Gophers @ Spartans–Tourney Resume Building 101: Get a tough road win

So the Purdue game last Tuesday didn’t go so well – poor shooting and execution on the offensive end left the Gophers looking like a B-list Big Ten team. Maybe they are. But maybe not. The 2nd half performance against Ohio State restored some of my faith in the season. Evan Turner was back from injury (and extra whiny to boot), but it didn’t matter as the Gophs kept turning the Buckeyes over, and the Hoff wouldn’t stop making shots. Things even got a little chippy there in the end. All in all, the way I like to see a Minnesota Big Ten basketball game to go. Can this performance be repeated in East Lansing this week?

As Sparty Tom stated in his game preview, Spartan Head Coach Tom Izzo seems to have Tubby’s number, beating Smith’s teams 9 out of 11 times (and 5 out of 5 times with Minnesota). What’s up with this? A closer look at the Minnesota-MSU games over the last 3 years reveals that in the 5 Tubby Era games versus MSU, the Gophs have only managed to muster more than 60 points once in 5 tries. The average team shooting percentages have been a dismal 37.7% for the Gophs in these matchups, while the Spartans have averaged a 46.4% shooting percentage. Tough numbers to overcome. Izzo knows how to ‘D’-up the Gophers, and forces us to take bad shots in our half court sets. Running with them can be disastrous too, given their athleticism (especially at guard).

So can the Gophs buck the trend here and get a win on the road? Every Gopher player knows that a win over the #7 Spartans at the Breslin Center would look damn good on any resume for a team trying to prove they belong in the field of 64, and it tightens the Big Ten conference title race further (especially since Purdue just picked up their second loss in stunning fashion last night). Obviously, the motivation should be there. Defensively, forcing lots of turnovers like the Gophers did against OSU will not be enough. They need to convert on a much higher percentage of their opportunities on the offensive end. And unless Blake or Westbrook are shooting lights out, that seems to be a tall order. Barring the continued white-hot shooting of Hoffarber, the answer might lie with sophomores Ralph the 3rd and Colt 45. Get these guys the ball early, and let them post up and draw fouls against the less experienced Spartan big men. If this happens, the Gophs might be able to hang around long enough to make it a game in the final 2 minutes.
That said, I still don’t have a good feeling about tonight’s game, and our halfcourt offense is has not improved much since the pre-conference schedule. This worries me, since a footrace with MSU won’t work the way it did with Iowa.

Prediction: Michigan State 70, Gophers 58

Sidenote: The hot rumor flying around Gopher message boards right now is that Al Nolen and Rodney Williams will become academically ineligible in the near future (possibly next week), due to incomplete course work. Tubby has responded to questions surrounding this by stating that he is not concerned and expects all his players to complete the work they need to in order to stay eligible. Whether or not ineligibility is a legit issue remains to be seen, but a Gopher team without Al Nolen defending at the point is not the same (as much as I like what I’ve seen from freshman Justin Cobbs so far). Let’s hope these rumors are only that, otherwise being NIT bound seems inevitable.