Preview: Gophers vs. Northwestern

Once again, the Big Ten season has flown by. The Gophers play their final game of the conference schedule when they head to Evanston to take on the Wildcats Saturday night. The stakes aren’t that high ““ 8th place in the Big Ten is on the line) ““ but Minnesota doesn’t want to head into the conference tournament with a three-game losing streak.

Unfortunately, that streak could be pretty difficult to avoid. Not only did the Wildcats win in Minneapolis two months ago, but Welsh-Ryan Arena has recently become a fairly sizable homecourt advantage. In their last three conference home games, the Wildcats have beaten Iowa and Wisconsin and almost Big Ten Champion Ohio State. So little old 5-10 Minnesota isn’t going to scare them.

What scares me is Northwestern’s zone defense. It’s brutal. Minnesota scored just 49 points and shot just 37% against it. Iowa scored 48. Wisconsin scored 51. And Ohio State managed 56. It really hurts teams like Minnesota that don’t have great ball-handlers nor a dominant inside-outside game.

And the Wildcats can also do some damage on the offensive end. 6’8″ senior Vedran Vukusic is near the top of the conference at 19.3 points per game, and 6’4″ senior Mohamed Hachad (who missed the game back in January) is a solid all-around player averaging 12 ppg. Minnesota also won’t forget about freshman guards Craig Moore (who made 5 three-pointers in the first meeting) nor Sterling Williams, both of whom scored 15 points in the absence of Hachad the last time these teams met.

Here are my Gopher Keys of the Game:

1. Gotta Beat the Zone. I don’t see this game hinging on anything other than this one key; the Gophers simply have to be able to score against Northwestern’s zone. It’s tough. It extends well beyond the three-point line, which will make Minnesota burn a lot of clock just trying to initiate an offensive set, but yet it recovers very well on shooters through multiple ball reversals. Ohio State had a hard time beating it, and they might move the ball better than anyone in the conference. I think the Gophers’ best hope is for Spencer Tollackson to force some double teams inside and then hit cutters and spot-up shooters. But even trying to get the ball inside to him won’t be easy.

2. Minimize/Maximize. Whenever you have a difficult night of scoring ahead of you (guys, feel free to insert a bar joke here), you need to be efficient. The Gophers need to control the defensive glass and not have defensive breakdowns so that Northwestern doesn’t get any easy buckets or second chances. And offensively, the Gophers can’t turn the ball over, need to run whenever they have a chance, and hopefully grab some offensive boards as well. They definitely need to end up with more field-goal attempts than the Wildcats do.

3. Play Well When Barnless. The Gophers have played some very good games at home over the past month, but they haven’t yet showed a complete performance on the road. They’ll need to do that to have any chance of winning four games in four days in the Big Ten Tournament, so tonight is a good time to start. They need to play hard for all 40 minutes, and they need to play with confidence. The latter is hard to do against Northwestern, but there’s never an excuse for not playing hard.

I just don’t feel confident enough to predict a Gopher victory in this one. That’s no so much because I don’t think Minnesota will play well as it is that I’m very impressed by the Wildcat defense. They nearly knocked off OSU the other night, and that “˜D’ was very impressive. Let’s hope they’re due for a letdown. My prediction: Northwestern 54 Minnesota 50.

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