact.  And losing to Wisconsin by like, a hundred or something just proves I'm right.  You watch, the Gophers will lose by less at Wisconsin than Illinois, and that's a guarantee I would have made before tonight, too. 

Alright so I admit most of these things sound negative even though they won, but seriously that was a really ugly win.  There is, and I'm not saying anything you don't know, a whole lot of major flaws with this team and right now it's really difficult to envision them upsetting any of the top tier Big Ten teams.  Right now I can come up with 6 maybe 7 more games they really should win, but 3 of those are on the road so it's hard to think they can take all 3 down.  They're going to need to win the games they should and steal at least 1, two depending on how many the drop where they shouldn't.  It's going to be awfully tough to get an NCAA bid, but hey, what the hell, right?  I'll just enjoy the ride.  Until I end up throwing the remote at my TV.  But if I didn't do it tonight, maybe I'm actually a level headed fan?  Seems unlikely, but hey, on Boy Meets World Eric goes from a girl obsessed but mostly normal teenager to a completely ditzy buffoon of a college kid, so I guess anything is possible.

Gophers 82, Purdue 79

A win is a win, right?  The Gophers looked absolutely dominant for a while, but naturally that couldn't last.  As Snacks said, when the Gophers were up 6 with 25 seconds left I kept wondering how they were going to blow it, whereas if Purdue was up 6 with 25 seconds left I would have already left the building conceding a loss. The life of a Gopher (and Minnesota sports in general) fan is not a pretty one.  Anyway I don't really give a crap that they nearly blew the game and won by just 3, they won.  Good enough for me.

Once again, here are 10 things I liked and didn't like:

1.  Defense in the first 30 minutes.  Now, to be fair, for the first 30 minutes Painter's team looked suspiciously like an old Tubby team (may be a bit of a cheap shot but honestly that's what it looked like), but the Gophers did an excellent job of limiting Purdue, a big reason they opened up nearly a 20 point lead.  They kept Purdue out of the paint and turned them into a jump shooting team, which is not a strength of the Boilers.  Their offense mainly consisted of swinging the ball around the perimeter and, even when the managed to get it to the man at the free throw line the ball generally came right back out again quickly.  A.J. Hammons got a couple of touches down low and was reasonably effective, but the Gophers limited those as well.  The zone did what it was supposed to do for 30 minutes, and that was great. 

2.  Defense in the last ten minutes.  At the 9:50 mark, in mid-possession, Painter took a time out.  I don't know what he said or how he said it, but from that point on the Boilers did nothing but attack attack attack.  They picked up the pace after both misses and makes, and when they did have to settle into the half court there was no more perimeter work, it was all dribble drives - and it worked.  Purdue outscored the Gophers 34-20 from that point, and dam near ended up stealing the game.  From 9:50 - 2:50, before things got a bit more desperate on their end, they only took 2 three-pointers, preferring to get into the lane, as they should.  The Gophers' interior defense is always going to be a concern, and it was again big time at the end of this game.

3.  Draustin Hollins got their swerve back.  This one is obvious to anybody who either watched the game or glanced at the box score, but one game after both Hollins brothers played the worst game of their career they were back in a big way. Dre scored 17 and had 5 assists, and Austin scored 18 to go with 9 rebounds.  Maybe more importantly, both showed the same confidence they had in the past so they aren't suffering any ill effects from being utterly horrible against Michigan.  Not that I necessarily expected them to, but then again remember Nick Anderson.  It's not exactly a secret that the Gophers need these two in order to win games, so hopefully they got all the horribleness out of their system in that one game.

4.  Daquean McNeil looked goodish?  Due to Honey Gopher and Malik Smith picking up two fouls each in the first half, causing Pitino to put out some goofy lineups (hopefully we never see McNeil, Ahanmisi, King, Walker, and Smith ever again).  It also meant freshman McNeil was pressed into service and ended up playing 13 minutes in a Big Ten game which is pretty scary.  He had his bad moments, such as the three pointer he air mailed by at least 3 feet, but in general he looked pretty in control with a decent looking jumper and an ability to score in the paint that looked better than I expected.  I've been a bit nervous about McNeil, given that he was an FIU recruit who is suddenly on a Big Ten team, but I definitely liked what I saw.  I don't expect him to surpass Ahanmisi on the depth chart simply because Mav is a senior, but it wouldn't shock me either.

