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NCAA Tournament time! The Minnesota Golden Gophers and the UCLA Bruins in the first round of the 2013 NCAA Tournament.
Can the Gophers upset the Bruins? Is it even an upset if we are favored in Vegas?
Game Time: 8:57 pm
TV: TruTV (DirecTV 246, DISH 242)
Radio: AM1500 and the Gopher Radio Network
| Pos | Minnesota | Pnt/Gm | Pnt/Gm | UCLA | Pos | |
| PG | Andre Hollins | 13.9 | 7.6 | Larry Drew II | G | |
| G | Joe Coleman | 8.7 | 5.9 | Norman Powell | G | |
| F | Austin Hollins | 10.6 | 17.8 | Shabazz Muhammad | F | |
| F | Rodney Williams | 10.3 | 9.8 | Kyle Anderson | F | |
| C | Trevor Mbakwe | 10.0 | 11.2 | Travis Wear | F | |
| Bench | Maverick Ahanmisi | 3.5 | 7.0 | David Wear | Bench | |
| Bench | Julian Welch | 3.2 | 2.2 | Tony Parker | Bench | |
| Bench | Elliott Eliason | 2.2 | x.x | ?? | Bench |
We have heard all week that UCLA is vulnerable for two reasons. 1 - they lost their 2nd leading scorer and 2 - they are one of the worst rebounding teams in the history of basketball.
These are good things that should play in our favor, but I very much fear that there has been so much talk all week about this being a match-up primed for an upset. In fact Vegas is favoring the Gophers, with the line moving more towards a Gopher win. UCLA is seeing this, UCLA isn't going to be very happy about this and UCLA is going to come ready to play.
The rebounding should be a pretty significant advantage. UCLA certainly has been spending practice time boxing out and will be focusing on it, but at this point in the season it may be hard to fix a problem that has been as significant a problem as it has been for the Bruins.
But as has been the case over the last couple months, this isn't about tendencies or match-ups or keys. The only key is which Gopher team is going to show up. If we see the team comes out with some energy, the team that moves on offense and the team that plays with some passion then I have no doubt we will win. But if we see the team that makes things difficult on themselves it is going to be a frustrating game that will see UCLA pulling away at the end.