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NOLAN O’HARA: Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the “Weekly Rundown,” presented by the Minnesota Daily. I’m your host, Nolan O’Hara. The Gophers men’s basketball team finally ended its three-game skid with the 79-61 win over Nebraska last week. So we’re going to dive back in and back into basketball and talk about these last two games against Rutgers and Nebraska and preview the game coming up Thursday against Purdue. So, I have our basketball beat reporter back again, AJ Condon, to break down these last couple of games. AJ, it’s good to have you here. How are you doing?

AJ CONDON: Good, I’m pretty good, excited to be back on the “Weekly Rundown” and to finally talk about a win … so should be a fun time for sure.

O’HARA: We kind of missed the opportunity to talk about all the wins. And then we kind of started the podcast back upright when they hit this skid. So it hasn’t been as much fun as it would have been, say, after Iowa on Christmas Day. But you know, it’s still chugging along, nonetheless.

CONDON: Exactly.

O’HARA: So, here we are. And you know, last time you were here, we did talk about the team’s road struggles. And the Gophers were in the middle of a road run here where it looked like they could pick up a couple of wins. But it just didn’t happen that way. It was still kind of — it’s still tough, it didn’t happen. And you know, we talked about the Maryland loss at home and Purdue on the road. I mean, I guess what went wrong now in this game against Rutgers where it was close, but they just couldn’t quite come up with a win?

CONDON: Yeah, I mean, this is the first time that on the road, it actually looked like they might get their first win, what really happened, those that start slow start at the beginning of the game, that kind of just set the tone for the whole game, they were able to take the lead by halftime. But it’s just too hard when you start slow on the road to be able to overcome that for the rest of the game. So one positive that to take out of this, though, is that they were in the game for the whole game. They had a shot at the end, Marcus Carr had that opportunity for a three-point shot. And talking more about that last shot is a lot of people were ripping on Carr for taking that last shot, but he’s been the guy all year. I know he forced that shot up. But honestly, there’s not really many other guys in this team that I would want to take that last shot. Carr probably should have passed in and out because he was double-teamed. But at the end of the day Carr’s, the best guy, this team, you want to take that last shot.

Another thing that stuck out to me was Jamal Mashburn continually will have a really good first half and it’ll be a great spark off the bench. And we’ll have 9-10 points in the first half. But he just he’ll come on to the second half and just not be a huge factor anymore. And we’ll get into that more with this last game because he was actually able to do the opposite. But he just hasn’t been scored in the second half after a really good first half. And he’s a guy that the Gophers need to be able to get going in the second half to continue their momentum and play a full 40, 20 or a full 40 minutes instead of just 20.

O’Hara: Right. I mean, you know Mashburn coming off the bench. It’s nice when he can provide that offensive spark for him. Because I mean, like outside Carr, there’s just not much offense happening with this team. And you know them him taking the last shot at the end. That’s the least of the Gophers’ worries, there’s nobody else you’d rather see shooting that shot. I mean, there’s nobody else you think is going to make, you know, so it’s, it’s one of those things like it might not have been the best look, but you don’t want anybody other than Carr taking that shot. And, you know, they finally came out of that game and came out with a win in their next one against Nebraska, which the score looks really good on paper, they won by 18 points. And they got back on track. But even in that game, there were some of the same problems we saw in the losses like the one up against Maryland and Purdue and Rutgers. So I guess what was your kind of takeaway from that game you know, watching it here at the Barn?

CONDON: Yeah, so if I’m an opponent that’s playing the Gophers in the future, I’m going to play zone-D, zone defense against them. Because that’s exactly Nebraska did. And first of all, it shouldn’t have been an 18-point win. Secondly, Nebraska probably should have won that game because the Gophers went on a huge hiatus without scoring a point, without even making a field goal. And that’s because of their zone defense. The Gophers tried to shoot their way out of it by shooting threes, which we’ve talked about, I think every week on this podcast, they can’t do. They went 8-of-36. This past game shooting the three, which if you’re not a mathematician, that’s not good at all. I mean, I don’t even have to get into the details about that. That’s just not a good shooting percentage, but they continue to shoot the three. So if I’m Purdue next week, if I’m any other Big Ten team that I see the Gophers on the schedule, I’m going switch to zone-D because if the Gophers beat me by shooting the three then they deserve to beat that team.

The thing in that game was Robbins is starting to get back into these foul troubles. He took a big break from playing aggressive and getting fouls early. And these past few games, he started to get back into kind of how he played at the end of the season getting some lazy fouls, getting some frustration fouls. And that just leads to him being on the bench for a longer period of time. Marcus Carr got some foul trouble though, that was just one that was once in a blue moon. I wasn’t too worried about that. Another thing that I took away from this game was the defensive rebounding. Pitino talks so much about in these interviews, postgame about boxing out and being physical because the Big Ten is one of the most physical leagues in the nation. And the Gophers have struggled time and time again, and not allowing offensive rebounds. And that’s something that they allowed a lot in the first half, they were able to fix in the second half, but you can’t be giving up these offensive rebounds in league like this and giving teams 20 opportunities because they’re going to make you pay for it, and a better team than Nebraska is probably going beat you because of those offensive rebounds. And then the last thing is Carr can just still finish at will, no matter what it is. He’s able to finish at the wrap at the rim wherever he wants. And he finally got back on track. And he looked more like his self when he was putting up 25-30 points at the beginning of the season.

O’HARA: Yeah, I think it’s interesting talking about, you know, teams playing zone defense. How about beater strategy? Because I mean, the Gophers’ offense runs off of Carr driving to the basket, like you said, and Robbins in the paint. That’s where they’re good. And, yeah, if you can take away those things, it’s definitely harder for this team to win. And, you know, we also have talked about the three-point shooting every single week it seems like, but I don’t know, it’s one of those like, you kind of have to revisit because at this point, you know, Pitino said it he said, ‘If you’re the worst three-point shooting team in the league, why would you take the most shots?’ I mean, you know, so he’s aware of the problem. I mean, they thought shot 36 threes, has he offered any more insight into, why they continue to do that? I mean, is this just in-game like it just happens? Or is are they still is this part of the strategy with this team?

CONDON: I think part of the problem is that they are getting open shots. And I think it’s tough for coaches to say don’t take open shots, because you’re not going to get many of them. So when they’re getting these open shots, every time they take a three I’m watching Pitino and he’s optimistic I can tell by his body language like he thinks and he obviously wants it to go in. And when it doesn’t, I can just see the letdown because it’s just time after time. And it’s more with Gabe every time I swear his hands go up like he’s so excited for Gabe to make it, three falls, he’s pumped. But when it doesn’t, he doesn’t even get that mad. It’s just like, let down because they are open shots. These are shots college kids should make it, especially if they want to go on to the next level. So I really don’t expect much to change because it hasn’t yet. And it’s been a problem this whole season. And we’re 20 plus games at almost 20 games into the season. And nothing’s changed yet so I really don’t see much changing after it.

O’HARA: Yeah, you definitely can’t completely change the strategy this late in the season. But I think Pitino did have some interesting takeaways, you know, reading your story after the Nebraska game, particularly talking about the rebounding. I mean, the Gophers were great on the offensive and not so great on the defensive end. And I think there were some concerns he has moving forward I guess what is he looking for more so from that the team rebounding defensively?

CONDON: Yeah, so he obviously loves what he’s been getting on the offensive glass. Brandon Johnson and Liam Robbins have been two guys who have just been huge for the Gophers on the offensive glass and they’re going to continue to work together well, they both kind of feed off each other, and they both work kind of against each other but with each other, they call it a war between the two but in the best way possible because they box out together and they get that offensive rebound. And yes, it goes to stat only one person it’s pretty much a combined stat because they’re doing so much work together. So that’s a huge difference in it and they’re getting second-chance points.

But that’s also going to come with the other teams probably going to have the same chances. They’re also going to get offensive boards. And that’s one thing that Pitino has harped on so much is getting a body on defenders because that’s just something the Gophers fail to do sometimes, and this past week against Nebraska there was one possession, counting a missed free throw where they had four offensive rebounds. And another turn to a three-point. So four points in one possession with four offensive rebounds. Pitino was furious after that possession. I remember watching him on the sideline and he talks about it after this Nebraska game that they’re about to play Purdue, which is one of the most physical teams in the Big Ten. And last time around, they got hammered on the glass so it’s going to be one thing that I know they’re going to be working on and they have worked out in practice leading up to this Purdue game tomorrow.

O’HARA: Right, it’s one of those things, you look at the Nebraska game. And if you’re bad on the defensive glass against Nebraska, it’s you’re probably not going to be doing too well against Purdue. And in the same vein, you know, you’re not going to have the same amount of opportunities on the offensive end, as you will against a Nebraska team.

CONDON: Yep.

O’HARA: So, you know, kind of looking towards this game on Thursday. They lost to Purdue earlier in the year. So like, what kind of challenges you know, do you see like, what kind of what it was Purdue able to do last time around? And, you know, we also talked to a lot about Trevion Williams and Zach Edey. And how can the Gophers do a better job against those two guys?

CONDON: Yeah, so the Gophers were leading this game, it looked like honestly a game that they were going to be able to pull out on the road. And after a full 40 minutes, they weren’t able to pull it out. And one of the things Pitino said in that press conference was, they played a really good 20 minutes, a really good first half. But they got to start learning how to play that full 40 minutes. And that’s something that they’re going to need to do against teams in the Big Ten. Because the Big Ten is a very deep and good conference. So the first thing that they need to do for Thursday is playing a full 40 minutes. The second thing is don’t let them shoot, Purdue that is. Don’t let them get hot from three angles and shoot so many threes. They went I think it was either 0-5-or-6 in the first half. Then they went 8-of-10 from three in the second half. And that was a big reason for that comeback. They had Trevion Williams and Zack Edey were both really good, but it was more Brandon Newman who really hurt the Gophers. He had 29 points in that game. Then on the Gopher side, Marcus Carr needs to be more of a threat he went 2-for-13 in that matchup last time, which we know that Marcus Carr and Robbins, we’ve talked about how those are the two biggest contributors to the offense. And if your biggest one is going 2-for-13 you’re not going to win many games. And then just with our last segment is do not allow offensive boards because that killed them in their last meeting.

O’HARA: Yeah, for sure. You know, you talked about the play 40 minutes … Was it against Rutgers? Where Pitino was like we played a great 37 minutes?

CONDON: 37 and a half minutes. Yeah, that’s what they got to do. They just got to figure out how to play the full 40 minutes. Because that’s how long the game is. And you know, the opponents are going to be playing those full 40 minutes.

O’HARA: Right, and you don’t want to be like the other Minnesota basketball team here that that really has trouble closing out, closing out games.

CONDON: Double-digit leads to double-digit losses.

O’HARA: Yeah, that’s the Minnesota basketball that the Gophers need to try and avoid. They don’t want to play that brand.

CONDON: I don’t want to see that brand. I’m lucky enough that the Timberwolves aren’t on YouTube TV. So I can just watch on ESPN that they blew the lead. But I’ll don’t actually have to watch it.

O’HARA: Yeah, I can follow along with our local reporters. I could just scroll through Twitter be like another 18-point lead gone. But yeah. And you know, looking back to this last matchup against Purdue too. Was there anything else that stood out to you? You talked, you know, a little bit about, you know, the offensive boards, you can’t let Purdue do that. But I guess what else from that game kind of stands out looking towards this game Thursday?

CONDON: Yeah, it’s really just slowing down Brandon Newman. Obviously, it’s going to be tough with Edey and Williams inside, and that’s going to go on Liam Robbins, he can’t be into this foul trouble. Because when he does, and he got a seven-foot-four guy in Edey, he’s going to eat away in the paint. And that’s just going to open up the outside shooting for Purdue, which we saw the second half, they went 8-for-10. So Robbins needs to stay in the game. Gophers just have to play good team defense. And let that defense turn into offense. We’ve seen them and their transition play on long rebounds and misses getting steals. Take advantage of take advantage of their fast pace, and just keeping Purdue on their heels.

O’HARA: Yeah, it’ll be I think it’ll be a fun game to watch to kind of see where they progress into that last time. Um, I guess from your perspective, do you think they’ll play better, fare better, or worse, this go-round? And I guess why so? And kind of what expectations do you have?

CONDON: Yeah, so this time around, I definitely think it’s going to go different for a few reasons. One, going into the last game, they had just came off their first home loss and had a week break to kind of obviously practice but that was still in their mind that they just had their first home loss of the season. It was going to happen at some point, but it just happened to happen before that first Purdue game. Looking to this matchup on Thursday. They just came off a dominant one. I mean, it was an 18-point win. That’s a dominant one at home. And it was only back on Monday, so they don’t have that much time to sit back and kind of relax. They’re just getting right back into action, and three days, so I think that’s going to have a big impact because back then, when the Gophers lost to Purdue that first time, they were going a week with a game, and then another week until their next game, they finally have momentum, they’re playing more games in a short span of time. So I think that’s definitely going to happen or help a lot from Minnesota. It’s definitely going to be a closer game. I don’t really want to make a prediction because last time, I think I was 0-3 and when we were trying to talk about the next road, three games, I went 0-3.

O’HARA: This is your chance to correct yourself.

CONDON: Okay, I will go for it. I’m going to say the Gophers win by a possession, it’s going to be a very close game. And it’s going to come down to the wire. And I honestly think it’s going to come down to the wire with Purdue having the last shot. And not going in and Gophers are able to hold out and kind of just start fighting back and getting more solidified in that NCAA Tournament.

O’HARA: For sure. And it is like you said, it’s a home game. And I think one thing we’ve talked — well I don’t know if we have actually talked about it — but, you know, the Gophers do play better at home than they do on the road.

CONDON: If you haven’t noticed.

O’HARA: If you haven’t noticed yet. This year, they seem to be a little bit better at home. But yeah, I think that’s all we have for you here. AJ thanks for joining us, appreciate you being here and glad to talk some more basketball with you.

CONDON: As always, thanks for having me.

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O’HARA: In other news: The Gophers swim and dive team made headlines Wednesday with Sarah Bacon earning the Big Ten Women’s Diver of the Week honors and Max McHugh earning the Big Ten’s Men’s Swimmer of the Week award. The Big Ten diving championships are coming up at the end of the month from Feb. 24-27.

Another team making headlines for the Gophers is the women’s cross-country team. The Gophers were the Big Ten runner-up with Bethany Hasz winning the title with the time of 20:13.2 becoming the program’s second-ever individual Big Ten champion.

The fifth-ranked Gophers men’s hockey team is coming off a difficult weekend against Wisconsin where they lost 4-1 last Friday and 8-1 last Saturday. They’ll look to get back on track this weekend against Notre Dame, a team they got swept by early in the year.

The second-ranked Gophers women’s hockey team is also coming off a series against Wisconsin. It lost 4-3 in overtime on Friday and tied 2-2 after overtime Saturday, but got an extra point in the shootout. They’ll hit the ice again this weekend against a familiar opponent in the Ohio State Buckeyes. It’ll be the third series against Ohio State this season, with Minnesota and Ohio State holding an even record against each other so far 2-2.

The Gophers volleyball team earned two five-set victories over Purdue last weekend. Stephanie Samedy earned both Big Ten and AVCA player of the week honors for her dominant weekend where she tallied 48 kills and 36 digs. The schedule doesn’t get any easier though for Minnesota, who faces Penn State at the Pav this Saturday and Sunday.

That’s all for this week. Be sure to check our website mndaily.com for more coverage and tune in again next week to get the “Weekly Rundown” on all things Gopher sports. Thanks.

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NOLAN O’HARA: Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the “Weekly Rundown,” presented by the Minnesota Daily. I’m your host Nolan O’Hara. We spent the last couple weeks on the podcast talking about the Gophers men’s basketball team, but this week we’re going to shift into another Gopher season that’s starting up now the volleyball team. So, I’m joined with a familiar voice on the podcast, Brendan O’Brien, who covered football for us this fall and is covering volleyball for us here this spring with the delayed season because of the pandemic, and it’s good to have you back on the podcast. How’s it going?

BRENDAN O’BRIEN: I’m doing well, Nolan. Glad to be back after a couple months away. Glad to have something new to cover this spring. So it’ll be fun.

O’HARA: For sure. It’s exciting. I know I had a lot of fun covering this team last year. They went when they went 27-6 and earned a Final Four appearance, beating you know, Fairfield, Creighton, Florida and Louisville in the tournament. But you know, they did lose in the Final Four to Stanford, who won the national championship, but it was a really fun season. And they’ve returned a lot of their roster from that Final Four campaign this season. And added the top ranked recruiting class going into this year. And so far, so good. They’re 4-0, they haven’t dropped a single set yet. And kind of just looking at these newcomers in particular, you know, this top ranked recruiting class, I guess, what have you seen from them so far?

O’BRIEN: Yeah. So I think the biggest thing that I’ve seen, but also that’s been really important that coach Hugh McCutcheon has mentioned, and a lot of the players have mentioned in some of these early on media availabilities, is that there’s a lot of depth within this roster. Melani Shaffmaster is one of the freshmen that came in, she’s been starting at setter. But they still have two other really capable setters along with her that could come in and play it at any time. Melani’s played, I think, in every single set to start the season, and she really hasn’t come out except for one set, I believe. So they also have some really good hitters and depth there. Not only do they have Stephanie Samedy, and Adanna Rollins returning, they have Taylor Landfair, who is a freshman a part of that No. 1 ranked recruiting class, she’s also the No. 1 rated recruit overall in the country. So obviously, you’re going to add some depth there.

I also think what these newcomers add, where there’s a really important example is early on in the very first match, it’s the second set against Michigan State. And they were up by a little bit, and then Michigan State went on a run to tie it at 16, I want to say, and McCutcheon made some double subs, he moved out, I want to say Samedy, Rollins and, I believe, Shaffmaster. And then he put in some bench players. And it kind of looked like he was just resting up some players during the set that they look tired and maybe what you know, was just thinking, Okay, maybe Michigan state’s going to steal momentum here and maybe take this set, but we’ll come back and make sure that we’re well rested for the rest of this match. But that’s substitution that he made actually helped propel the team to when they really didn’t miss a beat, and they want in a tight set. But I think overall, the newcomers just add a different element where this team is able to compete with almost whoever they put out on the court.

O’HARA: Yeah, for sure. And, you know, you mentioned the depth at setter and that was something that kind of intrigued me before the season. Because last year, they had you know, they had graduated Samantha Seliger-Swenson who was one of the best setters in the country and bring in Kylie Miller who, who started out really strong and then got injured and there was kind of a rotation at center with Bayley McMenimen and Tamara Delonga and it was just kind of that rotation ever since even when Kylie came back. Um, so one thing I was interested in looking at this season if that was something McCutcheon would go with again with Shaffmaster, they brought in the transfer setter in Hunter Atherton and then they still had McMenimen there. So I was curious to see that, but it hasn’t been that so far has been Shaffmaster kind of taking the lead there. I guess what has McCutcheon said about what she brings to the team and kind of what have you seen from her in these first four games to earn that starting spot?

O’BRIEN: Yeah, the biggest thing that stood out to me from what McCutcheon said about her was after the first match, he was just asked about her play and our first start, and he just said that she was really set steady, and just setting up a lot of the talented hitters really well. And I think it’s important that they do have a good setter, just because they have three really good hitters who can unleash unload on the ball at almost any point in the match. So it is important to have a setter who can, you know, set them up well, to attack on the ball. And that’s one thing that I think if she continues to play steady like she has been, then I’m sure McCutcheon will kind of continue to give her that opportunity. If they feel like they can improve with other players too. Or if they feel like they need to do what they did against Michigan State subs and players out bring in some new players and kind of get some rest and have some new faces in there. They might do that as well.

