NCAA Game #1 Preview: Gophers vs. UCLA

The Gophers are seeded 11th in the NCAA Tournament this week, which was a good break because the sixth seeds as a group are fairly week and pretty vulnerable.  Even better, the Gophers couldn't have secured a better match-up than UCLA, which is why, despite all their warts and their limping into the tournament, the Gophers actually find themselves a 3-point favorite.

The biggest issue for UCLA is with an injury, as freshman swingman Jordan Adams, the team's second leading scorer, broke his foot in the Pac-12 tournament semi-final win over Arizona and will miss the remainder of the season (the Bruins then lost in the championship to Oregon by 9).  With transfers of some key pieces to begin the year (both Josh Smith and Tyler Lamb bugged out) the Bruins now have just seven players who appeared in more than five games this year.  Considering UCLA is an up-tempo team (35th fastest team in D-I) who knows how this affects their game plan, and if there is any foul trouble at all they could be in bad shape quickly.

Also putting them in bad shape?  They have absolutely nobody who can guard Trevor Mbakwe.  I mean nobody.  Their two big men, David and Travis Wear, and neither athletic nor particularly strong.  They are finesse bigs, kind of like a really poor man's Cody Zeller, and if you recall Mbakwe had a double-double in both games against Indiana including a 21-12 at Williams where he destroyed Zeller.  The Wears do have a couple of inches on him, but I don't expect that to matter.  The only other option Ben Howland will have is bringing freshman Tony Parker off the bench, but Parker is raw, fat (6-9, 275 lbs.), and Howland clearly doesn't trust him (averaged just 6 minutes per game and he's played a grand total of 14 minutes in their last six games).  Parker may have the strength to at least both Mbakwe a little bit, but in the athleticism department he gets blown away.  Another possibility is 6-8 freshman Kyle Anderson, but he's more of a perimeter player (despite averaging 8.6 rebs per game he's not a "on the block" kind of guy).  They literally have no other options.

I'm going to stop right here and say this again.  UCLA HAS NOBODY WHO CAN GUARD TREVOR MBAKWE.  They don't.  The Gophers need to feed him the ball.  Over and over and over.  He should touch the ball in or near the paint on every single possession he's in the game.  It's that simple.  It should become clear quickly they'll have to double him, and then it will come down to if the Gophers can make open shots.  Either than or UCLA will switch to zone, in which case the Gophers offensive rebounding should kill them because the Bruins are a horrible rebounding team.  If the Gophers make Mbakwe the focal point of their offense on Friday they should win this game.

I could stop right here, but I want to type more.

First, I don't trust Tubby and/or the players to get Mbakwe the ball on every possession.  I'm hoping for the best, but wouldn't be shocked to see him with 4 field goal attempts again.  Well, actually he should have more than that because he should end up with 5-8 offensive rebounds himself, but you know what I mean.

Secondly, UCLA has maybe the best individual player in this tournament in Shabazz Muhammad, and that's always a bit terrifying (ask Duke re: Derrick Williams).  Sometimes a player like this can get so hot, so dialed in, that nothing a defense can do can stop them and they can carry their team to victory after victory.  Muhammad is that kind of talent.  He can score inside, he can score outside.  He can drive to the paint, he can hit the jumper.  If he's fully engaged he's a handful - but therein lies the rub for UCLA.

There have plenty of articles I've seen asking if Muhammad already has one foot out the door to the NBA and pretty much announced he was one and done before recruiting even got serious.  Howland already announced he was leaving after this year, and the vibes coming out of Westwood it just feels like everybody's ready to pack-up and move on.  From the issues that came out last year with Howland and Reeves Nelson, overall team discipline issues, and several transfers it just feels like everybody is ready to be done and move on (note: sounds like Howland is likely gone, which really creates extra competition for Shaka Smart if the Gophers move in that direction).  With a kid who has had "NBA lock" written all over him for years it's not surprising Muhammad has mailed it in a few times this year (double digits rebounds just 3 times this year, 20+ points just once in his last 6 games, one steal in the last 4 combined, the game when he shot 11 three-pointers despite making just two).  Who knows what UCLA gets out of him?  I read he seemed more intense during the Pac-12 Tournament so maybe they get a fully focused Muhammad, but maybe not.

Outside of Muhammad the offense basically breaks down into North Carolina cast-off Larry Drew (yes, he transferred but the Heel fans were happy to see him go) breaking down his man off the dribble and creating opportunities for the other Bruins (Kyle Anderson, both Wears, and Norman Powell are all decent jump shooters even if none are even mediocre three-point threats).  Drew isn't much of a scorer himself but he does do well getting into the lane to set-up others.  Outside of not letting Muhammad go off (this is a wonderful test for Rodney Williams to prove his draft worthiness if he gets that call, FYI, although personally I think Austin Hollins is probably a better play) having Dre Hollins be able to handle Drew 1-on-1 is the #1 defensive key to the game.

Let's face it - this game sets up perfectly for the Gophers.  What's their #1 strength? Rebounding.  What's UCLA's #1 weakness?  Rebounding.  What's the Gophers #1 weakness? Guarding against the 3 and half-court offense.  UCLA?  Don't shoot the three at all (and their #1 guy was Adams) and try to run-and-gun which should give the Gophers plenty of transition opportunities.  The Bruins #1 strength? They don't turn the ball over, but the Gophers don't rely on turnovers anyway (and they create their additional opportunities from offensive rebounds).  Think the "vibe" around this team is off?  It's even worse at UCLA where Howland's dismissal slip is probably already half-filled out and most of the players are sick of him (I don't think the Gophers and Tubby have reached this stage yet).

The scariest thing about this game for the Gophers is how perfectly it sets up for the Gophers.  As a life long Minnesota sports fan I know that's when things usually go wrong, and yet, as a life long Minnesota sports fan I keep getting sucked back in.  I'm buying.

Gophers 73, UCLA 66.  Round 2:  Gophers 60, Florida 88.

Wait, what? Gophers beat who?

Wow.  That was unexpected.  I'm pretty sure I can't write anything too intelligent or insightful right now since I was pretty much watching that game on pure emotion, but I can throw down a few thoughts because if you're like me you are just going to spend all day at work reading everything you can find about the game.  So I'll sit here with my celebratory cognac (fine, vodka and coke) and write a couple of thoughts.  Also, it's not coke, it's R.C.   *hangs head in shame

[NOTE:  This formatting is horrendous.  I'd fix it but I have no idea how.]

• This was the Gopher team we saw in the early season.  If they can play like this to close out the year they're a sweet 16 contender again.
• This wasn't a case of Indiana playing poorly, the Gophers simply outplayed them.
• I thought Dre Hollins would be the one to step up and carry the team if anybody did, but no question it was Mbakwe setting the tone in the first half.  Remember last year at the beginning of the season when the Gophers would spend three quarters of the game struggling against crappy teams and then Mbakwe would be all like "ok, I'm getting every missed shot now" and carry them back to a win?  Yeah, that's what he was again tonight.  Was amazing.
• Really, nobody played poorly though.  Even those who didn't play well overall made huge plays at some point.  Hollins, Hollins, and Rodney all shot poorly, but Dre hit some huge shots down the stretch (including that monster three down the stretch which, right before, I told the Bear (who came to the game with me) that if the Gophers hit a 3 on that possession I'd do something unspeakable to him so well, there's that), Austin had a couple of huge plays, and Rodney had that big Hakim Warrick style block on an Oladipo three as time was running out.  Everybody came up with a big play at some point.  Everybody.  Even the 5 second call on Indiana came when Mo Walker was in the game.  He had nothing to do with it, but he was there.
• Some will say this is enough to guarantee the Gophers a tournament berth no matter what happens the rest of the way.  I'm not quite that certain, but at this point I'm confident if they can beat either Penn State at home OR Nebraska on the road that will do it.  Obviously the more wins they can get the better the seed, but as long as the Gophers don't go 0-4 to finish up (including the B10 tournament) it should be the easiest Selection Sunday in years.  Decades, really.
• I've gone on record as saying I'm terrified of a Mo Walker/Elliott Elliason starting front court next season.  No longer.  I'm not exactly fired up about it, but Elliason has done enough go convince me at worst he can be a Trevor Winter type, and he has two years to get better.  Walker has shown enough flashes of potential to at least temper my scaredness.  With Hollins, Hollins, and Coleman still going to be around those two just have to be not terrible for the team to at least be in contention for an NCAA bid.  Still hoping and believing in a Chuck Buggs breakout.  Believe with me.
• Speaking of believing, man did whoever is in charge of music botch the "Don't Stop Believing" music in the final minute or so of the game.  Started it too late and never even got to the chorus.  Horrible.
• Cody Zeller is every bit as good as advertised.  He is smooth in the paint and has a bunch of really good moves he can go to on the block.  He's also a bit soft, however, and disappeared after Mbakwe, Elliason, and Williams reminded him that this is the Big Ten and pushing people and elbows and what not is the norm.  I heard someone mention that Indiana stopped looking for Zeller, but really Zeller stopped posting up hard in the second half.  Sorry, but it's true.
• Also Victor Oladipo is ridiculous.  If I had any criticism of Indiana tonight it's that they didn't just iso Oladipo every single time they had the ball, because Joe Coleman was the primary defender on him tonight and I'm sorry I like Coleman but he is a horrendous defender.  Oladipo beat him to the paint every time he tried, and there were a couple of times I watched Coleman stand still as if rooted to the ground when he should have been providing some weak side help.  Again, I like the guy a lot, but he's a horrific defender.
• That being said, overall the defense was outstanding tonight.  Holding both Watford and Zeller to single digit scoring was huge, especially because Watford picked up six of his eight on shitty late threes that were half luck.  Plus shutting down Hulls after his huge first half was big, and it happened because of more awareness of where he was and just a swarming defense that refused to give up good looks.  We saw that kind of defense earlier in the year but it has since bailed, good to see it again. 
• I haven't seen video of the play but Will Sheehey should be ashamed of himself if he really flopped there in the last 30 seconds or so, looking for a cheap flagrant against Dre Hollins.  Crean should be even more ashamed if he encouraged him to do it.  It's a rule that makes sense if common sense was applied, but it's not and it's reared it's ugly head too much this year in stupid places.  To try to take advantage of it is embarrassing.  I'd like to say you're better than that Crean, but I know you're not.  ASS.
• 10 turnovers.  That's it for the Gophers.  Despite everything else I've written, which as usual is way more than I intended, that was really the key.  Well that and the 17 offensive rebounds, but that's to be expected.  This team is good enough to beat anyone in the country if they don't turn it over and actually play defense.  This may be hyperbole but this R.C. is going to my head.
• I'm willfully ignoring the stretch of possessions where the Gophers offense seemed clueless and got nothing but terrible shots as the shot clock expired as well as the fact that this sets up the Gophers perfectly to lose their last 3 games and make everybody nervous.  I will deal with all that later, for tonight, we party.

