Hope to see you over there!

I’ll quickly say that Minnesota is going to have to play near perfect basketball to hope to pull this one out.  Force turnovers, make free throws, take care of the ball.  PRESS.

Go Gophs.  5:30pm CT tip.

Their current resume breaks down like this:  (RPI numbers are from College RPI)

Wins:

One “great” win over Butler (RPI: 17), zero good wins (RPI 25-50), one “decent” win over Ohio State (RPI: 91) and 10 “expected” wins over the rest of the clowns they’ve faced (who knew there was a Utah Valley University?)

Losses:

Thankfully so far, the Gophers haven’t had a “bad” loss (losing to a team with an RPI of 150 or below).  In fact, their worst loss was at the hands of Portland (RPI: 80).  The only bad losses they can expect to suffer the rest of the season would be dropping either of their remaining games against Iowa or Penn State.  Of course, anything can happen in a conference game.

With their current situation in mind, I’m under the impression that the Gophers will need to win at least 20 games in order to be a candidate for at-large consideration in the tournament. This is barring an upset victory over Purdue, Michigan State and even Wisconsin this year.  They only have two solid wins on their resume right now and will need a handful of wins over teams like Michigan, Illinois and Northwestern to strengthen their tournament argument.  That means they need to win eight more games in order eclipse the 20-win mark.

But where will those wins come from?  It’s impossible to correctly predict how the remaining games will pan out, but you can definitely identify expected victories.  Here’s how I think it shapes up (with a conservative, “mind of a Gopher fan” angle):

1. @ Michigan State:  Loss
2. @ Indiana:  Win
3. vs. Michigan State:  Loss
4. vs. Northwestern:  Win
5. @ Ohio State:  Loss
6. @ Penn State:  Win
7. vs. Michigan:  Win
8. @ Northwestern:  Loss
9. vs. Wisconsin:  Loss
10. vs. Indiana:  Win
11. vs. Purdue:  Loss
12. @ Illinois:  Loss
13. @ Michigan:  Loss
14. vs. Iowa:  Win

Again, these are conservative predictions (losing at home to Wisconsin, for instance), but you get the idea.  Of course, the Gophers could steal one on the road against Michigan, but they could just as easily drop a gimme game at home to Iowa, so I think it balances out.  More importantly, you can really only identify six “should-win” games for the rest of their schedule.  That puts them at 18-12 to finish the regular season and adds a lot of pressure to win an opening round Big Ten tournament game.  Do the Gophers get an at-large bid with only 19 wins and one win over a Top 25 team in a down Big Ten year?  I don’t think so, which means they need to steal a game they aren’t supposed to.  On the road against Illinois, OSU, NW or Michigan or at home against Purdue, Wisconsin or Michigan State.  Yikes.

Overall, it’ll be important for Minnesota to win the games they are supposed to.  They can’t afford to drop a home game to Northwestern and they have to win at Penn State.  If they can hold their own in the soft parts of the schedule, then they are in better position to steal a game they aren’t expected to win and help strengthen their argument for a ticket to the Dance.  They need to position themselves as a strong, 2nd tier Big Ten team — something that will happen with wins over the Illinois, Ohio States, Northwesterns and Michigans of the conference.

The game against Ohio State was important for a number of reasons.  Primarily, it was a test to see just where the Gophers stacked up against a 2nd tier team in the conference.  Sure, Minnesota rolled over Penn State and Iowa and got dumped by Purdue, but those were basically to be expected.  What’s more important is how the Gophers stack up against teams like OSU, Wisconsin, Northwestern and Michigan.  These games go a long ways in showing just where the Gophers sit in the conference in terms of talent and present a fairly accurate barometer of their tournament chances.

What we saw, finally, was consistent offensive output against a tough opponent.  Minnesota has shot poorly against better teams this year (Texas A&M, Purdue) and their 45% clip was refreshing to see.  What has dogged them in their losses has been poor shooting.

