Not a great article/slide-show. The most glaring mistakes were talking about the Gophers bad finish to the season as the committee no longer uses a "last ten games" or any other similar metric to determine who gets in and also the author's assertion that the Gophers need to win 3 of their final 4 games to get in. With the state of the bubble, 2 wins (at least one of which will be a quality win) and an 8-10 record likely has the Gophers in the dance. Finally I found it strange that the author talked about Richard Pitino being an inexperienced coach in regards to coaching these late season games in the context of giving veteran Tubby Smith some credit and specifically sighting last season. The Gophers closed out last season losing their final 3 B1G games (1 of which in the BTT) not to mention 5 of their last 7 and 7 of their last 10.
If the Gophers don't make the tournament it will be very simply because they have regressed in the past month or so. The last game you can point to as solid from the Gophers from both an effort and execution standpoint would be the win over Wisconsin on January 22. The home win over Indiana had some really poor basketball from the Gophers in the first half and the win at Northwestern speaks for itself. That's not to say you should ever apologize for a win, just pointing out that it's been a long time since this squad looked like a good basketball team. For what it's worth the Gophers have lost as home favorites three times during conference play, but have yet to win as a road dog. If they miss the tournament, it will be because that stat doesn't get any better between now and selection Sunday.