Funny how the outcome of basketball games never really give you a great feel for how the game went.
The Gophers lost by 19 last night to Purdue in what was a typical Big Ten, physical battle. A 19 point loss is pretty huge but the Gophers did a number of things very well and although it was clearly a double-digit type loss it didn't feel like 20 to me. How it felt to me is neither here nor there but the Gophers did somethings well but really struggle to score. Purdue coach, Matt Painter had a couple nice things to say in the win...
"We played solid. I don’t think we played great," coach Matt Painter said. "I thought they played better than us. We just shot the ball a lot better than they did. They had opportunities they normally make they didn’t, and we took advantage of ours.
In a lot of ways he is being more than just polite and gracious. The Gophers forced 17 turnovers and grabbed 19 offensive rebounds. Both are very good numbers and usually will go a long way towards winning on the road in the Big Ten. But shooting 4/19 from behind the arc and 30.8% overall will rarely get it done.
Ultimately Purdue is just very good and a legit Final Four caliber team. We are also very good but not at that level. I like our depth and the overall talent on the roster but I'm not sure any one of our starters would start for Purdue. Hats off to the Boilermakers and hopefully we'll be more comfortable when we get them back at the Barn later this year.
- In other big news Brad James,the men's golf coach, is stepping down. Brad James has been very successful in his 17 years at Minnesota, 9 of which saw him as the head coach of the program. In those nine years he won an NCAA title, two conference championships and back-to-back national top 10 finishes in 2006 and 2007. The 2002 national title was the first for a school in a "northern state" since Ohio State's title 1979.
James is moving on to he position of High Performance Director for Golf Australia and the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS). In his new position, James will be responsible for the oversight and management of Australia's men's and women's national teams, the country's rookie program, which develops young professionals like former Gopher Bronson La'Cassie, as well as the junior development program.
His success has been unparralleled at the U and this is pretty big news in the world of NCAA golf. - The Huffington Post hammers ESPN for their lack of journalistic ethics in the whole Texas Tech mess.
- Donnie Puck looks back at what was a rather successful decade for Gopher Hockey.