Also interesting was the lack of playing time from the “second string” line, including Joseph, Cobbs, Carter and Williams.  Tubby is settling into a core lineup of Westbrook, Hoffarber, Nolen and Johnson, which definitely helps the flow of the offense.  It’s apparent with the second string is on the floor that the offensive fluidity of the team drops off considerably.

Concerning, though, was just how lost Colton Iverson continues to look.  Four TOs, two missed free throws, only one shot.  These are numbers that can’t be accepted from your starting center.  Iverson does a great job of carving out space and getting to the hoop, but he doesn’t have the hands to put points on the boards and has almost no touch.  Ralph Sampson, on the other hand, looked much more comfortable than he has in recent games.

I think we’ll continue to see it as the conference season plays out, but the Gophers will live and die by their shooting percentage.  We’ve seen their incredible defense keep them in games even when they shot 30%, but they just don’t have the free throw consistency to put up a W  without shooting over 40%.  When they are bricking shots and settling for mid-range jumpers, they won’t be winning many close games.  However, the Ohio State game showed us that they do know how to put it together and put enough points on the board to win against a solid conference opponent.

Minnesota will also be opening up the season in Anaheim for the 76 Classic (Nov. 26-29).  While the tournament pairings have not been announced, the rest of the field includes UCLA, West Virginia, Clemson, Texas A&M, Butler, Long Beach State and Portland — a pretty stacked early season tournament as seven of the eight teams were in the Big Dance.

With a field like that, its entirely plausible that the Gophers could end up playing one or more top 25 teams, which would be a strong non-conference addition to their schedule.

So, while the upcoming schedule continues to be a closely guarded secret, the pieces are starting to come together.

UPDATE: It’s now been reported that the Gophers will meet Butler in the first round with the winner facing the UCLA/Portland winner.  So it’s feasible that Minnesota could open its season with games against two top-10 teams.  Fun!

If you haven’t been following the Gophers too closely recently they are completely on fire.  Since dropping two in a row to Illinois back on April 17-18 they had won nine straight conference games before losing to Michigan on Sunday (John Anderson was denied his 1000th win in the process) with one strange loss to Division III St. Thomas sandwiched in the middle.

Their reward?  Their highest ranking in any national poll this season.  Baseball America placed them at #21, while both Collegiate Baseball Magazine and Rivals put them at #24.  This marks the first time the Gophers have been ranked in the Rivals poll this season.

Derek McCallum is having a ridiculous season hitting .403-16-66.  He leads the conference in batting average, slugging percentage, hits, RBIs, home runs, and total bases.  He is also second in on-base percentage.  Unbelievable.

AJ Pettersen checks in at 12th in the conference in batting average and first in runs scored.  Tom Buske owns the conference’s fifth best ERA.

Now Minnesota just has to take care of business on the road at Penn State (7-14 in the Big Ten) if they want to take the top seed in the Big Ten tournament in Columbus, OH.  The NCAA tournament is starting to look more and more like a lock.

The Gophers have been mentioned as legitimate postseason participants in several publications.  More often than not they are slated to be a #2 seed in whichever region they appear in, meaning they would have to travel for the tournament.  For instance, ESPN’s Jeremy Mills puts them in Texas A&M’s region.

But chew on this — the Gophers actually have a chance to host a regional.  The NCAA has been trying to nationalize baseball for years (read: not have the South dominate year in and year out) and would love nothing more than to have a northern team host a regional.  Should the Gophers win out the rest of the season, they actually have a chance to end up as a number one seed in a region.

Even if they don’t end up with a #1 seed somewhere, it’s not out of the ordinary for a #2 seed to host a region if it makes geographical sense.  Word on the street is that John Anderson has been making a push to host the region at the Dome (Hey, it never rains indoors), and with the NCAA’s push to get the North interested in college baseball, it’s not out of the question that we could see a postseason region held right here in Minneapolis.

Stay tuned.

Minnesota split with Missouri on the road (one win, one 20-5 loss…ooofta), but followed up with a three game sweep over Northwestern in their second-to-last Metrodome series.  The week came on the heels of a previous weekend series win over then-#18 Ohio State.