I'm an idiot with my phone, but you get the point.

Gophers lose to Spartans. Again.

There is no shame in losing in East Lansing, god knows Tubby and the Gophers are used to it.  The Spartans are coming together, are a legit top ten team, and have a well known home court advantage - anybody expecting the Gophers to actually win this game is a pretty big optimist.  Since Michigan State has been going more twin towers they've become very tough to deal with, and the Gophers three point defense, which was so good earlier in the year, has deteriorated too much to double the ball as much as they did last night, and they were unable to get out to the shooters leading to a good shooting team hitting 9-18 from 3.  When a team shoots that well and only turns the ball over 5 times, you've got a tough game in front of  you.  A few other quick points.

1.  Trevor Mbakwe simply needs to get more than 5 shots (especially when two of those five came off him getting offensive putbacks).  Nix is a big dude, but he can't handle Mbakwe's combination of speed, quickness, and strength.  In the beginning of both halves the Gophers seemed to be making a concerted effort to get him the ball, even using cross screens with him at the high post coming through the lane and posting up on the block, where Nix would have to go under the screen and was unable to beat Mbakwe to the position.  It worked and it got him the ball, and he was able to get good looks with Michigan State not doubling.  There were a few times he was too tentative, almost waiting for the double when he should have just gone to work, but that wasn't reason enough to go away from it.  Didn't make much sense.

2.  Austin Hollins simply cannot shoot away from Williams Arena.  I don't think anyone has ever considered him a great shooter, but watching all the games at home he kind of gives the impression that he's shooting the ball really well this year, but that's only the case in Minneapolis.  I looked at all the games vs. non-cupcakes, and at home he's shooting 49% from the floor at 45% from 3 at home - very good numbers.  But away from the Barn he's hitting just 28% overall and 26% from three - absolutely horrible.  On a team with no great shooters (depending on how you want to label Andre Hollins) it would be great if he could figure out how to hit a shot on the road.  With the post scoring they can get from Mbakwe and Rodney Williams and the ability Dre Hollins and Joe Coleman have to get into the lane it creates open perimeter shots, as we've seen.  He's open just as often, they just go down at Williams and clang off elsewhere.  I don't know if you guys know this, but the NCAA Tournament games are NOT played at Williams Arena.  NIT, yes, but I prefer to continue to assume that's not an option.

3.  Prior to this game, Tubby mentioned he needs to play his bench more because the starters are logging too many minutes.  Although I'm not entirely certain I agree, he's the coach and that's his thought process, so whatever, but he's really got to stop going with five subs all at once.  Some teams can probably pull that off in spurts, but for whatever reason the Gopher second five has zero ability to score or even get shots.  Elliason can rebound, Welch can score (a little), and Maverick can penetrate (a little), but as an overall group together there's nobody who can lead the offense.  Inevitably they end up with a bad shot as the shot clock winds down.  In games like this you just can't go for a 3-5 minute stretch with little to no hope of scoring.  You just can't.  It's not that hard to come up with a substitution pattern that makes sure you have at least two starters in at any time.  Or, apparently, it is.

4.   Really, there's no reason to get too concerned about losing this game - it was inevitable.  I see the Gophers finishing out at 5-3 (with a 3 game losing streak in there just to get everybody all riled up again), which puts them at 10-6 in the best conference with good computer numbers and a pretty good resume.  They'll probably end up with five or six seed and then we'll see what happens from there.  Which, to be honest, is a pretty far cry from where I thought they'd be. 

So it goes.

Gophers vs. Illinois L ive Blog

-11 minutes - So why not drink some booze and live blog, am I right?  Watching the Iowa State vs. Kansas game right now.  Great game. 

-9 minutes - On a scale of 1-think the Big Bang Theory isn't nerdy enough, how nerdy is it that I just watched this:


-7 minutes - So real quick since we have some time let me just mention how ridiculous the Hall of Fame voting crap was this year with nobody getting in.  Are you guys kidding me?  The worst part is you know they think they're taking some kind of stand or making a statement, when in reality they're just being a bunch of pussies.  The worst part?  As pointed out by Loretta8 from Sippin' on Purple - Bonds and Clemens finished with a different amount of votes.  One is the all-time home run leader, the other won 7 Cy Young Awards.  They're both no-brainer first ballot inductees - unless you are against voting in steroid guys (aka completely ignoring the 90s) in which case they both are at the same level of guilt and should both stay out.  One way or the other.  This means somebody voted for one, but not the other guy. Makes zero sense.  They need to revamp the whole system, and I hate saying that because I really don't know how to make it better.  To start, how about kicking out all the idiots. 

-4 minutes - Seriously, even if you don't want to vote in anybody you remotely suspect of steriods (and, by the way, I've never heard Piazza linked to roids) how do you not elect Craig Biggio?  The stats are there and I'm pretty sure nobody suspects him of steroid use.  Or elect Tim Raines for christ's sake.  He's the second best leadoff hitter of all-time.  At some point I may have to do a post on Raines - or at least link to one - because the guy absolutely has the numbers to be in Cooperstown.  And you know he wasn't on steroids because he was too busy being high on cocaine.

-2 minutes - This Iowa State game needs to end before the Gopher game starts.  Hurry up already.

20:00 - A banked in three for Kansas?  You gotta be joshing me.  Welp, on to the Gopher game.

20:00 - Being good kind of sucks.  It was much easier watching these games when I knew they were going to lose. 

20:00 - What's Egwu doing in there, he doesn't even shoot threes?

19:48 - Paul with a very tough three point attempt (and missed).  You can have that all game, guys.

19:04 - Another bad three early in the shot clock.  Please keep doing this, Illini.

17:41 - Illinois doing a good job keeping the Gophers off the offensive glass, which we can tell already because they've missed like, a billion shots already.

16:53 - Announcer guy FYI - D.J. Richardson is not a "sharp shooter."  Gopher offense is so bad right now I'm afraid Tubby might go with the line change offense.

16:18 - Brandon Paul called for the charge after dunking over Mbakwe - announcers don't seem to realize that is, indeed, an offensive foul so who cares about the dunk part.  I feel like these guys might be the death of me.  Gophers down 4-3, but there have been as many shots already as there were in the entire first half of the Northwestern game.

15:44 - Wait a minute.  How can a basket count on a made dunk with a charge called?  By definition the ball was still in Paul's hand, which by definition means the basket doesn't count.  Jesus this is like re-writing the rules of math.  It's not like you can just change PI to be equal to 3.14158.  My god people.

14:29 - Gopher defense has been good, forcing Illinois into tough shots, other than the two dunks that is, and doing a good job on the boards.  Gophers just not converting opportunities except for just now with Coleman on a dunk in transition.  More transition please.

13:25 - Rodney for 3?  I guess if they aren't going to challenge it he's going to have to prove he can hit it.  Big shot as far as rest of the game implications go.

12:12 - Dre hits a three to answer a Richardson three.  Richardson's came early in the shot clock with a hand in his face, Dre's came mid-shot clock and was wide open.  Gophers are going to win this game, you guys.

11:29 - Complete second unit in for the Gophers.  Great.  And Elliason travels 35 feet from the bucket.  I know why he does this, so he can play the good players the entire second half, but I still don't like it.  Gophers down 13-11 right now, let's hope it stays close to that number while these clowns run down the shot clock again and again.

10:18 - Gopher turnover, Illinois three, Gopher turnover.

9:52 - Welch guarding Paul.  God save us all.

9:32 - Offensive foul on Elliason.  That's three straight turnovers by him.  Effing brilliant.

9:00 - Is there anything more terrifying than Maverick in transition?  For Gopher fans, I mean.

7:56 - TV timeout coming with Illinois up 16-15.  Good job by the second unit.  And by good job, I mean good job on defense (for real) with absolutely brutal offense until Mbakwe came in for Elliason, with Trevor scoring all four points.

7:42 - Wow.  Mbakwe with the drive from the top of the key, makes a lefty layup and is fouled.  That was an NBA second round draft pick play right there.  Free throw to tie?  Good.

6:45 - Coleman goes for a monster dunk and gets fouled but it's not called, good job attacking the rim though.  Pretty sure Dan just pulls up for a 16 footer there.

