Gopher Hoops faces Santa Clara in Vancouver - OPEN THREAD

Where

Vancouver

When

8:00 PM

How

BTN

Who

Santa Clara

After holding off Texas A&M on Sunday evening, the Gophers get the Santa Clara Broncos in their second game. The Broncos rank right around the same level as Omaha (who we beat 104-76), is this going to be a blowout?

KEYS TO A GOPHER WIN

Take Care of the Ball - In the win over A&M the Gophers had 20 turnovers! That is a recipe for allowing teams to hang around that shouldn’t be hanging around. Limit turnovers, which I’m going to guess was emphasized just a little bit this week.

Get to the Bench - This might be getting greedy, but the Gophers play again tomorrow and they play a good team tomorrow. Putting this game into double-digits early and then extending that so Pitino can utilize his bench a little more would be huge for Wednesday’s game.

Move the Ball Offensively - Ball movement has been emphasized by Pitino this early season, this should be a great game to continue to work on offensive ball movement and offensive flow.

PREDICTION

Santa Clara is not very good this year. Offensively they turn the ball over, they don’t shoot well and defensively they put teams on the free throw line a lot. This should absolutely be a win for the Gophers. The only question really is whether or not they put this one away early enough to see extended minutes for some of the guys off the bench.