Hey, how about those Vikings! But, no, I’m talking about basketball. And, oddly enough, the biggest underachiever–and, for those of you keeping score at home, that would be the Minnesota Timberwolves–well, they got a win last night but still qualify as an underachiever. Meanwhile, the Minnesota Gophers lost their 4th straight, and yet its debatable as to whether they’re really underachieving or not. Unfortunately, however, that is not a compliment.
Minnesota Timberwolves 120 Washington Wizards 106
So, the Timberwolves won at Washington last night and yet the Star Tribune headline included the word “disaster.” The Wolves managed to beat the worst team in the west, the New Orleans Pelicans, who are now 8-32, last week. Now they were trying to duplicate that feat against the worst team in the east, the 6-32 Wiz. And, Washington held several leads in the 3rd quarter, were within 82-79 after 3, and got within 85-84 and 91-89 in the 4th.
Fortunately, Ant Edwards did what he is supposed to do. He took over the game, scoring 20 in the 4th for a game total of 41 points, including 10 in a 16-2 run that gave the Wolves a 107-91 cushion at the 5 minute mark. The Wiz got back within 112-101 at 2-and-a-half minutes, and Ant chipped in 3 more as the Wolves again extended their lead to 119-103 at 2 minutes. That’s when all of the Washington starters came out in what used to be understood as a white flag of surrender.
Washington outscored the Wolves 51-42 from 3-point range, taking and making 3 more 3s. But the Wolves made 27-of-46 2s (59%) to Washington’s 23-for-51 (45%). Still the Wiz had 97 points off of field goals, the Wolves 96. The Wolves really won by getting to the FT line 31 times to Washington’s 15. If the game had been played at Target Center, you’d probably have to allow that the Wiz got hosed by the NBA’s thin-skinned homer referees, but as the game was played in D.C., well, maybe the discrepancy in FTs was legit.
Still, getting outscored from the field and leading the worst team in the NBA 91-89 with 8:24 to go, well, like I said, the Strib called it a near disaster. I called it another day of underachieving.
Maryland 77 Minnesota Gophers men 71
The Gophers again ran out of gas and lost in the 2nd half, this time at Maryland. The Gophers led 35-32 at the half by outshooting Maryland 50 to 40% and 56 to 25% on 3-pointers. The 2nd half saw the reverse, however, as the Gophers shooting fell off to 34 and 37%, while Maryland’s improved to 56 and 43%. The Gophers scored 29 points from the field in the 1st half, just 23 in the 2nd. Maryland scored 27 points from the field in the 1st half and 31 in the 2nd. The Gophers shot FT admirably throughout, making 6-of-6 in the 1st half and 13-of-17 in the 2nd. If they had shot FT like that against Ohio State, they might have won handily.
So, in short, Maryland shot just a little bit better, but it translated to 4 more FG and that was the difference.
Meanwhile, the Gophers lost the turnover battle, as usual, but again the difference was fairly small. Well, 16 turnovers for the Gophers to just 10 for Maryland, but the points of turnovers were just 15-12 Maryland. The Gophers won the battle of the boards with 8 offensive rebounds to 6 for Maryland, though Maryland also outscored the Gophers on 2nd chances 9-8. So, here again, that’s 4 extra points and, again, that’s just about the difference.
So the Gophers didn’t get manhandled. But, as always, they did have a rough patch. They led 42-35 at 17:07. Over the next 4 minutes, they were outscored 14-4, and they never recovered. Then, over the next 9 minutes, they were outscored 19-11 for a total run of 33-15. The Gophers shot just 4-of-15 while Maryland made 11-of-16, with 4 layups and 3 dunks. So the offense and the defense both went south at about the same time. Now the Gophers trailed 68-57 at 4:19. They then went on a little 14-7 run themselves and got with 75-71 but that was inside of 10 seconds. Too little, too late. So Maryland’s not that much better than the Gophers. The home court might have made a difference, just as the Gophers were plenty good to beat Ohio State at home except for that horrible FT shooting.
The bottom line is that the Gophers can win in the Big 10, but will they? They’re not really underachieving, after all. They’re playing about as well as they can, at least for half of almost every ball game. One of these days they’re going to put 2 halves together and, actually, if and when they do that, they could beat almost anybody, though the odds of a win at Iowa, Michigan State, USC, UCLA or Nebraska are not good. But Washington, Penn State and Northwestern at the Barn are all winnable games, just so long as the Gophers don’t underachieve.