MN Daily Column: Gophers' success against Louisville hinges on defense

[BleedGopher]

per the Daily:

When the Gophers men’s basketball squad steps onto the court inside the Coast Guard’s Air Station Borinquen on Friday night, the team faces the daunting task of stopping No. 8 Louisville’s potent offense.

Louisville’s attack ranked eighth in the NCAA last season and produced more than 82 points per contest.

This could be trouble for Minnesota, which has looked inconsistent defensively in both its intrasquad scrimmage and in its exhibition contest.

The Gophers allowed 68 points against a Division II team in Thursday night’s exhibition game against Minnesota-Duluth.

Despite that number, head coach Richard Pitino didn’t seem too concerned with the team’s defensive performance.

“We didn’t get as many steals as I would like,” Pitino said. “But I thought we were really aggressive.”

http://www.mndaily.com/sports/mens-...ers-success-against-louisville-hinges-defense

Go Gophers!!

 

[march madness]

Louisville is potent but they lost an all american and have no top 20 guys comming in

Anyone get the idea this writer isnt considering that Louisville lost All American Russ Smith- one of the most dynamic scorers in college basketball, and Final four MVP Hancock a great shooter? Louisville will still be a very good offensive team but let's not use last years numbers when they have lost 2 big time players. Offensively they score off turnovers, they hit the 3 (3 perimete players all above 37%), and Harrell gets some pts off post ups and put backs.

I think a bigger key is turnovers, pace of the game, and weather EE can stay out of foul trouble. If EE is in foul trouble Harrell could go for 20 and 10.

Louisville is a very good defensive team, they get lot of steals, they pressure you. With two senior guards i feel we match up with them better than we would against say Wisconsin or virginia.