O’HARA: And her height at the net to definitely presents, it’s going to be tough for teams to try to shoot over her and Regan Pittman with that with that height at the front of the net, some tough defense there for sure. And then, you know, you have also brought up Taylor Landfair who, No. 1 overall recruit. And she’s kind of taking the role that like Alexis Hart had last season kind of filling that spot as an outside hitter. What have you seen from her in these first four matches and how she’s been playing?

O’BRIEN: She’s been playing really well; I think there’s been only one match where she hasn’t gotten at least eight or nine kills. And she played really well in her opener. And then I believe one of the Friday, Saturday matches against Maryland, she actually led the team and kills you talk about height and difficulty at the net. She’s not, she’s only fourth on the team and blocks, but she’s 6-5. So she’s going to be somewhat of a problem defensively to what was really interesting. Talking with McCutcheon, after the wins at Maryland, he said she’s obviously incredibly talented, but she has so much capacity to learn more about how to improve just as a volleyball player. So, it really helps again, adding that third person that can really add power with some of their swings, in addition to Rollins and Samedy, but she also just adds another element on the court, and she’s really young. So obviously she could this week could just be seen the start of something that could be a really great career for the next three years.

O’HARA: Right. Yeah, three more years after this. So definitely can see, see what kind of trajectory that we’re that goes after this this season. And you know, it’s going really well this year, like you said, you know, four games in, four wins, haven’t dropped a set. And you did mention, you know, there are some tight sets, there where McCutcheon subbed some players in and, but they’ve managed to come back in every single one of them, I guess how would you assess overall, the team’s performance so far and kind of that like resiliency to be able to come back from some tight sets early here in the year?

O’BRIEN: Well, I think the most important point would be what you just kind of said at the end of the resilience, resiliency to do well, in some of these sets where things aren’t going well, they kind of pull it out towards the end. The one thing that I thought was interesting, talking with Melani Shaffmaster earlier this week was that she thought that one thing that the team has talked about and could improve upon throughout the season is bringing a little bit more of their own energy, just because they’re playing in empty pavilions across the country this season. So, that’s one thing that I think it still shows a lot about how talented this group is. Because the one thing that was interesting in their first couple of matches against Michigan State was that throughout most of those sets, Minnesota was leading, but Michigan State definitely had a much higher energy level. So it’ll be interesting to notice how those that changes throughout the next few matches.

The other thing, that’s where it’ll be a little bit more important to view not that Michigan State or Maryland aren’t good opponents, but the next four weeks for Minnesota are really going to be a good measuring stick for how talented this team is and how far this team could go in postseason play. Because this weekend, they’re going to be playing at Purdue who’s ranked No. 13 in the country, then they’ll host Penn State who’s No. 9 in the country. They’ll travel to Lincoln to play No. 4 Nebraska and then they’ll host No. 23 Michigan so obviously, four straight ranked opponents will be a little bit of a higher test for this team. And it’ll be interesting to see if they can actually fall in some of those sets early on and then battle their way back like they have in the first four matches.

O’HARA: Yeah, it’s definitely, the Big Ten is not an easy conference for volleyball. I remember talking to McCutcheon last year, and you know, this is last year. So there was non-conference games in this non-COVID season. But, you know, the non-conference games were tough, tough. They’re playing Texas and Florida and Stanford right off the bat. And I remember asking him about that tough non-conference schedule. And he’s, he just said, ‘You know, we’re going to be playing good teams all year long. So we might as well play good teams in non-conference play,’ you know, as opposed to what you can see in in basketball and football sometimes, um, but yeah, it’s definitely going to be a fun group to watch, especially against these tough teams coming up. And you know, a lot of this core this team is still returners with Stephanie Samedy. You know, Regan, Pittman, C.C. McGraw, Adanna Rollins, I mean, how have they been playing? And how have they been kind of helping these younger players adjust to these new roles on the team?

O’BRIEN: I think just having a lot of veteran leadership just makes it easier one, because a player like Landfair, who is coming in as the No. 1 recruit as a freshman, maybe she goes to a different program. And she starts immediately, whereas she comes to Minnesota, and now she’s not starting, she’s played in most of if not all of the sets this year, but she’s not starting, she’s rotating in and out quite a bit. So, I think it obviously helps in that regard for the players to still kind of also sit back and learn from some of these veterans. As far as Samedy and Rollins, it’s just clear, like how much power they have and their swings. There’s I think there were, Samedy made a couple of plays against Maryland where she had just incredible kills from the back row, which just says a lot about her as a player. They both contribute on defense. Rollins against Maryland had a nice little service streak against Maryland, and I believe Friday night maybe it was Saturday, but so obviously she’s gotten good there early on in the season. And then we’re just talking about the veterans in general, C.C. McGraw and Regan Pittman.

Obviously, add to that to McGraw what’s most impressive, and just jumps out watching her is just some of these rally saving digs that she’ll make. Sometimes she’ll just make them with one hand to where she’ll just kind of pop, those will dig a ball out with just one hand and just it’ll go flying in the air. And maybe they didn’t, you know, end up getting the point. But it just kind of saves the rally and I think brings a little bit more of that energy knowing that you have a player who’s willing to get on the ground and do something like that. And then Pittman, I don’t know if the stat sheet yet really highlights how good of a player she is. But she I mean, the one thing that it does highlight is she’s doing a lot of different things on the court, whether it’s getting some blocks with incoming middle blocker, Katie Myers, but I think she’s going to be a player within the next few weeks, you’re really going to see that she is just another one of these really talented players on the team.

O’HARA: Right. Yeah. And it’s got to be different for all these players kind of adjusting to this this COVID season where I mean, I guess you did get longer to prepare, but who knows what that looked like, you know, if they, how much they were really able to do. And you know, some teams had played this fall a little bit too. So that’s kind of all over the place. And, you know, talk about some of McGraw’s digs, I don’t know how many games I’ve watched last year, it’s like I have no idea how she got that because there’s some you just are just have no idea how anybody could get under them. But yeah, I wanted to ask about Adanna Rollins, too, because she — toward the end of last season — was playing really well. She’d been playing well all season, but at the end of last year, she really had stepped up and made some big plays and some of those playoff matches. Has she continued to improve there and kind of what she brought to the team in terms of her leadership?

O’BRIEN: I definitely think she has improved just from the standpoint of she’s been very consistent with how many kills she’s getting each match. She’s also providing a spark on defense. McGraw obviously leads the team and digs like we just talked about, but she second on the team so she’s obviously willing to get you know in on that and one thing that I kind of touched on too was, you know, I guess it’s hard to tell if it’s kind of a fluke II thing against the team. Or if it’s something that I know that talking with them after Saturday’s match against Maryland, I asked her and McCutcheon if serving was just something that they thought they could exploit against Maryland, or if it’s something they’ve been working on. And Adanna was a big part of that in the first hour in the second match, rather, having like four or five, service aces and had a streak of three during it. So I think overall, there are definitely those areas where, you know, who knows if the service aces will continue, but if she still keeps working on it, that would be a big key for the Gophers. And then on top of it, if she can continue to just really stay consistent as far as attacking the ball, then I think that’s going to just add a whole other element that other teams are going to have to try to figure out.

O’HARA: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the more hitters you have, the harder you are to stop, so it’s going to be fun to watch this team throughout the rest of this year. And coming up, you know, we got a couple games this weekend, they’ll be playing Purdue, a team that the Gophers beat twice last season pretty easily, I think 3-0, 3-1. But you know, Purdue is a good team and ranked like you said, ranked No. 13. I guess what expectations do you have for this weekend? And what do you think about Purdue’s team? And what they might be able to do against the Gophers?

O’BRIEN: Yeah, I mean, it is early still in the season to know, now this team still is ranked in the top-25 as they were in the preseason, they had dropped two matches, I think they got swept both times by Wisconsin, but then they bounced right back, and they swept Iowa in two matches. Look, if you just looked at the individual statistics, and for Purdue and compare them to Minnesota, they look somewhat similar to a lot of the other Gophers. But they really where the Gophers are noticeably better are in key statistics like attack percentage, aces, digs and blocks. So I’ll be interested to kind of just watch and see if Minnesota was able to kind of continue that or now if they’re playing a little bit of a, again, not saying that Michigan State or Maryland aren’t tough opponents, but they also weren’t ranked in the top-25 or top-15. One thing that we had talked about before our recording was Grace Cleveland, I believe you said, and so she’s one of Purdue’s players to look out for obviously. But I still think that with the Gophers talent, it’s still going to be something tough to handle, even on the road.

O’HARA: Yeah, I think it’ll be a good kind of first test to see kind of exactly where they are, you know, how much of a struggle it will be to get through these sets. You know, obviously, I expect the Gophers to kind of come out with a couple wins here. But it’ll be interesting to see, like exactly how much they are challenged and how they respond to it. And I guess from your perspective, do you have any kind of predictions for these matches upcoming this weekend? And is there anybody from the Gophers you think we should watch, anybody who you think could have a breakout couple matches?

O’BRIEN: I wouldn’t be surprised if this weekend, their winning streak of not matches, but sets rather, comes to an end, even though they’ve won all 12 of the sets they’ve played in thus far. I wouldn’t be surprised if maybe they drop one just because of the competition that they are playing this weekend. I would still assume that they have two victories, but you never know, obviously, with travel, and things like that. I would say overall, the player to keep an eye out for would kind of be Regan Pittman, just because I think you know, she, again, the stat sheet necessarily hasn’t been she hasn’t been lighting it up in one particular category. But I think at some point that she’s going to, you know, have a match where she’s going to look really dominant, just because of how she’s played throughout her career in Minnesota.

O’HARA: For sure, yeah. And, you know, you look at like, Purdue’s losses coming to Wisconsin. I mean, there’s, there’s no shame in that, Wisconsin was another Final Four team last year, and they were they’re a tough team for sure. So that’ll be another team to watch out for later in the season. Well, but overall, I think that’s, I think that’s everything we had for today. I appreciate you joining. It’s been good to chat a little bit about the volleyball team. We’ll have to have you on here soon. Maybe a little bit later in the season. We can talk some more volleyball.

O’BRIEN: Yeah, of course. Thanks, Nolan.

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O’HARA: In other news: The Gophers women’s basketball team lost 94-68 to the Iowa Hawkeyes, ending what was a three-game winning streak for the game. They will look to bounce back on Sunday when they take on Ohio State. After a 20-goal series against Arizona State, the Gophers men’s hockey team continued its hot streak, scoring 10 goals and earning the sweep in last weekend’s series against Ohio State. This Friday and Saturday, the Gophers will look to continue the streak against border rival Wisconsin, when they take on the Badgers at Mariucci. The Gophers women’s hockey team will also be taking on their border rivals this Friday and Saturday at Ridder Arena. No. 2 Minnesota will look to knock off the No. 1 Wisconsin Badgers in this No. 1 versus No. 2 matchup. The Gophers wrestling team will be back in action on Friday against Illinois. Coming off dual wins against Purdue and Rutgers, the Gophers are 4-2 this season in duals and will look to keep some momentum going against the Illini. That’s all for this week. Be sure to check our website mndaily.com for more extensive coverage and tune in again next week to get the “Weekly Rundown” on all things Gopher sports. Thanks.

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NOLAN O’HARA: Welcome back to another episode of the “Weekly Rundown,” presented by the Minnesota Daily. I’m your host Nolan O’Hara. Last week, we were back for the first time in a while and we’re fortunate enough to discuss the Gophers men’s basketball team. Glad to be back and hopefully here on a more regular basis. And we have some more basketball to talk about again this week. So I’m back with AJ Condon, who writes about the basketball team here at The Daily. How’s it going, AJ?

AJ CONDON: It’s going great. Always a pleasure to be on here with you. So I’m looking forward to it.

O’HARA: It’s always good. Always good to have you here. So, so glad we can talk some more, some more basketball here this week and want to kick things off obviously talking about the loss to Maryland this last week. It was their first home loss of the season, oddly enough, and but before we get too much into it, I just want to ask kind of what was your opinion watching this game? Were you surprised by any of the struggles against Maryland?

CONDON: Yeah, I was actually, well, if you listened to last week, I was hoping for a double-digit win. It’s kind of the opposite. So um, it was kind of surprised with how Maryland came out with their starting five, the one with more of a smaller, starting five given their guards still are bigger than our guard. So they did go they did come out with four guards and then down to Danta Scott at the five. And I really thought that was going to play to the Gophers’ advantage with having Robbins having about three and a half inches on Scott. But instead it worked out to Maryland’s favor. They were shadowing him in the paint when he didn’t have the ball. And right when he gets the ball, they come and double him.

I believe he had like those first two points of the game, ended up getting a free throw later in the half and then went scoreless pretty much until you hit a three in the second half. So I was really surprised that the Gophers weren’t able to get Robbins more involved. He did go into that foul trouble again, like we’ve seen in the earlier part of the season. And the second half, I think was mostly frustration from just not getting the ball, watching the first half not really going his way. He picked up three fouls in three minutes. So that was a letdown there. And then yeah, I just was surprised by how we played offensively and the height on the guards for our defensive side. Ayala was just he was pretty much scoring at will. And him and Danta Scott really just ran the game for the Terps.

O’HARA: Yeah, it was a little bit surprising to see them just kind of come out, you know, got down at halftime and it really didn’t get much better for the Gophers after that. And you know, one of the biggest things they struggled with was shooting I mean, I think everybody watching that game just you know, brick after brick. And I think if I remember correctly Kalscheur and Gach combined to go 0-10 which is certainly not ideal, but even the rest of the team outside of Carr wasn’t shooting at a high clip by any means. And you know, you talked about what Pitino had been saying with the team last week where he’d been saying, ‘if you’re the worst three-point shooting team you shouldn’t be taking the most attempts.’ Um, but you know, I read Chip Scoggins, from the Star Tribune, his column this last week and saw some numbers that kind of stood out and the Gophers are 295th in three-point shooting percentage but they shoot the ball 23rd most from three in the country.

What’s the strategy here? Is this like something Pitino is trying to encourage his team not to do or is it? I mean, where are they with this? Why do they kind of keep continuing to shoot the three if that’s clearly not the strength of this team right now? 

CONDON: Yeah, I mean, it’s definitely a question that I asked myself, game after game. And I think part of it is that teams are just giving them open looks because they know they’re not going to hit them. Going back to this Maryland game they shot 21.7% from the three and in my story that I wrote about their home verse way I really noticed not even just differentiate home away but just game after game. They’re shooting under 30% from three so teams are going to keep letting them shoot that until the Gophers can figure it out. And given they did figure out that one game, it’s Iowa that’s one game. So I mean, teams are going to keep doing that.

I think Gabe is still trying to just get back to that freshman form because we know how good he was freshman year and I think he knows he is able to get back to there. So he’s going to keep shooting the three and Pitino. I’ve said this countless times, he’s fine with Gabe on his offense. He’s fine to keep shooting because of what he brings on defense. So I don’t think I don’t think Gabe is going to change anything in this game. I think he’s still going to keep shooting it. Like you said last game. Gach and Gabe combined 0-10, they scored two points total both at a free throw. And the Gophers really didn’t get any offense outside of Carr, so Carr is one of those guys that is able to hit the three that when he’s feeling it, but there’s got to be some other options besides just that because if he’s not going to play well, the Gophers seem to just fall and crumble. And that’s pretty much it.

O’HARA: Right? It seems like with Carr, it’s kind of this this conundrum because he’s, he’s really the only one who consistently make three-point shots. And he’s also the only one who seems to attack the basket when they need to get something going. So whenever there’s like, you know, some anything going wrong on the offense, it seems like I’ll fall on his shoulders, which is not what Pitino wants, as he said, he’s like, we can’t go out there and expect Marcus to score 30 points every single night. And you know, you mentioned the home the home-away article that you just wrote that’ll be out at the same time as this podcast. Yeah, they’re 0-4 on the road, 11-1 at home. But Maryland here, this was their first home loss. And it looked like the losses we’ve seen on the road where they’re just outplayed. They’re shooting poorly. Not a lot going right. Is it, after seeing that is it more so, do you have the same view that it’s this home-away deal? Or do you think that this is kind of a team that’s either really good or really bad and it doesn’t really matter the venue?

CONDON: Yeah, so that last kind of took away from what my article is going to be about, because I was really hoping they’d win. So it could help my point in the article, right. But yeah, it really does seem like this team is either really good, or really bad. And when they’re losing their games, they are shooting around like 32% a game. And that’s not going to win you games. And so after that Maryland game, we saw that it’s not just because they’re playing on the road, they are either a team that shows up or a team that does not, and on Saturday did not show up, and they’re going to have some games coming up, where they’re going to have to show up, whether it’s at home, or whether it’s on the road, if they want to continue to be ranked in the top-25 and show that to the committee that they’re a high enough ranked team going into the tournament, so they really do need to figure out what is the issue between playing really bad and really good, because you just need to find that middle ground, you don’t have to play amazing every game. But if you’re going to find the middle ground, at least these losses won’t be by double digits, which all of them have been. So that’s what they really got to figure out.

O’HARA: Right? You look at their 11 wins. They look like they could possibly be a top-10 team. And then in their five losses, they look like they belong nowhere near the tournament. So it’s it really is that kind of bizarre arm. Yeah, they’re just they’re just really good or really bad. And they’ve been worse on the road for sure. And then overall, I mean, we’re 16 games into the season here. Do you have any kind of big thoughts, big, big reservations about this team? Is there anything we’ve learned through the 16 games specifically? And in this Maryland game?

CONDON: Yeah, I mean, like we talked about before, it’s the question I have as team is who can consistently provide outside of Carr and that we’ve seen stuff from Robbins early in the season, we’ve seen stuff from Both, but who can consistently do it. We’re getting Jamal Mashburn, coming off the bench. And last game, he was a great spark in the first half, he had nine points after that didn’t score for the rest of the game. So I keep going back to consistency, because Carr’s the only one that seems to have it, but I’m pretty sure there’s other players on this team that are capable of it.

So that’s a question I’m going to be looking at for the final 10, maybe 11 games that Nebraska game gets rescheduled, we’re going to be looking at who can step up consistently, and who’s going to be able to help out Carr and take some pressure off him. Like we talked about that three-point shooting, either try to fix it, which I’m assuming they are trying to do that in practice, or just stop shooting it because what was it 297th ranked 295th ranked, you’re not going to win games by shooting the 23rd most when you’re ranked that low. So either figure it out or stop shooting it and just attack the rim, we see Carr can do it. Gabe can do it. Both can do it. And even Liam inside of the paint, there’s guys that can score the rim. So I don’t know why they’re relying so much on the three-point shot when it’s not when it’s not there.

O’HARA: Right, I was just kind of thinking to wasn’t one thing, it’s kind of reminiscent for me is a couple years ago with the with Jordan Murphy and Amir Coffey, it was you know, because Murphy can’t do it all on his own and Coffey was basically, if he if he wasn’t flowing, then the offense was really stagnant because they can just double Murphy and it’s kind of reminiscent to me like looking at that and seeing kind of the offense now with Carr where it’s really he’s in command of the offense. It seems like the Gophers always seem to have a good point guard. I mean, you look at Nate Mason too even before it always seemed like a good point guard that can run the offense, but it’s kind of all run through them. And when they’re not flowing, then the team is struggling.

