Big dance or little dance? Seems likely Tubby Smith’s first Gopher team will qualify in March for either the NCAA tournament or the NIT.
The Gophers put themselves in position to go dancing by winning 10 of 12 games during a soft non-conference schedule. It wasn’t impressive that the Gophers lost two of their three road games against major college teams, losing to Florida State, 75-61, and UNLV, 81-64. But, then again, Minnesota is already at 10 wins and all last season the Gophers only won nine with the same personnel.
Former Gophers coach Jim Dutcher, now a TV analyst, thinks the Gophers can go 9-9 in the Big Ten Conference regular season schedule and be invited to the NCAA tournament with a 19-11 record. Despite a lack of conference strength he expects the NCAA selection committee to invite several Big Ten teams to the tourney. Dutcher’s opinion is “they’re still going to take five or six Big Ten teams, and if you’re 9-9 you’re probably fifth or sixth” (on the invitation list).
“The key this year is you got to beat Northwestern twice and you got to beat Michigan twice,” he said. “They (the Gophers) only play Iowa once (in Minneapolis). But you got to hope that you’re going to get five wins. …Penn State you got to at least split. …That gives you six. All you got to do is split with some other teams, and I think they’re close enough that if I had to pick their game with Illinois, their game with Purdue, their game with Ohio State, I would just say the home team wins.”
Dutcher predicts this order of finish in the Big Ten: Michigan State, Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio State, Illinois, Minnesota, Purdue, Penn State, Iowa, Michigan and Northwestern. The conference schedule started earlier this week but the Gophers don’t open until tomorrow (Saturday night) at Michigan State. The game can be seen only on the Big Ten Network.
The Gophers’ non-conference schedule was loaded with home games (seven) and mediocre opponents. “Those teams didn’t have the talent to beat them (the Gophers),” Dutcher said. “It’s hard to read this team.”
Dutcher pointed out that the Gophers overwhelmed many teams with their defense, including full court pressure, turning miscues into points. When Minnesota played teams with “decent” guard play, Dutcher said, the results were different at Florida State and UNLV.
Still, Dutcher likes the Gophers’ improvement from last season and praises the better defense and aggressive rebounding. He said Minnesota’s talent is better than Purdue and “at least as good” as Illinois.
At home the Gophers could be a difficult team to beat. But Dutcher said Michigan State “will be a handful” even at Williams Arena. “They’re capable of beating every other team in the conference here,” he added.
Dutcher said Minnesota’s three senior starters, forward Dan Coleman, center Spencer Tollackson and guard Lawrence McKenzie must lead the team. Coleman, 6-9, is a difficult match up, able to shoot inside, outside and drive to the basket. Tollackson will likely be featured more in the offense during the conference season and McKenzie may not score as much as last season (despite shooting being his strength) because of his new point guard responsibilities. All three must play more consistently than in past seasons for the Gophers to do any memorable dancing.