OPEN THREAD: Minnesota Basketball Gophers at Michigan State

Where

East Lansing

When

8:00 PM

How

ESPN2

Who

Michigan State

The Big Ten has been very balanced this season with seemingly any team capable of beating their opponent, regardless of location. For every team except the Spartans. Michigan State has sprinted out to a 4-0 start in league play and at 12-3 is one of the premier teams in the country this season.

The Gophers? They have been playing much better, but are they up to the challenge of winning in East Lansing?

KEYS TO A GOPHER WIN

Frustrate Their Offense - How? I don’t know. Michigan State has the most efficient offense in the country and only twice all season have they been held to less than 1 point per possession in a game. Those two opponents were Kentucky and Duke. The Gopher’s defense is just OK (insert AT&T commercial) and making life difficult on the Spartan offense is going to be a huge challenge. If done, then the chances of getting a massive road win go up. Maybe the key to this is frustrating Cassius Winston.

Offensive Rebounding - We are pretty good at this, MSU is very good at defensive rebounding. Swinging this stat into our favor might be the most important thing we can do. The most important thing besides the next “key.”

Make Threes - Always! I mean, I was rather proud of myself for not making this a “key” for the Northwestern game. Turns out I was right as that was our lowest 3 point percentage in any of our wins this year. In fact it was our only win while shooting less than 33% from three. So get those open looks and knock them down!

PREDICTION

This is our least likely win on the remaining schedule, probably on the entire schedule. Michigan State is a complete team, we are a work in progress.

I firmly believe that this current Gopher team is capable of beating anybody. If Marcus Carr, Daniel Oturu and Gabe Kalscheur are all playing well together; they can get this win. But officially I do not anticipate it will happen.

Minnesota - 66
Michigan State - 72