This is the wrong game not to have Eliason. It looks like Bojanovsky hasn't contributed a ton on the offensive end recently and Ojo is barely playing, but that's two 7 foot guys to guard Mo who struggles to elevate at times. It's kind of hard to see where the Gophers are going to get easy baskets in half court sets, especially with FSU's size being a detriment to Mathieu's drives to the basket. I know the Gophers have played a lot more man recently, but they've only played one team with a bunch of Big Ten level athletes in the NIT in Southern Miss. I'd think zone would be the way to go especially with both teams playing in an unfamiliar arena. We also need to be concerned with Mo getting in foul trouble with no Elliott, so a zone would prevent a lot of penetration and chances for Mo to draw fouls underneath. Most concerned about a potential Okoro White vs Joey King matchup. White is a Senior who has put up at least 16 points in each of his last four games while shooting no worse than 50% from the field. White had 16 and 8 against the Gophers in the first match-up.
Beyond the obvious reasons why you'd like to see the Gophers win this game (chance at the NIT title, more exposure with another game on ESPN, we always want to see the Gophers win every game), I think it's important for this group to get a quality win outside of Williams Arena. The team played some solid games on road/neutral courts, but couldn't pull out wins. I'd like to see them go in to next season having experienced at least one victory away from home that they can hang their hat on.
I disagree with afurry saying that this is the NIT and everybody blows. Given the parity in college basketball and the resumes of Minnesota and SMU (and to a lesser extent FSU), I think it's easy to make a case that two or three of these teams could have won a game or two in the NCAA tournament this year if they made the field.
