Racking Up the Minutes and the Wins: Gopher Men's Basketball

By: Peter Linskey | Twitter: @Izzy_Legit

Needless to say, I did not expect the season that the Men’s Gopher Basketball team is currently having. After the abysmal year that was 2016, the team has rebounded quickly and are poised for a NCAA Tournament bid. Personally, I would have been happy with a six win BIG10 season and an invitation to the NIT.

Even with the successful season thus far, I am worried about the overall health of the team. While we haven’t had any serious injury this season (*knocks on wood*) the boys just look tired. With Pitino only playing around 7 guys a game, I think our key players are starting to feel it. In the last 7 games, our top players have averaged the following minutes/game:

•          Nate Mason: 35 Minutes
•           Amir Coffey: 37 Minutes
•          Akeem Springs: 34 Minutes

This doesn’t include Jordan Murphy (who finally decided to show up this year) in the last three games has averaged 35 minutes. I know that in many major programs, the key players play more time. The difference that I am noticing though is that late in games we look be a step slow on defense and not as energetic offensively. I also feel that we have the players on the bench to alleviate some of these minutes our starters are accruing. Playing Ahmad Gilbert or Michael Hurt a bit more, even if it’s just for 3-4 minutes a game, could help our stars be fresher for the final minutes when it really counts. While I know that the aforementioned players have their own deficiencies, which is why they aren’t playing, but Lil’ Ricky should be able to get creative with his lineups to at least not make them stand out to much for the limited amount of minutes I am suggesting they play.

We stole one last night from an Indiana team that really needed a win. The Barn was a'rockin, but my continuing concern about the amount of minutes key players are accumulating could hinder this teams tournament aspirations.

Minnesota Gopher Football - National Signing Day 2017

By: Peter Linskey | Twitter: @Izzy_Legit

I just want to start this out by saying that I hate the essence of what college football’s National Signing Day (NSD) stands for. It seems as though it has created a platform for recruits to use their commitments to troll other programs and instills to these kids an heir of superiority and self-entitlement. I don’t think there may be a better representation of what makes this day so wrong, than this story of a recruit who couldn’t even commit to a college, because he was in prison.

With that being said, I do have some takes on what to expect the next couple years under the Fleck administration based on his first class as the University of Minnesota football coach. For starters, the hype around how good Fleck was at recruiting was not understated. In the first 24 hours after his hire, Fleck convinced 6 of his previous Western Michigan commits to switch over to Minnesota (which jumped Minnesota’s 2017 class ranking from 77^th to 49^th nationally). Given how late in the process he got the job, he put together a very serviceable class with some good football players. From the looks of it, he was at least able to find a young quarterback who seems to be able to actually throw a football (yes this is a poke at the former Golden Gopher signal caller), and wide receivers who look like they can create some sort of separation from the defense

So while this class looks good on paper and on highlight reels, what will the actual affect be on the field? I wouldn't be surprised if we are in for a couple rough years in the win column.  With the unknown outcome of the 10 players that were indefinitely suspended from the program in the wake of a disturbing sexual assault allegation, the Gophers could end up playing A LOT of Freshman and that normally correlates to one thing - lots of losses. With the glaring holes at quarterback, the defensive secondary and with over half of the offensive line going to start the season on injury, it simply could be too much to overcome. 

One thing that would alleviate an initial slip in the wins column could be the addition of some more seasoned players. The gophers have a few scholarships remaining which they could use to grab Jr College and Graduate transfers that could step in immediately to fill some positions of weakness. Ideally I would love to see Fleck put his recruiting mojo to good use and nab one of the many Graduate Transfer eligible quarterbacks that are still available to be a stop gap for a year to give time for someone else to develop into the starter.

Photo courtesy of Star Tribune

Another factor that could help is the Gophers schedule. Per usual, you should be able to sleep through the non conference portion of the season which should help pad win column. After that, our first two Big Ten games are probably our most winnable, which means the team could very realistically be sitting at 5-0 by mid-October. After that it's all up in the air, but needless to say the manageable schedule should help the team avoid a dreadful two or three win season.