They didn’t make the tournament that all teams strive for, but Minnesota did make the most of its postseason this year. The Golden Gophers were left out of the NCAA Tournament after missing an opportunity to upset Michigan in overtime in the Big Ten Tournament, but then went on to play five more games in the NIT before losing to Stanford in the tournament’s championship. It proved to be a great learning opportunity for some of the club’s younger players and could turn into a great jump-off for next year’s team. But first, a look back:

Maverick Ahanmisi and the Golden Gophers fell to Stanford in the NIT championship. (Anthony Gruppuso/US Presswire)

• In a nutshell: There were a few phases to the Gophers’ season, beginning with the 12-1 start to the non-conference schedule. Then there was the sans-Trevor Mbakwe portion of the season, and things were just never the same from that point forward. They started the Big Ten schedule 0-4 and had another six-game losing streak mixed in there before making a run at the NIT title. Nothing stands out more than the loss of Mbakwe, though, and there’s no question that this would have been a very different team had he been healthy all year. If he returns next season, Minnesota can give a lot of teams trouble.
• Overachievement: By season’s end, freshman guard Andre Hollins was putting together games worthy of All-Big Ten consideration and looking like a future star. Stanford shut him down in the NIT title game (just four points) but he had dropped double-digit scoring outputs in each of the other tournament games, including 44 in the quarterfinal and semifinal games combined. His minutes were only in the teens early in the year but, by season’s end, he was logging 30-40 minutes a night.
• Underachievement: Ralph Sampson III‘s career at Minnesota comes to an end, and he will go down as a player who was always good but perhaps not as great as he could have been. The seven-footer never had a truly intimidating presence in the post, though he logged considerable minutes his entire career and averaged at least 1.3 BPG in each of his four seasons. But Sampson had a huge dropoff in PPG (10.2 last year, 7.9 this year) and just never really demonstrated a serious desire to have the ball in his hands at all times or a real scorer’s mentality.
• Defining moment: As I mentioned earlier, Minnesota’s season all comes down to the moment in the November 27 game against Dayton when Mbakwe suffered the knee injury. Mbakwe is a double-double machine, and a first-team All-Big Ten type of player. Minnesota’s NCAA Tournament chances, Big Ten title aspirations and the conference’s overall strength all took a serious hit when Mbakwe went down.
• Final grade: There are a number of instances in this season when Minnesota could have been left for dead. The Mbakwe injury. The terrible Big Ten start. The losing streak. Being left out of the Big Dance. All things considered, Tubby Smith got this group to make the most of its opportunities and could be better for it in the future. For that, they get a B-.

jnowak (138 Posts)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012 at 7:35 am by jnowak and is filed under big ten, microsites. Tagged: andre hollins, minnesota, ralph sampson III, trevor mbakwe, tubby smith. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.