5:47 - Great defensive rotations forcing the Illini into bad shots, leading to transition opportunities leading to back-to-back dunks by Coleman and Mbakwe.  Gophers up four.

4:53 - More bad shots, more transition opportunities, more Gopher dunks.

4:17 - Good one-on-one move by Bertand to hit a jumper, answered by a three-pointer by Austin Hollins off a good pass by Andre in transition.

3:57 - D.J. Richardson has got to be one of the more disappointing big 10 players I can remember.  Tons of fan fare and hype and in four years he's become nothing more than a jump shooter.  Of course, it's tough when you have to play for the worst couch in the world.

2:08 - Illinois getting (and hitting) a shit ton of free throws, keeping this close at 31-27 Gophers.  Illinois just terrible from three right now, but a lot of it is the Gopher defense.  In general the Illini aren't missing open shots, but contested ones.

1:25 - Hollins (Austin) for three, followed by an Illini miss, followed by Andre Ingram throwing a pass into the 8th row.  I really think Andre Ingram is very promising for a sophomore.

0:47 - Paul actually gets an open look and drains it.  Then Ingram travels.  We're going to have to go Iron Five.

0:00 - 34-30 Gophers at the half.  Excellent job.  Gopher defense is playing awesome, and as long as they keep that up and keep getting transition opportunities they're going to win this game.

0:00 - Holy crap the Lakers are a mess.  Spurs up 101-85 with seven minutes left.

19:13 - Illinois still taking dumb shots as Paul goes for the contested running floater (and misses).

18:33 - Paul swatted by Rodney on a contested turnaround jumper, which leads to a wide open three for Austin Hollins (who misses) which leads to an offensive rebound which leads to a lay-up (and foul) for Mbakwe.  Free throw good.  That sequence was a microcosm of this game.

17:53 - Richardson step back 18 footer early in the shot clock.  So dumb.

16:54 - Gopher ball up 39-30.  Looking for a dagger.  Looking at you, Austin.

16:17 - How about a 40 footer with teh shot clock at two that banks in for Dre who I'm not even sure looked at the hoop?  How about that?

14:52 - Illinois with a couple buckets in the paint to cut it to 44-36 Gophers.  I hope they haven't figured out this "get good shots" thing.

14:11 - Another lay-up for Illinois, time-out Gophers.  Gotta keep 'em out of the paint and keep making them take those contested jumpers they love so much.

12:33 - Illini cut it to 2 with like their fourth straight basket in the paint.  I liked it better when they were stupid.  Also Mo Walker in the game is killing everything. 

11:54 - Austin Hollins steal leads to a dunk for Coleman, and then a Dre Hollins steal leads to an intentional foul by Illinois.  Also, I'm having a heart attack.

11:54 - I think I'm supposed to try to be funny but I'm just way too into the game.  If you want to laugh just listen to Nickelback or Coldplay or something.

11:41 - Dre hits both free throws and then nails a three.  Thank god for Dre.  Like Eminem said, you can't forget about Dre.  *streetcred*

11:09 - Shit, Paul into the lane, fouled and hits the shot.  STOP PLAYING SMART ILLINOIS.

10:50 - "Ahanmisi getting ready to check-in."  Cry.

10:28 - Another Illinois lay-up, defense has gone to shit. 

9:38 - Coleman for three?  Great play by Rodney to find him.  And again Illinois gets to the lane and draws a foul.  This needs to stop.

9:12 - Time for Welch to shine here with four fouls on Andre Hollins already.  I'm fine with him on offense, but very scared on defense.

8:38 - Gophers switch to a zone leading to an absolutely terrible three point miss by Paul, leading to a dunk by Rodney and a 58-47 Gopher lead.  I love dumb teams.

7:09 - Paul into the lane and misses when he could have kicked it out to a teammate for an open three, leads to a transition lay-up for Coleman and a 60-49 lead.  I feel like I'm typing the same thing over and over again.  Also fearing this is a pretty worthless live blog for the reader, but what do you care it's saving you from having to think about actually doing work.

6:42 - Bertand goes one-on-one for about 10 dribbles then misses a contested turnaround.  I know I keep pointing it out but I can't get over how dumb this team is. 

5:43 - Could have done without the easy dunk.  On Coleman, naturally.

5:24 - He pays it back by blowing by his defender for a lay-up.  Incredible game for Coleman.

4:45 - Coleman with ANOTHER three.  And Dre Hollins just checked in and picked up his fourth foul, which means earlier when I thought he had four he only had three which means I have no idea why he was ever taken out of the game.

3:33 - Gophers up 13 (another Coleman dunk) and I can still barely breathe.

3:04 - Sloppy turnover.  Oh yeah, that's why.

2:52 - Richardson airballs a three (contested, of course) which reminds me why I probably CAN breathe.

2:30 - I know the game isn't over yet (Gophers up 72-59) but man is this team good.  Their defense is incredible.  Watching their rotations on defense was the most impressive part of the game, and that's a game when Coleman scored 25 (as of now).  Those who didn't watch or didn't pay attention may call this a fluky bad shooting night by the Illini, but the Gophers had everything to do with that.  Then look at the offense where they have five guys who could put up 20 on any given night?  This team is for real, kids. 

1:48 - I can't believe Illinois missed another contested three-pointer, you guys.

1:16 - Brandon Paul lay-up.  Basically uncontested since the Gophers are up by 12 (after that).

0:30 - Coleman playing some serious suckhole, now up to 29 points after a couple easy dunks.

0:09 - Dre with a three as the shot clock winds down becasue why not.  84-67 Final.  Crazy, dudes.  I'll maybe have more on this game tomorrow if I don't get lazy

Gophers 69, Northestern 51

 Well I'm not sure I can call it a good win, but they did end up covering the spread and so just looking at the final margin everything looks good, even if that first half was some of the ugliest basketball I've ever seen and was so boring even Bo Ryan wanted them to speed up the game.   They managed to make adjustments in the second half and ended up winning easily - a pretty impressive feat that once again shows how good and experienced this team is.  I'll make a few other points, once again in list style like I did after the Michigan State game because it's easier and then I don't have to bother with those pesky transition sentences between paragraphs.  Those guys are jerks.

-  I was stunned Tubby wasn't running any kind of a press to try to jump start the tempo of the game, since it was obvious from the beginning (and should have been obvious before the game, based on stats) that Northwestern was going to try to limit the number of possessions in the game.  I give him a little bit of credit for at least figuring that out in the second half, even if the full court pressure was more of a token man-to-man the half-court man trap definitely got the game moving.  With the pressure upped it caused more steals and more shots from the Wildcats earlier in the shot clock, which led to more opportunities in transition where Northwestern got killed by Michigan and, sure enough, the Gophers had a significant advantage and it's basically what changed the game.  Once again, I'm right.

-  The Gophers' edge in athleticism also manifested itself, along with their size advantage, on the boards where Minnesota grabbed as many offensive boards as Northwestern had total, and the overall rebounding margin was 45-20 in their favor.  Northwestern just had no answer.  I will say that Alex Olah is eventually going to be really, really annoying.  He's already a beast size wise and is just a freshman, and even though he got pretty well schooled by Mbakwe in this game it'd be hard to find a freshman big man who wouldn't.  I may be overrating him a bit but it wouldn't surprise me at all if he ends up a double-double guy by the end of his career.  That's assuming he progresses in his game and gets quicker and more athletic.  If not, well, hello Luka Mirkovich v. 2.0.

-  Despite all that goodness, the turnovers are still rough.  The Gophers gave it away 15 times against a team that doesn't cause very many of them.  This needs to change, or it good be the difference between a great season and merely a very good one.

-  I think the Austin Hollins run of five three-pointers was the most fun I've had at a game all year.  The Rodney and Mbakwe dunks (and Coleman, I suppose) might be more individually exciting, but there's just something fun about a guy just being absolutely on fire from 3.  I just love watching the heat checks.  Like how Hollins' third three pointer was probably a little bit of a bad decision but who cares because he already hit two, and then his fourth was just a deep, deep three-ball he never would have taken if he hadn't hit three already.  Just fun to see.  The Gophers may not have a reliable shooter this year (sorry but no, they don't) but they have two guys who could hit eight in a game and it would phase me.  And they're both named Hollins! What are the odds?!!?!??!?

-  Speaking of Mbakwe dunks, how terrifying was that absolute monster he threw down?  This one:



I think my favorite part is how there are four Northwestern players near the lane and none of them do anything about it, especially Swopshire who just kind of chills out and watches.  Not that I can blame him, I'm actually surprised there isn't anybody actively running out of the lane, which is would I'd do.  That's one of those where if they were still using the same kind of back boards from back in the Shaq and Jerome Lane days there'd be a rain of glass and a healthy delay. 

-  Wally Ellenson certainly isn't shy.  Six shots in six minutes.  He's obviously not shy, and his amazing jumping ability means he can probably get that jumper off against almost anybody.  He looks like he's heading for an instant offense type role off the bench next season.  Assuming he makes enough shots, since the difference between instant offense and chucker is merely how many go in.

-  For Northwestern, I thought both Reggie Hearn and Jared Swopshire looked good.  Hearn had some real nice moves, although you could tell he was still hurting.  It's no surprise he's their leading scorer.  As for Swopshire, he looked really good on a few plays but then would disappear for long stretches.  He actually reminded me so much of Dan Coleman it was incredible.  Excellent tools - athletic, skilled, tall, good shooter - but for whatever reason just completely disappeared at times.  I'm convinced Northwestern has enough good role players to be at least a fringe bubble team, but nobody to pull them altogether.  Would have been interesting to see this group with Crawford. 'Tis a true shame.

