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Where
williams Arena
When
7:00 PM
How
ESPN3
| Pos. | Minnesota Golden Gophers | Pnt/Gm | Pnt/Gm | Western Kentucky Hilltoppers | Pos. | |
| PG | Deandre Mathieu | 11.9 | 13.0 | Chris Harrison-Docks | PG | |
| G | Andre Hollins | 14.9 | 14.0 | Trency Jackson | G | |
| G | Carlos Morris | 11.2 | 22.0 | T.J. Price | F | |
| F | Joey King | 6.4 | 6.0 | George Fant | F | |
| F | Maurice Walker | 5.9 | 2.0 | Alexsej Rostov | F | |
| Bench | Nate Mason | 9.8 | 5.0 | Kevin Kaspar | Bench | |
| Bench | Daquein McNeil | 1.9 | 7.0 | Rob Marberry | Bench | |
| Bench | Elliott Eliason | 7.4 | 5.0 | Justin Johnson | Bench |
Believe it or not but this is one of the Gopher's toughest non-conference opponents this year. Western Kentucky is the best non-BCS opponent on the schedule and very well may be an NCAA Tournament team. They return A number of starters from last year's 20-win team. They began their season with a 77-70 win over Austin Peay at home.
Keys to a Gopher Win
Don't Let T.J. Price Beat Us - scores quite a few points and as UStreet pointed out he takes about 6 threes per game. Price led the Hilltoppers in scoring in their Austin Peay win, don't let him get hot and carry the WKU offense. An early showing of the kind of defense Morris and McNeil can provide would be nice to see tonight.
Show some Offensive Efficiency - In the Louisville loss we were just not very good offensviely. We turned the ball over too much (23%), we shot poorly (43.6 eFG%) and we didn't rebound the offensive glass very well (23.7%). Western Kentucky will not be confused with Louisville and this should be a game where we can work our offense a little more freely.
Dominate the Paint - I like our bigs and the Hilltoppers are not exactly huge. I would bet that we will see an offensive gameplan that seeks to exploit our size advantage and work from the inside-out.
I do not want to entirely look past this game but we are looking at a team that may have 20-wins, but this is also one I expect the Gophers to win. Time to start sharpening