When I opened my e-mail Wednesday and clicked on the release that included Minnesota’s 2008-09 schedule, I wasn’t shocked, but I was a bit confused. A year ago, Tubby Smith said that he wanted a tougher schedule but because he’d arrived last spring, he didn’t have an opportunity to adjust last season’s the way he wanted to. But the upcoming season includes games against High Point, Southeastern Louisiana, Eastern Washington and …. Concordia-St. Paul, a Division II school?

I called Smith about an hour ago and he told me that he wanted some tougher opponents on the schedule, but they were hard to find. Smith said more and more schools are hesitant to add potentially tough nonconference games to their slates because so many conferences have extended their league schedules in recent years. He compared it to the trend in college football, where Big Ten teams routinely play schools like Florida Atlantic, Youngstown State and Akron in what are supposed to be sparring sessions before the Big Ten season starts. Example: Smith said Tennessee probably wishes it wouldn’t have gone to UCLA Monday.

Smith also said he wanted a nonconference schedule that would give a young Gophers team a chance to ease into a tough Big Ten schedule. Minnesota plays Ohio State, Michigan State, Wisconsin, Purdue and Gophers-Neutralizer Illinois a total of nine times. “If we do what we’re supposed to do, everything will take care of itself,” Smith said about the team’s NCAA tourney hopes. “But we have to prove ourselves on the court.”

Sources told me Concordia-St. Paul wasn’t a part of anyone’s original plans, but they were added because the Gophers struggled to find opponents for their season-opening NABC Classic tournament at Williams Arena. Georgia State is on the schedule because the Gophers have agreed to go to Georgia State in the coming years, which will give Atlanta-area native Ralph Sampson III a chance to go home.

Without a top four finish in the Big Ten, this team will have a tough time getting into the NCAA tourney with a soft nonconference schedule, which includes one true road game. I’m not saying they can’t do it (a nonconference win against Louisville and an early conference victory against Ohio State or Michigan State would help), I just think they’ll have to avoid numerous mistakes from last season, rebound far better than they did a year ago and hope that five new players quickly adjust to Division I basketball in a physical, well-coached league. But they definitely have enough talent to land on the tourney bubble. But the nonconference schedule won’t help matters.

Don’t agree with me? Well, Jerry Palm, the creator of collegerpi.com, does. Here’s what he had to say about Minnesota’s schedule:

“It’s the kind of schedule that requires you to go 11-7 in the league to have a chance to even get a discussion with the committee. Louisville is the only non-conf opponent that gets your attention, although I don’t know off the top of my head what to expect from Virginia.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008 at 4:23 pm and is filed under Gophers men's basketball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.