I'm going to kick off this Nugz with some editorial and leave it open to your thoughts. I'm very curious what is going to happen with playing time as the Gophers face Louisville and eventually head into Big Ten play.
This is not second guessing as clearly I'm not running practices and an in no way qualified to determine who should be on the floor and at what times. But I have a keyboard, a small audience and an educated opinion so here goes. Below is
I believe that currently we essentially have a starting "six" and potentially a starting"seven" if Carter comes back strong. These seven plus Joseph give what I believe are the core eight that have to play the bulk of the minutes.
| Pos | Player | Avg Minutes |
| PG | Nolen | 30 |
| SG | Hoffarber | 26 |
| SF | DJ | 32 |
| PF | Sampson | 20 |
| C | Iverson | 21 |
| Bench | Westbrook | 24 |
| Bench | Carter | 20 |
| Bench | Joseph | 14 |
| Bench | Bostick | 13 |
|
Bench |
Williams | |
| Bench | Busch | |
| Bench | Abu-Shamala | |
Average minutes for the core eight and then the 13 minutes are divided up among the last four depending of course on foul trouble, match ups, etc. Some nights Williams will not see the floor, but other nights he'll play critical minutes because he's needed. Bostick likely gets the most minutes of that final group and he has the potential to give us a core nine.
In that starter group you may very well see Westbrook starting for defensive purposes or maybe Carter back in there with Johnson moving to PF.
Anyway, that is how I see the minutes should be distributed, please share your thoughts.
Now on to other tid bits from around the interweb.
- The "it" player in college basketball is Davidson's Stephen Curry. He is truly a remarkable college basketball player who was an incredible scoring machine last year and is vastly improved this year as he moved to point guard. Anyway Nick Friedell of Yahoo's The Dagger sat down with Curry in an entertaining interview.
- The Gopher hockey team hosts Colorado College this weekend with first place on the WCHA potentially on the line. But before we look forward, Roman Augustoviz took a look back at last year's series.
- Pretty funny letter supposedly written by a Northwestern graduate to the Outback Bowl who snubbed them and chose Iowa to participate in their bowl.
- Change your Google Calendars...Gopher basketball's Big Ten opener vs. Michigan State has moved it's start time. Tip off will be at 11:00 AM on the Big Ten Network so the game will not conflict with the football team's bowl game which will kick off at 5:00 on the NFL Network. Looks like New Year's Eve should be a lot of fun for Gopher fans.