There was a time when “The State of Hockey” would pause their collective poke checking, often because it was too cold outside, and gather in living rooms around Minnesota to listen or watch their beloved Gophers take on their opponents in one of the best basketball enviroments in the country. Basketball never has and never will replace hockey in Minnesota’s collective conscience, but you will be hard pressed to find anyone in Minnesota over the age of 20 who doesn’t have fond memories of listenening to Ray Christansen’s warm voice while an icy win blew outside.

A lot has changed in the last 1o years, but The Barn has stood strong, and Minnesotans have waited patiently for the old building to come alive again as an Alberta Clipper sweeps through the state.

A controversial coach, well thought out harassing taunts, even a Star Tribune article about the Gophers before game day, temperatures plunging, and a national telvision audience: the long wait may be over. A win over the #9 Indiana Hoosiers tomorrow night could restore Gopher Basketball to its rightful place as the North Star State’s favorite distraction.

Gopher basketball fans have been waiting a long time for Thursday night’s game. Not only will a nationally ranked team  come into Williams Arena, but it will be nationally televised, and most importantly, winnable. For whatever reason, Indiana teams have consitently struggled at The Barn, losing 8 of their last 10. And who could for get the 50 point Gopher win in 1994?

Indiana comes to Minneapolis with a perfect conference record and 14-1 overall. However, their three Big Ten wins, including last Sunday’s 4 point home win over Illinois, have come against atrocious competition. They didn’t face many strong teams in the non-conference season, with their most impressive win coming against a Southern Illinois team that has since fallen on very hard times. Like many teams, this still relatively early season ranking is based more on tradition that triumphs.

That isn’t to say that the Hoosiers don’t have the talent to be worthy of their ranking. Freshman sensation Eric Gordon could be the #1 overall pick, depending on whether the Minnesota Timberwolves want another undersized shooting guard. Joining Gordon in the first round of the draft will be Indina forward D.J. White. No longer the young big man who struggled to live up to expectations, White has been putting up monstrous numbers, averaging a double double with season highs of 29 points and 22 points. Gordon may get the accolades, but it is White who wins games. After the two superstars, the talent level obviously drops off, but not much. Jordan Crawford would be a lock for Big Ten freshman of the year if Gordon wasn’t around. Armon Bassett, another talented guard, has been slowed by an ankle injury but is still expected to be a factor.

Because of Indiana’s sheer number of talented players, there are bound to be match up problems. The Gophers won’t be able double team  White, because the Hoosier back court can shoot. The Gophers can’t rely on a zone defense for this reason, as well as the inevitable rebounding problems.

So do the Gophers stand a chance? Of course they do!

For whatever reason, the Gopher man to man defense has been very successful at frustrating opponents and forcing turnovers more than the full court press. The trio of Lawrence McKenzie, Lawrence Westbrook, and Al Nolen  should be enough to slow down Gordon. He will still get a lot of points, but if the Gophers play solid defense, he won’t win the game by himself. Damian Johnson should also get a chance to slow down Gordon, particularly if it is a slow paced game.

The key to the game (and certainly a recent theme of this blog) will be keeping the rebounding margin within reason. The Gophers will need to agressively attack the glass on both ends of the court. The Gophers have less talent and are less athletic, and probably won’t shoot as well as the Hoosiers. However, with significantly more possessions from offensive rebounds and limiting Indiana to one shot, the Hoosier’s advantages might not matter much.

For this to happen, Jonathan Williams will have to play productive minutes. He is the only wide body the Gophers have with a shred of athletic ability. Williams must avoid fouls and not draw attention to himself as he tries to spike the ball and opponents’ heads out of bounds. I’ve given up on Spencer Tollackson getting off the floor when he tries to jump, but at the very least he needs to push his man out of the way so another Gopher can slide in and get the board.

Bad Gopher teams have beaten good Indiana teams for years. Statistics, talent, coaching, none of it has mattered, and against my better judgement, I don’t think anything that I have written about in the last few paragraphs will matter either. There is a reason why road teams don’t win in the Big Ten, and why hardly anyone beats the Gophers in The Barn (except last year of course), and that reason is the crowd. And tomorrow night, as Williams Arena returns to its rightful place in the basketball arena parthenon, the entire state will finally be able to watch and be reminded that for a few hours each week, the state of hockey is all about basketball.

Prediction: 74-71 Gophers. Bring your cell phone, but don’t rush the floor.

Tonight’s match-up against Central Michigan had the potential to be a trap game, and for the first 18 minutes, that potential was in danger of being realized. Eventually, Minnesota shrugged off its sluggishness long enough to win 77-59. The Gophers came out flat, stood still on offense, weren’t careful with the basketball, and forced Tubby Smith to make a line change a few minutes into the game. The next five didn’t fare much better, as Central Michigan hung around for much of the half until Spencer Tollackson hit a perfect 35 foot three point shot as time expired. It was only one of the many occasions when the Chippewa’s couldn’t stop Tollackson.

Carrying the team with his inside scoring and open court dunking, Tollackson finished the game with 14 points on 5-6 shooting (including the three pointer), six rebounds (three offensive), two blocks, and two steals. Most importantly, he stayed out of foul trouble, while forcing the Chippewa big men (and oh were they big, more later) into frustrated fouls. The Lawrences (McKenzie and Westbrook) were also in double figures with 11 and 10 respectively, both on poor shooting nights.

