Gopher athletic director Joel Maturi told Sports Headliners there is “long range” interest in scheduling a nonconference basketball game against a national power in the Metrodome, or possibly at Target Center or Xcel Energy Center. Such a game could make sense if coach Tubby Smith’s Gophers become a top 20 program and national TV is interested in telecasting.
Maturi said that playing the game off campus, instead of in Williams Arena, creates more of a neutral court site and is more appealing to an opponent. The Metrodome can easily be configured for 40,000 basketball seats, or more, offering a huge revenue generating event for the Gophers.
“I think Tubby would go for those kinds of things,” Maturi said. “There’s no question. If you look at Tubby’s competition at Kentucky (when he coached there), it was always one of the toughest schedules in the country.
“He played everybody…so Tubby’s not afraid of these teams. Nor am I as an athletic director. …”
The Gophers are playing a Charmin-soft nonconference schedule this year. Part of the reason is to give a young team time to develop. Another reason is major conference basketball schools usually prefer to load up both their records and revenues by playing mostly at home for nonconference games.
Maturi said it’s a challenge for the Gophers and other schools to schedule opponents. Typically basketball schedules aren’t set for the next season until spring or summer.
The Gophers, who so far this season have played St. Cloud State, Northern State, Concordia-St. Paul, Bowling Green and Northern State at home, and Colorado State on the road, have Eastern Washington at Williams Arena on Wednesday night. The best home opponent on the nonconference schedule is Virginia, a game on December 2 that is part of the Big Ten-ACC Challenge.
The Gophers play national power Louisville in a neutral site nonconference game on December 20 at the Arizona Cardinals’ football stadium in Glendale. The game is part of a doubleheader called the Stadium Shootout with the other game between Arizona State and Brigham Young. The games will be televised on Fox Sports Net.