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Gophers Looking for Back-to-Back Wins, Hosting Purdue - OPEN THREAD

Brad Rempel-USA TODAY Sports

Where

williams Arena

When

2:00 PM

How

BTN

Pos. Minnesota Golden Gophers Pnt/Gm Pnt/Gm Purdue Boilermakers Pos.
PG Deandre Mathieu 8.3 9.0 Jon Octeus PG
G Andre Hollins 14.5 3.9 Dakota Mathias G
G Carlos Morris 12.1 11.2 Rapheal Davis F
F Joey King 8.9 9.3 Vince Edwards F
F Maurice Walker 12.2 10.8 AJ Hammons C
Bench Nate Mason 9.6 8.9 Isaac Haas Bench
Bench Elliott Eliason 3.8 9.6 Kendall Stephens Bench
Bench Charles Buggs 3.4 2.5 Basil Smotherman Bench

The Boilermakers are surging and putting themselves back in the NCAA Tournament conversation with a 4-game win streak including wins over Iowa, Indiana and Ohio State. Our Golden Gophers have won two out of three but not the same caliber of wins and today's game is rather important with a couple tough road games coming up next week.

Efficiency Stats (national rank in parenthesis if significant)

Minnesota Purdue
Off PPP 1.076 1.081
Def PPP 0.954 0.973
Off TO% 19.1% 19.1%
Def TO% 25.6% (4) 19.0%
Off Reb % 31.4% 36.7% (25)
Def Reb % 66.5% 68.5%

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Keys to a Gopher Win

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Play for 40 Minutes -
You may recall that the Gophers controlled the game at Purdue to start the Big Ten season for the first 30 minutes. Then Purdue appeared to want it more as the Gophers squandered possessions, missed free throws and gave the game away. Today they need to play for a full 40 and play with some passion.

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Make Free Throws -
Another chronic problem for this year's Gopher squad and it really bit them in the Purdue loss back on New Year's Eve. Purdue hit 22/27 from the charity stripe while Minnesota missed key free-throws down the stretch. We currently rank 13th in the conference in FT%, needs to be better today.

Maroon_key_medium Good Offensive Possessions - Purdue has been playing better defense lately and the Gophers need to make good decisions on the offensive end to not make things easier on the Boilermakers. No stupid turnovers (Deandre) and no terrible shots early in the shot-clock (Carlos).