Gelfand: Love the NCAA Tournament; This Gopher Team? Not So Much

Photo Credit: Brian Curski

You can have your Mardi Gras and your New Year’s Eve and you can even have your cake and eat it, too. The hell with all of it, because if you’re a college basketball fan — and maybe even if you’re not — the guaranteed annual orgasmic event of all events is not just the NCAA hoops tournament but the fortnight leading up to it.

You don’t think the tension is building? The other night, as Louisville was being schooled by North Carolina, Cardinals head coach Rick Pitino — no relation title-wise to our own Little Richard Pitino — suddenly had to be restrained from charging into the hostile crowd. You can’t blame Pitino. He’s been under more stress than usual in the past 18 months, due largely to revelations that his subordinates have turned the recruiting process into a dissolute frenzy worthy of something you might witness on xhamster.com. I should add here that Senior Pitino knew nothing about said licentiousness — just as I know nothing about xhamster.com — but let’s get to the point, which is what provoked the rapidly aging mentor. You know it had to be bad, because a 64-year-old guy who last year signed a salary extension worth $51 million ought to be feeling like the proverbial cock of the walk, an expression which I already regret.

Well, it turned out that the despicable fan yelled, “Pitino, you suck.”

Pitino, you suck. I know it wasn’t worth the buildup, but that’s pretty much the point. The coaching community is like a tinderbox these days, just waiting for a spark to ignite an explosion. “You suck” had to be the mildest epithet ever aimed at the coaching legend, but you never know when the tipping point will arrive. Even Little Richard might be feeling it, because as we speak, our rodents have secured the double-bye in the somewhat prestigious Big Ten tournament. And, on a risible note, Little Richard was just named the Big Ten Coach of the Year. All good, but rising expectations tend to diminish the normal quaint civility that comes with Minnesota Mediocrity. Pitino’s lads might even be expected to roll through the Big Ten tournament and then actually win a couple of games in the NCAA bash. So unfair.

I find it odd that in the game’s climactic minutes, Pitino has a habit of turning to the home crowd and urging them to cheer

I don’t happen to see my alma mater as a giant killer. I think our Pitino is in constant danger of getting out-coached, and I’m not overwhelmed by an offense that basically amounts to five dudes running frantically down the court with no apparent sense of purpose, followed by the customary 10-second weave, after which Nate Mason gets a pick and then frantically dribbles to his left, because he can’t dribble to his right. After which chaos ensues. Plus, the Big Ten doesn’t seem to be up to snuff this year, so I don’t invest a lot of significance in the Gophers’ late surge. Finally, I find it odd that in the game’s climactic minutes, Pitino has a habit of turning to the home crowd and urging them to cheer.

Seems to me he might be better off planning a few moves ahead, but beyond that, urging the crowd to cheer is a little bit like imploring the swallows to return to Capistrano. You can always argue that you succeeded, but there’s a better way to spend your time.

That said, the Gophers’ four seed gives them the double bye in this week’s Big Ten Tournament, and that’s a swell thing, because you can’t win the Big Ten tournament without one of the four double-byes. Without it, you’d have to win four games in four days, which is incrementally harder than winning three games in three days, even if you were as good as the top four teams.

In fact, there have now been 19 Big Ten tournaments, and only once — in its fourth year —  has a team without a top four seed won it all (Iowa, sixth seed, 2001). So our rodents have a legit shot at winning the Big Ten classic, even while not having a chance in basketball hell of going far after that.

And to explain why, let us briefly examine the Gophers’ final game of the regular season, that 66-49 loss in Madison. Take the matter of the Badgers’ ineptitude from the free-throw line.

On the bright side, the Badgers have restored the drama and suspense of the once-routine free throw. But Wisconsin fans, given to melodrama and a sense of entitlement, are comparing the team’s problems to such hideous state disasters as Ed Gein’s cannibalistic slaughters, Jeffrey Dahmer’s serial killings and even the Great Squirrel Migration of 1842, when a half-billion of the land-locked creatures tried to migrate to Wisconsin — never a good idea in the first place — thus resulting in the drowning deaths of a million or more of the lovable mammals.

Where were we? Oh, the free throws. Perhaps you didn’t even know that it’s possible for a Division I team to shoot under 65 percent from the line. But Wisconsin did just that for the year, and even that looks great next to the 37.5 percent (6-for-16) that the Badgers shot against the Gophers. Wisconsin’s star, Ethan Happ, was 1-for-4, which should have come as no surprise, because he’s Ethan Happ-less for the year — an amazing 48.4 percent. The Badgers, in fact, are ranked 333 out of 347 DI teams. Which translates to Wisconsin basically down by eight points before each contest begins. Something that Little Richard never did figure out.

So, with the Gophers down by double-digits and less than five minutes to play, it’s a no-brainer to start fouling Happ (or anyone else). But not if you’re a seemingly no-brain coach. No, the Gophers didn’t intentionally foul anyone. Not once. Not even when it was the only conceivable way they could win.

One more thing, and I’m done ranting, at least until next week

And that wasn’t even the worst of it. Not when you consider the fact that as Wisconsin was pulling ahead by double-digits with five minutes left, Pitino left his two most important players on the bench. Jordan Murphy and Reggie Lynch each had four fouls, but what difference did it make? You’re not even taking a chance leaving them in with five minutes left. The game is getting away from you and you need your best players on the court, because that way they might foul out, but without them, you will lose the game. Little Richard, in fact, calmly waited for the under-four-minute media timeout. Let no one say that our coach panicked.

Coach of the Year? Not even coach of the weekend.

One more thing, and I’m done ranting, at least until next week. After the game, Little Richard and his One Direction (left) point guard, Mason, blamed the officials for the loss. Because — get this — those nasty officials called more fouls on Minnesota (19) than they did on Wisconsin (14).

Apparently our troops did not realize that they were on the road. See, your college referees are not known for standing up to home-town crowds. This might have escaped Little Richard’s notice while he was urging his fans to get up and cheer, but the numbers tell the story: the Gophers ended the season averaging 27.4 free-throw attempts per game at home, but just 18.2 on the road.

This ought to concern Gopher Nation, because the Gophers won’t be playing any more games at home. And probably not many away from home, either.

Mike Gelfand appears on the Monday and Friday editions of Bob Sansevere’s popular podcast which can be found at thebsblog.com.

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