There are bad basketball teams, there are last year’s Gophers, and then there are this year’s Chippewas. In my previous post, I mentioned the improvement Central Michigan made last year. Rather than being the first step in a rebuilding process, last year’s thirteen wins may have been a fluke. I have a hard time believing that Central Michigan will win more than five games. The problems with the team are clichés out of a sports movie (before the new coach, new player, or inspiring injury or illness leads to a championship, close but inspiring loss, or new found confidence or self-awareness). Giordan Watson, their best player, clearly does not trust his teammates. On several possessions he dribbled nearly the whole possession only to make an ill-advised drive to the basket or take a jump shot. He finished with 22 points, but took 20 shots and also committed four turnovers. A 9-20 shooting night might not look that bad, until one considers what the rest of his teammates did. The most shots attempted by any other Central Michigan players was 6. The rest of the Chippewas shot the ball a combined 29 teams. Joining Watson are the unconventional power forward (generously listed 6′3″ 270 lbs) and former Purdue Boilermaker Nate Minnoy; hot headed point guard Jeremy Allan who fouled out on a personal and technical foul combination after only eight minutes; Marko Spika, a whining, crying immensely untalented European big man; and Justin Blevins, who threw what appeared to be an intentional forearm at Damian Johnson and Kevin Payton on the same play. Ernie Ziegler, the Chippewas’ coach, clearly has his work cut out for him, especially with the team showing no interest in listening to him. The dreadfulness of Central Michigan was clearly the deciding factor of the game. Although, in an alarming development, they somehow turned the ball over less than the Gophers. At least the Gophers doubled their assist total over the Iowa State game.

On a random side note, I was selected the “Fuel it up fan of the game” because I remained standing during the time outs. I didn’t have the heart to tell the fan of the game selector that I wasn’t standing because of my undying dedication to all things maroon and gold, but because I have been mostly sedentary since Wednesday afternoon and didn’t want to sit anymore. However, I’ll take the $50 gift card, and especially the opportunity to stand on the court and hear Dick Jankowski say my name. And they say dreams don’t come true.

Who did what:

• Dan Coleman played soft again on offense, but had eight rebounds to go along with nine points. He added two blocks and two steals. Unfortunately, Coleman had five of the Gopher turnovers.
• Jamal Abu-Shamala made his free throws.
• Spencer Tollackson dominated again. You probably won’t ever see him make a 30 some footer buzzer beater and have a break away dunk again.
• Lawrence McKenzie also made his free throws and didn’t do much else.
• Lawrence Westbrook played much better than last Tuesday, and pulled down a very impressive rebound over several players, many of whom are on his own team.
• Al Nolen continues to not play like a freshman. He led the team with 5 assists and committed only one turnover while playing solid defense.
• Kevin Payton may finally have had his plug pulled. He didn’t start and played only 10 minutes. He did start the second half, but immediately turned the ball over on an ugly attempt at a behind the back dribble. It turns out the Payton has a little bit of foot-speed, but is completely out of control when moving faster than a snail’s pace. Three points, three personal fouls, and four turnover aren’t good enough on any team, even Central Michigan. He couldn’t even draw a foul on an intentional quasi-punch.
• Jonathan Williams made both shots he attempted, pulled down four rebounds, and didn’t foul anyone. This is very encouraging.
• Blake Hoffarber played his best game as a Gopher, making three three-pointers.
• Damian Johnson was once again a solid contributer, making a fall away sweeping layup despite being intentionally fouled.
• Ryan Saunders: modest suit, ugly tie.
• Travis Busch gets his fashion advice from Saunders.
• The crowd showed up, including future Gopher Paul Carter, although there were plenty of new (and much older) faces in The Barnyard. It was good to see the upper deck full for a non-conference game.

Though hardly anyone could watch the game because hardly any ISP’s carry ESPN360, there are at least video highlights of tonight’s game available here.

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On Tuesday the Gophers won their first non-conference road game since 2005, and this coming Tuesday face an even tougher test at Florida State. Sandwiched between these two big games are the lowly Central Michigan Chippewas, who despite their mediocre basketball skills, were fortunate to keep their team’s nickname thanks to their strong relationship with the Native American community. Well at least they have that going for them, because this is not their basketball team’s year.

Central Michigan expected to be a much better team this year. Last year, the Chippewas were 13-18 (compared to 4-24 the previous year), still not great but at least semi-respectable. With four returning starters, including PG Giordan Watson, a 15 ppg scorer so far this year, things were looking up. Then the season started, and it was all down hill from there. A loss to Missouri was acceptable, but after losses to Central Missouri and Niagara, last year’s improvement is a distant memory.

The Gophers should run away with tomorrow’s game, but a couple of factor might keep things close. As already mentioned, tomorrow’s game falls between two much more important games. For a team that doesn’t have much big game experience, they might easily look ahead to Florida State. Even if next Tuesday’s game was against a team prefaced with Middle, Central, or Northern, the calendar could work against the Gophers anyway. Thursday was of course Thanksgiving, and basketball may not have been in the forefront of the players minds. The student section won’t be at its fullest or loudest, and the rest the fans will be recovering from the estimated 4,500 calories that the average person consumes each Thanksgiving. Tubby Smith emphasizes discipline and preparation. Through no fault of his own, tomorrow could be a difficult day to get a team fired up to play some MAC also-rans.

Despite all this, I am picking the Gophers to win 72-58 in a game not all that different than Tuesday’s win against Iowa State. Of course, a blow out featuring a Busch-Hoffarber out of bounds baseball pass would be nice to see.

*Yes, that is a picture of a gopher trap.