5.  The Fargo-Moorhead Acro Team was awesome as usual.  Seriously, just the best half time show anywhere ever.  You dopes who prefer Quick Change or those dumb dogs or any of that other crap are seriously, epically stupid.  And I hate you.

6.  A.J. Hammons is an absolute monster.  But you know how many shot attempts he had?  Three.  I'm feeling generous so I'll give some of the credit for that to Elliott Eliason's defense and the Gopher defensive scheme, but man was he criminally underutilized.  There were a couple of times Hammons was in and Eliason was on the bench, meaning Joey King or Oto or Mo were guarding Hammons, and Purdue didn't make any kind of effort to make sure he got a touch.  If I'm Purdue he needs to be getting on touch on nearly every possession, but he's actually seventh on the team in percentage of shots taken when he's on the court.  If Purdue wants to have any success this season, that needs to change.  They probably still won't be able have any success, but that would at least be a start.

7.  Offensive creativity seemed to be lacking.  Just one game after I wrote about how impressed I was with some of the plays Pitino was drawing up for this team, they seemed to regress a bit.  Granted the Gophers scored 82 points so it was working just fine so this isn't really a major complaint, but I really get a kick out of cool looking offensive plays and I didn't see any against Purdue.  The only wrinkle I noticed is when the Gophers run a pick and roll, which seems to be nearly every time down (again, not a complaint necessarily) the picker comes off a down screen before heading up to set his pick.  Maybe this is common, but I've never noticed it before.  I've never watched as closely as I am now, but seemed note worthy. 

8.  That was some of the worst refereeing I've ever seen down the stretch.  I am not one to complain about refs.  I recognize the human element, that no ref is out to screw one particular team, and even most bad calls have an element where you could see why the call was missed, but those guys were just brutal today.  The stretch where Eliason (what is this, and Eliason blog all of a sudden) got mugged going to the rim by two guys and had no call and the ball given to Purdue followed by an absolute clean block by Eliason (see) that was called a foul because, according to the refs signal, he moved his arms down even though he clearly didn't was horrendous.  Unfortunately with Ed Hightower's retirement I don't know the name of any refs anymore, but if I did the guy I'd hate the most would be that little bald guy from today's game.  That guy was horrible. 

9. Random trapping is good.  I'm a big fan of pressure defense.  I like a full court press and I love high pressure in the half court, simply because guards are so important and if you keep the pressure up it makes it harder for a team to run their offense (this may be part of the reason why Hammons only had 3 shots).  I like trapping even more, and throughout most of the non-conference schedule the Gophers were a pressure team who didn't trap often.  Against Purdue they busted out a random half court trap a handful of times, and although I don't remember specifically if it caused any turnovers I'm a big fan of mixing it up. It'll work in a big spot at some point.

10.  I still don't really know what to think of this Gophers team.  Let me get this straight, they barely lose in a game where Draustin Hollins plays horribly, but then they barely win a game where Draustin Hollins plays about as well as you could ever expect.  I suspect the team is more of who we saw against Michigan and the last ten minuets against Purdue, but I like to think they're closer to who we saw against Syracuse and first 30 against Purdue.  I really just don't know.  It's hard to trust a jump shooting team.  I fully believe they're going to win a game they have no business winning when 2-3 guys are running hot, and I know they're going to lose a game they shouldn't when nobody can shoot.  Was that the Michigan game?  I don't know.  Was today the day when everybody was running hot and they still only beat Purdue at home by 3?  I don't know.  I can't remember the last time I was this unsure about a team's outlook.  Oh I've been wrong plenty of times, but I usually at least have an opinion.  Not this year, but I know I'm enjoying the hell out of this.

I'm gonna watch Road House now.

Michigan 63, Gophers 60

Dammit. 

Fun game to watch, but not a fun outcome.  That was an incredibly winnable game, and they just couldn't get it.  A home loss to Michigan isn't a season killer by any stretch, but no being able to win a home game against a team on a similar tier (I thought) whose best player is out with an injury and also loses their second best player in the second half is not a good sign for the rest of the year.  An NCAA bid just got that much more unlikely. 

In a blatantly stolen format from the great Zach Lowe at Grantland, here are 10 things I liked and didn't like from last night.  And yes I'm planning on using this format to recap every game unless I get bored or forget.


