University of Minnesota Gophers men’s basketball coach Richard Pitino, the son of storied coach Rick Pitino, is guiding a squad capable of making a serious dent in the Big 10.
For the last three years, the Gophers have hovered somewhere between mediocrity or, in the case of last season, irrelevance. And there’s no shame in that. They were rebuilding the program. That they were able to tread water above .500 for so long is a serious accomplishment.
And now they get to reap the fruits of their labor, thanks to a defense that is among the 50 best NCAA teams in the nation.
The Gophers are allowing a hair over 64 points per contest. Just 47 teams in the country field a better fortress, and it’s the fifth-best mark in the Big 10, behind only Rutgers, Wisconsin, Ohio State and Michigan.
This makes the Gophers solid under plays most of the time. Their offense, which is scoring almost 77 points per game, a top-half mark in the Big 10, sometimes gives them a balanced a appeal, negating the attractiveness of betting overs or unders at all. But the defense is so good it almost doesn’t matter. Minnesota holds opponents to sub-28-percent shooting from beyond the arc, giving them the 12th-best three-point prevention in the nation, and limits rival offenses to around 35.2 percent shooting overall—the fifth-best mark in the country.
That’s no joke. Nor is their Gophers’ record. At 9-1, their winning percentage is second only to Maryland in the Big 10.
Now, there is some noise here. The Gophers’ schedule hasn’t been especially hard. Simple Rating System, which offers cumulative rankings for teams based off the difficulty of schedule and overall point differential, says that Minnesota is actually the fifth-best squad in the Big 10, trailing Northwestern, Indiana, Purdue and Wisconsin.
While you want to take this under advisement whenever the Gophers face squads with records similar to theirs, it’s not an end-all deterrent. SRS scores are less accurate in college than in the NBA, because we’re dealing with smaller samples. And the Gophers are barely 10 games into their season.
It is, however, necessary to note so that you shouldn’t automatically view the Gophers as reflexive Big 10 champion plays or tournament participants. They have a long way to go on that front.
At the same time, the Gophers have established themselves as viable threats in real life. That respect just isn’t translating over to sportsbooks, where they remain a +1000 to win the Big 10. Given that none of the other top squads have really pulled away, using the Gophers, and their super-stingy defense, as Big 10 title plays isn’t a bad idea by any means.
Tournament play is slightly trickier. The Gophers remain a 400-to-1 long shot to win it all, which isn’t enticing enough for a large-scale wager.
Their success thus far, though, is more than enough for you to tap into your underdog stash. Who knows, thanks to the Gophers’ defense, we may be looking at a Cinderella story in the making.