Where Will The Gophers Finish?

I’d say between third and fifth. MSU looks like they’re running away with the conference title (knock on wood), and I think at least one of Illinois and Purdue finishes ahead. But I don’t think they’ll finish behind more than one of Wisconsin, Ohio State, and Michigan.

The Gophers should finish ahead of Ohio State and Michigan. I think Michigan State, Illinois and either Wisconsin or Purdue, but not both, will finish ahead of Minnesota. Illinois is just a hunch. You’ve got a leg up on Wisconsin and the Purdue game this week will go a long way to showing whether the Gophers are getting busy living or getting busy dying.

I really believe the game against Northwestern was a wakeup call. Still, I think the Wisconsin win did more good for us than the Northwestern loss did bad for us. If we would have lost to Wisconsin and then beat Northwestern, everyone would have said, “Well, you should win that game.” But since we beat Wisconsin on the road, people just look at it as a bump in the road since the win in Madison gave us credibility.

I believe in Tubby’s coaching and leadership. He won’t let the Gophers play as badly as they did in Northwestern again. Winning on the road is tough in the Big 10. Coming back home and playing against a team that will test us like Purdue will get us up for the game. It is still a dangerous position. If we lose the game, we will fall to 4-3 in the Big 10. Not as impressive as 4-1. But if we can beat the Boilermakers, that gives us another resume building win on our way to 5-2.

Ultimately, I believe that the Purdue game will be a pivotal game. If we win, we should be able to continue the success. If we lose, we may begin a downward spiral and find ourselves on the bubble come mid-March.

One more poor game, one more game that includes stupid point guard decisions and more importantly poor, pathetic defensive effort Al Nolen should have his playing time limited. He was awful against Wisconsin and Northwestern. Tubby called a timeout in the michigan state game to specifically get after him, which resulted in Al leaving the game. Big game for the youngster on Thursday. Lets hope he either hits a strike or the gutter. We don’t need a spare. We don’t need 9 points, 3 assists and 6 turnovers. Actually, I should say “you” don’t need the latter, figuring I’m not a gophers fan until Huffy graduates. If Nolen sucks once again Tubby needs to cut off six minutes of his and give them to Paul Carter.