10-Gophers and 7-Louisville Cardinals in the NCAA Tournament - OPEN THREAD

Where

Des Moines

When

11:15 AM

How

CBS

Who

Louisville

The Gophers made it to the NCAA Tournament again and get to face the 7th seeded Louisville Cardinals. In fact they get to start the tournament off with the first game of the day. Can Minnesota start the day off with the tournament’s first upset?

KEYS TO A GOPHER WIN

Dominate the Paint - Louisville has some size but I think we going to be stronger inside, particularly with Jordan Murphy. I’d like to see the Gophers open this one up from the inside out.

Make some Threes - Inside then out, but someone has to be hitting shots from outside. Maybe Gabe Kalscheur gets it going today, maybe McBrayer has one of his big scoring games that he has once a month or maybe Coffey hits some outside early. But somebody has to.

Defend the Three - Louisville doesn’t seem to score a ton from inside the line. 44% of their points come from inside the line which ranks 312th in the country. So get to their shooters, even their big men. Make them find other ways to score.

PREDICTION

Upon looking, I kind of like how we match up. Kalscheur is a great defender, Murphy on their best player is going to be advantage MN and Coffey’s length on the perimeter are all good things for us. I’m going with the homerish upset pick today.

Minnesota - 75
Louisville - 70