CONDON: It’s funny because last time with Murphy and Coffey was like it was the big guy that the gophers rely on and now it’s their point guard that they’re relying on. And it was a mirror that if he was on the Gopher, Liam on the Gophers are even better. So hopefully they can figure that out. And hopefully, even if it’s not this year, there’s a lot of returning players next year, and they’re just going to have more and more time to play together. More and more time to gain chemistry. So just because it’s not happening this year, there’s still the future of this team. It’s not like it’s like a win or bust. 

O’HARA: Right for sure. And I mean, looking towards this year here next week, this weekend, we got Purdue, the Gophers have Purdue. Boilermakers have a strong front court with Zach Edey and Trevion Williams. I mean, how do you think the Gophers match up with those two bigs and what kind of looks do you expect from the Gophers defensively trying to slow down those two big men?

CONDON: Yeah, so this game is definitely a struggle for the Gophers. I don’t really expect much differently from the defensive side, given they haven’t really switched up much besides when they played Iowa and Garza. Obviously, he’s one of the best bigs in the nation. So you have to change up your defensive outlook on that, but I really don’t expect that much different. Unless he does on the court. I mean, he’s seven-foot-four freshman. And there’s not many guys in this conference level in the league that are taller than Robbins, he is one of them. So I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Gophers start doubling Edey when he gets the ball inside and just, he’s a freshman. He’s still young, just make him uncomfortable and they’re making him uncomfortable the paint, he’s not going to shoot the ball on you. So let them pass out.

I do worry about their shooters a little. Jaden Ivey is a freshman; he’s been impressive in their wins this year. And then Sasha Stefanovic, he’s a good three-point shooter, I believe he’s shooting around 45%. So those are guys that you are going to have to look out for. If you’re going to be doubling Edey when he’s inside, you’re going to have to look out for those shooters. And like you said, Trevion Williams, he is he’s a great big for Purdue. He won co-Big Ten player of the week with Liam a few weeks back. He’s been outstanding this year, and he’s going to definitely give Robbins a tough time when he’s in the paint. He’s, I think two inches shorter than him. But he moves very well. And that’s going to be a struggle for Robbins to be able to move his feet and not get into foul trouble. Because if he gets in foul trouble, having the guys come off the bench, and then when he comes having them try to guard Edey is going to be a problem for the Gophers.

O’HARA: Yeah, I wanted to ask about the foul trouble, because like you brought up earlier, you know, it reappeared last week. And that costs the Gophers for sure. And playing against these bigs, I mean, is he going to be able to stay out of foul trouble and just kind of more generally, how does he match up with Edey and Williams?

CONDON: Yeah, so what we saw last week, I think, was very uncharacteristic. It looked more like the first few games of the season when he’s fouling out of frustration, and not because he did on his feet. So and those last three fouls or middle three fouls that came at the beginning of the second half. I think they were just very uncharacteristic, like I said, I don’t think that’s something we have to go back into that he’s going to start getting to foul trouble again, I think that was a one-time thing. He knows that he can’t do that. He’s one of our best players. We need him on the court, especially in the game against Purdue, he’s going to be needed on the on the court. So, Pitino has got to talk to him. And he’s a junior, he knows that this is stuff that he can continuously do. Or else he’s going to hurt the team, and he’s going to lose playing time. So I fully expect him to come back. It is going to be tough, though, against Williams against Edey. But I do think he’ll come back and he’ll he will be able to guard those two without any foul trouble. I don’t know how well, those two are going to play. I just I’m pretty confident he will not find himself in foul trouble.

O’HARA: Right. And like you said, they definitely need them out there. Because there’s not too many guys taller than him. And Edey is one of them. And they have no height, I mean, otherwise to match up. It would be they need Curry to step up big time in that case, and he’d be playing a lot of minutes that he hasn’t, hasn’t played this year. And then you mentioned Purdue’s guards a little bit. And some of the things that they can do for the Gophers? Should they be as focused on those guys? Or should they really be focused on Edey and Williams and if they can contain them, then just kind of let the damage fall as it may with Purdue’s guards?

CONDON: Yeah, I mean, Trevion Williams is definitely the guy to worry about on that team. I think the first thought is to you have to stop him and kind of make Purdue and other ways. And I think teams had that same thought about Minnesota. You stop caring you stop Robbins lead, Minnesota and other ways. And for Minnesota, we haven’t seen that really happen so far. But going into this game, I think that’s what Pitino, Minnesota has to do is stop Trevion Williams. And obviously don’t let stuff out of it, shoot threes, but let the other guards be used. So I think the main attack is stopping Trevion inside. And obviously not having Liam get into foul trouble.

O’HARA: For sure. Yeah. And, you know, aside from that, what are some other things that would be key for the Gophers to do to come up with the win and Is there anyone you think for Minnesota needs to really step up? And then I guess lastly, are there any predictions you have for this game? Thoughts on the score? Who wins, anything to expect?

CONDON: Yes, I said the same thing last week but get Liam Robbins the ball. If he is not in the court. Like I said he’s going to have two inches on Williams. So get Robbins the ball in the paint, let him let him get going early, he got the first two points last week, and then he just wasn’t getting the touches the rest of the first half, and then foul trouble happened. And he’s pretty much just not in the game. So let them get the ball, even let him shoot the three, he is one of the other people on the team that I’m fine with him shooting the three, he’s shown that he can hit the shot. And that just opens up the court more we talked about last week having Gabe be that guy. But even if Robbins can do it too, and bigs are going to have to come out to him. And he’s agile enough to be able to put the ball in the court and get to the rim. So I think he’s going to be a big part in this game. Also, Both and Gabe need to defend those guards. Well, I’m not going to expect much from them on offense, just because I think that’s asking more than… 

O’HARA: That’s just the way it’s been like, yeah.

CONDON: Yeah. And then obviously, Carr’s got to be good. Not just scoring, though, but facilitating and giving the ball to other players. Brandon Johnson needs to step up a little Eric Curry, even a guy like Jamal Mashburn. I mean, he’s coming off the bench. And sometimes he’s 1-10. But other times he gives the team such a good spark. And his full court press is one of my favorite things about this team. Every time it comes in. He’s the lone guy pressing, and it just slows down the other team’s offense, gives him another look. So I’m really looking forward to see how he continues to better himself this year, personally, and as a team player. So those are the guys I’m going to be looking for. And this upcoming game to try to get that first road win against Purdue.

O’HARA: For sure. Do you think they do you think they’ll come out with their first road win here?

CONDON: I think they do. And the only reason I say that is because they have to do it some point. And I’m just hoping that this will be the first one and it kind of sparks the team and turns them around. We’ve seen them struggle after losses. But we’ve also seen them come back this year. And I think this is a game where they’re able to come back and show that they’re not just going to fall out.

O’HARA: Right. I think they’re bound for a road win at some point. They can’t lose every game on the road. I don’t expect and I think coming off that Maryland’s loss, I think the team will be energized. I think Pitino will be having them focused on a win. And I think they should be able to beat a pretty decent Purdue team. But certainly not one of the best teams in the Big Ten.

CONDON: Yeah, no reason to overlook this team at all. I mean, they’re actually above the Gophers in the Big Ten standings. So they’re solid team, and they’re playing at home, which obviously is never an easy thing given there are no fans, or at least not as many fans as usual. But this definitely should be a game that they’re able to win. It just depends if they do.

O’HARA: Right. And you know, just like last week to Maryland was a game, they certainly should have been able to win; Maryland showed that they were capable team previously. And they may have overlooked them a little bit. So I don’t expect the Gophers to overlook this Purdue team. But it should be a good game. I’m excited. 

CONDON: Yeah, it’ll be a fun one. I kind of wish I was there. But it’s an away game. And we’ll get them we’ll get them here. So Oh, actually, no, we don’t so Oh, we do we do have them February 11. 

O’HARA: So you’d be able to watch them at the Barn. 

CONDON: Exactly. 

O’HARA: For sure. Those Minnesota-Purdue games are always are always really fun to watch. So it should be an exciting one this weekend.

CONDON: It really should. I just hope that at some point, the Barn can start getting fans in there. Because there’s been a few games obviously this year where fans were in the Barn. For those upset wins. I can’t even imagine how excited the fans and students on this campus would be so really hoping that at some point, maybe not this year, but in the near future that the Barn can be packed together and everyone can experience these wins together.

O’HARA: Right. Yeah, that that Iowa game would have been nuts and hopeful for this vaccine rollout and can get back to it and get the Barn the way it should be with loud with lots of fans.

CONDON: Exactly. 

O’HARA: I think that’s it, I think we hit everything here today. Thank you for joining and, and we will be talking again soon for sure. 

CONDON: Yeah, as always, thanks for having me.

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O’HARA: In other news: The Gophers women’s basketball team won its game on Thursday against Purdue 77-72. Sara Scalia led the team with 30 points while Kadi Sissoko added 17 and five rebounds. After struggling in the beginning of conference play, the Gophers have now rattled off three straight wins to move to 5-7 on the season. 

Both the Gophers men’s and women’s hockey teams take on Ohio State this weekend. The men’s team bounced back last weekend for a 20-goal sweep over Arizona State after getting swept to the week previous to Notre Dame, while the women’s team hasn’t played since about swept by Wisconsin on Jan. 16-17. When the Gophers women’s team takes the ice this weekend, it’ll be the No. 2 Gophers versus the No. 3 Buckeyes. 

If you’re missing Gophers football, you can catch two former Gophers, Antoine Winfield Jr. and Tyler Johnson in the Super Bowl on Feb. 2 with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as they take on the Kansas City Chiefs. 

That’s all for this week. Be sure to check our website mndaily.com for more extensive coverage and tune in again next week to get the “Weekly Rundown” on all things Gopher sports. 

NOLAN O’HARA: Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the “Weekly Rundown presented by the Minnesota Daily. I’m your host Nolan O’Hara. It’s certainly been a while since our last podcast due to some unfortunate circumstances, but I’m glad to be back here in the studio and talk about the Gophers men’s basketball team. So, today I’m here with our basketball beat reporter AJ Condon. AJ, how’s it going?

AJ CONDON: Nolan, it’s going great. Had a good first week of classes and excited to be here. It has been alive and done this since like one of the first weeks of school with a football team. So, yeah, it’s good to be back.

O’HARA: It’s yeah, it’s been a little bit of a hiatus. So I’m glad to be back here in the podcast studio at the Daily and even in the middle of the first week of classes. And, you know, this is a fun team to talk about here. And there’s a lot to discuss because we’re already 15 games into the season. The Gophers right now they’re 17th in the nation. They’re 11-4, 4-4 in the conference. They have a couple of pretty impressive wins, most impressive is Iowa on Christmas day and then Michigan just a couple of weeks ago. And they have an additional pair of ranked victories to go along with that, all four of their Big Ten victories were ranked opponents; this is just the way the conference has been. And they’re kind of where they are right now, in large part because the roster looks a lot different than it did last year. And the three transfers, Liam Robbins, Both Gach and Brandon Johnson are a reason why, they’ve all played a huge part in what the Gophers are trying to do this year. I mean, AJ, what have you just seen from them? And like, how would you assess their progression from where they started basically – with no training camp – to where they are now as the Gophers are 11-4?

CONDON: Yeah, I mean, you said it not having the training camp, unconventional preseason made it really hard, because it’s not just these three transfers, three new freshmen too now. But just having five new guys on the team made it really hard without having any sort of preseason. And you saw that a little with these early with these early games, especially with Liam Robbins. Right? 

O’HARA: Foul trouble.

CONDON: Yeah, foul trouble. You have a seven-foot guy coming from Drake coming to the Big Ten. We know how the Big Ten plays, it’s aggressive. So those first few games Robbins was dealing with that foul trouble, he was getting two fouls early, saw the bench of the rest of the first half. And he wasn’t able to really get comfortable with the team. But then we got into conference play. And he got put up right against Kofi Cockburn and Luka Garza. And I think it was the two best bigs like in the conference for sure. And even in the even the whole league. So those were two big contests that he got to go up to right away. And he played pretty solid with them. And that kind of showed what he was capable of. And we’ve seen in the past few games. He’s playing outstanding right now he’s playing as our number two guy. And that’s exactly what they need. Both, he’s kind of transitioned downwards on the offense side, but upwards on the defensive side. He’s kind of disappeared from the scoring part of the stat sheet, but not entirely disappeared from the stat sheet. [He’s] still moving the ball really well on offense. He’s able to get assists, and he’s still our number two defender, which Pitino likes to say about Gabe, that it doesn’t matter about his offense as long as he’s contributed on the defensive end, which him and Gabe both do very well. You know, doesn’t really care about that offense, because we have, they have Liam Robbins, they have Marcus Carr and like Brandon Johnson off the bench. He was incredible in that OT win. 

O’HARA: He was just hitting everything from three, he couldn’t miss. 

CONDON: Lights out, I think it was like eight or nine for four and overtime. So he’s provided really good minutes on the bench and even when he starts to so all three of those guys are big reason of why the Gophers sit at 11-4 right now.

O’HARA: For sure. And yeah, like you mentioned with Robbins, I mean going up against Garza and Kofi right away. I mean, Garza is probably the best big I mean, for sure in the conference, probably in the country. I mean, that’s a that’s a tough way to jump in, especially transferring right away to a power five. And, you know, that’s kind of a good segue into just the Big Ten conference as a whole right now. I mean, looking at the rankings, six Big Ten teams in the top-25; three are in the top-10 with Wisconsin, Iowa and Michigan. And you know, you’re looking at that and the Gophers are 4-4 in conference play, they beat three of the top-25 teams here. You know, looking at it this 4-4 record, I mean, is that a win for this team? You know, you’d like to see better but just looking at their schedule, they played Iowa and Michigan twice, they had Wisconsin; they could almost as easily be 0-8 right now in the conference.

CONDON: Yeah, I mean, you said it perfectly. This, I think it is a huge win being 4-4, especially with the games that they have won, and I even throw out the 5-4 when you add Saint Louis, they’re a top-25 team. That’s it. That’s a huge win for them to even go to 5-4 in those first nine games. Obviously, Saint Louis isn’t the conference game, but I think where they’re at right now is a huge win. Looking at how good this conference is, at one point, there were eight ranked teams. I mean, this conference is deep. And it’s being shown across the across the conference. ranked teams are losing unranked teams. And Minnesota has now beaten two top-10 teams. So, it’s been pretty impressive. They have shown though, that and we probably will get to this more later, but their home and away is very different. So that’s why I think they’re sitting right around where they should be at this middle of the ranked team, they aren’t a top-10 team until they can prove that they can play on the road, and their schedule is going to get a little easier. So, this is the time where they need to show that they can play on the road. Because once you get to the tournament, Big Ten’s and NCAA’s, you’re not playing in the Barn anymore. So, we’re, they’re going to have to figure that out. And there’s no fans. So I’m very confused to see how different these this team can be. When there’s not fans cheering, cheering against them. So once they figure that out, that’s when we can really see what team this is, how deep of a run they’re going to make Big Ten tournament and in the NCAA tournament.

O’HARA: It is really puzzling. The no fans and for whatever reason, yeah, they’re world beaters at home, they can’t win on the road. But like even in the conference play, I mean, from the beginning of conference play, they went 7-0 in the nonconference, you know, they got a good chunk of nonconference games, even in this pandemic season. And then first conference game against Illinois they did they didn’t look good. I mean, how much of a progression have you seen just since the start a conference play to now? 

CONDON: You have seen a lot. Those first few games, Marcus Carr was huge. Even though those nonconference games Marcus Carr was huge, he was dropping 25-30 points, and the team was kind of relying on him to get those points so they could win. And then once you get into Big Ten play, teams have seen how the Gophers play, they’re able to adjust, they’re able to, they can stop Marcus Carr, what Illinois did, they can win games. So what the Gophers pretty much did is they were able to get scores from other from other guys you saw with Brandon Johnson against Iowa, you’re seeing that from Liam Robins putting up 22 points on that game against Michigan. So what I’ve really seen from them is they’re able to get points elsewhere. And Marcus Carr still contributing. He’s not scoring 25-30 points, but he’s getting assists. He’s getting rebounds, he’s getting steals. So I think this whole team is just meshing together a lot better early. And I think that comes in big part because they’re all living together, too. They’re getting that off-court chemistry when they’re not practicing when that plane, I think that helps a lot. And they’re meshing really well together. And they’re playing like a real team.

O’HARA: Absolutely. Yeah, and I’m glad you brought up Marcus Carr too, because, you know, obviously can’t talk about this team without talking about Marcus Carr. And looking at his play, like you said, the beginning of the year, those nonconference games especially he was scoring, you know, going out there, scoring 30 points; he was doing everything for the team. And you could say it’s cooled off, but like you said, we also have seen some improvement from other players on the offensive end. I mean, as far as Marcus Carr, I mean, he’s definitely improved from last season. And I know Pitino doesn’t want him going out there and scoring 30 points to win a game because he said that on multiple occasions, I guess how would you assess his season even though it’s not quite the electrifying start that we saw in those nonconference games? 

CONDON: Yeah. So, what I see is that, like I said earlier, these teams are adjusting to guard Marcus Carr better because he is one of the better guards in this league. So what I really like to see about him is he’s so aggressive, whether he’s shooting 0-7, or he’s 5-7, he won’t go away from his shot. And my favorite thing about him is he’s able to create his own shot, he’s able to drive to the rim. He’s one of the best finishers I’ve seen in person, at least this year. He’s just really relentless at the rim, he’ll go to the rim, he’ll get one-on-one and the motion he shows he gets his team really fired up, with Jarvis Omersa opting out of the rest of season, he was their quote-unquote, hype guy. And they’ve kind of, they haven’t had that guy. They don’t have the handshake guy at the end of the games. But Marcus Carr is able to bring this team up and get them energized on any single play. His defense, has, he still has his breakdowns, but he can make steal on the play and him and Both run in the open court off in transition. So he’s been a very big part, even if he’s not scoring.

O’HARA: Right, for sure. Yeah, and I mean, the last few games in particular, you’ve seen Pitino, he’s like, “we can’t go out here and expect Marcus to score 30 and bail us out.” I mean, he’s been pretty adamant on that, and looking at the rest of the offense, you know, like you said, we’ve seen some more improvement from Robbins, he’s been contributing. One person who’s continued to struggle, Gabe Kalscheur; his shot is just from freshman year where it was, I mean, he was he was the team’s best three-point shooter and in the last two years, it’s really fell off. Like you said, you know, Pitino isn’t super worried, you know, because of his play on defense. But at what point is this this shooting become a concern, and has Pitino said what they’re trying to do to kind of fix it? I don’t know. Is there a way to fix his shot?

CONDON: Yeah, I mean, like you said from freshman year, he was such a good shooter and we saw that last year, with him, sophomore year struggles, and now he’s struggling again junior year. And I’ve tried to get it out of Pitino. I’ve asked him at least two, maybe three times, and he gives me the same answer every time. And that’s he doesn’t care about Kalscheur’s offense with the winning plays he makes on defense, and he brings up these winning plays, he gets charges, he creates steals and they are late in games. So when he’s shooting 1-4 from three, even 3-10, those aren’t the best offensive outings, obviously. But what Gabe brings on the defensive side outweighs it 10 times over. So hopefully, there is a thing that Gabe can get in, whenever he puts up a shot I think, “If this one goes in, he’ll get hot,” and if he does get hot, I mean, this team is going to just improve so much if he can find a shot. But again, defense is huge. Pitino calls him the best perimeter defender, and he’s right about it. So I think if he can just keep playing defense, hopefully this defense can work into offense and vice versa. 