The Gophers again saw spectacular pitching from their starters.  Chauncy Handran (7.2 IP, 2 ER) and Tom Buske (8 IP, ER) each had amazing starts and Austin Lubinsky chipped in with four innings of one-run ball.  Neither pitcher has an ERA over 2.73 for the season.

Offensively, SS AJ Pettersen finished the week 7-20 with four RBI, while Nick O’Shea went 8-21 with five RBI and a HR.  Catcher Kyle Knudson took home unofficial offensive player of the week honors going 9-19 with six RBI and two HRs. Pettersen currently leads the team with a .383 batting average, good for fourth in the Big Ten, while Buske’s 2.15 ERA puts him at second-best in the conference.

Minnesota (20-10, 6-2) now sits atop the Big Ten in a tie with Indiana, with whom they split an earlier series with.  Add that to a resume with series wins over Big Ten semi-powerhouse Ohio State and #16 TCU and single game wins over Santa Barbara and Hawaii and we have the makings of a truly successful season.  Hawaii was only recently ousted from the top 25.

The Gophers go outside this week with single games against Wisconsin-Milwaukee and South Dakota State before an important weekend series on the road against Illinois (21-8, 6-3).  Illinois is one of the more powerful teams in the conference and would be a huge series victory for Minnesota.  Not only would it add two more conference wins over a legitimate opponent, but it would even further solidify the teams postseason chances.

In an interesting side note, the Gophers are “in” as an at-large in Rivals’ most recent attempt at Bracketology.  Rivals has Illinois as the predicted Big Ten champion.  This is interesting in that the Big Ten is more or less the Missouri Valley of NCAA baseball (read:  mid-major) and usually doesn’t get more than one bid.  You might expect this ranking to change should the Gophers find success against the Illini.

Minnesota is currently the only team in the Big Ten ranked in the top 25.

I have a question….why would he ever do that?

I didn’t believe it in February when people said he was going to Alabama, and I never believed that he was going to the University of Virginia.  In whose mind would that  move ever make sense?  Does it really seem like a beneficial move for Tubby to pack up and leave the very school he settled with only two seasons ago?  Where do these rumors start?

Here’s the reality.  Tubby Smith is not going anywhere for a long, long time.  Smith won a national championship at the University of Kentucky.  He maintained a dynasty at one of the most prominent basketball institutions in the country.  But you know what?  He wanted more.  He wanted to create his own dynasty, not inherit one.  Fast forward to Minnesota.

Here he is now, a couple 20 win seasons under his belt in his first try.  He has a top 25 recruiting class coming in that he created from nothing.  Now that he’s inherited the worst and realized some semblance of success, does anyone really think he wants to leave a project that he started merely toiling in mediocrity?  He wouldn’t even be going to a better situation out east.  He would just be setting himself back two season to achieve the same thing he set out to do initially, which is build a dynasty from nothing.

Now, this operates under the assumption that Smith doesn’t want to run around the country creating mediocre programs in two years and leaving them to their own devices.  Maybe he loves to only try kind of hard for a couple seasons and then leave the dumbfounded fanbase crying for more Tubby.  Maybe he’s an egomaniac like that, who knows.

But I’m willing to put a hefty bet down that he wants to create a championship team with his own hard work.  To create a legacy that people will remember.   Remember, this isn’t the NFL where head coaches come and go like Ryan the Temp.  Colleges have traditions they like to uphold and coaches stay around for long periods of time.  A college head coach is not a high-turnover profession.  If he wants to create a tradition of success then he is going to have to stick it out for a few years.

It’s mildly frustrating that legitimate publications like the StarTribune and the Pioneer Press are even entertaining this rumor in their print editions.  Luckily Charley Walters is reporting it, which means it most certainly is not true.

The silver lining of this whole situation might be that our current head coach is so good that people everywhere hope to have him.  Congratulations, team, the Gophers are relevant in college basketball again.

Just to get you up to speed, the Gophers finished non-conference with a 13-6 record which included a series victory at TCU (#16) and a single game win over UC Santa Barbara (#20).   Throw in wins over Washington, Hawaii and West Virginia and you have an Interactive Strength Rating, an RPI of sorts,  that is the best in the Big Ten.  Not a bad way to start the conference season.

