The Golden Gophers basketball team has been on a roller coaster to say the least.  They landed two of Minnesota’s biggest studs in the last ten years this past summer in Royce White & Rodney Williams.  Add in that Trevor Mbakwe was also transferring back to Minnesota and Tubby Smith was going to have a pretty good club this season.  Then late summer-early fall the wheels started to fall off.  White and Mbakwe had legal troubles and were both suspended from the team indefinitely.  The Gophers aren’t strong on the low-blocks they have more lean athletic players then big bruisers so losing White and Mbakwe took away that physical presence.

Early in the season the Gophers struggled to find themselves and to create a true identity.  As of late they have struggled with playing down to their competition.  Against Indiana we mucked it up and didn’t play the clean defensive game that has become a Tubby Smith staple no matter where he is coaching.  That loss to Indiana means the Gophers have to knock off a team remaining on their schedule that they aren’t supposed to beat because Indiana should have been an easy win, that is if they want to make the NCAA tournament.  Who’s it going to be Michigan State, Wisoncsin or Purdue?  Even if they lose their remaining games to those teams and pick up the rest that’ll leave them at 21-9 which is still going to be boarder-line for the NCAA tournament selection committee considering their only marque win(s) would be against Ohio State.

Alas, there is good news on the horizon Royce White is back practicing with the team.  If he’s still in basketball shape and can get his head into the game he can be a real difference maker coming down the home stretch.  If he shows himself as a top-notch talent that could be all we need in our favor in the balance sheet to get the selection committee to pick us over another squad because marque names sell seats.  Let’s hope that Royce is okay mentally and physically and that he gives the Gophers the physical grinding presence down-low that we’ve been missing thus-far into the season.

Tags: Golden Gopher Basketball, Rodney Williams, Royce White, The Barn, Trevor Mbakew, Tubby Smith

This entry was posted on 01/20/2010 at 1:00 pm and is filed under College Sports, Gophers Basketball, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.