O’HARA: So, right for sure. I mean, looking at it, too. It’s like looking at this team. I mean, what kind of element do you think that would bring too, because it’s like you got Carr on the outside, Both can shoot, you know, we saw Brandon Johnson on Christmas Day; if Kalscheur could get his shot going, I mean, what could that that mean for this office? Really being able to spread the floor.

CONDON: Yeah, I mean, Pitino had a pretty funny quote, I think it was after last game, he said something around the lines of, “If you’re the worst shooting team, you shouldn’t be leading in three-point attempts.” So, I think that is the one thing this team’s missing is having a three-point shot. And if you’re able to spread the court more that’s just going to open up inside for Liam Robbins and we’ve already seen an improved more. And if you can get less double teams and just more one on one play, especially in these games upcoming when he doesn’t have guys like Garza and Kofi Cockburn, he’s going to be able to work these bigs a lot more. I mean, he does have a good challenge coming up against Purdue in the next second second game coming up, but against Trevion Williams, so he’s still going to have some challenges. But if you’re able to spread the court more, they’re going to open up things for not just Gabe’s shots, but for all four others on the court.

O’HARA: Yeah, looking to this, you know, next stretch of the schedule here. You know, we had the Nebraska game canceled this Wednesday, Gophers play Maryland on Saturday, Purdue, Rutgers and then Nebraska. That’s their next stretch, which is definitely the weaker part of this Big Ten schedule. I mean, what are you kind of expecting from this stretch here? What do you what do you hope to see from Minnesota, you mentioned playing better on the road — in addition to that, what are you expecting to see?

CONDON: Yes, that Nebraska game cancellation was pretty expected. Pitino noted about in his postgame conference about after the Michigan game. And that’s how they’ve been looking at this whole season is just day by day, just don’t think too far ahead, because you don’t know what’s going to happen. So that game got canceled. They have Maryland on this Saturday at home. They have beaten Illinois and Wisconsin, both were top-25 teams. So they are a good team. But what I’ve seen is they should win this game pretty handily. I think it should be by at least 10 points. Not saying if they win by five, it’s considered a flaw. A win is a win, especially in the Big Ten. So I’m expecting the Gophers to beat Maryland. And then you get Purdue who Purdue and Minnesota always have a pretty solid game even. Even if they’re not ranked. They have Zach Edey, their seven-foot-four center freshman, who has been fun to watch. And obviously I mentioned Trevion Williams. So they have some good guys on the team, even their guards. So that’s definitely a hard matchup, especially because it’s on the road. I still expect the Gophers to come out of this next stretch of three games given Nebraska and no, yes, Nebraska and Purdue are on the road, I still expect these three games to be wins. And I really expect that Minnesota as a team is going to start playing better on the road. Given that they’re not playing a top-25 team.

O’HARA: For sure. Yeah, and you know, bit of a down year for Purdue, they like they have some talent there. It’s just it’s not what we’ve seen from that program. I mean and talking about some good games, remember a couple years ago when Purdue was here at the Barn and the Gophers hung on and upset them and there was a court storm there. That was a that was a pretty exciting game. So there definitely could be another good game to look forward to there. And yeah, this this conference, it’s just so tough. Um, you know, Gophers are pretty likely a tournament team at this point, barring some kind of catastrophic collapse here midway through the season. You know, I don’t know just like looking at the conference. I mean, what kind of expectations do you have for how the Gophers can perform here. I mean, how many Big Ten teams do you think we’ll see? And where do you think seeding-wise Minnesota will end up?

CONDON: Yeah, so like I said earlier, there at one point was eight ranked teams in the Big Ten conference, I expect there to be eight if not nine, making that tournament, given it a 64 team [tournament], I mean, as of right now it is 64. Like Pitino says, go day by day, don’t look too far in the future. So if it succeeds at 64, I expect at least eight Big Ten teams making it. I’ve seen the Gophers specifically as high as a No. 4. But I expect them to be around Nos. 5-6-7. Who knows exactly where you’re going to land because there’s still a lot left. We’re over halfway, but there’s still, I think, 11 games left in the season. So a lot can still happen, especially I think, analysts want to see how the Gophers play on the road too before they can finally figure out what see they’re going to be. But looking around at a team like Michigan, what I’ve seen from them, I mean, Michigan, Minnesota is their only loss, and they look like a very good team, I think they should, for sure be in the Elite Eight, if not make it to the Final Four. And then Iowa, just with how good their shooting is, I expect them to also make the Elite Eight. Those are the two teams. I mean, obviously, I’m hoping the Minnesota Gophers can make around too but those are the two teams the Big Ten that I expect to go farther in the tournament.

O’HARA Yeah, you know, talking about Michigan looking like a Final Four team, I mean, that first game, I think Michigan, to me is the most impressive win for Minnesota this season. Because the Iowa game on Christmas Day, it, they shouldn’t have won. I mean, they were down by seven with seconds left on the clock. 

CONDON: I think it was 43 seconds. 

O’HARA: Yeah and somehow made a run and forced it to overtime. I mean that I feel like they shouldn’t have won that game. Michigan, when they played at Michigan, they didn’t look like they belonged in the same gym. And then they come out and they and they beat them pretty handily at the Barn. I mean, I don’t even know what to make of it talking about this home and away deal. I mean, you’re going to be writing a story on it here in not too long. But what I mean what is the deal? Why can’t they play on the road? I mean, there’s no fans, there’s nothing. There’s nothing pushing them along. And there’s nothing. Nobody jawing at them from the from the stands. Why can’t this team win on the road?

CONDON: Yeah, it’s something I still have to figure out. I know, I do have that story coming out next week. But it’s something I still even haven’t figured out. So I’m going to definitely look into that. And I do agree, though, that Michigan win was the best win the Gophers had this season, it was just absolutely crazy. The difference in teams we saw from Minnesota from that away game when I think we lost by 30. I it was hard to watch that at the end, but then beating them by I think it was 18. So we’re seeing very two different Gopher teams. And I know Pitino can’t be happy about how different they’re playing on the road versus home, given he’s probably very happy with how they’re playing at home. But something that they got to figure out is how to play on the road. Especially like we’ve all said, there’s no fans, it shouldn’t be that much different.

O’HARA: Right? It’s like the energy is zapped out of them. I think maybe the one exception being that Iowa game. I mean, that was pretty much a game till the end; Iowa kind of pulled away, but the road it’s just been it’s been a struggle. And for everybody listening to that it’s a plug for the story, you got to make sure to look for that, look for that when it comes out. And then, I guess you know to kind of wrap things up here, Maryland this Saturday. This one’s at the Barn. What kind of matchup do you think Minnesota has with Maryland and what’s your final score prediction?

CONDON: Yeah, so what I’ve kind of seen with Maryland is, like I said, what their two wins against top-25 teams, they’re a good team, there’s no reason to rule them out. Look at like the height wise sort of thing. The guards do have a little height on Carr and Kalscheur. But that’s given Both Gach has he’s 6’6” too. So he’s got some height on Carr and Kalscheur too. So I’m not too worried about that. I think overall, the guards are better. I just I think the Gophers are going to need Both to kind of come alive on the offensive side, given he’s a great defender, I think he just needs to get back to how he was playing the beginning of season, being involved in the offense and get involved in that transition offense with Marcus Carr. Because those two can run the floor. Like very, very good and very fast. And they can get you points of turnovers very easy or even along this, so I think that’s me a key in this game upcoming and then, like I talked about the Robbins having some easier matchups with the big guys. He has about three inches on Galin Smith. So I think when Robbins has these mismatches, it’s important to get him the ball, almost every possession. And if you can do that, and also have both get a little more active and offense, like I said, I think the Gophers should win by double digits and I’m hoping it’s around 10 to 12. 

O’HARA: Feeding Robbins is the key to Gophers win here?

CONDON: I think so yes.

O’HARA: For sure. Well, I think that’s I think that’s everything. Thank you for joining us. Good to be here and talk about some Gophers basketball.

CONDON: Yeah, thanks for having me.

O’HARA: In other news: While the Gophers football season is over, you can still catch former Gophers Antoine Winfield Jr. and Tyler Johnson this Sunday in the NFC Championship game with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as they take on the Green Bay Packers. Winfield and Johnson both make key plays in the Bucs 30-20 victory over the New Orleans Saints. 

The Gophers women’s basketball team bounced back from a three-game skid with a 76-71 victory over the Nebraska Cornhuskers. In her return to Nebraska, transfer Kayla Mershon scored six points, while Gadiva Hubbard led the team with 18. The Gophers will look to carry the momentum into their next Big Ten matchup against Penn State on Monday.

Last time out, the second-ranked Gophers women’s hockey team got swept in the border battle against the Wisconsin Badgers, but will look to bounce back from those losses next weekend when they take on Ohio State in Columbus. 

Similarly, the Gophers men’s hockey team has fallen back to earth, losing three of their last four games, including getting swept last weekend to Notre Dame after opening the season 10-0. No. 4 Minnesota will look to get back on track this Thursday and Friday when they take on Arizona State at Mariucci. 

The Gophers volleyball team is finally back in action this Friday and Saturday after what will be a 401-day hiatus. Minnesota will look to return to its Final Four form on Friday when they take on Michigan State in a two-game series to open the season. That’s all for this week. Make sure to check our website mndaily.com for more articles and analysis and tune in again next week for the ‘Weekly Rundown’ on all things Gopher sports.

NOLAN O’HARA: Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the “Weekly Rundown,” presented by the Minnesota Daily. I’m your host Nolan O’Hara. It’s certainly been a while since our last podcast due to some unfortunate circumstances, but I’m glad to be back here in the studio and talk about the Gophers men’s basketball team. So, today I’m here with our basketball beat reporter AJ Condon. AJ, how’s it going?

AJ CONDON: Nolan, it’s going great. Had a good first week of classes and excited to be here. It has been alive and done this since like one of the first weeks of school with a football team. So, yeah, it’s good to be back.

O’HARA: It’s yeah, it’s been a little bit of a hiatus. So I’m glad to be back here in the podcast studio at the Daily and even in the middle of the first week of classes. And, you know, this is a fun team to talk about here. And there’s a lot to discuss because we’re already 15 games into the season. The Gophers right now they’re 17th in the nation. They’re 11-4, 4-4 in the conference. They have a couple of pretty impressive wins, most impressive is Iowa on Christmas day and then Michigan just a couple of weeks ago.

And they have an additional pair of ranked victories to go along with that, all four of their Big Ten victories were ranked opponents; this is just the way the conference has been. And they’re kind of where they are right now, in large part because the roster looks a lot different than it did last year. And the three transfers, Liam Robbins, Both Gach and Brandon Johnson are a reason why, they’ve all played a huge part in what the Gophers are trying to do this year. I mean, AJ, what have you just seen from them? And like, how would you assess their progression from where they started basically – with no training camp — to where they are now as the Gophers are 11-4?

CONDON: Yeah, I mean, you said it not having the training camp, unconventional preseason made it really hard, because it’s not just these three transfers, three new freshmen too now. But just having five new guys on the team made it really hard without having any sort of preseason. And you saw that a little with these early with these early games, especially with Liam Robbins. Right? 

O’HARA: Foul trouble

CONDON: Yeah, foul trouble. You have a seven-foot guy coming from Drake coming to the Big Ten. We know how the Big Ten plays, it’s aggressive. So those first few games Robbins was dealing with that foul trouble, he was getting two fouls early, saw the bench of the rest of the first half. And he wasn’t able to really get comfortable with the team. But then we got into conference play. And he got put up right against Kofi Cockburn and Luka Garza. And I think it was the two best bigs like in the conference for sure. And even in the even the whole league. So those were two big contests that he got to go up to right away. And he played pretty solid with them. And that kind of showed what he was capable of. And we’ve seen in the past few games. He’s playing outstanding right now he’s playing as our number two guy. And that’s exactly what they need.

Both, he’s kind of transitioned downwards on the offense side, but upwards on the defensive side. He’s kind of disappeared from the scoring part of the stat sheet, but not entirely disappeared from the stat sheet. [He’s] still moving the ball really well on offense. He’s able to get assists, and he’s still our number two defender, which Pitino likes to say about Gabe, that it doesn’t matter about his offense as long as he’s contributed on the defensive end, which him and Gabe both do very well. You know, doesn’t really care about that offense, because we have, they have Liam Robbins, they have Marcus Carr and like Brandon Johnson off the bench. He was incredible in that OT win. 

O’HARA: He was just hitting everything from three, he couldn’t miss. 

CONDON: Lights out, I think it was like eight or nine for four and overtime. So he’s provided really good minutes on the bench and even when he starts to so all three of those guys are big reason of why the Gophers sit at 11-4 right now. 

O’HARA: For sure. And yeah, like you mentioned with Robbins, I mean going up against Garza and Kofi right away. I mean, Garza is probably the best big I mean, for sure in the conference, probably in the country. I mean, that’s a that’s a tough way to jump in, especially transferring right away to a power five. And, you know, that’s kind of a good segue into just the Big Ten conference as a whole right now. I mean, looking at the rankings, six Big Ten teams in the top-25; three are in the top-10 with Wisconsin, Iowa and Michigan. And you know, you’re looking at that and the Gophers are 4-4 in conference play, they beat three of the top-25 teams here. You know, looking at it this 4-4 record, I mean, is that a win for this team? You know, you’d like to see better but just looking at their schedule, they played Iowa and Michigan twice, they had Wisconsin; they could almost as easily be 0-8 right now in the conference.

CONDON: Yeah, I mean, you said it perfectly. This, I think it is a huge win being 4-4, especially with the games that they have won, and I even throw out the 5-4 when you add Saint Louis, they’re a top-25 team. That’s it. That’s a huge win for them to even go to 5-4 in those first nine games. Obviously, Saint Louis isn’t the conference game, but I think where they’re at right now is a huge win. Looking at how good this conference is, at one point, there were eight ranked teams. I mean, this conference is deep. And it’s being shown across the across the conference. ranked teams are losing unranked teams. And Minnesota has now beaten two top-10 teams. So, it’s been pretty impressive. They have shown that, and we probably will get to this more later, but their home and away is very different.

So, that’s why I think they’re sitting right around where they should be at this middle of the ranked team, they aren’t a top-10 team until they can prove that they can play on the road, and their schedule is going to get a little easier. So, this is the time where they need to show that they can play on the road. Because once you get to the tournament, Big Ten’s and NCAA’s, you’re not playing in the Barn anymore. So, we’re, they’re going to have to figure that out. And there’s no fans. So I’m very confused to see how different these this team can be. When there’s not fans cheering, cheering against them. So once they figure that out, that’s when we can really see what team this is, how deep of a run they’re going to make Big Ten tournament and in the NCAA tournament.

O’HARA: It is really puzzling. The no fans and for whatever reason, yeah, they’re world beaters at home, they can’t win on the road. But like even in the conference play, I mean, from the beginning of conference play, they went 7-0 in the nonconference, you know, they got a good chunk of nonconference games, even in this pandemic season. And then first conference game against Illinois they did they didn’t look good. I mean, how much of a progression have you seen just since the start a conference play to now? 

CONDON: You have seen a lot. Those first few games, Marcus Carr was huge. Even though those nonconference games Marcus Carr was huge, he was dropping 25-30 points, and the team was kind of relying on him to get those points so they could win. And then once you get into Big Ten play, teams have seen how the Gophers play, they’re able to adjust, they’re able to, they can stop Marcus Carr, what Illinois did, they can win games. So what the Gophers pretty much did is they were able to get scores from other from other guys you saw with Brandon Johnson against Iowa, you’re seeing that from Liam Robins putting up 22 points on that game against Michigan. So what I’ve really seen from them is they’re able to get points elsewhere. And Marcus Carr still contributing. He’s not scoring 25-30 points, but he’s getting assists. He’s getting rebounds, he’s getting steals. So I think this whole team is just meshing together a lot better early. And I think that comes in big part because they’re all living together, too. They’re getting that off-court chemistry when they’re not practicing when that plane, I think that helps a lot. And they’re meshing really well together. And they’re playing like a real team.

O’HARA: Absolutely. Yeah, and I’m glad you brought up Marcus Carr too, because, you know, obviously can’t talk about this team without talking about Marcus Carr. And looking at his play, like you said, the beginning of the year, those nonconference games especially he was scoring, you know, going out there, scoring 30 points; he was doing everything for the team. And you could say it’s cooled off, but like you said, we also have seen some improvement from other players on the offensive end. I mean, as far as Marcus Carr, I mean, he’s definitely improved from last season. And I know Pitino doesn’t want him going out there and scoring 30 points to win a game because he said that on multiple occasions, I guess how would you assess his season even though it’s not quite the electrifying start that we saw in those nonconference games? 

CONDON: Yeah. So, what I see is that, like I said earlier, these teams are adjusting to guard Marcus Carr better because he is one of the better guards in this league. So what I really like to see about him is he’s so aggressive, whether he’s shooting 0-7, or he’s 5-7, he won’t go away from his shot. And my favorite thing about him is he’s able to create his own shot, he’s able to drive to the rim. He’s one of the best finishers I’ve seen in person, at least this year. He’s just really relentless at the rim, he’ll go to the rim, he’ll get one-on-one and the motion he shows he gets his team really fired up, with Jarvis Omersa opting out of the rest of season, he was their quote-unquote, hype guy. And they’ve kind of, they haven’t had that guy. They don’t have the handshake guy at the end of the games. But Marcus Carr is able to bring this team up and get them energized on any single play. His defense, has, he still has his breakdowns, but he can make steal on the play and him and Both run in the open court off in transition. So he’s been a very big part, even if he’s not scoring.

O’HARA: Right, for sure. Yeah, and I mean, the last few games in particular, you’ve seen Pitino, he’s like, “we can’t go out here and expect Marcus to score 30 and bail us out.” I mean, he’s been pretty adamant on that, and looking at the rest of the offense, you know, like you said, we’ve seen some more improvement from Robbins, he’s been contributing. One person who’s continued to struggle, Gabe Kalscheur; his shot is just from freshman year where it was, I mean, he was he was the team’s best three-point shooter and in the last two years, it’s really fell off. Like you said, you know, Pitino isn’t super worried, you know, because of his play on defense. But at what point is this this shooting become a concern, and has Pitino said, you know what they’re trying to do to kind of fix it. I don’t know. Is there a way to fix his shot?

CONDON: Yeah, I mean, like you said from freshman year, he was such a good shooter and we saw that last year, with him, sophomore year struggles, and now he’s struggling again junior year. And I’ve tried to get it out of Pitino. I’ve asked him at least two, maybe three times, and he gives me the same answer every time. And that’s he doesn’t care about Kalscheur’s offense with the winning plays he makes on defense, and he brings up these winning plays, he gets charges, he creates steals and they are late in games. So when he’s shooting 1-4 from three, even 3-10, those aren’t the best offensive outings, obviously. But what Gabe brings on the defensive side outweighs it 10 times over. So hopefully, there is a thing that Gabe can get in, whenever he puts up a shot I think, “If this one goes in, he’ll get hot,” and if he does get hot, I mean, this team is going to just improve so much if he can find a shot. But again, defense is huge. Pitino calls him the best perimeter defender, and he’s right about it. So I think if he can just keep playing defense, hopefully this defense can work into offense and vice versa. 

O’HARA: So, right for sure. I mean, looking at it, too. It’s like looking at this team. I mean, what kind of element do you think that would bring too, because it’s like you got Carr on the outside, Both can shoot, you know, we saw Brandon Johnson on Christmas Day; if Kalscheur could get his shot going, I mean, what could that that mean for this office? Really being able to spread the floor.

