Minnesota Basketball-Previewing UMKC

Welcome back to another season of Gopher basketball. Fresh off signing next year's recruiting class, Richard Pitino and the Gophers set their sights on the University of Missouri Kansas City. What's that? You're not at all interested in this game? Welcome to Minnesota's nonconference schedule.

Provide me the Essentials to View this Game

Who are the Gophers playing? UMKC

Where are they playing? Williams Arena

When are they playing? 8pm CST

Can I watch it on television? Lol, absolutely not. It is on Big Ten Plus if you feel like shelling out some cash.

What about the wonder of sound? This game is on the radio 1500ESPN.

Tell me more about the Opponent

UMKC is a member of the WAC conference. Last year they finished with a 14-19 record, and unsurprisingly did not play in post season tournaments. Their best player by a landslide is Martez Harrison, a 5'11" sophomore guard that led the Kangaroos in just about everything related to offense. He's not a major threat from distance, and only made 45% of his 2's, but he did manage to create a lot of offense.

As far as I'm aware, the Kangaroos do not have a particularly awful theme song.

Keys to the Game

This is the first game of the season against a terrible basketball team. There are only two keys.

1. Win the game.
2. No one get injured

That's it. There are no other keys. For that matter, these will be the keys for most of the nonconference.

Predictions

• Minnesota wins 78-62. This is quite close to KenPom's 78-65 prediction.
  
• Charles Buggs has a ridiculous dunk that no one sees because no one will be in the crowd.
  
• The new kids get a lot of time to run.