-  I also can't believe they managed to find a little Shurna clone with a worse haircut.  How two different D-I caliber players can both have that same ugly jumper - but both still be good shooters - and both end up at Northwestern is uncanny.  I spent at least five minutes at the game convincing to my dad that "that guy with the funny shot" actually graduated and this was a brand new guy.  Thanks Kale (lol nice name) Abrahamson.  Looking forward to three more years of that.

-  Finally, speaking of my dad, I mentioned on Twitter that he was the Season Ticket Holder of the Game since he's had tickets since the mid-60s.   Was pretty cool overall.  We (me and Snacks got to go up with him since we're his sons) got to go to halfcourt and they made the announcement and took pictures and he got a ball autographed by Tubby that Snacks and I are already fighting over.  The only negative was that god damn Goldy.  He kept touching our heads and photo-bombing the pictures my mom was trying to take from the stands and just being a general nuisance, as mascots are known to be.  Seriously, what must be wrong in someone's head to make a grown man/woman actually want to be a mascot?  Being a cheerleader is weird enough but at least you get to grab chick's asses and hang out with them on road trips and stuff.  Being a mascot is just sociopathic.  At least Snacks got a little revenge, turning to Goldy after the pictures were done and telling him, "We're going to photoshop you right out of there."  The dumbass mascot seemed legitimately disappointed that someone didn't like him, which, again, points to sociopathic tendencies.  As usual, I'm always right.

;-  Up next is the toughest road trip of the year, and it's a good time for it.  Going to Illinois (who just crushed Ohio State) and Indiana is one hell of a test.  If the Gophers manage to win one of these you can go ahead and up your expectations of the team a bit.  Even if they lose both they still look like a Sweet 16 team, and who can complain about that other than Fat Reusse?

Game Preview: Gophers vs. Northwestern

When do everything super man Drew Crawford went down with a season ending injury that pretty much ended Northwestern's NCAA Tournament bid hopes (but hey, they did win a bowl game for the first time since the 40s), and knocked them down from the Wisconsin/Iowa possible bubble team tier to the tier below with Purdue.  So by rights, with this being a home game and all, this should be a pretty easy victory for Minnesota.  But, for whatever reason, Northwestern never seems to be an easy game, even if the Gophers have won four of the last five and won both comfortably last season.

The Wildcats do have two good wins on their schedule already, having won at Baylor and beating Illinois State in overtime (yes, Illinois State is a good win), and two of the three losses are explainable (vs. Maryland - although they got crushed, and vs. Stanford sans Crawford), but they have a dreadful loss to Illinois-Chicago and it's just hard to believe they can do much damage in conference play without Crawford, which isn't to say they haven't had some players step up already in the post-Shurna era.

It starts with Reggie Hearn, who actually leads the team in scoring at 14.5 per game (compared to Crawford's 13.5) and who has averaged 16.5 in the two games he's played since Drew went down.  Of course, Hearn also missed the team's last game against Brown (NERDS!) with an ankle injury and I can't find any info on how severe it is (but to be honest I went to Sippin' on Purple and that was about it).  If Hearn does play, you'll see a very efficient scorer who gets points without taking a ton of shots due to hitting a high percentage of both his 2s (59%) and 3s (43%).  He also averages an impressive 5.5 rebs per game for a 6-4 shooting guard, which is a nice bonus.

The two guys who will probably have to have huge games (along with Hearn) in order for the Wildcats to make a game of this are the seven-footer Alex Olah and his 6-8 PF companion Jared Swopshire, who potentially have the size to overwhelm Rodney Williams and Trevor Mbakwe down low.  They combine for 16 points and 11 rebounds per game, and Swopshire is particularly scary.  He was a four-star recruit out of high school who signed with Louisville and was good enough to hit double figures in scoring twelve times his sophomore, but missed the next season with an injury and was unable to get back into Louisville's rotation, so he packed up his bags and moved to Evanston.  He's shown some of that old ability and explosiveness, but mostly has just been ok because he appears to have forgotten how to shoot.  He's the most likely guy on the roster to replace Crawford's all-around production, so let's hope he doesn't start putting it altogether right away this weekend.  AS for Olah, he's ginormous (7-0, 275 lbs.) and given the Gophers propensity to allow offensive rebounds and their relatively under-sizedness he could be a massive pain.  Northwestern could also bring in Chier Ajou who is 7-2 but I feel rather confident in guessing he's a bit of a project.  Sadly, Luka Mirkovich is gone.

Lastly, how could we possibly talk about Northwestern without talk about little wiener nerds who love shooting threes?  There's Dave Sobolewski (aka The Lesbian) who is the starting point guard and who is somehow an effective player.  Then there's Alex Marcotullio (aka The Lefty) who is the scariest one because he seems to be the streakiest and could just go off and hit 10 threes or something.  And lastly freshman Kale Abrahamson (aka Shurna's little brother right down to the goofy looking jumper) who is 6-7 but is as scared of the lane as Rick Rickert used to be.  Any one of these guys could go off and help keep the game close, or multiple ones of them could and really give the Gophers a scare.  It's also worth noting that guard Tre Demps comes off the bench and absolutely loves shooting.  As with all chuckers, there's a threat of "HE'S ON FIRE" but probably not.

Realistically the Gophers, having solved the zone last year after ten freaking years of looking lost, should wipe the floor with Northwestern.  The Gophers biggest weakness is giving up offensive rebounds, and the Wildcats don't hit the o-boards very well.  The Gophers are awesome at blocking shots, and Northwestern gets a ton of shots blocked.  Basically the Gophers are much more athletic (as usual) and much more skilled (a new one).  Northwestern will have to have three things go their way to win this game:

1.  Gophers struggle against the zone.  This would have been a bigger concern a couple of years ago, but over the past two seasons they're starting to get it.  Plus Hollins and Hollins are both really smart players, smart enough to cancel out the boneheadedness of Joe Coleman (I like him as a player, but he's no Hollinses).  The team has struggled with turnovers this year so this could always go backwards, but as long as they are getting good shots the turnovers can be negated.

2.  Get hot from 3.  This one is very possible, with Northwestern hitting a good percentage this year (38.4% - 35th in the country), shooting a lot of them (40% of all attempts are from 3 - Gophers are at 27%) and have a whole mess of guys who like to chuck them up (7 Wildcats have at least 22 attempts on the year compared to only 3 Gophers).  Northwestern gets nearly 37% of their points from 3-pointers this year, one of the highest percentages in the country.  The Gophers are good but not great defending the three - if one or more of their chuckers gets hot it could be trouble.

3.  Northwestern, on paper, has the size advantage against Mbakwe and Williams.  Of course, Minnesota's pair averages 13.6 rebounds per game vs. Northwestern's pair's 10.5, 2.7 blocks to 1.6, 2.0 steals to 1.1, shoot 57% from the field compared to 44%, have shot 120 free throws compared to 61, and are a pair of seniors compared to a freshman and a first year transfer.  Other than that though, it's pretty close.  I think I'm going to put that in a table form.  Wait for it:

BAM!

Here's how I see this going - Northwestern comes out in a man-to-man, but also hits a few three-pointers so it starts out around 10-10 or so, then the Gophers start to get it going and jump out to like a 22-12 lead.  Northwestern goes to their zone which they always seem to try to save to screw with everyone's head, but this year's Gophers have no problem with it, open up a 40-24 halftime lead and cruise to a 78-59 win.  Book it, nerds.

[NOTE:  After I wrote this I realized Northwestern played Michigan tonight.  I made sure to watch a good chunk of the game, and without Crawford or Hearn their offense seemed to consist of either a failed drive to the hoop or someone chucking a three.  Their inept offense would be the most notable thing about the game if it wasn't for their catastrophic failure on the defensive end.  Nobody could stay in front of Michigan's guards and they were backed up by nobody protecting the rim or rotating to cover the shooters so basically the Wolverines could pick and choose how they wanted to score, and that was only when they had to actually set up an offense because Northwestern for some reason was completely opposed to the idea of getting back on defense and I think Michigan scored 80 points in transition.  Some of it could be that Michigan is just that good, but the Wildcats looked brutally bad.  The Gophers could win by 40. Also Dave Sobolewski still looks like a lesbian.]

Game Preview: Gophers vs. Michigan State

Well, this is it.  Michigan State at home is the absolute perfect test to let us know just how good this Gopher team is this year.  A good, but not great, team at home.  The kind of game that a Sweet 16 (or better) contender should be able to handle without much of an issue.  Not that the game shouldn't be close or anything like that, just that you should always have the impression that the Gophers are the ones controlling the game and they should come out on top, and not in last second fashion.  Am I crazy?  Well, kenpom has the Gophers as a 6-point winner.  That's about what I'd hope for/expect.  But it's not going to be easy.

Mainly because these teams are almost completely mirror images of each other.  Both are very good defensive teams (Minnesota 17th, Michigan State 12th in D Efficiency), with their main strength keeping teams from getting easy buckets and forcing long jump shots which translates to very good metrics against 2-point shots (Minn's opponents shoot 41% from 2, 23rd best in the country, MSU's shoot 38%, 7th best in the country).  Both teams also block a lot of shots (MN ranks 7th, MSU 44th) and get a lot of steals (MN 6th, MSU 30th) and are good but not great defending the 3 (MN 77th, MSU 87th).  Offensively both teams get the vast majority of their points from 2-pointers and shoot well from inside the line (MN 56th, MSU 23rd) but struggle from deep (MN 207th, MSU 223rd), crash the offensive glass big time (MN 1st, MSU 43rd) and turn the ball over way too much (MN 204th, MSU 275th).  These are two incredibly similar teams.  There are, however, a couple of key differences.

