Welcome to the first open thread of the 2010 season.  As most of you know this is the forum to vent, gloat, rant, rave and celebrate Gopher football.  We start on the road vs. the Sun Belt favorites minus their offensive weapon, Dwight Dasher.

Let's get it on.

You don't have to wait for the game to start, give us your predictions for the game and share you anticipation with the rest of us.

There were several upsets yesterday, can the Gophers add to the list of double-digit seeds winning?  It is pretty interesting when you look all over the internet there is a distinct split between who picks the Gophers to win and who is suggesting Xavier will win.

Virtually every prediction by a human (columnist, blogger, President, etc) is picking Xavier to win.  While basically every computer model or statistical prediction has the Gophers winning or at least ranked higher than the Muskateers.  Kind of an interesting difference.  I guess Xavier passes the "eye test", whatever that means.

I'm not going to spent too much time getting into his game in depth.  We know that Minnesota is playing better over the last couple weeks.  But we are still not exactly consistent, nobody knows which Gopher team will show up.  I'm peacefully confident as I sit here thinking about the game.  I know that Xavier is very good and they are used to the NCAA Tournament.  I know they are balanced and talented.  I know they shoot the three well and they rebound well.  And I know we typically struggle struggle defending the three and rebounding.  But I still feel OK about this game.

Keys to the Game

1. And I used #1 for a reason.  This is the big one.  Get Blake Hoffarber going.  When he scores 11 points or more we are undefeated this year, 14-0 by my count (20-1 if you go back to last year).  That stat is hard to ignore and it's not a coincidence.  When he is shooting the ball well defenses have to focus on him.  And when they do then things are a little bit easier for Lawrence Westbrook, Devoe Joseph and Ralph Sampson.  Hoffarber hasn't had a good game in several games so hopefully Xavier is spending more time gameplanning for the rest of our backcourt and The Hoff will get several good looks.  I also know the Muskateers play good team defense and nothing will come easy.  But the one thing that is very clear to me is that Hoffarber needs some open looks and he needs to hit them.
2. Defend Jordan Crawford!  Duh, right?  Slow down the guy who scores 19 points per game, BRILLIANT!  But so very true.  Crawford may get quite a few points but he needs to really earn them.  Make him work for everything.  
3. Establish the Paint.  Sampson and Colten Iverson need to be physical and dominate the paint.  Xavier's Jason Love is a big guy.  At 6-9, 265 lbs expect Love to really by physical with our big men.  I'm not as concerned about our centers scoring, but we need to rebound and we need to defend.  Don't let Love control the boards or have his way offensively in the lane.  He is a load and we need to be prepared for him.
   
4. Defend the Three.  Xavier shoots the three well, we often go in stretches where we choose to not defend shooters.  If we don't get out and get a hand in the face of every shooter, we will get run out of the gym.  This is non-negotiable.
   

So if I list enough keys to the game I'm sure at least a couple of them will be right.  I'm excited for the game.  According to FanMatch, which used 23 psychological and emotional factors to determine the best games to watch, we are the game to watch tomorrow.

I'm not sure if this will work in the Mpls market but her is the link to watch the game through CBS MMOD.

Launch Player

The Gophers are playing for a banner as they are participating in their first ever Big Ten Championship! 

Most of us are satisfied that an NCAA Tournament bid is nearly secured, but really we are playing for more.  This is actually an opportunity to earn a banner to hang in The Barn.  This has been a good run but a win today would make this a GREAT run.

Can the Gophers beat all three Big Ten champs in three consecutive days?  Repeat after me Gopher fans...YES WE CAN.  Though it won't be easy.

Why we can't win?  Evan Turner.  He is outstanding and unguardable. I look forward to him as a Timberwolf next season.

Why we can win?  Ohio State is playing their third game in three days.  Now before you point out that we are playing our fourth game in four days remember that we go 10 deep.  Ohio State goes just six, maybe seven, deep.  And our bench has been outstanding in this tournament.  Guys like Devron Bostick, Paul Carter, Justin Cobbs and Colten Iverson have been playing incredible.  Add to that, the fact that Blake Hoffarber has had good games against Ohio State and this game may not be the slam dunk for Ohio State that everyone thinks it is.

Should be fun, might be awesome.

(PJS Update: Some pregame links) ...

ESPN's Adam Rittenberg, who has done a great job blogging the BTT Tournament,with a quick conference championship game preview.

Updated bubble watch and bracketology from ESPN. Bubble watch notes numerous times that Minnesota likely gets in and Illinois doesn't. That has to kill Illini fans, but it's the right call. Minnesota's beaten more top 50 RPI teams, has a better record against the likely NCAA field, beat Illinois on the road and is playing more consistently well down the stretch.

Patrick Reusse feels like being negative.

Know the opponent: Buckeye Battle Cry and Eleven Warriors has a nice preview up.

Mike DeCourcy of the Sporting News says "Minnesota is together now."

The GopherHole's Selection Sunday, who has been very accurate predicting the at-large teams in the past, has the Gophers comfortably in and Illinois in if Mississippi State can't pull the upset against Kentucky. 

Finally, something to think positively about. While Ohio State is the favorite today, they will be coming back from a double overtime game. Thad Matta's short bench meant that yesterday Evan Turner played 49 minutes. David Lighty and William Buford played 50. Jon Diebler played 42 minutes. Contrast that with Minnesota, which was able to rest players. Devoe Joseph played 22 minutes. Blake Hoffarber led the team with 26. 

