Gopher Basketball
| Game Info | |
| Opponent: | Purdue Boilermakers |
| When: | 7 pm, January 14th, 2006 |
| Where: | Mackey Arena ““ West Lafayette, IN |
| Television: | FSN (tape delayed) |
Well, something has to give Saturday night when the Big Ten’s two winless teams go head to head. Both have been hit hard by injuries and other player losses this year, but while Minnesota’s roster is now back intact, Purdue is still missing star forward Carl Landry and a few other key players.
The Gophers established themselves as the superior team during the nonconference season, while the Boilers’ 6-5 record made them a consensus pick for the Big Ten’s bottom three. But with Minnesota now having dropped two consecutive home games to start conference play, now is the time to step up and show that they are indeed in a different echelon than Purdue.
Purdue has started with losses at Northwestern, at Michigan, and then home to Ohio State. Each of those was expected, although the Michigan loss was much closer than expected. Senior power forward Matt Kiefer went for 21 points, 8 rebounds, and 6 assists, but the Wolverines pulled it out 68-65. Beyond Kiefer, Purdue doesn’t have many consistent scoring threats on their depleted roster. Freshmen guards Chris Lutz and Korey Spates are averaging 11 points per game
Here are my Gopher Keys of the Game:
1. Start Strong. Minnesota’s first half performance against Northwestern was about as bad as I’ve seen”¦until their first half performance against Wisconsin. Getting down 15-20 points at home is very difficult to recover from. Doing it on the road is even worse. Somehow, someway, the Gophers need to find a way to get off to a good offensive start in this game.
2. Finish Strong. Of course Minnesota’s problem earlier in the season was starting relatively strong but then finishing poorly. And we saw a mini-version of that against Wisconsin, when the Gophers failed to put the game away in the final minutes after making a 22-point rally to take the lead.
3. 40 Minutes. This is basically a redundant summary of the first two keys; if you start strong and finish strong, you pretty much assure yourself of 40 solid minutes of basketball. But it’s more important to repeat this message than to consider any other key when you’re trying to get a road victory in the Big Ten.
I suppose the Gophers could start 0-6 and still make the NCAA Tournament by running the table, but realistically we’re starting to get close to crunch time. Minnesota does not want to go 0-3 with a trip to Iowa City next up on the schedule. They need to win this game. And they can win it. But I unfortunately haven’t seen enough yet to allow me to say that they will win it. My prediction: Purdue 64 Minnesota 60.
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