First, although the Gophers pound the glass on the offensive end they are weak on the defensive end, while Michigan State is outstanding on both ends of the court.  The Gophers allow their opponents to grab offensive rebounds on 35.5% of their misses, a number so poor it ranks 272nd in the country.  Meanwhile Sparty, led by Branden Dawson, Adreian Payne, and Derrick Nix, is one of the better teams in the nation at grabbing their misses.  This is where the Gophers are most vulnerable.  The last time Michigan State played a team with a similar talent level who also sucked on the defensive glass they grabbed 17 offensive rebounds against UCONN.  If the Gophers allow double digit offensive rebounds to the Spartans it's going to make it tough to win - tough but not impossible, because while Sparty has one clear advantage the Gophers have two.

First - free throws.  While neither team commits an atrocious amount of fouls, the Gophers excel at getting to the line while the Spartans don't.  The Gophers struggle at times to make their foul shots, but they should have plenty of opportunities given their skills and Big 10 refs notorious for home cooking.  They should end up getting to the line for probably double the attempts Michigan State gets - if they can make them it's going to be a significant advantage.

Second - turnovers.  Both teams suck at taking care of the basketball (likely related to both teams using a scorer as their primary ball-handler and lack of a quality back-up) but while Michigan State doesn't create turnovers (143rd in the NCAA), the Gophers certainly do (29th).  The Gophers cause a turnover on nearly 25% of their opponents possessions, and with nearly everybody on the Spartans outside of Gary Harris quite turnover prone the Gophers will have a heavy advantage in the extremely important turnover battle.  For example, Joe Coleman is the worst Gopher on a TO per possession basis, turning the ball over 26% of the time - Michigan State has four guys worse than that.  This is where the Gophers can do a lot of damage and really control the game.

PLAYERS:

PG - Keith Appling.  Despite being a pretty horrendous outside shooter Appling has really stepped up and given Michigan State the scoring they needed with Draymond Green and Brandon Wood gone.  He does it by being lightning quick and getting into the lane.  Despite that skill set he's not much of a play maker, averaging just north of 4 assists per game but mostly by default.  He's going to be quite a test for Dre Hollins to handle, and will be a good litmus test to see just how good Hollins has become.

SG - Gary Harris.  Although he's second on the team in scoring (12.4 per to Appling's 14.9), Harris is the guy who really scares me.  Ultra athletic but in control at all times (as evidenced by his team best turnover rate, awfully impressive for a freshman), Harris can beat you from the perimeter, in the mid-range, or getting to the rim, although his 0.9 assists per game this year tell you once he puts the ball on the floor he's likely getting his shot.  As good as Austin Hollins has become as a defender it's impossible to keep a guy like Harris from getting his shots off.  All you can do is force him to take bad shots, so if Harris is settling for deep jumpers early you might as well pencil this in as a Gopher W.

SF - Denzel Valentine.  Another freshman like Harris, but without nearly as much polish, Valentine has been a turnover machine this year.  He doesn't do anything particularly well, but he's not awful at most things either (other than you know, the turnover thing).  He actually had a game where he registered 10 pts, 10 rebs, and 6 assists against a not-horrible Oakland team, but as of now he's mostly just biding his time until Harris bolts to the NBA after this year.

PF - Branden Dawson.  Like Mbakwe for the Gophers, Dawson is returning just a year after destroying his knee, which Dawson did in March.  Also like Mbakwe, at this point in the return you can't really tell he's recently had a major knee surgery, at least not by looking at the numbers.  That being said, the plan was always for this to be Dawson's team this season after Green left.  He had the pedigree, the ability, and the talent and that hasn't happened this season (averaging 9.8 pts and 6.2 rebs) so maybe it is still the knee thing.  I really wish I'd paid closer attention to him the couple of times I've watched Michigan State this year.

C - Derrick Nix.  If you remember Nix you remember him as a big giant fat person.  He's not exactly svelte now at 6-9, 270 lbs. but compared to where he used to be it's a big improvement and his game shows the changes.  He's still not a scoring machine, but he's upped his rebounding average from 3.8 per game last season to 7.8 this year and can show a scoring burst when necessary (put up 25 against Texas).   He's a huge load and an excellent rebounder, and if you still have any questions about Mbakwe's knee and how "back" he is, watch him go against Nix.  A healthy Mbakwe will own him.

BENCH - Two players worth mentioning: PG Travis Trice and C Adreian Payne.  Trice actually gives the Spartans a quality back-up pass first point guard, but he's only played in 8 games this year since he suffered a concussion in their opener vs. UCONN.  He seems to be back at this point, playing 25 minutes in Sparty's last game vs. Texas, so we can expect to see a lot of him.  He's an absolutely terrible defender, and if he ends up in the game guarding Dre Hollins at any point Dre should be fined and suspended if he doesn't immediately drive to the rack.  Payne is a defensive and rebounding stud who's offensive game still hasn't come together in Year 3.  He shoots an incredibly high percentage because he pretty much does nothing but attempt lay-ups and dunks, but he's a great defender.


Overall, this should be a pretty good game.  These teams are so similar it's going to come down to who can exploit their advantages.  The Gophers are at home, I believe they're the better team, and the Fargo-Moorehead Acro Team is in town....what could possibly go wrong?

Gophers 65, Michigan State 62.

  

Gophers vs. NDSU Live Blog

I couldn't make it to the game tonight, but will be watching live, so why not live blog for the first time this year?  I used to do this to some critical acclaim, so might as well fire it up.

20:00 - Announcer guys point out Tubby has 113 career wins with Minnesota.  Pretty sure nearly 4 of those are against good Big 10 teams.  Need to double that up this year.

20:00 - How bad is that Kevin Correia signing by the way?  And 2 years!??!??  He's a right-handed, National Leagued Nick Blackburn and they already tried that last year with Jason Marquis.  I guess somebody has to mop up the fifth spot, but why not let's the kids throw rather than burning it on a younger Marquis?  Or, they think he can be the #3 guy, which is the worst thing I've ever heard.

20:00 - ZOMBIE NATION!! Oh oh oh oh oh, oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh, oh oh, oh oh

19:47 - Elliott Elliason draws a quick foul.  Unguardable.

19:43 - Rodney with a long 2.  Terrible shot, but it went down.  Gonna be an easy game if that's happening.

18:38 - NDSU plan seems to be get the ball to Bjorklund on the block against Elliason, and Gophers are content to not help, which is a good call since NDSU shoots the three so well.  They've gone to him on all three possessions so far and gotten a block shot by Elliason, a hoop, and a 3-second call.  And, not for nothing, but Elliason needs to be able to handle Summit League big men before he can get a lot of conference minutes.

17:21 - Joe Coleman gets lost on defense again (although to be fair he's been MUCH better this year) which leads to a wide open monster dunk by NDSU white guy, which is actually the kind of play you can't let the Bison get off because pretty soon they're going to "start to believe they can win" which is a total cliche but cliches are true for a reason and I really don't want these farmer dorks hanging around.

16:55 - Coleman gets burned by the guy with the ball after not switching quickly enough off a pick.  He is a truly horrendous defender.

16:04 - Both Hollins's have missed open threes.  Don't like how this game is going.  Not just the score (9-4 NDSU) but everything about it.  This game is french fried taters and I'm the opposite of the sling blade guy.

15:30 - Rodney dunk.  He has all six for the Gophers.  At least he looks good.

15:03 - Going to TV timeout at 9-6 NDSU with Dre going to the line.  Gophers really upped the intensity all of a sudden.   Hopefully that translates into you know, winning, and stuff.

15:03 - Weird D-Backs and Indians trade just went down.  Looks like a 6-player swap of prospects and middle relievers.  The bad news?  Trevor Bauer to the Indians.  Would really prefer to NOT have him in the AL Central.  Felt the same way about Chris Sale, and see?  I'm always right.

14:57 - Andre missed both.  Sweet heavens of jesus wept.

13:41 - All they do is run Felt (big-time 3-point guy) around screens the whole time he's in there.  Good test for Austin since you know he's going to be getting all the toughest defensive assignments.  Well him or Joe Coleman.

12:51 - Maverick throws the ball directly to a NDSU player.  He was trying to hit Oto on the wing though, so it's probably a wash.

12:25 - I'm going to pretend Welch tried to bank that one.

11:59 - Felt drives into the lane and manages to get called for a charge and airball a floater at the same time.  I'm guessing that's why they tell you to hang out on the perimeter, wiener.

11:34 - Has Oto gone retarded?

11:28 - I think there may have been more to that trade.  I'm only getting partial info from Twitter and it's too hard to search for it while trying to count how many passes Osenieks can drop on one possession.  Also, Mbakwe grabbing every board in sight right now.  13-12 Gophers.

10:48 - Ahanmisi hits the 3-ball off a Mbakwe kick out (3 fantasy points for me!).  I hate to say it - like really really hate it - but he's not been completely horrendous this year.

9:39 - Welch/Ahanmisi/Osenieks/Ingram/Mbakwe is not a good look.  There's nobody in that group who can create offense.  Mbakwe is the closest thing but I don't know if it's the knee or what but he doesn't seem to have much of a post game this year.

8:16 - This appears to be one of those games where Coleman plays with his head in his rectum.