1.  Fundamental Defense.  The Gophers elected to mainly eschew the zone in favor of man-to-man against Michigan, which is something I said would probably be necessary for a win right here on this very blog, so I liked that.  They also elected to get way out in passing lanes in order to try to force more turnovers, and it worked for a stretch, but it also over extended the defense and since Michigan and Beilein traditionally use a lot of Princeton offense principles when they have the ball, there were a lot of back cuts.  More to the point, there were a lot of back cuts that led to open shots.  If you're going to deny all passes you have to be near perfect in not losing your man or have help defense always in position.  Neither happened against Michigan.

2.  Offensive Creativity.  One of the reasons the game was so fun to watch, beyond the Gophers pushing the ball at every opportunity, was Pitino doing a lot of cool things in the half court.  One play I really liked was where they set two consecutive picks off the ball for Austin Hollins to do a curl cut out at the wing heading towards the free throw line.  If he has shot or a driving lane, go with it obviously, but after Hollins comes through the second picker screens down on the first picker who pops out for an open three.  The other really slick play was the one to get Malik Smith the open three near the end of the game (for some reason the btn2go replay feed ends at the 4 minute mark so I'm describing this one by memory).  Mathieu sprints down court with the ball and heads to the right wing in what looks like your typical dribble hand off play, but instead of handing it off he keeps the ball and drives baseline, throwing the defense off.  At the same time, Malik Smith heads towards the opposite corner (I don't know if there was a pick for him or not, but I suspect there was a back pick involved) for an open three.  Cool play.  So much interesting stuff going on at that end, I'm going to have to start recording the games and watching them a second time just to catch it all.  Maybe.

3.  Ball Screen Defense.  I did not understand the defensive scheme last night.  I've already said that I believed last night man-to-man was the way to go, but they way the Gophers defended ball screens really had me baffled.  They chased the ball handler over the top of every screen, which is what you would do if you feared a three point shot coming right off the pick, but the big men never hedged out which created driving lanes for the dribbler (this is what Michigan did all night, bracket the ball handler with both the man guarding him and the man guarding the screener are night and it worked well to contain the Hollinseses).  This penetration caused the need for help defense in the lane which led to a lot of easy dishes for easy buckets.  I know Michigan is a good 3-point shooting team, but according to the awesome hoop-math.com 85% of three pointers in college are assisted, and Michigan is right at that same number so they don't exactly have a lot of guys who are going to come around the pick and shoot right away.  This just confused me the entire game.

4.  Elliott Eliason may be an actual center now.  It's been going on all season, really, as Eliason has stepped in after the loss of Trevor Mbakwe and has more than doubled his scoring, rebounding, and blocked shots, but it was welcome to see him notch a double double against a Big Ten team.  A Big Team relatively devoid of effective big men, but a Big Ten team nonetheless.  It was less pleasant to realize Eliason may be the most important player on the team, because Mo Walker is basically useless outside of a wide open lay-up, and Oto and Joey King are both too small.  This realization is pretty terrifying, considering as of now there's only one new big coming in for next season as well.

5.  No Draustin Hollins means no wins.  When the two best players on the team shoot 4-19 and 1-11 from three it's going to be awfully, awfully tough to win.  Some might say that coming that close to beating a decent Michigan team with the performance those two put up is actually a good sign for this team.  Those people are idiots. The Gophers probably need both of them to play well in order to win most games, and I don't even know if they'd beat Northwestern if both played poorly (just kidding, they would).  This was rough.  I'm just glad we're already passed the holidays.  I can't imagine having to sit there at the dinner table listening to Lionel berate both his sons for this poor play against Michigan.  Ouch.

6.  Honey Gopher is a site to behold.  Dre Mathieu is really fun to watch.  So incredibly fast, and incredibly creative once he gets in the paint, which he needs to be since he's only 5-9.  Incredible hops as well, as he challenged Glen Robinson at the rim twice going for a highlight reel play - unfortunately Robinson ended up 2-0 in those match ups.  That being said, when you're 5-9 and your best move is driving to the rim there are going to be some problems, and he kind of fell apart at the end including a couple of crushing turnovers with under 90 seconds left to play.  I still love him.  I like my point guards to be a little bit reckless, and he's just a little bit reckless. 

