Monday Notebook: Gophers might face fatigued Louisville team
Posted on December 15th, 2008 – 1:53 PMBy Myron Medcalf
Minnesota plays, perhaps, its toughest foe of the year when it travels to Glendale, Ariz., Saturday to face Louisville.The game will be shown on FSN at 1 p.m. Saturday.
The Gophers have 10 days off leading up to that contest, while the Cardinals will be in the middle of one of their toughest traveling schedules of the year. Louisville head coach Rick Pitino told me earlier today that he worries about his team’s fatigue level, after Louisville travels to Cincinnati Wednesday for a Thursday game against Mississippi, part of the SEC-Big East Challenge, and then hops on a plane early Friday for a Saturday matchup against the Gophers.
But Louisville did win three games in three days at the Marques Maybin Classic earlier this season. And I think Minnesota’s time off and Louisville’s fatigue could work in either team’s favor. The Cardinals could play a Gophers team that’s cooled off after its longest layoff of the season. Then again, Minnesota might have the advantage against a potentially tired Louisville team that lost its only contest away from Freedom Hall against Western Kentucky Nov. 30.
-The 1970s have it. In my rather unscientific Friday poll, I asked readers to vote for the top decade of Gophers basketball, beginning with the 1960s. Readers chose the ’70s in a landslide. No disrespect to the other eras ( I received some emails about pre-1960 teams).
BigMike set the record straight with this comment: “Oh goodness…you’d have to be born late if you’d say anything but the 70s. It was a basketball awakening here!”
-Ben Woodside went nuts against Stephen F. Austin, scoring 60 points in a triple overtime game Friday. Still, it wasn’t enough to pull off the win.
-Merry Dionte Christmas! Temple’s star dropped 35 points and hit 7 out of 14 three-point attempts in a Saturday win over then-No. 8 Tennessee.
-Here’s my latest AP poll. Tennessee and Gonzaga dropped after losing over the weekend. I was tempted to include the Gophers in this edition of my poll. Also, I ranked Louisville No. 7 in the country.
1. North Carolina
2. Connecticut
3. Pitt
4. Oklahoma
5. Texas
6. Wake Forest
7. Louisville
8. Xavier
9. Syracuse
10. Gonzaga
11. Duke
12. Notre Dame
13. Arizona State
14. Georgetown
15. Purdue
16. Ohio State
17. Michigan State
18. Davidson
19. UCLA
20. Michigan
21. Memphis
22. Baylor
23. Tennessee
24. Marquette
25. Clemson
6 Responses to "Monday Notebook: Gophers might face fatigued Louisville team"
[…] Stephen Schenck . Excerpt: Minnesota plays, perhaps, it’s toughest foe of the year when it travels to Glendale, Ariz., Saturday to face Louisville.The game will be shown on FSN at 1 pm Saturday. The Gophers have 10 days off leading up to that contest, … […]
Woodside scores 60 points and his team still loses…proof that basketball always was and always will be a “team” sport.
Myron, you’re stretching it to find a story within the fatigue theme.
Mighty Louisville will have to play two whole games in one week? Oh my goodness, how could they possibly handle that? And fly on an airplane too?
Would have been nice if we could have recruited Woodside to the Gophers. Oh yeah, we didn’t offer him a scholarship. Thanks Dan Monson.
It’s and its. That is all.
If my memory serves me correctly, the 2 most recent Gopher games against Rick Pitino ended up as near blowout losses…wait, there was only one loss…the game in New Orleans in 1991 never happened.
