Despite a career effort and a near triple double from Rebraca, they were not able to overcome 20 turnovers and cold 3 point shooting in a loss to Milwaukee. UND finishes the road stand with a trip to historic Williams Arena to take on the Gophers.
About Minnesota: The Gophers are coming off a season where they finally won an NCAA Tournament game under Pitino. They said goodbye to two very good players in Murphy (graduation) and Coffey (NBA) and a few good reserve players. So this will amount of what could be a retooling year of sorts for the Gophers with a lot of youth on the squad. It helps that they finally get the Pitt Transfer eligible (thank the NCAA logic for that) but they will be without the services of Eric Curry who is out again with an injury. They do have two talented sophomores in Gabe Kascheur and Daniel Orturu to build around, but this might be a team that is more than likely your traditional "one year away". For Pitino, who is in his 7th year (114-95, 40-70 in Big 10) at Minnesota, is still a very young coach trying to figure things out. He has two major issues right now: His Big 10 record is awful, and has finished in the top half of the conference only once. His second one could be debatable, but while he has landed some good players in-state, he has yet to land a big fish. This week, Dawson Garcia committed to Marquette, which was another blow to keep a big time player home. While he could point to Orturu and Kascheur has players who wanted to stay home (and Jarvis as well, but he hasn't done much so far) they weren't the big names. When Suggs announces (and more than likely goes out of state) the fire will rise once again against Pitino. He's gotten the Gophers to the NCAA 2 out of the last 3 years and has a young squad and has some talent coming next year, but at some point... he's got to start winning in the Big 10.
Key Player: Daniel Orturu (17 ppg, 11.8 rpg, 3.4 bpg)
Daniel had a solid freshman campaign last year and is building off of it so far this year. Has been an near automatic double-double when he steps on the court, including a 21 point-18 rebound performance in a loss against Butler. Has been a little turnover happy at times. Starting to expand his game a little and will shoot the 3 if given the opportunity (but will not live out there). Will be one of the better big men in the Big 10 potentially as soon as the end of the year but the Sophomore from Cretin has been the leader of this young squad.
Fun Stats:
Rebraca leads the conference in field goal percentage (73.2%) and is in the top 20 nationally in that category as well.
UND leads the conference in blocked shots
Series History: Minnesota leads the series 1-0, with that game played back in 2014.
Early Summit Thoughts: As stated in a previous topic, I will share out some early season thoughts
1) USD showing that they are the Summit Leagues best right now with a 5-1 record and some nice wins so far on the year. Lost to Arkansas tonight, but that is forgivable. Getting Tyler Hagedorn back and not using Umude to transfer has been a godsend to the Yotes. Given their schedule, they should be at 11-3 or 12-2 into conference play.
2) NDSU has some struggles on offense but might have the best defense in the conference, only have given up 70 points once so far. The problem? Offense isn't doing enough. The defending champs were always pointing to this year as being the year but sometimes things break your way. The Bison will be a tough nut to crack on the defensive end, if the offense catches up, no reason why they can't repeat.
3) Nice win for Omaha to take down Wazzu, perhaps they can still make some noise this year.
4) If ORU has the answers at guard with Burns and Abmas to go with their stud big men... they might be the team that breaks the Dakota Monopoly that they have on the Summit.
Keys:
1) Cut down on the turnovers: UND needs to start taking care of the ball better. It means that they need to slow down, execute the offense, and make smarter choices when they have the ball. Do not panic when you have the ball and stay in control. Be more like Gonzaga, where they only turned the ball over 6 times.
2) Get Moody going early: He has been too quiet and is the teams best 3 point shooter, he needs to start showing that and getting hot.
3) Oruru vs Rebraca: This will be a great test for Rebraca, should be a great battle between two big men in the post.
The Call:
Wouldn't this be a great way to start off the week, with the hockey series the following weekend it would be a good start to start a big UND week of sports... well that is a dream. This is reality: UND is still trying to figure things out and it will be tough for them to get the win in Williams. What I would like to see from them, is growth and signs of them start to put things together. I would love to see Rebraca stand tall and get another double-double against tough competition. I think UND keeps it close for a while, but the Gophers pull it out in the end
Minnesota 81-68
Game will be on Big Ten Network, thought about personally attending this one but couldn't quite get the future misses to commit.
