Gophers to start men's basketball season with home-friendly schedule

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per Marcus:

Ben Johnson's second season as Gophers men's basketball coach will start off with a much more home-friendly schedule than last year.

The Gophers released their nonconference slate Wednesday with eight regular season games scheduled at Williams Arena in November and December, the most since the program played nine non-league games at the Barn in 2017-18.

Gophers hoops fans will get to see their 2022-23 men's squad play four straight home games to open the regular season, starting Nov. 7 against Western Michigan. That's followed by St. Francis on Nov. 11, DePaul in the Gavitt Games on Nov. 14, and Central Michigan on Nov. 18.

That's a substantial change from a year ago when Johnson's inaugural season opened with just three home games in the first month of the season.

Road warriors best described the Gophers early in Johnson's first year with a 4-0 record away from home in November and early December, including winning the Asheville Championship in North Carolina and back-to-back games at Pitt and Mississippi State.

This season, the Gophers' first road trip will be to San Juan Capistrano, Calif. before Thanksgiving. They'll open the SoCal Challenge with Cal Baptist on Nov. 21. The second matchup will be against the winner or loser of UNLV vs. Southern Illinois on Nov. 23.

Closing out the month will be a third straight game away from home for the Gophers in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge at Virginia Tech on Nov. 28.

www.startribune.com

Gophers to start men's basketball season with home-friendly schedule

Second-year coach Ben Johnson's team will play eight nonconference home games, compared to five last year.
www.startribune.com www.startribune.com

Go Gophers!!
 






Hadn't heard of California Baptist, but apparently they are D1 as of 2018.
 

I truly do not approve of the quality of our opposition in the non conference schedule. How does that prepare you to win the Big Ten?
If that’s not the goal…ya, play home games against these guys.
 

60's Guy said:
I truly do not approve of the quality of our opposition in the non conference schedule. How does that prepare you to win the Big Ten?
If that’s not the goal…ya, play home games against these guys.
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It’s really not a whole lot worse than a majority of the other teams in the conference. I get your point and don’t even disagree, but with the way the selection committee picks teams for the tournament, they don’t necessarily reward a real hard non con schedule and our SOS typically stands up because of the conference. That might not be the case this year though as I think the B1G will be down.
 

Gopherfan84 said:
It’s really not a whole lot worse than a majority of the other teams in the conference. I get your point and don’t even disagree, but with the way the selection committee picks teams for the tournament, they don’t necessarily reward a real hard non con schedule and our SOS typically stands up because of the conference. That might not be the case this year though as I think the B1G will be down.
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Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. There is very little adversity expected versus NET 300 level teams. Maybe you experience some because the players are bored and dig a hole which is a different thing altogether than knowing going in you gotta perform or your opponent will embarrass you. ie the Big Ten
The non conference games the whole roster will play. Versus a Big Ten opponent they will not.
Some games like this are good but not a schedule full.

Michigan, Michigan State, Purdue etc.. they will force us to play well if we want to compete. Only time we'll experience that is when it happens in conference. Too many times in pre season we can win playing poorly.
You learn from playing quality teams, they expose your weaknesses....determine where you must improve. See how individual players react. So many reasons you want to play teams better than you. Play Houston...do you now have a better chance to beat Rutgers? Play Cal Baptist....the fans don't care...the players don't care and you just build bad habits....but you got a win. Yay!
 



60's Guy said:
Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. There is very little adversity expected versus NET 300 level teams. Maybe you experience some because the players are bored and dig a hole which is a different thing altogether than knowing going in you gotta perform or your opponent will embarrass you. ie the Big Ten
The non conference games the whole roster will play. Versus a Big Ten opponent they will not.
Some games like this are good but not a schedule full.

Michigan, Michigan State, Purdue etc.. they will force us to play well if we want to compete. Only time we'll experience that is when it happens in conference. Too many times in pre season we can win playing poorly.
You learn from playing quality teams, they expose your weaknesses....determine where you must improve. See how individual players react. So many reasons you want to play teams better than you. Play Houston...do you now have a better chance to beat Rutgers? Play Cal Baptist....the fans don't care...the players don't care and you just build bad habits....but you got a win. Yay!
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The other side of the card is your team builds confidence getting wins and it allows them to gel. I don’t disagree with you, my point is most all teams schedule like we do. 3-4 P5 non con games and the rest are buy games. The system basically makes it the way you have to do it. Our conference season is tough and brutal enough, so coaches choose to get wins and play cupcakes. Does it produce the best basketball? Is it best for fans? Probably no, but it gives them a chip and a chair which is what you need in a single elimination postseason tournament. ISU gets all sorts of love here because they made the sweet sixteen. They were a final 4 in, but got a good draw and won games.
 

Gopherfan84 said:
The other side of the card is your team builds confidence getting wins and it allows them to gel. I don’t disagree with you, my point is most all teams schedule like we do. 3-4 P5 non con games and the rest are buy games. The system basically makes it the way you have to do it. Our conference season is tough and brutal enough, so coaches choose to get wins and play cupcakes. Does it produce the best basketball? Is it best for fans? Probably no, but it gives them a chip and a chair which is what you need in a single elimination postseason tournament. ISU gets all sorts of love here because they made the sweet sixteen. They were a final 4 in, but got a good draw and won games.
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Iowa State was not one of the last 4 in.