CONDON: Yeah, I mean, Pitino had a pretty funny quote, I think it was after last game, he said something around the lines of, “If you’re the worst shooting team, you shouldn’t be leading in three-point attempts.” So, I think that is the one thing this team’s missing is having a three-point shot. And if you’re able to spread the court more that’s just going to open up inside for Liam Robbins and we’ve already seen an improved more. And if you can get less double teams and just more one on one play, especially in these games upcoming when he doesn’t have guys like Garza and Kofi Cockburn, he’s going to be able to work these bigs a lot more. I mean, he does have a good challenge coming up against Purdue in the next second second game coming up, but against Trevion Williams, so he’s still going to have some challenges. But if you’re able to spread the court more, they’re going to open up things for not just Gabe’s shots, but for all four others on the court.

O’HARA: Yeah, looking to this, you know, next stretch of the schedule here. You know, we had the Nebraska game canceled this Wednesday, Gophers play Maryland on Saturday, Purdue, Rutgers and then Nebraska. That’s their next stretch, which is definitely the weaker part of this Big Ten schedule. I mean, what are you kind of expecting from this stretch here? What do you what do you hope to see from Minnesota, you mentioned playing better on the road – in addition to that, what are you expecting to see?

CONDON: Yes, that Nebraska game cancellation was pretty expected. Pitino noted about in his postgame conference about after the Michigan game. And that’s how they’ve been looking at this whole season is just day by day, just don’t think too far ahead, because you don’t know what’s going to happen. So that game got canceled. They have Maryland on this Saturday at home. They have beaten Illinois and Wisconsin, both were top-25 teams. So they are a good team. But what I’ve seen is they should win this game pretty handily. I think it should be by at least 10 points. Not saying if they win by five, it’s considered a flaw. A win is a win, especially in the Big Ten.

So, I’m expecting the Gophers to beat Maryland. And then you get Purdue who Purdue and Minnesota always have a pretty solid game even. Even if they’re not ranked. They have Zach Edey, their seven-foot-four center freshman, who has been fun to watch. And obviously I mentioned Trevion Williams. So they have some good guys on the team, even their guards. So that’s definitely a hard matchup, especially because it’s on the road. I still expect the Gophers to come out of this next stretch of three games given Nebraska and no, yes, Nebraska and Purdue are on the road, I still expect these three games to be wins. And I really expect that Minnesota as a team is going to start playing better on the road. Given that they’re not playing a top-25 team.

O’HARA: For sure. Yeah, and you know, bit of a down year for Purdue, they like they have some talent there. It’s just it’s not what we’ve seen from that program. I mean and talking about some good games, remember a couple years ago when Purdue was here at the Barn and the Gophers hung on and upset them and there was a court storm there. That was a that was a pretty exciting game. So there definitely could be another good game to look forward to there. And yeah, this this conference, it’s just so tough. Um, you know, Gophers are pretty likely a tournament team at this point, barring some kind of catastrophic collapse here midway through the season. You know, I don’t know just like looking at the conference. I mean, what kind of expectations do you have for how the Gophers can perform here. I mean, how many Big Ten teams do you think we’ll see? And where do you think seeding-wise Minnesota will end up?

CONDON: Yeah, so like I said earlier, there at one point was eight ranked teams in the Big Ten conference, I expect there to be eight if not nine, making that tournament, given it a 64 team [tournament], I mean, as of right now it is 64. Like Pitino says, go day by day, don’t look too far in the future. So if it succeeds at 64, I expect at least eight Big Ten teams making it. I’ve seen the Gophers specifically as high as a No. 4. But I expect them to be around Nos. 5-6-7. Who knows exactly where you’re going to land because there’s still a lot left. We’re over halfway, but there’s still, I think, 11 games left in the season. So a lot can still happen, especially I think, analysts want to see how the Gophers play on the road too before they can finally figure out what see they’re going to be. But looking around at a team like Michigan, what I’ve seen from them, I mean, Michigan, Minnesota is their only loss, and they look like a very good team, I think they should, for sure be in the Elite Eight, if not make it to the Final Four. And then Iowa, just with how good their shooting is, I expect them to also make the Elite Eight. Those are the two teams. I mean, obviously, I’m hoping the Minnesota Gophers can make around too but those are the two teams the Big Ten that I expect to go farther in the tournament.

O’HARA Yeah, you know, talking about Michigan looking like a Final Four team, I mean, that first game, I think Michigan, to me is the most impressive win for Minnesota this season. Because the Iowa game on Christmas Day, it, they shouldn’t have won. I mean, they were down by seven with seconds left on the clock. 

CONDON: I think it was 43 seconds. 

O’HARA: Yeah and somehow made a run and forced it to overtime. I mean that I feel like they shouldn’t have won that game. Michigan, when they played at Michigan, they didn’t look like they belonged in the same gym. And then they come out and they and they beat them pretty handily at the Barn. I mean, I don’t even know what to make of it talking about this home and away deal. I mean, you’re going to be writing a story on it here in not too long. But what I mean what is the deal? Why can’t they play on the road? I mean, there’s no fans, there’s nothing. There’s nothing pushing them along. And there’s nothing. Nobody jawing at them from the from the stands. Why can’t this team win on the road?

CONDON: Yeah, it’s something I still have to figure out. I know, I do have that story coming out next week. But it’s something I still even haven’t figured out. So I’m going to definitely look into that. And I do agree, though, that Michigan win was the best win the Gophers had this season, it was just absolutely crazy. The difference in teams we saw from Minnesota from that away game when I think we lost by 30. I it was hard to watch that at the end, but then beating them by I think it was 18. So we’re seeing very two different Gopher teams. And I know Pitino can’t be happy about how different they’re playing on the road versus home, given he’s probably very happy with how they’re playing at home. But something that they got to figure out is how to play on the road. Especially like we’ve all said, there’s no fans, it shouldn’t be that much different.

O’HARA: Right? It’s like the energy is zapped out of them. I think maybe the one exception being that Iowa game. I mean, that was pretty much a game till the end; Iowa kind of pulled away, but the road it’s just been it’s been a struggle. And for everybody listening to that it’s a plug for the story, you got to make sure to look for that, look for that when it comes out. And then, I guess you know to kind of wrap things up here, Maryland this Saturday. This one’s at the Barn. What kind of matchup do you think Minnesota has with Maryland and what’s your final score prediction?

CONDON: Yeah, so what I’ve kind of seen with Maryland is, like I said, what their two wins against top-25 teams, they’re a good team, there’s no reason to rule them out. Look at like the height wise sort of thing. The guards do have a little height on Carr and Kalscheur. But that’s given Both Gach has he’s 6’6” too. So he’s got some height on Carr and Kalscheur too. So I’m not too worried about that. I think overall, the guards are better. I just I think the Gophers are going to need Both to kind of come alive on the offensive side, given he’s a great defender, I think he just needs to get back to how he was playing the beginning of season, being involved in the offense and get involved in that transition offense with Marcus Carr. Because those two can run the floor. Like very, very good and very fast. And they can get you points of turnovers very easy or even along this, so I think that’s me a key in this game upcoming and then, like I talked about the Robbins having some easier matchups with the big guys. He has about three inches on Galin Smith. So I think when Robbins has these mismatches, it’s important to get him the ball, almost every possession. And if you can do that, and also have both get a little more active and offense, like I said, I think the Gophers should win by double digits and I’m hoping it’s around 10 to 12. 

O’HARA: Feeding Robbins is the key to Gophers win here?

CONDON: I think so yes.

O’HARA: For sure. Well, I think that’s I think that’s everything. Thank you for joining us. Good to be here and talk about some Gophers basketball.

CONDON: Yeah, thanks for having me.

O’HARA: In other news: While the Gophers football season is over, you can still catch former Gophers Antoine Winfield Jr. and Tyler Johnson this Sunday in the NFC Championship game with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as they take on the Green Bay Packers. Winfield and Johnson both make key plays in the Bucs 30-20 victory over the New Orleans Saints. 

The Gophers women’s basketball team bounced back from a three-game skid with a 76-71 victory over the Nebraska Cornhuskers. In her return to Nebraska, transfer Kayla Mershon scored six points, while Gadiva Hubbard led the team with 18. The Gophers will look to carry the momentum into their next Big Ten matchup against Penn State on Monday.

Last time out, the second-ranked Gophers women’s hockey team got swept in the border battle against the Wisconsin Badgers, but will look to bounce back from those losses next weekend when they take on Ohio State in Columbus. 

Similarly, the Gophers men’s hockey team has fallen back to earth, losing three of their last four games, including getting swept last weekend to Notre Dame after opening the season 10-0. No. 4 Minnesota will look to get back on track this Thursday and Friday when they take on Arizona State at Mariucci. 

The Gophers volleyball team is finally back in action this Friday and Saturday after what will be a 401-day hiatus. Minnesota will look to return to its Final Four form on Friday when they take on Michigan State in a two-game series to open the season. That’s all for this week. Make sure to check our website mndaily.com for more articles and analysis and tune in again next week for the ‘Weekly Rundown’ on all things Gopher sports.

INTRO MUSIC PLAYS

 NOLAN O’HARA: Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the “Weekly Rundown” presented by the Minnesota Daily. I’m your host, Nolan O’Hara. We’re two weeks into the Gophers football season now, and so once again, I’m joined with Brendan O’Brien our football beat reporter. How’s it going, Brendan?

BRENDAN O’BRIEN: I’m doing well Nolan, loving this different weather that we are used to having in November. So, it’s been great for me, but I know that it won’t last too much longer.

O’HARA: No, but I think it is supposed to be like 70 [degrees] on Friday, so I’m looking forward to that. And I mean, it’s nice that just all the snow melted. Pretty, pretty happy about the way the weather is going. But yeah, looking at the Gophers football team, we’re two weeks in and it’s not exactly what, at least I expected. The Gophers lost two games all of last year. They’ve already matched that total in the first two weeks of this condensed Big Ten season. They lost to Michigan Week 1 49- 24.I certainly wasn’t shocked about that one, Michigan is a good team. I could have seen that game go either way. I thought it would have been a little bit tighter, but I’m not surprised. And then looking at Friday’s game, that one, that one definitely surprised me.

They started off in a big hole. I was you know, at a high school football game. They announced it over the loudspeaker 21-0 Maryland. I was like, ‘What is going on?’ And the Gophers came back unshockingly, but eventually fell 45-44 in overtime in a very tight game.

Were you as surprised as I was by this one?

O’BRIEN: Ah, I wasn’t surprised that Maryland found ways to score against the Gophers defense, given what we saw in Week 1 against Michigan. But I was surprised that for the first three drives, like you had mentioned, you heard over the loudspeaker that it was 21-nothing. I was surprised those first three drives. Maryland was able to pretty much score almost at will on the Gophers. It looked like some players on defense weren’t necessarily in the right spots, either bone coverages or on runs, just not hitting the right angle or taking the right angles. I know we’ll get to that in a little bit later, more in depth. But overall, yes, I’m surprised that they’re sitting at 0-2 just given you know, Maryland’s previous game and how they played last season, but obviously, they were spot on with the talent that Maryland has on offense. Tagovailoa looked really good. And they had some good playmakers at wide receiver as well.

O’HARA: Yeah, Talia Tagovailoa making a lot of plays, looking a little bit sharper than he did in that first game against Northwestern. But going into this game, we’re kind of looking at it as a bounce back week for the Gophers, you know, Maryland got blown out, after the Gophers loss to Michigan I kind of expected them to take it to Maryland similarly to how Northwestern did. I thought we like you said we kind of both said Maryland is gonna be able to score this Gophers defense is not the same as it was losing seven starters last year, including a lot of the NFL talent that did leave. We questioned it but we didn’t, I don’t know if we saw quite this coming on. What did you see is like the biggest challenge for this defense overall in this game on Friday? And is P.J. or any of the other coaches said anything to kind of address what’s happening defensively?

O’BRIEN: The biggest problem that I think is evident to anyone that’s watching the games are just the big plays that the defense has given up. There’s been a lot of bigger chunk plays, whether it was that long run that Tagovailoa had for a touchdown or it’s just, you know, first and 10 and they throw it in the pickup 15 yards and then they’ll be first and 10 again and they’ll run it for another seven or eight yards and put their own offense and good positions.

What P.J.’s basically said as one like you quickly mentioned there they did lose a lot of experience and kind of doing some prep before this I did kind of remember just besides the guys they’ve lost to the NFL they have you know Martin’s gone and Thomas Barber’s gone to big keys at linebacker you’ve got Carter Coughlin add an edge rusher but you also have experienced guys like Winston DeLattiboudere, Sam Renner. And then obviously Antoine Winfield Jr., who’s looking like a Defensive Rookie of the Year candidate in the NFL. Knowing that you’ve got that kind of talent that’s now all of a sudden gone and you’ve got other players coming in. It does make sense why their weakness would be just their inexperience compared to the defensive players they had last year. And so what P.J.’s really said is it’s simply that they are a developmental program. And they just need to make sure that these guys keep getting reps. And that obviously in the COVID-19 season and a shortened condensed season when you start out with Big Ten opponents right away that it’s going to look a little bit different than it would in a traditional season.

O’HARA: Yeah, looking at like some of the inexperience you mentioned, they lost kind of players on all levels. They lost, obviously, star safety, they lost some corners, they lost some linebackers. They lost some defensive line. I think I didn’t see all of the Maryland game. So kind of film in here. In the first game against Michigan, there wasn’t really a ton of pass rush. Boye Mafe got to Joe Milton, I think once maybe twice. But other than that, it seemed like they were pretty comfortable back there. What was it like against Maryland?

O’BRIEN: Yeah, for the most part. In my opinion, there wasn’t as much of a pass rush either. There were some times where I think one of the broadcaster’s actually mentioned this, I might be wrong. But one of them mentioned that on one of Talia Tagovailoa, has long runs, the edge rushers actually over pursued, and then got behind the quarterback and then caused a big running line. So it’s one of those things, the defensive line, just from my understanding, obviously, coaches and players obviously know a lot more football than I do, but it’s one of those balances between Do you pursue a quarterback? You know, aggressively? Or do you let them kind of sit back and let them sit in the pocket and not address those running lines? And then it just puts your second level guys in spots where it’s tough for them to make plays as well?

O’HARA: Yeah, it’s, it’ll be interesting to see what they can kind of work out with this, with this defense. There isn’t too many positives you can take from looking at giving up you know, 49 in Michigan and 45, the next week to Maryland. But offensively, the Gophers definitely seem to be clicking. Tanner Morgan is looking pretty good through his first two games. He only threw the ball 15 times against Maryland, but he didn’t turn it over had a touchdown pass.

You know, kind of surprisingly, Chris Autman-Bell was a leading receiver for the Gophers over 100 yards and a touchdown. Bateman wasn’t as involved, but he had over 100 yards in the first game. So it looks like both, you know, through the air and on the ground. You’re looking at Mohammed Ibrahim, who had 41, carries for 207 yards and four touchdowns, carrying the team on his back arm. You wrote about his performance, you know, after the game. What can you say about the way he’s just kind of stepped up these first two weeks from Minnesota?

O’BRIEN: So Ibrahim is a guy that we talked about quite a bit in the preseason. And we said that he’d probably be the guy that’s at the top of the running back depth chart, but we’d expect other guys to get some work, given what we’ve seen in the past, just and what, you know, P.J.’s offense has looked like, and it’s been surprising, and it was addressed this week. Why? You know, he gave it to him the ball a lot. And a lot of it comes down to what information he’s getting, and how much of a how much he likes Ibrahim as a player. And he mentioned that he you know, in the next couple of weeks, we could see more of Trayson Potts and Cam Wiley because those are two extremely talented running backs, as well as what he said. But what flex said after the well, this week, not necessarily directly after the game, he did say that he just felt like Ibrahim was in a groove and wanted to just keep giving him the ball.

He saw what he was doing offensively on the ground and helping not only just create yardage and create scores, but also turn the clock, keep the defense off the field and help the Gophers get back into this game in a less conventional way than just throwing down the field and trying to pick up some quick scores. So it in my opinion, it looked like by the end of the game, and this isn’t, you know, a knock on Ibrahim, he just looked gassed. He looked really tired after the 41 touches. So it wouldn’t be a surprising move to see him get a little bit less touches in the next few games and see Wiley and Potts. But, again, just to kind of put a cap and I’ll cap this all off is that Fleck has said a lot of his decisions this year come down to trust and how much does he trust, some younger backs and a shortened season and he’s also just said it’s a shortened season so we’re just gonna try to work everyone as soon as we can.

O’HARA: Yeah, if I think 41 carries that would definitely wear somebody out. There’s a wild to see that that many carries especially. Tou talked a little bit about getting some of these other running backs involved, is that going to be one of the goals? And then I also want to address your saying, you know, trying to keep the defense off the field, which is pretty good for this this team, you don’t really want to see the defense on the field too much. Do you think both like running the ball effectively trying to, you know, keep taking away at that clock? Do you think that’ll be kind of one of the keys for the team the rest of the year here?

O’BRIEN: I think it’ll be a key. But I think and this is something that we’ll probably get to a little bit later in this next upcoming matchup. But I think what they’re going to have to do is establish the run game, but also find ways to get production from the receivers. Because one, obviously, we know Bateman is projected to be a first-round draft picks. So he’s obviously very talented. And then Chris Autman-Bell showed us against Maryland. And he showed sparks last year as well. But just obviously being the third receiver behind Johnson and Bateman, just didn’t have as much production as the other two last year. But when you run the ball so much as they did, then you got to expect the other team to make adjustments and they ran the ball heavily in the second and third quarters, and then by the fourth quarter, Maryland adjusted and they were able to shut down the Gophers often. So I think moving forward, it’s going to be a key for them to establish the run just as a way to keep their defense off the field, give them opportunities to just get make their own adjustments, maybe catch a breather, if they’re tired, and that’s part of it. They haven’t said that, oh, the defense has been really tired, that’s why they’re giving up points. But then they’re gonna have to find other ways to do it rather than just running Ibrahim 41 times on similar plays as well if teams like Maryland are gonna adjust to that pretty quickly.

O’HARA: Right, and just running 41 times a game that’s not going to be sustainable for this or any team no matter how good your running back is and clearly Fleck trusts Ibrahim but it’s that’s just not going to be the model to for this team this year. But just kind of moving to the offense overall between the way Tanner Morgan and the passing offense looked and then Ibrahim in the backfield, what have you thought, or what is P.J. or Sanford said about the way things are kind of going offensively these first two weeks?

O’BRIEN: I think overall, they’re happy, maybe not satisfied with the way things have gone. Obviously, the Michigan game, in Week 1, they probably they’ve mentioned that they wanted to execute a little bit better and, and if they had made a few plays in that first half, they think that they would have had a better chance, and they would have been in that game for quite a while. And wouldn’t have put their defense or special teams in as tight of positions. But I mean, they put up, you know, 44 points, 43 points in the last game to Maryland. So when you’re doing that, you’re obviously doing something right on offense. They haven’t had, you know, obviously a defensive score this year. So they’re playing well on offense.

But I think the biggest thing, the biggest takeaway from the Maryland game, and we kind of hit on you need to close that game out with your offense, they had their offense on the field. And they were, instead of being able to drive it down, either kick a field goal or score a touchdown, to give them a little bit more of a lead, they had to go, I believe three out maybe they converted one quick first down, but they weren’t able to finish the job with their offense. So I think moving forward, if they’re in some more of these close games, they’ll need their offense to kind of close it out and make sure that they’re able to kind of be the reason that this team is winning, and they’re gonna be if they win other games this season. They’re going to be the reason this team wins games.

