Tag Archives: Rodney Williams

Gophers return to dominance (and SportsCenter) in win over Penn State

Posted on 03. Mar, 2013 by .

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Fresh off a thrilling, court-storm-inducing victory over Indiana, the Gophers kept up the intensity and cemented their status as a tournament team with a 29-point drubbing of Penn State. On a day where Tubby started all seniors on Senior Day, Minnesota dismantled the Nittany Lions in all aspects of the game. With a significant size, [...]

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Gophers end home slate against Penn State on (super) Senior Day.

Posted on 01. Mar, 2013 by .

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All good things must come to an end, and hopefully on Saturday, that includes the home careers of Trevor Mbakwe, Rodney Williams, Julian Welch, and Andre Ingram. We don’t want to see them go. Rodney Williams soaring through air and Trevor Mbakwe’s chest pounding dunks will be sorely missed. But if we do see them play another game in venerable Williams Arena, it means something has gone horribly wrong over the final three games of the Big Ten season. Thanks to the thrilling, potentially season saving win over the best team in the country on Tuesday night, the Gophers need only one more win to make the NCAA tournament. The three remaining games are against three of the worst teams in the Big Ten, starting with Penn State.

Once the season winds down we’ll take a closer at the careers of the departing seniors. They deserve so much more than a short blurb on a random blog in the middle of a game preview. But until then, thank you, sincerely, for your two to seven and a half (or s0) years with the basketball program. You will be missed.

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Gophers save season in win over Wisconsin

Posted on 15. Feb, 2013 by .

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In what was perhaps the biggest game of the season in terms of postseason implications, the Gophers fought tooth and nail against Wisconsin to notch an overtime victory that went down to the final seconds. After a solid start to the season, the Gophers ended a free fall that saw them fall out of the [...]

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Finally, the Gophers have a chance to play a bit of consequence-free basketball.

Posted on 05. Feb, 2013 by .

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And now, for one night only, the Golden Gophers can play some consequence-free basketball against the Michigan State Spartans. Two wins last week gave the Gophers  a bit of breathing room. Losing five out of six games would have put the Gophers squarely on the bubble, or even the wrong side of the bubble, and Wednesday evening’s game in East Lansing  would have been a true must-win. As  a team, Minnesota is not the most mentally stable, and their decision making leaves a lot to be desired. I don’t want to think about how the team would likely react in a pressure-cooker of a game in a mad house like the Breslin Center. Instead, the Gophers can play like they have something to prove without dire consequences if they do not, like  New Year’s Eve when these two teams first met.

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A rivalry renewed.

Posted on 02. Feb, 2013 by .

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For the last several seasons, the Minnesota Golden Gophers have had only one basketball rival, and it was not the Iowa Hawkeyes. Iowa was very bad at basketball, struggling to stay out of the Big Ten cellar, and if we are going to be honest without ourselves, the Gophers were not usually that much better. Even those mediocre Gopher teams found a way to beat the Hawkeyes, who because of lack of talent and lack of coaching, couldn’t put up much of a fight. In the early days of the Monson era, the Gophers and Hawkeyes took turns between being bad and medicore, which led to some not very compelling basketball games, and the rivalry nearly died.

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Nebraska blowout has Gophers back on win wagon

Posted on 29. Jan, 2013 by .

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That wasn’t so hard now, was it? After two excruciatingly painful games in which they seemingly forgot how to play basketball, the Gophers came out against Nebraska with guns blazing and something to prove. Wanting to show that they weren’t the 44 and 48-point team they were against Northwestern and Wisconsin the Gophers instead blew [...]

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Gophers answer big questions with win over the Spartans and raise another.

Posted on 01. Jan, 2013 by .

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After a thrilling come from behind victory over a traditional Big Ten powerhouse, the Golden Gophers answered several questions lingering from the non-conference season, and raised the biggest question of all. How good can this team be?

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That’s a (non-conference) wrap

Posted on 23. Dec, 2012 by .

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As the Gophers closed the book on this year’s non-conference season with an exclamation-point thumping of the lowly Lafayette Leopards we find ourselves in a not-unfamiliar position of wondering just what lies ahead for the team against conference foes. Like past years the Gophers roll into the conference season sporting a shiny record and a [...]

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Mbakwe plays above the rim in NDSU victory

Posted on 11. Dec, 2012 by .

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Heading into a sizeable dearth of game activity in which they only play two games in two games in 20 days, the Gophers first made quick work of the North Dakota State Bison 70-57 in a sort-of-close-but-not-really victory at Williams Arena. Now finals week can commence and the players can focus on getting their schoolwork [...]

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Kendal Shell scores career high in SDSU thrashing

Posted on 04. Dec, 2012 by .

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Hey, the first (and likely only) Kendal Shell headline that will ever occur! It wasn’t the highlight of the game, but in a relatively boring, Wolters-less victory over the South Dakota State Jackrabbits, Mr. End-of-the-Bench scored a career high four points in garbage time as the Gophers destroyed SDSU 88-64 and continued to outpace their [...]

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Holy crap, are the Gophers for real?

Posted on 29. Nov, 2012 by .

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It’s been a fun start to the season, eh? Seriously, raise your hand if you thought the Gophers would be 7-1 after eight games? We’re three weeks into the season and excitement is palpable. Things change around here when the team takes down three legitimate opponents in a row. And, truthfully, beating Memphis, Stanford and [...]

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Austin Hollins snares Snaer; Gophers go 3-1 in tropical gauntlet

Posted on 27. Nov, 2012 by .

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The Gophers have certainly been through the ringer over the last week. They mercifully finished a string of games featuring Duke, Memphis, Stanford, and Florida State and showed perhaps their true 2012-13 colors, emerging 3-1 in the brutal four game stretch with their latest win over the Seminoles in a true road game in Tallahassee. In [...]

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Gophers have to be thankful for gift win.

Posted on 24. Nov, 2012 by .

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With five players on the court and in constant motion, so many factors can decide the outcome of basketball game. Throughout the last five seasons we’ve broken down many of these factors, not limited to match-ups, strategy, specific skills, coaching, etc. What we don’t often break down, because it is too unpredictable, is the human factor. The human factor gave the Gophers a rather miraculous last half-second win over Stanford in their final game in the Battle 4 Atlantis, and gave Stanford a loss that may haunt them on Selection Sunday.

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Hollinsanity takes over Nassau

Posted on 23. Nov, 2012 by .

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It was a game the Gophers definitely needed after getting a full dose reality at the hands of the Duke Blue Devils the day before. Not just because beating Memphis would prevent them from dropping two in a row and souring their international exposition, but because Minnesota desperately needed to show their fans, the nation [...]

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Insight from the Enemy – the Duke version

Posted on 21. Nov, 2012 by .

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It’s one of the most anticipated non-conference matchups in recent memory and occurs during perhaps the most anticipated season in the Tubby Smith era. His best team gets the chance to go up against America’s Most Hated in the sunny Bahamas to really see where the guys are at. The Gophers come in as a [...]

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