Indiana, Wyoming, Rutgers, Notre Dame.
 






Gopherfan84 said:
little nitpicky, but thanks for the correction. Either way they were one more conference loss from being off the bubble and they get idolized because of their sweet sixteen birth. They played 4 P5 non con last year.
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Far from idolized, but you do you. The fact is they made the 16 in TJ’s first season. You seem to really like to point to them when making a less than complimentary remark about them, especially when you’re comparing anything even close to Mn.
 

Gopherfan84 said:
The other side of the card is your team builds confidence getting wins and it allows them to gel. I don’t disagree with you, my point is most all teams schedule like we do. 3-4 P5 non con games and the rest are buy games. The system basically makes it the way you have to do it. Our conference season is tough and brutal enough, so coaches choose to get wins and play cupcakes. Does it produce the best basketball? Is it best for fans? Probably no, but it gives them a chip and a chair which is what you need in a single elimination postseason tournament. ISU gets all sorts of love here because they made the sweet sixteen. They were a final 4 in, but got a good draw and won games.
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I’d just do it differently. Iowa St in your example played two Top 25 teams 9 and 25 in Memphis and Xavier. Then two rivalries in Iowa and Creighton. That’s four tougher games than we have.
 

60's Guy said:
I’d just do it differently. Iowa St in your example played two Top 25 teams 9 and 25 in Memphis and Xavier. Then two rivalries in Iowa and Creighton. That’s four tougher games than we have.
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Xavier and Memphis ended up being overrated, but your point stands. Also remember Miss State was supposed to be better than they were last year. They were ranked by some analysts in the preseason. Most schedule the same with the only added difficulty being the Christmas tourneys. We will be in a tougher one in two years.
 

Cayman said:
Hadn't heard of California Baptist, but apparently they are D1 as of 2018.
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Yep they joined the WAC .... which needed more schools after kicking Chicago State out for being so bad at basketball (and sports, and school).

....... oh wait ...
 

St. Olaf?

. ...... What??

Wouldn't the time be better spent just practicing against yourselves?

What if someone gets hurt in that game?? Good grief
 


Just me, but actually looking forward to that California Baptist game. They have an Aussie that really dishes out the assists. Also have about 4 or 5 other players from outside the U.S.
In one game against North Dakota, Taran Armstrong had 15 assists.
 


Gophers_4life said:
St. Olaf?

. ...... What??

Wouldn't the time be better spent just practicing against yourselves?

What if someone gets hurt in that game?? Good grief
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It is a favor to Dan Kosmoski, former assistant coach. But still, come on. Are we afraid if we played Mankato or UMD we could lose? I know we are not playing St Thomas but if we’re doing dumb stuff that would at least create buzz.
 



60's Guy said:
I do not recall another D3 team or MIAC team.
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Ex: Wisconsin played DIII Wisconsin-Whitewater. (Wide range of D1/D2/D3 schools)

Not sure exactly how accurate this is, but just to give you a better picture of how much of a non-issue this is. I completely understand complaining about scheduling in non-con, but an exhibition game is something else.
 

builtbadgers said:
Huge fan of a tough schedule but that is easier said then done.
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Tough schedules are hard to get and probably not realistic for us right now.

But surely we could have done better than this.
 

60's Guy said:
Michigan, Michigan State, Purdue etc.. they will force us to play well if we want to compete.
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Do you mean MI who lost to the Gophers by 10 last year in Ann Arbor? Or Mich St who beat the Gophers by 2 in East Lansing about a month later on a last second shot? It doesn't seem that last year's squad needed a tough non-con schedule to learn how to compete against the big boys.

In fact, I would say that they used the non-con to build confidence and cohesiveness which is why they were competitive in most B1G games despite being clearly less talented.

I can guarantee you that this team would have been blown out in many conference games last year had they scuffled in the non-con. Instead they went undefeated in non-con and carried that over to 4 conference wins and many competitive games.
 

ecoperson said:
Do you mean MI who lost to the Gophers by 10 last year in Ann Arbor? Or Mich St who beat the Gophers by 2 in East Lansing about a month later on a last second shot? It doesn't seem that last year's squad needed a tough non-con schedule to learn how to compete against the big boys.

In fact, I would say that they used the non-con to build confidence and cohesiveness which is why they were competitive in most B1G games despite being clearly less talented.

I can guarantee you that this team would have been blown out in many conference games last year had they scuffled in the non-con. Instead they went undefeated in non-con and carried that over to 4 conference wins and many competitive games.
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You’re aware we were in last place, right?
 

personally, I would rather see the Gophers play the Dakota schools as opposed to playing No-Name State. The Dakota schools would at least bring in a few fans.

I don't think that Central Michigan or St. Francis will bring in a lot of visiting fans.
 

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