O’HARA: Absolutely. And that’s kind of you know, a nice segue into you know, getting stopped third and three and out is kind of a nice segue into the special teams’ unit. Because after the game against Michigan, we noticed you know, during the game that Mark Crawford and Michael Lantz were out. P.J. announced after that they both wrote because of COVID. Lantz returned this week for kickoffs but not field goals and Crawford was still out if I’m remembering correctly. We don’t really know a timetable on him and we saw obviously Walker missed the extra point in overtime that would have kept the game alive. Pretty big play in that game. What did you think? Was it better or worse, comparable, the special team’s was playing on Friday? And as P.J. given any updates on when Crawford might be back?

O’BRIEN: I think to answer your first question just about special teams in general, I think it’s fairly comparable except it didn’t really put the team in a noticeable hole other than the last play of the game. And to P.J.’s credit, or, you know, just what he said after the game is that the reason they didn’t they lost that game was not because of the missed extra point, it was just because they shouldn’t have been in that position in the first place. Their defense should have played better. offensively. Obviously, they should have closed it out. But punting, the situation didn’t look great. They weren’t necessarily hitting booming punts pinning Maryland, deep in their own territory. But it wasn’t something that was that noticeably hurt. The Gophers having Lantz on the kickoffs actually did kind of help because they were able to get some depth rather than the squibs that we saw in week one. As far as updates, we haven’t had any really on Lantz or Crawford. Maybe now with Lantz having that week to under his belt, maybe he’ll kick extra points now against Illinois, it would make sense some sense of Fleck and special teams staff just didn’t want to put them out on extra points, given maybe his lack of practice with COVID.

But he hasn’t given us any kind of timetable as far as Crawford being back.

O’HARA: But overall from the special teams unit where I’m hearing not great, not terrible, doesn’t sound like the you know, obviously no more squib kicks, like you said, and no more 18 year punts, I’m assuming?

O’BRIEN: I don’t have the exact stats in front of me, I do remember, there were a few where they could have went up, you would have liked them to go a little bit farther if you are a Gophers fan. But overall, it wasn’t as noticeable of a difference. And I mean, they didn’t have to fake a punt. And obviously, you know, I think why I’m also kind of having a hard time remembering is because after the first quarter, the Gophers really didn’t have to punt too much. Obviously, their offense got going behind Ibrahim. So if they can just obviously do that, that would be a good way to alleviate the punting situation as well.

O’HARA: Absolutely just need to pick up first downs and you don’t have to don’t have to punt away and honestly just feels like a lifetime ago that that game was even so I definitely understand not remembering super clearly. But overall right now, you know, this team, it’s got some issues on special teams, certainly on defense, and then well, offensively right now it seems they have it figured out. But kind of looking to Saturday against Illinois here, what needs to be fixed and what have some of the coaches that are P.J. or Sanford or Rossi said about this matchup?

O’BRIEN: I think the one thing and it’s obviously really simple for us to sit here and say, rather than go out and obviously have them executed, but and it’s it is pretty obvious, but it’s keeping the other teams out of the end zone. Instead of letting them just run all over you and find, you know, an easy way to six, seven points on each possession. If they were able to tighten up in that zone, I think in the red zone or the goal line. There, again, they’re playing complimentary football, they know their offense can score points. So, if they can limit teams to field goals, it’s going to be a lot easier. And the reason I say keep teams out of the end zone is because right now what we’ve seen, it’s going to be hard for them to get stops and have them have the other team forced to punt.

So, I think it’s obviously a team’s main priority to get punts when you’re on defense. But I think, you know, given where they’re at right now, on how they’re playing on defense, giving up big chunk plays, I think a specific goal would be against Illinois, if they get to their own 20 their own time or keeping them out of the end zone. And we’re gonna force them to kick a field goal. Because then the other thing is, in the NFL, we’ll see kickers that will usually, you know, for the most part, they’ll make field goals if the weather’s bad, maybe we’ll see a mess and we’ll see some messes every now and then. But we saw against Michigan they had three field goal attempts and Michigan missed all of them. I think the kicking game is a lot different in college football, special teams, we kind of hit on that just need to make sure they’re managing the field position as best as they possibly can.

So, if they’re punting it, just not putting their defense in poor situations. And then this Saturday against Illinois, I think one of the things that might need to be fixed, would be throwing a little bit more to receivers. Illinois secondary so far this year has not been good against Wisconsin primarily. They’re primarily known for their rushing attack. They threw for 248 yards, not a ton, but they threw for more yards than they rushed for. And then against Purdue, they gave up 371 passing yards. So, they’ve given up a lot of yards in that secondary within the first two games. So, I think last week, we said Minnesota will need to run the ball a lot against Maryland because Maryland’s run defense has been suspect. Well, this week, Illinois pass defense has been suspect. So, it’s not that they’re going to turn away from the run game, but you know, lean on the run game and then get in situations where you’re putting the opponent’s defense on their toes and able to throw some passes to Autman-Bell and Bateman as well.

O’HARA: It’s an opportunity this week for Tanner Morgan and company to kind of get things going we saw you know, Ibrahim shine last week, it’ll be time for the passing attack to go to work here. And just kind of looking at the Illinois side, I mean, they’re in the same boat as Minnesota, they’re 0-2. They got blown out Week 1 by Wisconsin, lost by only a touchdown last week to Purdue. What do we know about this Illini team, kind of overall.

O’BRIEN: The first thing that really stood out to me when kind of doing a little bit of research about them was they’ve had they’ve been bit by the injury and COVID bug. They’ve had some players that have been out. Due to this, I believe they’re playing a four stringer at quarterback, at least that’s what they did against Purdue Corine Taylor. He redshirted as a freshman, and then he played in one quarter as a sophomore. So obviously, when you look at that, we talked last week about Tagovailoa, being a younger quarterback, maybe they could take advantage of him and try to get him rattled. Obviously, that really didn’t happen. This week, when you’re playing against a guy who’s that low on the depth chart, either third or fourth string.

You would think again, that’d be an opportunity. Let’s try to get after him, get some pressure, and maybe see if we can get a couple of sacks, forced fumble turnovers like that. Illinois, speaking of turnovers has lost the turnover battle. Thus far, six to three, they gave up four turnovers against Purdue last week. So that’s something to keep an eye out for six turnovers in two games is a lot so far. We mentioned the bad secondary, and their offense for the most. I mean, obviously week one, they got blown out by Wisconsin, and their only score was actually a fumble recovery for a touchdown. So they didn’t even score off on solely. But against Purdue, they played pretty well. They did have to play catch up. So the stats might look a little bit better than they might have actually been at certain points. But that’s kind of what we know on the outset about this Illini team.

O’HARA: Yeah, and kind of looking at it from the outside, they just they don’t look like a great team. But neither did Maryland and P.J. Fleck said last week, you know that they’re not looking over this Maryland team, they think they’re going to be a lot better this week than what they showed against Northwestern. He turned out to be right about that, just turns out they weren’t quite prepared enough. What does he said about the Saturday’s game against Illinois?

O’BRIEN: They haven’t really said anything specific about this team other than the normal arm, you know, coach, player complements, they’re really well coached team they’ve got a lot of talent. They’re very, you know, focused a lot of you know, basic compliments to the other team. And that makes sense. That’s kind of this program’s MO, they usually will compliment you know, other teams and take other team seriously and they’ve got the whole culture about it’s they’re 0-0 in the Illinois season. They’re 0-1 in the Maryland season, 0-1 in the Michigan season. So, they’re going to take this opponent seriously, but they haven’t said any specifics as far as which players they’re going to key on or what they think they can take advantage of going into this week. But I would imagine again, given the statistics they their offense should find ways to take advantage of Illinois defense.

O’HARA: Yeah, it’s gonna be an interesting game, especially with, like you said, the fourth string quarterback here for Illinois, what they can kind of put up here. But that being said, you know, what is the key for each team to come up with the victory? What’s the key for Illinois behind this young quarterback, and what’s the key for this Gophers team that’s really looking to get back on track after a not expected start to the season?

O’BRIEN: For the Gophers, it’s making sure that you’re you get out to a good start offensively. And defensively, again, like I said, just keep, let’s keep Illinois out of the end zone has got to be on the defensive mindset. For Illinois, the biggest key this week, especially with a young quarterback, is making sure that you don’t turn the ball over. And that’s not just him. But that’s everyone, you know, making sure running backs aren’t turning the ball over, fumbling, receivers aren’t fumbling. And that he’s not throwing, you know, costly interceptions. Because that’s one thing that this Minnesota team that we’ve seen so far, they’ve only been able to create, they obviously had the block punt, that’s a little bit different, because it was going to be their ball. But then they got the tipped interception by the defensive tackle last week. So, they haven’t really been able to get those spark plays from their defense. So of Illinois, able to not turn the ball over like they have in these first few weeks. And, you know, make it easier for this defense, then that’ll be a big key for them.

O’HARA: Yeah, absolutely. I don’t know, we’ve been pretty bad with these predictions so far. You know, we both picked the Gophers the last two weeks, neither of which panned out, do you have a score prediction for this week?

O’BRIEN: This is probably I’m just looking at the schedule, just to confirm because we talked a little bit about this beforehand to this is probably going to be the last week I’ll pick the Gophers if they’re to lose this game, just because right now, I also don’t know what to make of a lot of these other Big Ten opponents. Illinois, they’re never a team that you’re that threatened of. But, again, with this Gophers defense, they haven’t instilled any hope in fans. So, I would go, I’m gonna pick the Gophers, mainly because of the young quarterback play from Illinois. And not only the young quarterback play, but if he’s a junior, and if he’s that far down on the depth chart, you know, who knows why if the other guys are just that much more talented, or if he’s just the third or fourth string. So I would go with Minnesota 37, Illinois 29.

O’HARA: 37-29, Minnesota. Yeah, I was leaning against picking Minnesota after the last two weeks, but because Illinois is on their fourth string quarterback, and frankly, not the team; they haven’t been the historically the best Big Ten team, I’m going to say 40-35, Minnesota. So, I think it’s going to be close. I think Illinois is going to be able to score regardless of the young quarterback play. But I think the Gophers should be able to come up with this one. Although we said the same thing last week against Maryland. So, we’ll see what happens. And you know, be sure to check our website mndaily.com on Saturday for a coverage of the Gophers game. We’ll have coverage for you. Brendan will have instant breakdown here against Illinois, and he’ll be keeping us updated throughout the game on Twitter as well. Appreciate everyone tuning in. And Brendan, thank you for joining us.

O’BRIEN: Yeah, thank you, Nolan.

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O’HARA In other news: the Gophers’ men’s basketball team still doesn’t have its schedule, but it does have the game. Minnesota will take on Boston College and the Big Ten/ACC challenge on Dec. 8 at the Barn. The Gopherss women’s basketball team announced two departures in Barbora Tomancova and Daja Woodard. Whalen said Woodard had informed her that she will no longer be with the program, but no other details were provided in a media release. Woodard had previously transferred to the University in April. That’s all for this week. Be sure to check our website mndaily.com for more info about other sports and tune in again next week to get the “Weekly Rundown” on all things Gopher sports. Thanks.

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NOLAN O’HARA: Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the “Weekly Rundown” presented by the Minnesota Daily. I’m your host, Nolan O’Hara. We’re back and finally we have some sports to talk about as Big Ten football returned here, the Gophers had their first game on Saturday, a game they lost 49-24 to Michigan. So, I’m here again with Brendan, our football beat reporter and we’re going to break down both the Gophers loss to Michigan and its upcoming game against Maryland. So Brendan, how’s it going?

BRENDAN O’BRIEN: Doing pretty well, Nolan. Well rested, ready to talk some football today and watch some tomorrow.

O’HARA: Love to hear it. Love to hear it. Yeah, so obviously, as we can see by the score, or by watching it, the game didn’t go exactly how P.J. Fleck and the rest of the team had planned. The first quarter was wild to say the least, it could have gone either way, it looked like it was going to go either way that neither team could stop each other. But Michigan’s defense picked it up after that. They were able to slow down the Gophers offense, especially with some offensive line struggles. And then offensively, even better. Joe Milton looks fantastic. You know, looking through Twitter, seeing all the Michigan fans comments, they’re like, ‘Why did we not see him last year? Why did we keep trying to make Shea Patterson the thing?’ And I think that’s a valid argument there. Definitely looks like a step up there. And they were able to score at will, but from the box at TCF, what did you make of the game? Is Michigan as good as they looked on Saturday? Or was it some bad Gophers?

O’BRIEN: I kind of think it might be a combination of both. I think both of these things could be true that Michigan is a good football team, and that the Gophers did not play their best brand of football, especially on defense. I will say Joe Milton did look good. And I know this isn’t a Michigan football podcast, but the reason Michigan won wasn’t because of Joe Milton. The reason Michigan won was because they could run out well, like you had mentioned and they could score at will. Really, what it also came down to for Minnesota and this sounds really simple, and if any team obviously did this, then obviously you could say, ‘Well, yeah, every team would win football games.’

But the way Minnesota is built and the way P.J. Fleck kind of talked about it last year, is that they want to play well-balanced football on in all three phases. On defense, they need to get stops. On offense, they need to score points and keep their defense out of bad situations. And just make sure that they’re also doing well and the simple things like field position, turnovers, and really in those simple battles, they lost those obviously on Saturday. The fake punt put them in their defense in a really bad situation. They basically handed Michigan seven points after faking it just because Michigan again was able just to run the ball down their throats. The offense just wasn’t able to score points on certain drives, obviously, the big sack-fumble return for a touchdown. Put the defense in another hole, trying to get more stops to let the offense catch up. And they just had you know a few of those costly turnovers the sack-fumble for a touchdown and an interception by Morgan.

O’HARA: Yeah, there was definitely quite a few plays in that game, the 18-yard punt the fake punt some of those kickoffs that did not go the Gophers way which it is worth noting that they were missing quite a few starters, two on the offensive line in Curtis Dunlap Jr. and Daniel Faalele and then their kicker and punter. We’ll get back to that a little bit later in the podcast. But you started off saying that it was a little bit of bad Gophers, a little bit of good Michigan, and it seems like the polls kind of felt that way to Michigan jumped up five spots in the AP Poll to number 13, they were 18 last week. And Minnesota completely fell out at the top-25 from 21. Now, they’re receiving about 40 votes. So now that we’re a game into the season, you know, we talked about the polls before doesn’t really matter, the Big Ten hadn’t played a game. Should the Gophers be outside of the top-25 after finishing No. 10 last year, and now just losing a game against a Michigan team that looked really good right off the bat.

O’BRIEN: I think so just because of how they lost that game. If they lost in close fashion, you look at kind of where the rankings are right now Penn State is at 18^th and they’re 0-1. They’re one of the only teams in the rankings that is still in the rankings after losing only one game. But the reason they’re still in the rankings is because one Penn State’s kind of a brand name, a lot of voters will still assume that they’re going to be a competent team. And then two, they lost in a very close matchup against Indiana who’s only ranked one spot ahead of Penn State. So, that game basically could have probably been coin flip. But Minnesota on the other hand, like now going back to them and comparing Penn State and Indiana’s game to Minnesota and Michigan’s game, it wasn’t as close as that game. So, it makes sense that even though they did lose to a Michigan team that looks like, you know, are they going to be a contender for, you know, looking at the National picture, the college football playoff? Well, probably not if they can’t beat an Ohio State team. But they still could be a really good football team this season. But to answer your question, yeah, Michigan’s a really good team. And yet, you should get credit for losing and playing a good team. But at the same time, you can’t necessarily give up 49 points and still expect to be in the rankings.

O’HARA: Right. That was not the best defensive performance. One of the things that surprised me in the polls was seeing Indiana. Did you expect that to see them jump up to 17?

O’BRIEN: Yes, only because of how much I think a lot of the polls are kind of based off of hype too, right. And if you watch any of the pregame shows, whether it’s on ESPN or FOX, a lot of people kind of were thinking highly of Indiana, they played well last year, were competitive in some games, but and a lot of people actually kind of picked Indiana to be a favorite for an upset in that Penn State game, so it’s actually isn’t terribly surprising that they’re in the rankings, but we’ll see how they do going forward. They’re still going to have to play that Michigan team. They’re going to have to play Ohio State too. So, we’ll see how that goes.

O’HARA: Yeah, it’ll be interesting. I was I was a little bit surprised to see that one. And that was, that was quite the game coming right down to it at the end. But yeah, I wanted to kind of dive back into the Curtis Dunlap and Daniel Faalele and the special teams unit, there was some news and we got some more news today that we weren’t expecting before we did this podcast but after the game, P.J. announced that Michael Lantz and Mark Crawford, the kicker and punter, were out because of COVID reasons. And then now we found out with Dunlap and Faalele that they are out indefinitely, Dunlap with an Achilles tear and Faalele not really sure, maybe an opt-out? I’m still not really sure what’s going on there. But do we have any more details? And what do we kind of have on a timetable for Lance and Crawford with this COVID protocols?

O’BRIEN: Sure. So just to kind of first just talk a little bit more about Dunlap and Faalele, it sounds like it’s probably an opt-out. But again, Coach Fleck really hasn’t definitively said whether or not it is and he’s also kind of just said that he’s not going to comment on whether players have opted out or not. As far as Dunlap, he has that Achilles tear. Obviously, that’s a serious injury for athletes, and he’s going to going to be out for the rest of the season. Depending on what Faalele’s status and what his feelings are towards, if he feels unsafe, you know, that’s totally his decision, and shouldn’t be faulted for opting out for the rest of the season. But there might be some leeway as far as if he wants to come back kind of like Rashod Bateman decided to come back and then turn it over to the kicker and punter, Lantz and Crawford.

Again, Coach Fleck really hasn’t given us too much information on whether when they tested positive, if they do, but again, depending on the COVID-19 protocols, whether or not they were the ones that tested positive, or if they came in contact with someone. But long story short, they’re out. You could assume you know, the timetable is probably the next two games that they’re going to be out is the long term because if they tested positive early in the week for the Michigan game, then that would obviously leave them off for 21 more days. And then that would probably be around their third or fourth game that they’d be able to come back. Or potentially they tested positive, like 21 or 22 days before the Michigan game and now they’re able to come back in this next game against Maryland. I would assume that they’re going to be out for the next week for sure. And possibly week three as well, though.

O’HARA: Yeah, I did see today that both Lantz and Crawford are officially out for Maryland. But after that, who knows? I mean, we don’t, the Gophers definitely don’t want to see any more 18-yard punts or squib kicks at the beginning of the game. I was just wondering does Michigan have have some kind of Devin Hester returner back there because why are they doing these squib kicks, not realizing that the backup kicker had some sort of injury as well. So, that’ll be something to keep an eye on to see if there’s any improvements this week, or if it’s kind of that same stuck faking punts because it’s only going to go 18-yards if you get it off anyway. But that wasn’t the biggest problem with this team was, well, it was a problem. But the defense is not last year’s defense by any stretch of the imagination. We talked about them a lot on the podcast before, that it was going to be the biggest question mark for this team. And that was definitely true. They struggled a lot against Michigan. We talked about them running the ball. We talked about Joe Milton, Michigan didn’t have any trouble getting through the Gophers defense scoring points, any of it. What did you see overall, just from the Gophers defense on Saturday, what is Rossi said about kind of saying about fixing some of these early struggles here?