This game would certainly get us into the Tournament but we have to actually win it.  How could they keep a team out who has a win over Butler, Wisconsin, Michigan State, Ohio State and Purdue (and Illinois for that matter)?  But looking ahead does us absolutely no good, we absolutely have to earn this win.

Minnesota is becoming a team with some buzz, and they should be after a domination of Penn State and a clutch win over Michigan State.  Watching College Game Day this morning, all three of their national analysts picked Minnesota to win.  The common theme was that Robbie Hummel is out for the Boilermakers.  But I'm not convinced that will be enough.

We are playing our third game in three days.  Add that to the fact that Purdue plays the best team defense in the conference.  We are going to have to work hard on each and every offensive possession and I'm afraid that will catch up to us.  To counter-act that we need to get several easy baskets whether that comes in transition off a steal or some quality inside/out offense to get some open shots for Blake Hoffarber, Devoe Joseph or Lawrence Westbrook.

Ralph Sampson III had a breakout game last time we faced Purdue.  His 21 points and 7 rebounds will not likely be duplicated but one of our big men needs to out-muscle Purdue's JaJuan Johnson and you know that is what we try to do early offensively.

My pick for player of the game is Damian Johnson.  DJ Swat has been playing well this tournament and for the first time he will not be faced with defending Hummel.  Johnson will have more room to be an offensive weapon and should be more effective defensively.

Bring on the Chris Allen less Spartans.  Step one is complete, now it is on to step two of world domination the quest for respect in the Big Ten tournament.  The 21 point win over Penn State was nice but I don't think it turned any heads nor did it earn them any respect.  Damian Johnson had a nice game but if he wants to prove anything then stopping Raymar Morgan from another 17 pt and 6 reb game might get it done.  If Lawrence Westbrook wants to continue to prove that the Big Ten coaches should have recognized him with their end of season awards then go out and have another turnover-less game and keep Kalin Lucas to under 20 points. 

The Gophers are capable but they need to play well, play together and play hard (anyone remember that from the Clem days?).  Rebounding is always a key against the Spartans and more than anything else I'm looking for our interior to really play great tonight.  I'd love to see both bigs get into double figures tonight and see Sampson really establish himself and that sweet baby-hook in the paint.

Finally, if this team wants to earn more respect and get themselves back into the NCAA Tournament then this is the game to do it.  Penn State was nice, but let's get another signature neutral court win and at least make things hard on the selection committee.

The way I see it, we need 2 guys to step up tonight and we have four or five guys capable of doing so.  In the first meeting between these fine mediocre teams it was Lawrence Westbrook who stepped up with 29 points while Blake Hoffarber chipped in 11.  Game 2 was a little different when we had four guys who scored in the dozen to baker's dozen range. Here are the most likely candidates

• Blake Hoffarber - I really think he's going to have at least one huge game in this tournament.  Maybe it will be today, maybe it will be tomorrow (if we survive).  He has scored 11 points or more in 13 games.  We are undefeated in those games.  So either he is just able to score more points against weaker competition or when he scores the rest of the team is significantly better.
• Ralph Sampson III - had his second best Big Ten game at Penn state when he recorded a double-double.  Ralph is capable of dominating the paint tonight and if he does things should really roll for the Gophers.
• Damian Johnson - Nobody has more to prove today than DJ Swat who is rather disappointed that he was left off the Big Ten All-Defensive team.  I think you'll see a typical all-around performance from Johnson, if he can get up into that 15+ point range then life should be good.
• Lawrence Westbrook - how could I forget LW who had what I feel was his best game as a Gopher in the first Penn State game.  The problem was the second game when he tried to recreate his first game.  The result was a season high six turnovers to go with 0/5 shooting from behind the arc.  He is capable of carrying this team, but he is also capable of doing more damage than good.

I'm asking for two of them to step up.  The best part of this is that we can win even if Talor Battle has a good game.  He averaged 22 ppg in the two Gopher meetings and his team still came out 0-2.  So keep him under 25 and then take care of our own business on both ends of the floor. 

Penn State is hot, but I like our chances to move on to Michigan State.

We all know that an NCAA Tournament is essentially out of the picture. This was a disappointing season in more ways than one.  But that doesn't mean there is nothing to play for today.  A chance for Tubby' boys to finish .500 in the Big Ten and a chance to sweep our traditional rivals for the season are still on the line.

And the next game of the season is up.  The Gophers are looking to exact revenge on the Wolverines who easily handled a listless Gopher squad last month in The Barn. 

The Lineups

The Stats

Seriously, how did we lose to these guys last time around?  Just contain Sims and Harris, we should be fine.  It would also be nice to see Hoffarber get back on track as well and then watch the Gophers roll to victory!

Heartbreaking loss on Wednesday, but can the Gophers rebound and get a win in Illinois?  We never win there and it will take a miracle for us to make the NCAA Tournament.  But we have played well lately and this is a great time to continue to get better.  Can Sampson dominate again?  Can we win a game on the road?  Can we win a game if this is close at the end?

For the first time this year, I'm live courtside.  Hopefully to witness the biggest Gopher win of the year.