7.  The Defense on Nik Stauskas was stellar.  Stauskas is a very good player and his changes from last year are legit, so holding him to 3-7 shooting and 1-4 on threes is quite good.  Even more impressive is Stauskas only took 7 shots, only the fourth time he's had less than double digit shot attempts and two were in the first two games of the year before he realized he was good now and the other time was against Duke and I think he was hurt or something.  Anyway, the Hollins brothers alternated on him and a solid combination of ball denial and tough man-to-man worked well for most of the game.  He did manage to score 14 points, but seven of those came on free throws, and he also notched a season high seven assists because once he realized the Gophers were chasing on screens he just kept going into the lane and passing to somebody since help defense had to collapse to stop penetration kill me.

8.  Somehow Jon Horford was a force.  I said in my preview that you didn't really have to worry about Jordan Morgan or Jon Horford being an offensive presence, though Horford did at least have a bit of a jump shot.  Pitino and the Gophers must be DWG readers, because they constantly left Horford alone in their defensive rotations and unfortunately he made them pay as he hit a number of nice 10-12 jumpers.  Those jumpers along with being a frequent recipient of those easy dishes in the lane led to a 6-8 shooting night and 14 total points, a career high.  Whatever.  Your brother is still way better than you.

9.  Replay kind of screwed the Gophers, but not in the way you might think.  Or maybe in the way you think, I don't know your brain.  When the Gophers appeared to create a Michigan turnover (and there were only 10 by Michigan for the game, by the way, compared to 15 for the Gophers which is not how they're going to win) down 3 with like 20 seconds left Pitino immediately called his final timeout to set up a play.  After review, the refs correctly gave the ball back to Michigan.  If that call is made correctly the first time Pitino never uses that timeout because you don't need a timeout to say "press and then foul."  So the Gophers were left without a timeout at the end of the game.  Didn't really matter I guess, but that could affect a game at some point in a meaningful way. 

10.  Has Corporate America taken over the student section?  You know those big giant heads the students hold up to distract a free throw shooter?  Kind of stupid but also pretty fun and always interesting to see who brings what, right?  Well last night there were only about 5 or 6 of them (usually there's like 10-20) and they were all the stupid Target dog.  The only explanation I can come up with is Target now sponsors that section and all other big head things are banned.  Horrible.  Simply horrible.  Worse than Oto Osenieks who I like but stayed in the game way to long down the stretch with Malik Smith on the bench. 


Whatever.  We move on.  Next up is Purdue on Saturday, and this is an absolute must win if this season is going to have any chance at resembling a successful one.  Because Purdue is terrible.  They're 10-4, and although they only have one bad loss (Washington State) they've struggled against some pretty terrible teams.  They won by 1 versus Northern Kentucky, 4 vs. Rider, 5 vs. Siena, and 5 versus Eastern Michigan.  They do have one good win over West Virginia, but nothing else impressive.

The Gophers should feel comfortable going back to their zone on Sunday, since Purdue doesn't shoot many threes and aren't particularly good at it when they do.  What they do like to do is run, and while Painter's teams have never been slow paced this is his fastest team by a considerable margin.  That they've upped their pace while still limiting turnovers quite a bit is impressive.  Purdue plays three guards in Terone Johnson, Ronnie Johnson, and Bryson Scott who can all score (their three leading scorers) and who all value the basketball. 

The X-factor will be 7-foot monster A.J. Hammons, who averages just 9 points and 8 rebounds on the season but just exploded for 18 & 16 versus Ohio State.  The Gophers literally only have one guy who can effectively guard him and Hammons is very good at drawing fouls, which means Eliason is going to have to balance aggressiveness and smartness more than ever - Hammons would score 40 on Mo Walker or anybody else they can put in there.  He's also a defensive monster, averaging nearly 4 blocks per game (5 against OSU) with a block rate that's third in the country.  If the Gopher guards are going to penetrate - and they should be able to - they'll have to be smart with Hammons.

Despite Hammons, the Gophers are the far superior team as Purdue is still struggling with some really sub-par recruiting classes lately by their standards.  There's always a danger the Gophers get wrecked inside, but that's going to be a danger no matter who they play, Purdue is just a little more dangerous in that regard that most bad teams.

Minnesota 83, Purdue 73