O’BRIEN: So, kind of just going off of what I saw. And obviously I am not, I do not have the football acumen that any of the coaches do. But basically what I saw is kind of what everyone else watching the game saw there was too many big plays that the Gophers defense gave up. Obviously, they got a lot of energy after blocking Michigan’s punt and then going down in scoring early on their first drive. But then right away, they gave up that long touchdown run on the Michigan’s first play, their second drive, so too many big plays big chunk plays. It just didn’t feel like Minnesota was able to just cause pressure, get bigger stops, put Michigan’s offense in positions where it was going to be hard for them to convert first and get first downs. And they were again, they were just put in bad spots a couple of times to knowing what we know. Now, while the fake punt might be frustrating to some, if they didn’t think that their punter was going to give them you know a good opportunity to stop Michigan’s offense and give them good field position. It makes sense why they do try to convert there with the fake punt, but then you’re giving Michigan the ball deep in their own territory or deep in Minnesota territory, and then it’s much easier for them to score.

So, I think overall, what the defense will need to do, what Joe Rossi said that they’ll need to do this upcoming week and throughout the season to make sure they’re a lot better as one communication. He really highlighted that in this week’s press conference saying that the communication has to be almost crazy and loud and urgent. And part of the reason that might not be as again, we know that this defense is a little bit more inexperienced, and guys just might not know how to communicate as well with each other quite yet. Then the other thing is because they’re inexperienced, they need to play with less hesitancy and just more instinct and react when they see plays. It’s not necessarily that they’re hesitant about, you know, getting hit, it’s more, okay, as this, you know, is this going to be a passing play as it’s going to be running players as a player play action pass. So, if they can kind of shore up some of those things, and those are some things to that will ultimately probably just come with playing more games.

O’HARA: Yeah, for sure. I mean, you talked about, you know, some of those big plays and even not even the big plays like I remember seeing Joe Milton, they did like a sweep with Joe Milton to the right. And it was like an easy nine yards and I just looked at it’s like they could run this the entire game, just run the Joe Milton sweep and probably get seven, eight yards a play. So, that’ll be something that they’re going to have to figure out. They’re going to, they can’t allow teams to run the ball that easily for the rest of the season. And you know, overall, there were a lot of negative so we can take from this game and we’ve kind of hit those but there was anything that either you saw that looked promising, or is there anything that Fleck or the other coaches have said that are positives that they can draw on from the Michigan game?

O’BRIEN: Two easy positives right off the bat: The Gophers run game, and they’re able to still get Rashod Bateman involved. Mohammed Ibrahim was the main focus in the running game with over 100 yards, I think about 142 rushing touchdowns. So, even though they’re losing offensive linemen like Dunlap and Faalele, and they could have probably been helpful in some situations like the sack-fumble, they’re still able to effectively run the football and as some of those guys get, again, more experience, they’re still going to be able to do that effectively. And I know we’ll get into this just a little bit but and some of their next opponents coming up they’re probably going to be able to run the ball, but better than they might have even been, even though most stats were pretty good, they might be able to do even better against some of their other opponents than Michigan. And I think ultimately, what the team has said that they’re, that are positives to draw from the game are just overall, their response. And you’ll kind of see that, depending on how they play tomorrow night, but what they’ve talked about what their culture is their mindsets on how they respond, not necessarily the result of certain games. So, if they responded, well, in practice this week and play better on this upcoming game that’s a positive for them from this game is that they kind of learned what they needed to improve on.

O’HARA: Yeah, I think Ibrahim, big positive, like you mentioned, like he looked great. I think that’s really encouraging sign for the Gophers for the rest of the year. If they can run the ball like that, looks like they won’t be missing, you know, some of the running backs they lost in Rodney Smith and Shannon Brooks.

O’BRIEN: Ibrahim looked really good. And just one other additional note on that, too, with Ibrahim kind of getting most of the workload, I would still kind of expect Cam Wiley and Trayson Potts to kind of play a little bit more of a role. And one thing that was kind of just interesting to note is that they did go to a little bit more of a two-back set with Ibrahim and Trayson Potts on the field at the same time. Now again, it was kind of a point in the game where it might not have mattered, but Mike Sanford co-offensive coordinator was asked about it this week. And he said that they installed those two-back packages when they assumed Bateman wasn’t going to be a part of the team. So, now they still might use those and Potts is more the receiving back. And so I would be interested to see and how those two guys work together, if they’re on the field at the same time in some of these next few games.

O’HARA: Yeah, there were a couple of those two-back sets, which were kind of interesting to watch what they’re trying to do out of it. And also, like you mentioned, you mentioned this before the season two that the Gophers like to get some running backs involved. You know, last year it was obviously Smith, Brooks, and then Ibrahim, to this year we saw we saw mostly Ibrahim, but we did see a little bit of Trayson Potts and Cam Wiley, what do you think of those two guys?

O’BRIEN: With Cam Wiley, it’s really hard because I think I was looking back at the box score and I believe he only had one rush and it was a negative rushing play. So, just going off of that, it’s kind of hard to tell with him like how much more he’ll get involved. And again, since the Gophers were down, it was a negative game script, it’s kind of hard to get multiple guys involved. And with Ibrahim getting 140 yards, it’s also kind of hard to take him out of the mix. Potts looks like he could be a really fast, quick twitch guy on the outside, he had a couple of either runs or short catches from Morgan and look like he was able to gain again gain, not necessarily big plays, but seven, eight yards off of those plays, too. So he’ll be interesting. If they can get him involved in the passing game.

O’HARA:That’ll be fun to watch. Because obviously the season is still young, so kind of see what develops here. And kind of overall, there’s obviously changes coaches want to make each week especially when you get blown out to Michigan at home. What are some of the things that they’re looking for? What have they said about this first game, what kind of changes do they want to make, before Friday’s game against Maryland here?

O’BRIEN: I think the biggest thing would be offensively is execution. And they need to make sure that they execute some plays a little bit better. Tanner didn’t necessarily play extremely, you know, poor football. But there were just obviously some incompletions that they talked about that they could have executed better. There were drives that were either cut short, due to turnovers or just three and outs, they had one drive that they didn’t score on because there was an illegal formation penalty. So, they just kind of talked about making sure they understand those situations and execute some plays better. I mean, there was also one of those plays that you see a lot in the NFL, where receiver motions over and they do a little quick jet motion pass with him. And it looked like they tried to do that with Bateman. And that got shut down within you know, they for a loss of probably around five yards. And, so, it’s things like that making sure that they execute those plays better. And defensively, we kind of talked about it already, but the biggest thing for them is they’re going to have to make sure that they communicate better. And usually what a lot of coaches will say with when they give up bigger chunk plays on a regular basis is that there they aren’t communicating. So, I think that would be one thing to look for in this next game that they’re going to try to change and make sure that guys are almost over communicating with each other on the field.

O’HARA: Yeah, I think you mentioned Tanner Morgan, obviously wasn’t his best game. I didn’t think he played bad by any stretch. But one thing I think is worth noting is he took all the blame on his shoulders after the game, he said, It’s my fault. I need to be better. And that basically just took all responsibility for the loss against Michigan. So, I didn’t think it was on his shoulders. The fumble wasn’t his fault. He played pretty well. Has he played better? Yes. But obviously he wants to play better this week against Maryland and Maryland is also coming in 0-1. And their game was even uglier than the Gophers they got blown out by Northwestern. And Northwestern is a team that hasn’t been historically very good, wasn’t really expected to be very good this year. So, couple questions here about that: Is Maryland that bad where they just got destroyed by Northwestern, or is Northwestern, a team that’s taken to step up in the Big Ten this year, and what do Gophers players and coaches expect from this Maryland team on Friday?

O’BRIEN: So, we’ll save Northwestern probably for a later date when the Gophers are expected to play them. But focusing on Maryland, it is kind of hard to say that when a team gives up 43 points and can’t score more than three that they are a good football team. I just kind of want a quick take you, and I know I brought this up a little bit before we came on Nolan, but the first five drive offensive drives for Maryland. The first one ended in 12 plays with a field goal. So, that’s a pretty good steady drive, but it ended in only three points and their only three points in the game. So, then Northwestern scores a touchdown at 7-3. Maryland second drive ends in three plays with an interception, then that led to another Northwestern touchdown. They’re already up two scores. Third drive ends in two plays with another interception, the second consecutive interception. Northwestern wasn’t able to capitalize though they punted. The fourth drive ended in three plays, they had a rush for no gain, an incompletion and a 10-yard sack. They punted Northwestern, excuse me, kick the field goal. And then their fifth drive ended in four plays and Northwestern scored, it was 24 to three. So, ultimately, you could make your comeback jokes about 28-3 with Atlanta, New England or just Atlanta, any Atlanta Falcons football game.

But I think in college, it’s a little bit harder for a team to get motivated to come back just because they are college kids, and they’re just not in, they’re not used to those kind of mental situations where come back. And when your quarterback is throwing two interceptions and the first two of the first three offensive series, I think his confidence was probably a little bit shaken not necessarily shattered. So overall, while I probably am a little bit more skeptical on how good Maryland is, the Gophers are not, they’re treating them like a worthy opponent. They talked about how they’ve got a lot of talented players on both sides of the ball. One thing that was interesting to note is that they talked about how they aren’t returning a lot of starters this year, they’re bringing in a lot of transfers. The quarterback is obviously a transfer and for college football fans. The name is kind of familiar and Talia Tagovailoa, the brother of former Alabama star Tua Tagovailoa, he obviously didn’t play as well as his brother has played in college before. So they’re, the Gophers are still treating them as a worthy opponent. And they expect them to be athletic on both sides of the ball. But they didn’t really give you any specifics. And from my perspective, I wouldn’t expect them to have nearly the struggles they did against Michigan.

O’HARA: Well, yeah, there’s no question about it that Michigan is a better team than Maryland. I don’t think there’s going to be any argument there. One thing I’m curious about you mentioned Talia Tagovailoa. He threw a couple interceptions, which isn’t great, but we haven’t really seen much of him yet. What are the Gophers, what have they said about him? Is there been anything that they think stands out and kind of just what do you know about him in general?

O’BRIEN: So, P.J. talked a little bit about him and just said that what Maryland’s going to try to do with him, as they’re going to try to get him out in space, kind of move the pocket with him, not necessarily just have them drop back straight. They might run them a little bit, especially in college. Obviously, quarterbacks are known to run a little bit more, but this is this was his first start in college. And obviously, he transferred into he wasn’t on Maryland last year. So he, Joe Rossi, defensive coordinator, did say that he expects his jump from game one to game two to be better. And the biggest thing is because he again, it’s his first game. And he might have just been a little bit shaken and one you throw two, two interceptions. And all of a sudden, you’re down multiple scores. And if your defense doesn’t look like they can stop Northwestern running attack, it might be a little bit more demoralizing. So, they’re treating him like he’s going to be much more prepared for this week. And he’s going to be much more comfortable throughout the game and won’t make as many mistakes. But again, if he, you know, throws two, throws three interceptions total, two picks within the first three drives, there might be some possibilities for the Gophers to capitalize on some turnovers, which they weren’t able to get in the Michigan game. So that will be another thing to kind of watch out for.

O’HARA: Right. Yeah, he is a young quarterback. So, if they can get some pressure on him, we saw Boye Mafe early, get some pressure on Milton, if they can kind of keep that pass rush going, they could force him into some mistakes, which would be helpful for the Gophers. And one thing to note too, is with Tagovailoa, he wasn’t even 100% set to be the starter, he was in a quarterback competition, won the job, and is now playing in his first game. So we’ll see, I’m expecting he’ll get better each and every game, but who knows how much better he’ll be in a week. So, that’ll be something to keep an eye on for sure. And just looking at this game, I mean, we’re obviously not too high on Maryland. But what are what’s the biggest key for either team to come up with a win on Friday?

O’BRIEN: For Minnesota, I would say the big key is really and it’s obviously very simple task to say just on a podcast, but I think it’d be for them really taking notes from Northwestern and just trying to really run the football, while Northwestern was able to get over 300 yards rushing, and we saw Michigan was almost was about 250-260 rushing yards against the Gophers. Just try to keep establishing the run with Ibrahim, maybe Potts will get a little bit more involved, like we talked about before. And because if you’re able to do that, I think they’ll be able to get back to playing the football that we saw them play last year were engaged in big games like the Penn State game and the game against Auburn, they were able to control the clock, play complimentary football to their defense, not put their defense in bad situations, and ultimately give them much better chances to win, unlike games like Wisconsin last year, and Michigan where they just weren’t able to get those things going.

So, I would say just run the ball a lot. And if they’re able to do it successfully, then it should be smooth sailing for the Gophers for Maryland. It’s got to be, just limit the turnovers and don’t get down early if you can stay in the game. Because really, I mean, I read off those drives, and obviously you can look at you can just play the results. But they, if they didn’t turn the ball over and or if they were able to kind of have a few things kind of turn their way within the first part of the game. They weren’t actually down too much to Northwestern early, it just kind of got out of hand for them midway through the second quarter. So, I would say if they’re able to stay in the game, and then actually execute and make plays. That’s one other thing that a lot of the Gophers coaches mentioned is that Maryland missed some plays, and they just weren’t able to execute. And so they are going under the assumption that Maryland will be able to execute those plays. And if Maryland does, they could actually keep it closer, potentially. But again, we’re not as high on them as other people might be.

O’HARA: Right. Well, it’ll be I mean, we saw the Gophers, it snow balled away from them around the second quarter just like it did for Maryland. Different game this week, but we’ll see what happens. Do you have a final score prediction for this this Friday?

O’BRIEN: I do and I’m 0-1 unfortunately. So, hopefully we’ll try to make it a little bit better this week. Get some redemption. I think the Gophers will win pretty handily. I think it’ll be 43-20, I think Maryland will be able to get some points on the Gophers defense.

O’HARA:I kind of had the same, pretty close prediction 45-27. I also think Maryland will be able to score, not super high on the Gophers defense either right now, after seeing that first game against Michigan. I think they’ll struggle a little bit, but I don’t think they’ll have any trouble scoring against Maryland’s defense. But overall, we’ll see what happens on Friday. The Gophers play in Maryland games at 6:30 p.m. Central, and it’s televised on ESPN, so be sure to tune in and watch the Gophers play. And also be sure to check our website mndaily.com after the game for coverage. Brendan will be writing about it. And coverage on all things Gopher sports. We have it all. But Brendan, thank you for coming in. And thank you for joining us appreciate it.

O’BRIEN: Yeah, of course. Nolan, thank you.

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O’HARA: In other news: Gophers cornerback Benny Sapp III entered the transfer portal. The former three-star recruit announced his decision on Twitter Thursday. He’s already received offers from Northern Iowa and UNC-Charlotte. His dad played at Northern Iowa and was a former member of the Minnesota Vikings. That’s it, that’s all we have for other news. Thanks for tuning in. Again, be sure to check our website mndaily.com and tune in again next week for the “Weekly Rundown” on all things Gopher sports. Thanks.

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NOLAN O’HARA: Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the weekly rundown. Presented by the Minnesota daily. I’m your host Nolan O’Hara. Last week, Brendan and I discussed the Gophers upcoming matchup against Michigan, more so from the Gophers side of things. So, I thought this week we can focus more on Michigan. So, Brendan’s back again, he’s are football beat reporter. How’s it going, enjoying the snow?

BRENDAN O’BRIEN: On Tuesday, I just kind of hunkered down in my apartment, got some stuff done. Took a nice nap, snows good for napping and staying inside, not outside. How about you, Nolan?

O’HARA: Yeah, I’ve stayed inside for the most part and then realized I need to get my snow off of the car. So, then I decided to drive over here to the office and hang out here for a while. But that was about it, trying to avoid it as much as possible. And you know, last week, we kind of started off the podcast by talking about the rankings and whether the Gophers were positioned accurately. They finished the season ranked 10th last year, and we’re 24th last week in the rankings. They were 25th when they first got in there. But not playing is worked for Minnesota and the rest of the Big Ten. Every Big Ten team moved up in the rankings from their spot last week. And then so for Saturday’s matchup that means Michigan moved up from 19 to 18. And Minnesota has moved up from 24 to 21. Brendan, did you expect to see this jump right before the Gophers game?

O’BRIEN: Yeah, I think so just because one, there’s a lot of movement kind of towards the bottom of the polls and rankings every single week, usually, unless if there’s big matchups or big upsets, people will see the top 5-10 spots kind of stay true to what they are maybe a little bit of movement. But what summer anchors will say is that once you get down towards the bottom, it’s a little bit harder to rank some of those teams 18 through 20. And then on top of it, teams like Louisiana, not a traditionally a school that’s traditionally ranked in the top-25, they had a couple wins, they lost last week. Tennessee, a team that hasn’t been doing well, in previous seasons, they were ranked and then they lost last week’s they’ve fell behind the Gophers. And then Auburn also was upset by South Carolina. So, if you look at it nationally, it does make sense why Minnesota did move up a few spots even though they haven’t even play the game.

O’HARA: I thought one interesting thing too is – I don’t know how closely you looked – but did you see Wisconsin was tied for 14th with North Carolina, I believe?

O’BRIEN: I did not look that closely. That’s actually pretty interesting. And you’re right. They are tied.

O’HARA: I can’t say I’ve ever seen that before in the polls. But I thought that was something interesting to note. They moved up, they were at 15 last week. And last week, we also talked about you know some of the question marks for the Gophers and some things that they’ll be able to do well this season. I think we pretty much came to the conclusion, more or less, that the defense is the biggest question mark after losing Carter Coughlin, Thomas Barber, Kamal Martin and now Tampa Bay Bucs starring Antoine Winfield Jr. But you know, Michigan does have some question marks as well. They’re starting a new quarterback Joe Milton this year. Brendan, what have you heard about Milton? And what can the Gophers expect from him leading this Michigan offense?

O’BRIEN: So, in the press conferences that the gophers have had this week, Milton has been one of the talking points. Coaches have been asked about what to expect from Milton this coming week. How difficult is it to prepare for him? Just a little bit of background on him. He was a four-star recruit coming out of high school. So obviously, coaches thought the talent was definitely there. He didn’t really play much his past two years at Michigan, made it into seven or eight games, had a few passes one for a touchdown. He threw two interceptions. That was a question mark. And Joe Rossi defensive coordinator for the Gophers was asked, ‘Do they think there’s some things that they can exploit against Melton?’ And really Rossi, he was kind of differential to that question and basically just said that, you know, Milton hasn’t played that much, but that doesn’t mean that what we’ve seen from him in college is what we’re going to get on Saturday night.

Rossi expects a much better product and from Milton, just because he’s had a little bit more time to look at his own film, kind of improve some of his flaws in his own game, and then prepare specifically for this Minnesota team. And also, he’s gotten into some games where the games at that point were pretty much decided whether Michigan was winning or losing those games. So, Rossi also kind of said that really, those highlights might not paint a true picture of Milton. But overall, a lot of people have said that he had a big arm caught up coming out of college, high school rather, and had a big arm. So, you would expect it to be a talented quarterback. But again, with low game experience, you’re not quite sure what you might get.

O’HARA: Right. Yeah, and like you mentioned, there’s not much for the Gophers to look at on tape there, which will be interesting to see if Michigan tries to trick them or something early in the game. And under Harbaugh, they haven’t had that much success at the quarterback position. It’s been kind of one of those things where Michigan fans are hoping they get somebody who can give them the lift over Ohio State and it hasn’t happened. But they have had some talented running backs and they have two really young rushers who led the team last season will be returning in Zack Charbonnet, and Hassan Haskins. They combined for over 1300 yards and accounted for 15 Michigan touchdowns. So, with the new quarterback but two experienced but still younger running backs, what do you expect from Michigan’s offense overall? Do you think it’ll be a run heavy Saturday?