7:58 - Did you ever stop and think that the classic Christmas song "Baby It's Cold Outside" is about date rape?  Think about it.

7:11 - I don't take back what I said about Coleman, but my goodness is he clever when he has the ball in the lane.  Probably from playing in the driveway with the taller Dan growing up.  Then again, he probably could just bump Dan once and he'd quit and go inside to play Bubble Bobble.

5:36 - Rodney Williams with a 360 that somehow managed to also be an absolute hammer dunk.  Got to be #1 on SportsCenter.  They like dunks and stuff.  Gophers 26, NDSU 20.

4:41 - I cannot decide if Mo Walker looks good or horrible.  It's the same every game.  He's a two-face.

4:14 - Wait, a two face either looks good or bad.  Mo is a decision I just can't make.  Rather than a two face he's more like Michelle Williams or Robin Tunney.

2:40 - Back to back 5 second calls.  You don't see that every day.  Or ever.

0:53 - Tip-jam for Mbakwe.  Does my heart good to see it.  Like a bunny holding a kitten.

0:00 - Hollins' three as the half ends and the Gophers close on an 8-0 to go into the half up 11.  They should (SHOULD) just need to just keep putting the hammer down to win this one easily.  We shall see.

0:00 - Rodney dunk already on youtube thanks to zipsofakron who writes either for the Gopher Hole, From the Barn, or both:

0:00 - So this has nothing to do with the Gophers, but I can't stop laughing at this Jay Cutler story since I read about it about a week ago.  I mean, it could be a completely random time of the day with nothing going on and I'll think about it and just laugh.

Friend is in a bar in Chicago during the off-season. He goes to the bathroom and sees Jay Cutler, hat on backwards, taking a piss at the urinal. So the guy starts going to the bathroom and says, “Hey, I’m a huge fan, also went to Vanderbilt… ”
Jay throws his head back, still pissing, eyes half-closed because he’s drunk, interrupts him with, “DOOOONNNNTTTTTT CAAAAAARRRREEEEEE.”

 Cannot stop giggling.  Like a little girl.

20:00 - Choo to Cincy is the main piece of the trade, with the Indians getting Bauer and Drew Stubbs.  I can't wait to watch Stubbs face Correia.  The stoppable force vs. the movable object when it comes to strikeouts.  Gonna be sweet.

17:23 - 37-29 Gophers.  I missed the start of the half because I was melting american cheese on saltines which is delicious and Mbakwe is already in.  Maybe he started the second half which maybe we are done with this nonsense.

16:44 - Mbakwe with 10 boards already.  Looking pretty good.  Twitter nerds attacking that dude who wrote how he "had no explosiveness" anymore.  Relax, nerds.  So Trevor dunked.  He didn't even do a 360 or anything.  I'm going to go make this same joke on twitter now, as I watch Mbakwe make another lay-up against some hapless fool.

15:43 - Dre Hollins takes it to the rack 1-on-4 in transition, has it knocked away out of bounds.  I don't care what fundamental dorks say, I like a little reckless in my PG.

15:26 - Gophers realizing NDSU can't deal with either Rodney Williams or Mbakwe down low and just feeding the post.  Nice to see them appear as if they are coached.  For the last several years, whether Tubby was coaching or not, it sure didn't look like it.

14:29 - Mbakwe air-balls a free throw.  That's his second one this year (at least).  Between that and Andre Hollins actually missing free throws something weird is going on.  Even more weird?  Coleman, Elliason, and Williams all hitting 70%.  It's kind of like when you're playing Contra and you lose all your lives but player 2 has some left so you just steal one.

 13:30 - 49-32 Gophers and looking like they've taken control.  Best news of this game is that Mbakwe is looking a lot like his old self tonight, absolutely crashing the boards with reckless abandon with 13 boards and 6 on the offensive end.  Remember last year when he'd all of a sudden just decide, "yeah, I'm going to get every missed shot now"?  It's like that.  In sad news, do you realize when Williams and Mbakwe graduate next year's big man duo will be Elliason and Walker.  Oof.

12:55 - Andre Ingram would be a very promising sophomore.

12:08 - Osenieks really shoots like a shooter.  He doesn't make them like a shooter, but he shoots like one.

9:45 - The way Walker has played tonight, and he just missed a lay-up, I'm starting to think he's not a two face he's just ugly.  I'll give him the benefit of the doubt since he's still dealing with coming back from an injury, but that feels like an excuse.  That's an excuse, isn't it?  It is.  I knew it.

7:28 - Gophers trying to let NDSU back in the game here up just 57-45 now.  Good thing NDSU is terrible.

6:43 - Wow.  Rodney Williams just blows right by his guy coming from the perimeter, then when dude overcommits to stop the drive he stops on a dime, pivots in the other direction, and hits the turnaround jumper.  NBA level move right there.

4:42 - Another rebound for Mbakwe.  That's like, 15 or something.  Austin hits a J on the break and Gophers up 66-50.  I'm getting tired.

3:37 - Wally Ellenson on the floor for the Gophers.  I guess we solved the question of the redshirt.  And he immediately turns it over.  Great.

2:55 - Ellenson nearly turns it over again but is bailed out with a foul call.  EVERYTHING IS GOING GREAT!

1:40 - Ellenson continues to play like a walk-on.  I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, obviously since it's his first game, but not exactly impressed.  Gophers up 70-57.  Line is 14.

0:00 - Gophers win 70-57.  Do not cover.

Minnesota 88, South Dakota State 64

Well that was a pretty thrilling Gopher win, huh?  Not because they beat a Nate Wolters-less Jackrabbits team, but because sportsbooks didn't factor in the fact that the team was going to be Wolters-less.

See, the spread on the game opened with the Gophers as 14.5 point favorites.  Mid-day there were some tweets going around that Wolters sprained his ankle, didn't participate in the team's shoot-around that day, and was questionable to play.  The spread only moved to 15, so at that point I jumped on it figuring he'd be limited at best.  Then, about a half-hour before game time, more tweets came out that he wasn't looking good or very confident about playing on it.  The spread still only moved to 15.5, so I doubled up.  Then, maybe 10 minutes or so before the game, it because official he wasn't playing.  Spread stayed at 15.5, so I tripled up on my double up.  Easy win.  SDSU would have been a 25 point underdog at least if Wolters was known to not be playing, and the books clearly didn't pay much attention to this game, don't know who Wolters is, or simply didn't care.  In any case it was a nice payday and an easy one, and those are the best kind.  I feel pretty bad I didn't give Bogart or TRE the heads-up on this, but I was too wrapped up in it myself.  Oh well.

As for the game, the Gophers continue to do what they've done all year - play great defense and efficient offense.  I mean you can't get more efficient than Andre Hollins.  22 points on 8-9 shooting and 6-7 on threes?  And his only miss was an absolute ridiculous heat check that nobody could ever make ever?  You gotta be kidding me.  Add that performance to his 41 points on 16 shots versus Memphis and that has to be two of most efficient 20 points games this year.  I'm sure that info is out there somewhere (ranking these) but I don't know where to find it.

He was far from the only stud last night though, as Joe Coleman and Austin Hollins continue to develop into really, really good players.  One big thing I noticed last night about Austin is how much more assertive and confident he is with his jump shot.  Where the last two years he'd catch the ball on the wing and kind of size up if he was open enough to shoot and then maybe shoot, but this year he's already able to determine if he's going to be open enough to shoot before he gets the pass and just catches, rises, and fires.  And I'm not just talking short shots, he's doing it on three-pointers.  Take that with his always there but suddenly really emerging athleticism and he's a hell of a player.  As for Coleman he does incredible things considering he has a forward's game in a guard's body.  He's tough, strong, and determined and an amazing inside scorer for someone who is just 6-4.  He's just fearless - basically the complete opposite player of his brother.  I mean does anyone get more of his own misses in the paint than Joe?  He's like, a genius at it.  Dan and Joe must have switched bodies like Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds in that movie with that chick from 40-year-old Virgin who pukes in the car at some point because each's abilities are the exact opposite of what you'd want from someone in their bodies.  Can you imagine Dan with Joe's game?  Whoa.

Maybe the craziest part of this team is I've now droned on for 500+ words about them and still haven't mentioned either of their two best players from last season.  Trevor Mbakwe, who nearly had a double double, who mainly seems to have settled into his sixth man/big-time rebounder.  The only problem with that is he still has NBA aspirations, and I don't think he's going to get there averaging 7 pts and 8 rebounds per game.  That would also be why he unveiled that absolutely god awful turnaround fade-away jumper last night that he should never, ever take again under any circumstances.  I still think he's easing his way into being a force, so I'll reserve more judgement on him until later in the year.  Then Rodney Williams, whose stats made it look like he was kind of invisible last night but he wasn't because he blocked two shots nearly back to half court, was trying to prove he can shoot from the perimeter (note:  he still can't) and then later when he decided "this shit sucks when I don't score" he dunked all over some poor ginger bastard.  Basically they didn't need him, and that was pretty awesome, actually.

Excellent, if easy, game, from a very good team.  The first five are outstanding if you sub Mbakwe in for Eliason (who isn't terrible anymore).  Welch, Osenieks, Ingram, Walker, and Ahanmisi are a good bench that isn't great but can fill in some gaps, and with a starting 6 this good they aren't needed in games that are going to be close for more than 3-8 minutes each, but they're also capable enough to fill in for 12-15 if that situation should arise at some point this year or at least that's what I keep telling myself.  Simply put, I believe in this year's squad and I'm in love with them and I don't care who knows it.  Also, how sweet would it be for Wolters to get back, the Jackrabbits to go on a huge run, and this ends up loooking like a super easy win over a top 100 team?  Pretty cool, right?  Right.