I had a chance to sit down and shoot the breeze with freshman SS A.J. Pettersen about the upcoming conference season and he had some interesting things to say.  One thing that he mentioned was how great the pitching and defense have been so far this season.  Indeed, Minnesota enters the conference season with the lowest  team ERA (4.10) and opponent’s batting average (.254) by far.  They also have the conference’s highest fielding percentage.  Pair that with an overall tough non-conference schedule from top to bottom and there is reason to get excited for the conference season.

The team did run into some trouble on their Texas road trip against UT-Arlington earlier in the week.  While on paper it seemed that the Gophers should have owned the series, Pettersen said that Dallas was a team that can mash the ball from time to time (32 hits in two games earlier this season).  That’s exactly what they did in game two of the series, dropping 12 runs on 20 hits.

“We’ve had some trouble in midweek games,” Pettersen said.  “We go against teams that are usually of lower caliber and we treat them as must win games.”

He  brings up an interesting point and on closer inspection the team on Monday through Thursday this season is 0-5 while a staggering 13-1 over the weekend.  Perhaps an anomaly, but perhaps not.

“We tend to press against those teams,” he said.  “We get down early and haven’t been able to gather ourselves for big innings. We feel like we have to win every game.”

You’d think that such a hardcore way playing from day to day would wear down a team, but Pettersen didn’t think so.

“I’m not worried — we do a lot of mental training on the team.”

Wait a minute, mental training?  Like a team shrink?  Supposedly Minnesota employs a team psychologist to help with stress that comes during the season to keep the players at peak performance.  The players even engage in belly breathing at each practice to help them relax.

“Once you get to a higher level, especially Division I, the mental game is what separates teams,” he said.  “We might not have anyone who can throw in the high 90s or hit a ton of bombs, but we have a lot of mentally tough individuals and because of that we can beat anyone.”

That’s the type of edge I’d be willing to hang my hat on.

It was a pretty simple diagnosis of what went wrong.  The Gophers knew they needed to stop Dexter Pittman and AJ Abrams; unfortunately they didn’t do either.  Pittman owned the paint (17 points, 11 rebounds) and Abrams drained eight three-pointers en route to 26 points.

The Gophers hung around until about the 14 minute mark in the second half when Abrams went on an unbelievable run in which he hit four three-pointers in two minutes.  A truly unreal feat that effectively broke the back of Minnesota.  I mean, really, how can you even come back against something like that?  Simply amazing.

And while the loss was disappointing, it’s important not to feel like the Gophers underachieved this season.  There were times where the team would do something above and beyond, like beat Louisville, and they would seem like they were a completely legitimate top-25 team.  Then they would go and lose to Northwestern and seem like they were dropping the ball on the season.

But what some people may not realize is that everything the Gophers did this season was above and beyond everyone’s expectations.  If you would have told me that this team would be in the NCAA Tournament before the season started I would have let out a hearty chuckle.  What we saw, though, was that Tubby Smith was able to mold a bunch of scrubs that he inherited into a completely noteworthy, and often dangerous, Big Ten team.  It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking a first round exit just caps a frustrating up and down season for Minnesota, but make sure you put it in context and take the entire season as gravy.

1)  The Gophers were incredibly young, often starting two freshmen the entire season.  They won’t lose any important seniors (unless you consider Jamal Abu-Shamala important) before next season

2)  Tubby has four big-time recruits coming to town next year.  Keep in mind that the majority of the team this year came during the Monson era.  If Tubby could turn someone else’s team into a tournament-worthy squad, imagine what he can do with his own players

3)  Minnesota established itself as a completely legitimate Big Ten team, something they hadn’t been in quite some time.  Next season they won’t have to work so hard to gain national respect as they used this season to put themselves on the map.  They should begin to appear in conversations as strong candidates to finish near the top of the conference next season

I know it’s the old, “maybe next year” thing that has become so second nature for Gopher Nation, but for real, next year will kick ass.  We are building on great things.

Check out The Daily Gopher’s take on the season.