In what certainly qualifies as the biggest game of Tubby Smith’s Gophers coaching career to date*, Minnesota takes on Indiana at 8 tonight. Conveniently broadcast on ESPN, instead of the Invisible Channel, this game will feature Williams Arena at its non-robotics best. If any RandBallers would like to use this as a venue for running commentary, that would be rad. We’ll have an eye on the game tonight from the office and will be offering some whimsy as we see fit.

*Tubby obviously has coached in bigger games, which brings up one of the funnier on-the-job stories that we can share: It was, we think, 2002, and we were covering a smattering of Twins games for the Star Tribune. Doug Mientkiewicz had a big hit in one of the games — we don’t remember exactly, but we think it was a game-winner — and we asked him where it ranked among his all-time biggest hits. His response, and this is as close to verbatim as we can recall: “Well, I did help win a gold medal for my country.” What we didn’t say: “Yeah, but nobody cares about Olympic baseball.” That’s what it means to be a professional.

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