Back tomorrow with a preview of the USC game, the only losable game left.  As long as they win that one they should cruise to home wins against NDSU and Lafayette and most likely will be ranked in the top 10 going into the big Dec. 31 game versus Michigan State.  And that, my friends, is where we are going to learn an awfully, awfully thought about our favorite team.  In the immortal words of that one guy, "NO WHAMMIES NO WHAMMIES NO WHAMMIES!"

Gophers 77, Florida State 68

Well that was a pretty impressive victory, and one I did not expect.  I'm not surprised the Gophers knocked off Florida State, I figured they had a decent change, but I definitely wasn't expected them to take control of the entire game and win by 9 in a game that wasn't remotely that close.

Sure, Florida State might be down a bit this year, what with the loss to South Alabama and all, but they also scored wins over BYU and St. Joe's in route to winning the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic and those teams are likely to at least be in the mix for an NCAA bid this season.  Their RPI isn't very good right now (136) but a loss to USA will do that and by the time the conference season gets going this is going to end up being at least a top 100 win for the Gophers, and you can never have too many of those.  Not to mention that doing it in Tallahassee, the place where top ranked UNC and Duke teams have lost multiple times, makes it that much better.

Florida State certainly didn't help themselves out by missing a lot of the open looks they managed to get, but give a lot of credit to the Gophers for forcing FSU out on the perimeter taking jumpers rather than getting to the rim.  Other than a few very nice drives by Snaer and Terrance Shannon grabbing 8 offensive rebounds the interior defense was incredible.  The Gophers somehow finished with just six blocked shots but I think 3-4 of them came in the first ten minutes and did a good job pushing the Seminole offense outside - not a strength of theirs.  I'm starting to believe this is the best Gopher defensive team I can remember.

Offensively they were impressive as well, moving the ball quickly and crisply and knocking down open shots.  The three guards all are showing they can score when needed, with Austin Hollins the jump-shooter, Joe Coleman the pure scorer, and Andre Hollins the streaky hot guy.  Take those three and add in Rodney Williams and this offense is humming.  I can't get over Rodney transformation.  It started last year, hit a stride at the end of the season, and has continued into this year.  He just looks and plays so confidently.  When he gets the ball on the perimeter now instead of quickly passing it on to a guard he's always looking for that lane to get to the hoop, as if he has finally figured out nobody who is big enough to guard him is quick enough to guard him. I'd still like to see him posting up a little bit more, but FSU did a good job of taking away the post up game from the Gophers last night, luckily it didn't matter because the guard play was still good.  Twelve total turnovers for the team was an improvement as well.  Clearly it's an area that still needs to get better, but that was a step in the right direction.

As good as the team looked and as solid as they've been this year I am still concerned about Trevor Mbakwe.  I just don't get what's going on there.  It's not just the numbers, it's that he just doesn't seem like the same player and I don't mean physically.  He doesn't seem into the game.  Last night he made a lay-up and got fouled in a big spot and showed absolutely no emotion (the Ralph Sampson plan, apparently).  I don't know if it was more of a "been here before" or a "I'm bored" but he was an emotional leader last season and I would have thought he'd have a bigger reaction in that spot.  Hopefully I'm over-complicating the issue and he's just still working himself all the way back, but he's going to be the difference for this team and how far they can go.  With him playing the sixth man, bench big guy this is a very good team.  If he can get back to even close to what he was last year and take Elliason's spot in the lineup (although he played quite well last night) that could elevate this team to "great" status.  Yeah, I said it.  I didn't get to see the Stanford game but I had heard that he looked like his old self in that one, which is even more of a concern then that he didn't seem up for this game.  Maybe he was tired (he is super old, after all).  Maybe he's frustrated coming off the bench.  I don't know.  Turn him loose Tubby.  Let him start and play 30 minutes and let's see what happens.

All-in-all, a really good win.  How FSU plays in the ACC this season will determine just how good, but I'd be pretty shocked if this didn't end up as an RPI Top 100 victory.  The team played really well and Tubby showed, as he did against Memphis, that he knows how to shorten the bench when it's needed, something I can't recall seeing in past years.  Maybe he senses what I do, that this is the team he can really do something special with.  That's my feeling, and I'm not optimistic by nature.  With only two meaningful games left before the B10 season starts (vs. SDSU, @USC) the Gophers have a real shot to enter Big Ten play at 12-1 (not uncommon for them) but with three likely Top 100 wins (FSU, Stanford, Memphis) and three others that could get there (SDSU, USC, Richmond).  Not a bad start.  However this isn't the first time a Tubby Smith led Gopher squad has gotten out to a fantastic start in November.  Hopefully this one ends up a little differently.

Atlantis Thoughts and FSU Preview

Normally following a tournament like the Battle 4 Atlantis I'd have 10,000 words to write, however given my circumstances I won't be able to muster that much simply because I don't know enough.  I watched the entire Duke game on my computer, but was at Dinosaur Park (which was sweet) and then a Utah BWW that had nothing but the Utah/Colorado football game on (I'd make a joke here if Minnesota football wasn't what it is) so I had to follow along on twitter, and then for the Stanford game I was driving across the country listening to Hunger Games books on tape and tried to follow along on my phone as well as possible but cell phone internet access in the middle of Nebraska is pretty much what you'd expect.  That being said, nothing has really ever stopped me from having an opinion and I'm not going to change now.  You get what you get.  So here:

•  I said the Gophers either had to beat Duke or win the next two games in order to make the tournament a success, so I'm calling it a success.  Duke was clearly superior, and Plumlee may be the player I've been the most wrong about ever, but the Gophers played well and the 18 point margin should have been closer if everything those a-holes through up didn't go in.  Both the Memphis and Stanford win should end up being quality victories when March roles around, particularly Memphis once they run through the shitty C-USA.  Hopefully Stanford can manage to stay relevant.
• Andre Hollins's's game against Memphis was a great one with 41 points, the most scored by a Gopher since 1971, but don't forget the next game he shot 1-8.  He is certainly explosive, but needs to become a more complete player to be a true star.  When the jumper isn't falling he needs to find other ways to contribute, and his 2 assists against Stanford when he couldn't score aren't enough.  Still very fun to watch, but hopefully he can figure out this point guard thing this year.
• Awesome to see Mbakwe with a double double vs. Stanford.  The couple people I talked to said he looked to be truly back to his old self.  I'm interested to see if he really is and if so, when Tubby let's him loose because it's time to stop playing Elliason so much.  Also I hope he's back because I just took him with the first pick in the second round in our Fantasy Big 10 league.
• Two good wins now on the ledger, and assuming they can beat South Dakota State at home (shouldn't be a problem) and can win at least one of the away games vs. Florida State and USC, they should be set-up pretty well to get an at-large bid in March.  Of course, it would be plenty easy to blow the season in a pretty good Big 10 this year, but I prefer not to think about it.

Also I recently learned that the Gophers play Florida State in the ACC/Big Ten challenge tomorrow which seems really, really quick on the heels of the tournament.  So I guess I'll do a quick preview because I love you.

 The Seminoles have recovered from a mind-boggling season opening loss to South Alabama with four straight victories including quality wins over BYU and St. Joe's.  They are known as being a killer defensive team under Leonard Hamilton, having ranked in the top 21 in defensive efficiency six of the past 10 years, and in the top 15 each of the last four (ranks: 12-1-1-15).  They are excellent defensively again this season, currently ranking 45th.  The drop off can be attributed to blocking fewer shots than in years past.  The graduation of Bernard James (2.3 bpg) and Xavier Gibson (1.3 bpg) has left a hole in the middle of the defense that Florida State has yet to figure out how to fill.

What they do have in the middle of the defense is a Terrance Shannon, a 6-8, 240 lb. big ole strong dude who can handle Trevor Mbakwe's strength.  What he can't handle, however, is his athleticism.  Their athletic big is 6-8 Okaro White, but he's only 204 lbs, so he'll probably end up taking Rodney Williams.  Unless, of course, they put Michael Snaer on him, and Snaer is the guy Gopher fans definitely need to worry about.

Snaer, at 6-5, can pretty much lock down anyone on the perimeter and is probably the best defender in the ACC.  He's quick enough to stay in front of quick point guards (Dre Hollins) but is also strong enough that bigger perimeter players can't take him down to the block and post him up.  Whether he takes Hollins or Williams (or someone else) you can guess they'll have a rough night.

Offensively Snaer is the biggest worry as well.  He's the type of player who can just completely control a game and ups his game in big spots, such as when he hit the game winning 3 last season against Duke or his game winning 3 last season against Virginia Tech.  As if he wasn't good enough last year, he's upped his game this season, increasing his scoring (from 14.6 to 16.0 per game) and upped his rebounding to cover for the two lost post players (from 3.8 to 6.4) and assists after FSU's starting point guard graduated (from 1.9 to 2.8).  He's really, really good.

As a team Florida State shoots the ball well but turns it over too often (sound familiar?)  Defensively they are very solid, as mentioned, and excel at creating turnovers.  These are two really similar teams, where the Gophers have more talent and experience, but the Seminoles have home court advantage.  The Seminoles are also the best defensive team the Gophers will face this year, and one of the few teams with the personnel to stop both Mbakwe and Hollins.  I think we're looking at a low-scoring affair, and I think Snaer makes the difference.

Florida State 54, Minnesota 51.

 

What did we Learn from the Marathon?

Unfortunately I couldn't make it to the Gophers latest butt whooping of Toledo but that doesn't stop me from having a couple of quick thoughts on the team and yes it feels a bit weird to have concerns about a team that's 2-0 with wins by 36 and 26 but here we are.  I have 3.

1.  I want to know what's going on with Trevor Mbakwe.  His line looked better in this Toledo game (6 pts - 7 boards - 2 blks) but he still only played 14 minutes which is the same number of minutes he played in the game against American.  Is he still hurt?  Is this some sort of punishment?  I'd really like to know.

2.  Nineteen turnovers against Toledo?  Gross.  Loyola-Illinois, who is terrible, turned it over just 15 times against Toledo.

3.  Is Andre Hollins ok?  Maybe all the expectations are getting to him and he's pressing a bit (2-15 shooting so far, 4 TOs vs. 1 assist vs. Toledo) or maybe he's got something else going on in his head that's hurting his concentration (the shooting, plus five missed free throws already this year vs. just nine all of last season).

 It's early and the team is winning, but all three of these need to get figured out before they start playing real games or they're going to be in trouble.  This Thursday's game against Tennessee State is a losable game, so they may as well start playing better ASAP.  The defense and rebounding have been absolutely outstanding, however, and that's a very good sign even against this level of competition.  Small sample size and all, but kenpom rates the Gophers as the 8th best defensive team in the country statistically (includes rebounding) and that does take quality of competition into account (for example, American shot 24% against the Gophers and 53% in their next game against Quinnipiac - that bodes well for the Gophers). 

Also, in case you were unaware somehow, ESPN just did a 24-hour college basketball marathon.  Thanks to a flexible work environment that allows working from home and the miracle of internet access I was able to take in a decent amount of it.  Here's what I thought was worth noting.

1.  I watched the first half of Youngstown/Georgia (not part of the marathon) and figured Georgia's first half performance (3-24 shooting) would be the ugliest thing I saw all week, but I was wrong because West Virginia looked absolutely god awful in getting destroyed by Gonzaga.  The Bulldogs also looked pretty good and definitely had something to do with it, but WVU just got destroyed on every level.  Gonzaga had open shot after open shot (52% Shooting, 56% from 3) while WVU just threw up bricks (shot 27%, 11% from 3) and I saw at least two times in the first half where a Mountaineer 3-point attempt hit the backboard before it hit the rim.  I'm sure WVU will end up being not this terrible since they're relying on three transfers to pretty much carry the team this year and that always seems to take a while to gel, but that was one of the ugliest performances I can remember watching from a team that was supposed to at least be in the mix for an at-large bid since every Gopher game ever.

2. Kendall Williams (New Mexico) is a stud PG.  I didn't stay up late enough to watch this one after WVU put me to sleep, but Williams put up a line of 17 pts - 6 rebs - 7 assists - 0 turnovers.  Nice. 

3.  The Gophers could have used Siyani Chambers.  The freshman point guard from Hopkins ended up at Harvard because that was basically the only school that recruited him and oh my did he look good against UMass, nearly leading the Crimson to a big upset playing all 40 minutes and finishing with 14 pts, 5 rebs, and 7 assists to just 1 turnover and even more impressive than the stats was just watching him.  He completely controlled the game when Harvard had the ball (his defense, on the other hand, was pretty atrocious).  It got to the point where UMass won the game by doing everything possible to keep the ball out of his hands when they ran their press and then the Harvard dopes turned it over twice in the final minute leading to a pretty surprising comeback win for the Minutemen when it looked like this game was in the bag for Harvard.  Anyway, this kids poise and ability to run an offense was shocking considering it was just his second game ever.  I know we think we're in good shape with Andre Hollins, but I gotta say this looks like a whiff for Tubby (assuming he figures out  the defense thing).

4. The Horizon race should be pretty good this year.  Valpo killed Northern Illinois (not like that's hard) and Detroit was giving it to St. John's pretty good before they fell apart.  I could see either team winning a game or two in the NCAA Tournament.  Of course seeing as how those two teams are head and shoulders above the rest of the conference it probably means we can expect Cleveland State or something to get the auto-bid.

5.  I thought this might be the worst version of Xavier we've seen in a very long time.  Turns out it looks like this might be the worst version of Butler we've seen in a long time.  I'm interested to see how this turns out with Brad Stevens if Butler bombs again.  I realize he's built up all kinds of leeway with the back-to-back Finals runs, but the last couple of years have been really bad (if I'm right about this year) and if Butler doesn't get back to the tournament soon he's going to go from being known as a wunderkind to just another guy at a small school.  He's already been replaced by Shaka Smart as the small school program builder who doesn't bolt du juor and with Tim Miles and John Groce (among others) taking advantage of March runs to move up in the world I wonder if Stevens has already blown his chance.  Considering he was born in Indiana and never left he might not even care, which is good because soon he might not have a choice.

6. Michigan State and Kansas are going to be just fine.  Not that there was ever much doubt, but both teams lost significant, and I mean significant, players from last season so there was part of me that wondered if they'd struggle but both looked very good in Michigan State's 67-64 victory.  Both teams were a little sloppy (31 combined turnovers) but both offenses look to be almost in prime shape already.  Keith Appling was sick (19 points and an insane lay-up to put MSU up 3 with 15 secs left) and Gary Harris joined him in the back court (18 points) to make the Spartans look like they might actually have the best guards in the Big 10 and Branden Dawson looks like he's all the way back from a knee injury.  For Kansas it's much the same story with Ben McLemore and Elijah Johnson looking like they can step right in and be a very, very good pair of guards.  What an awesome game this was.  Although that final Kansas play looked very Tubby Smith-errific.

7.  I have no idea how VCU got beaten by Wichita.  VCU has their entire team back.  Wichita has nobody back.  I thought Wichita would finally fade away, but apparently they just re-load.  Must be sweet.

8.  Alex Poythress is ridiculous.  I have no idea why I didn't know how athletic this guy is but I'd put him up there with Michael Kidd-Gilchrist last year.  It's probably because his name sounds pretty nerdy.  Honestly I couldn't even have told you if he was white or black before tonight because I didn't know anything about him, I just thought he sounded kind of like a nerd.  He's not.  He just dunks on Duke nerds' heads.  He's like a taller Rico Tucker.

Realistically looking at the year prior (Championship) and the year after (have you seen that recruiting class?) this is the worst team of that three year span for Kentucky and it's not really even close, and yet I'd be shocked if they aren't in the Final Four this year again.  Betwixt Calipari's ability to recruit the one-and-done type talent and the mystique and allure (good stripper names, fyi) of Kentucky that place is set up to be the closest thing to a dynasty since UCLA in the 60s or 70s or whatever.  Maybe both.  Effing Kareem.

9.  The other day I went my whole family went to Joe's Crab Shack to celebrate my birthday and there was this dude at the table next to us who ate his corn on the cob with a fork.  And I don't mean like that he cut the kernels off with a knife and then ate them like niblets, I mean he straight up just used his fork to scoop it right off the cob.  I wasn't sure if it was impressive or not but then Snacks got his dainty thing on and was like "I hate corn on the cob because I don't like getting it in my teeth and stuff" and he tried it and couldn't do it.  So basically this dude had a lifetime of experience of scooping corn kernels off the cob with a knife.  He was like MacGyver crossed with Mr. Pitt.  I didn't know if I should laugh or be impressed, but I certainly made sure to have everyone look.  Changed my life.

Game 1: Gophers vs. American Preview

The Gophers get started here by taking on the American Eagles (fitting, right?) and although they sound like a complete cupcake they've actually been a pretty decent team for a low-major for years.  They've finished fourth or better in the Patriot League every year since they joined in 2001.   Their RPI last year was a not-horrendous 142.  The year before they were 127.  I mean, yeah, they were always an automatic win for a high major, but they weren't an RPI killer.  At least in the past.  This year may be different, because American will be looking to replace three starters (including their two top scorers).

That's not to say it isn't an interesting team at least.  Unlike most mid-majors they have the size to hang with bigger programs.  They have two centers over 6-10 and 230 lbs., one of whom (Tony Wroblicky) is the team's leading returning rebounder.  They also have PF Stephen Lumpkins back and he should be their best player despite not playing last season.  Yeah, see, in both 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 Lumpkins averaged 13 points and 8 rebounds for the Eagles, but after being drafted as a pitcher by the Royals decided to try his luck at baseball.  Given that the Royals can't develop pitching to save their lives, it did not go well (baseball reference page here) and Lumpkins is back to do what he's better at.

Along with that size, American also returns Daniel Munoz, the Patriot League leader in assists last season.  Although he hasn't been much of a scorer or shooter in his career, he did drastically improve his three point shooting to 44% last season after hitting just 35% the year prior (and 28% before that).   He may have to take on more of a scoring role with those two dudes who scored almost half American's points last year gone, but I don't really know because who the hell knows jack about American, really?

Here's what we do know:  they're going to work their asses off on defense, play slow, and take care of the basketball.  That combination can always make a team dangerous, particularly against a better team that is sluggish and/or not playing in rhythm - you know, like a team trying to work their best player back in after a major injury.  They also have enough size that they won't be overwhelmed in the paint and a very good lead guard who can handle pressure.  That being said, the Gophers are overwhelmingly more talented.  There is no real reason for this to be a game.  I expect American to jump out ahead early like 12-4 or so before the Gophers put the pedal down and lead 30-22 at half before exploding in the second and coming out with a 20+ point victory.

Minnesota 74, American 50.

Close enough, right?