O’BRIEN: I think that’s probably the easy prediction to go with. Obviously, depending on how confident Michigan is in Melton heading into the first game of the season, you could see him throwing a little bit more depending on how confident they are. But just something to kind of keep in mind going off of last year in a 13-game season for Michigan, 10 of those games, they ran the ball 30 or more times. And in seven of those games, they ran the ball 40 or more times. They weren’t necessarily still one of the most run heavy teams in the big 10. But they those numbers still show you that they’re definitely dedicated to the run game, even if they’re not going to be as effective. They were eighth last year in yards per game at about 151 in rushing yards per game throughout the season. So, I would assume that they would lean on the run as well. Another important note about their offense is they are losing some receivers and Donovan Peoples-Jones, who left the program. And then Nico Collins who actually opted out of the season; two receivers that would have been good playmakers for Milton. So again, if Michigan doesn’t feel like they’re as confident in Milton’s playmaking at the beginning of the season and they still want him to build some chemistry with the receivers, then they might just be on the run more.

O’HARA: Yeah, it’ll be interesting to see what they kind of are able to do with that with losing those receivers and having a new quarterback um, but on the other side of the ball. It won’t be an easy game for Michigan either. They’ll have to contend with the gophers offense led by you know, Tanner Morgan, Rashod Bateman, Mohammed Ibrahim, and we’ve talked about it before but despite losing some of the players from last season, like Rodney Smith, like Tyler Johnson, the offense still is in pretty good shape this year, they return their offensive line. They have a really good number two wide receiver in Chris Autman-Bell, and of course, like I mentioned, we still have Tanner Morgan, Rashad Bateman and Mohammed Ibrahim coming back. So with all that being said, what do you expect from Michigan’s defense? What do you know about them? Do you think they’ll be able to slow down Tanner Morgan and the Gophers?

O’BRIEN: Yeah, I think one thing that’s really important to note is that Gophers players and coaches have really this week had high praise for Michigan’s defensive coordinator, Don Brown, and just all of the different things he brings to the table in a football game defensively. Some of the things to highlight that they’ve brought up is how aggressive their schemes are, are, and then how different their looks are from play to play. Sometimes they’ll give the opposing offense, just a variety of different defensive formations, whether they’re standing from certain sides of the defense, whether they’re kind of playing back in coverage. And, again, what Coach Fleck has said is that Michigan, despite you know, they might have some other players that have opted out, but they’re a blueblood university that has a national footprint, and that they have a lot of solid players that they can kind of plug and play and that they’re still going to get solid production out of them.

But in terms of Minnesota, they still have guys who obviously played well, like you just said in Morgan and Ibrahim and Bateman on the offensive side of the ball. And I think the question, ‘Can they slow down Morgan and the Minnesota offense?’ I think the answer would be, yes. But it really comes down to if those different defensive looks from play to play, confuse Morgan either at the line of scrimmage, pre-snap, or after, post-snap, and if Morgan’s confused, and you’ll be able to tell visibly, if Tanner’s holding on to the football a little bit longer than he would want to when he drops back on a pass. If he’s taking a lot of sacks, if he’s throwing into double coverage, those would be kind of some things to note that he might be a little bit more confused by that defense. But again, those would be some ways that they would slow them down. But again, it’s going to be tough for them to do so.

O’HARA: You mentioned like an aggressive Michigan defense, do you think the Gophers can expect a lot of pass rush? Or do you think they’ll try to key in on the run more?

O’BRIEN: I would assume that they’re going to bring a lot of pass rushers just because one key thing that Fleck brought up was having two defensive ends that he expects to make the NFL and be highly picked players in the NFL draft. So I would assume pass rush, but they just kind of bring pressure constantly. So, it doesn’t matter if it’s first down second down, they’ll probably keep on in on the run on someplace but then obviously, kind of bring the heat on. More telling pass passing downs, which might be like a third and eight or so.

O’HARA: For sure. And you know, last week we talked about to house there’s some Gopher players who are still on the fence, mentioned Falale on the offensive line. Has there been any update, any news in that regard?

O’BRIEN: There hasn’t been any update or news. PJ was asked about it in one of his press conferences this week. And he just at this point, he’s been asked about it a couple of times during the preseason and has declined to comment at that time and said at a later point, he would probably comment on players who had already made decisions to opt out or opt in publicly. And he’s just decided now that he’s not even going to talk about it just with HIPAA laws and not sure exactly what he can and can’t talk about. So right now, I would assume as what others that since there is no news about him not playing that he is going to be suiting up this season. And he’ll be on the field on Saturday night, but something to keep an eye out for just in case.

O’HARA: Yeah, definitely will be something to keep an eye out for especially as far as stopping that Michigan pass rush. But yeah, sounds like a lot of coach speak from PJ there.

O’BRIEN: Yep, definitely.

O’HARA: And one kind of development we’ve had this speak that at least I certainly didn’t expect was the weather. We got, like eight inches of snow yesterday. It’s supposed to snow again tomorrow. I didn’t, I saw that it wasn’t supposed to snow on Saturday, but who knows at this point. So, I guess we have to go over this one already. Do we think that the weather can play an impact? And do we expect it to make any impact on this game on Saturday?

O’BRIEN: I think the weather might play a little bit of an impact. I think it’ll be enjoyable because it kind of just reminds you of just mid-season Big Ten football. For anyone who is a college football fan, we’re getting a kind of a mid-season style football game, right at the beginning of the season, which I think is definitely exciting. I think what will probably impact the game a little bit more than the weather, but the weather could still be a factor depending on how cold or how windy and if there is snow. I think one factor that will play a huge role in this game is it being the first game and these coaches have had a few weeks now of sitting at home on Saturdays are having their early morning or afternoon practices. And then they get to sit at home and watch all these other conferences the SEC, Big 12, ACC play some competition and have seen some kind of some good things from some teams, some explosive plays. Obviously if you watch Clemson you saw a big score there. But you also see big mistakes from some of these other teams and I think what some of these coaches will do, after watching those few first few weeks of this odd season, are probably going to be more conservative, especially if they believe in the running game. I think they’re going to try to limit mistakes, limit turnovers, not put their own defenses in any difficult situations. So, that’s what I would expect, and the weather would just play into it just because if the winds weapon all over the field, no one’s going to be wanting to throw deep out routes or passes.

O’HARA: Right. And I think if it’s going to be snowing again on Saturday, I don’t think too many people be wanting to throw the ball either. But you know, just thinking about it, this is obviously a delayed season. But I don’t know if you remember the Miami Ohio game a couple years ago, it was like 90 degrees and it was like the second or third game of the season even. And here we are first game of the season. We already have a ton of snow before it.

O’BRIEN: Yeah, I had a picture pop up for a memory of it was October 20, about three years ago, and it was just nice and sunny, and I was riding my bike and I was just in some green grass. And now obviously October 20, 2020, I was cooped up in my apartment, no sun, just a bunch of snow.

O’HARA: Right? It was just like, got all this snow. A week ago, I was playing golf and I was talking to you like we should play some golf sometime. But now here we are.

O’BRIEN: Yeah, no more golf in 2020.

O’HARA: Yeah, seems like that season has ended. But, you know, just to wrap things up here. What do you think is like one key for each team? Like what could one, what could either Michigan or Minnesota do to you know, increase their chances of taking home the Little Brown Jug and starting the eight-game Big Ten season 1-0?

O’BRIEN: Sure. I think keys are pretty similar for both teams just because I think both teams will be kind of similar in mindset heading into the game, not wanting to turn the ball over, limiting mistakes, things like that. For Michigan, I think their biggest key is staying on schedule offensively throughout the whole game. You look at three of their losses last season. One was to Wisconsin, if you look at that score, it was not close. It was about 31 to I believe seven or 13. Then they played Ohio State. Ohio State ended up scoring two touchdowns in all four quarters got up, scored 56 points. So, they kind of got ran out of the building in that one and then in their bowl game against Alabama. They had the lead for a little bit and then just couldn’t hold on. So, I think for Michigan it’s staying on schedule offensively making sure that they’re not putting their defense in a bad spot as well and they’re still putting up points for Minnesota.

I think what will be big for them if they’re gonna have success against an aggressive defense is get your playmakers the ball and just get a bunch of them involved whether that’s obviously Rashod Bateman, Chris Autman-Bell, at the second receiver slot. We’ve talked about Mohammed Ibrahim in the backfield, but there’s other guys that in that running back room that could step up whether it’s a guy like Trayson Potts that Coach Fleck has mentioned as someone who’s not only a good runner, but a good receiver out of the backfield. Maybe, you know, they didn’t have as much, you know, production in the passing game, but maybe it’s a tight end that gets involved a little bit more. So, getting a lot of different guys, the ball, letting Tanner throw quick passes, if there’s going to be a pass rush coming in quick.

O’HARA: Do you have a final score prediction?

O’BRIEN: 31-23 and I’ll go with Minnesota.

O’HARA: And I’ll go 27-24 Minnesota. All right. I think it’s gonna be a tight game. I’m excited.

O’BRIEN: Yeah, I’m definitely excited for it to get some football. It’s gonna be cold. It’s gonna be pitch black, lights are gonna be on and it’s gonna be on ABC. It’ll be a fun time.

O’HARA: Yeah, nationally televised on ABC. So everyone, be sure to watch the Gophers on Saturday. And if you want to hear more, read more about Gopher football, you can check out a newsstand around campus, where we have our season preview edition. It came out on Wednesday. In previous years we’ve had one of these for each Gophers home game, but this year we aren’t printing unfortunately because of the pandemic. And we are only doing one, so be sure to grab a copy of it. It’s a really fun preview with a lot of good information about the Gophers this season. Brendan, as always, thank you so much for joining us. Have a good rest of the week and enjoy the game on Saturday.

O’BRIEN: Thank you Nolan, appreciate it.

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O’HARA: In other news: College GameDay is returning to Minneapolis for the Gophers first game of the season against Michigan. The ESPN pregame show visited Minneapolis for the first time ever last year on a snowy Saturday. The Gophers took on Wisconsin in a game that decided the Big Ten west division. They chose an earlier game this year but will still get the snow. Gophers quarterback Tanner Morgan and Gophers receiver Rashod Bateman were named to the Big Ten Preseason Honors list. The list features 10 Big Ten players, five from the East and five from the West, and is voted on by members of the media. Minnesota and Ohio State were the only two teams with multiple players on the list. This week, the Gophers baseball team is hosting a virtual scout week. The team is unable to host scouts on campus this fall, so instead, they’ve put together this, compiling highlights, statistics and analytics of the 2021 draft eligible players in a virtual format. The Gophers softball team added Megan Dray to its roster. Dray transferred after three years in North Carolina where she played as utility player. She’ll provide flexibility to the Gophers lineup, with experience at catcher and first base. That’s all for this week. Remember to check our website mndaily.com for all your news regarding campus and tune in again next week to get the ‘Weekly Rundown’ on all things Gopher sports. Thanks for listening.

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NOLAN O’HARA: Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the “Weekly Rundown,” presented by the Minnesota Daily. I’m your host, Nolan O’Hara. We’re just a little over a week away from the Gophers first game of the 2020 football season. They’ll take on No. 19 Michigan at TCF Bank Stadium on Oct. 24. As we’re gearing up for that, I’m joined today by our football beat reporter Brendan O’Brien. Brendan, how’s it going?

BRENDAN O’BRIEN: Doing pretty well. Nolan, how are you?

O’HARA: I’m doing well, I’m doing well. Good. Here another day, you know, still kicking. So, that’s always good. But let’s get started and talk about the rankings. The Gophers finished last season ranked 10th after they beat Auburn in the Outback Bowl, but were left out of the top-25 in the first poll once since the Big Ten restarted their season. But they’ve since jumped back in. First, they were at No. 25. This week, they’re up another spot to No. 24. So looking at some other Big Ten schools, Ohio State’s No. 6, Penn State is nine, Wisconsin is 16. Michigan who the Gophers will see in their first game of the season is No. 19. And the Gophers are the last Big Ten team in at No. 24. So, no Big Ten team has played a game yet, so it might be too early to tell, but Brendan, what do you think of the Gophers position in the rankings? Is it too low, too high, or is it just right?

O’BRIEN: Well, Nolan, I think this is a really great question. And to answer it, I’m not really sure right now. And if you’re listening to this podcast, you probably know that, obviously, there’s a lot of different methods that some conferences have taken going into this season. The SEC, the Big 12 and the ACC were notable conferences that started earlier in September, with the Big Ten in the Pac-12 obviously originally opting out of football, and now the Big Ten is starting up here in about a week. And then the Pac-12 starting out later in November, I believe.

So, at the beginning of the season, there was kind of some complaints whether Big Ten schools, Pac-12, schools that are projected to do well should actually be ranked in the top-25. But I think really being ranked 24th is more of a courtesy rank to the Gophers given what they did last year, obviously coming off of an 11-2 season, beating teams like Penn State and Auburn were some of their signature wins. And I think overall, it’s probably for fans out there that might be upset looking at some of the teams less traditional teams that are ranked in the top-25 right now that are ahead of the Gophers. It probably is a little bit pointless to get too upset about it right now, just because usually, if the Gophers ended up having a good record, they’re going to be ranked higher at the end of the season. And right now, there’s just so many question marks up in the air.

O’HARA: For sure. And yeah, the Big Ten is just about to start back up, and you know, looking at this Gophers first game against Michigan, it’s already going to be one that has an impact as both teams are top-25 already. And this year, in particular, every game matters more. There are only conference schedules. And you know, like eight games for the Gophers this season in this in only Big Ten conference games. So, what do you think we can expect from this week one matchup with two top-25 teams in the Big Ten?

O’BRIEN: Well, I think it probably will be one of your more traditional, classic, Big Ten games. Both teams like to run the football, Michigan didn’t necessarily have as successful of rushing statistics that you might usually associate with that team, but they still do like to run the football on offense and pride themselves with a good defense under Jim Harbaugh. Minnesota, actually, I was looking and in some places is favored right now to win the game, the line’s about like two. Michigan under Harbaugh right now, I also found this stat that they are currently 1-7 under Harbaugh as being road underdogs. So, that’s something just of note, but it is obviously going to be an interesting first game for both teams, especially Minnesota given that how they played last year in the non-conference, winning all three non-conference games, but all of them kind of been squeaky close wins. And then obviously once they got to the Big Ten, they started to kind of heat up a little bit more. They’re going to have to be sharp come next Saturday because Michigan was six in scoring offense last year and fifth in scoring defense in the Big Ten. So, it’s going to be a good test for both teams.

O’HARA: For sure. I’m glad you brought that up, you know the first three non-conference games last year, because playing a team like Michigan right out right out of the gate, the Gophers can’t play like they did in those first three non-conference games. And, you know, going back to them being two-point favorites as well, that probably is because it’s really a toss-up game. And they, it seems like they’re giving it to Minnesota because it is a home game. So, that’ll be really interesting game to keep our eyes on. And I know one thing we’ve discussed just a couple weeks ago on the podcast was the Gophers defense, but I kind of want to bring it up again, because that’s going to be the biggest question mark for this team. They had a great defense last season, but they’ve lost so many key players and starters to either the NFL Draft or to graduation. And I know one player, we’ve kind of seen his name recently who’s primed to step up is Mariano Sori-Marin, who filled in for Kamal Martin last season when he was down with an injury. And I know P.J. spoke pretty highly of him in the last press conference. What was he saying about him?

O’BRIEN: Sure. So, what Fleck kind of said about Sori-Marin was everything you’d want to hear about a Big Ten linebacker, that he’s fast, he’s very physical, willing to make plays, make hits in the open field. And the one thing that was really telling was one of the last things he said about Sori-Marin, is that he’s going to be the Joe Rossi of the defense, that he’s a really intellectual player. So, I would expect him not only to be in some of the right spots, whether it’s in pass coverage, or in the open field making tackles in the run, but also probably pre-snap, he’s going to be the guy that’s going to make sure other players are lined up correctly. And that the defense is set each time.

O’HARA: So, it sounds like Fleck not only expects him to kind of step up into that role after losing guys like Kamal Martin, Thomas Barber, but also to be kind of the quarterback of the defense and directing them and kind of stepping up into that role as well.

O’BRIEN: Right. Yeah. And the thing is to that, for Gopher fans that might not know as much about him, given all of the other linebackers that the Gophers have had throughout the past few seasons, he has still had some big game experience, most notably, he started for Martin who opted out of the bowl game against Auburn, and the defense really didn’t miss that much of a beat in that game as well. So, he should be kind of the Tanner Morgan of their defense.

O’HARA: And, alongside him who are some other players you expect to step up on that defensive side?

O’BRIEN: Sure. So, we obviously talked about Sori-Marin stepping up in the linebacking unit. On the defensive line, I think one name that’s been brought up quite a bit is Boye Mafe. And we talked a little bit about him as well, but he just really has some good football and just athletic measurables that other people have talked about. And he’s gotten some playing time already on that defensive line. But with guys like Carter Coughlin gone, Winston DeLattiboudere gone, he should probably see an uptick in the amount of snaps that he would get at least you would expect that.

And then in the secondary, I would say Jordan Howden. I was kind of walking by the football stadium earlier today, and I was thinking about the play he made in the Penn State game, sealing the game with an interception in the end zone. And I think he’s played a couple of seasons already for the Gophers, he played as a freshman didn’t start every game, but he’s going into his junior season now, but he’s definitely a guy that hasn’t gotten as much name recognition, playing alongside guys like Chris Williamson and obviously, most notably Antoine Winfield Jr. So, he definitely could be one that would step up. He’s had 40-50 tackles in the past two seasons as well. So he should be kind of a key cornerstone in that defensive backfield.

O’HARA: You heard it here first, watch out for Jordan Howden in the season. We’ve seen you know, him make that play. But we’ve also seen some Antoine Winfield play, so maybe he can make some more similar kind of game saving plays in the endzone should the Gophers need it this season. And, another interesting thing to note is that there are still some players who are undecided about returning in this unusual season. Rashod Bateman we saw opt out, opt back in when he saw that the Big Ten was playing again. And we haven’t seen any additional opt-outs yet, but it was something Fleck was asked about in media availability and kind of alluded to that it could be happening. Do we have any idea who might be on the fence still?

O’BRIEN: So, two players that are have been asked about in these press conferences with coach Fleck are offensive lineman Daniel Falale, primarily plays right tackle, and then linebacker Braelen Oliver. Now, those are two guys that have been asked about that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are guys that are on the fence 100%, they very well might be. But the reason why there’s not necessarily more clarity on the situation with those players and maybe even other players is that one thing coach Fleck has said early on, as before the season approaches is that he wants to make sure that players are kind of given their opportunity to come up with a decision for themselves, he doesn’t want their names being out there and have in any other added pressure put on those players before the season where to start, that obviously we’re going to hear about players if they do decide to opt out here within the next few days, given that the season is supposed to start in a couple of days. But right now, those are just two names that potentially are on the fence.

O’HARA: I kind of want to talk about Falale a little bit because he’s been a huge impact on the offensive line. And one of the things that wasn’t really a question mark for the Gophers coming into the season was the offensive line, you know, thankfully returning Tanner Morgan returning Rashod Bateman, but you’re also returning pretty much your entire offensive line. They’ve shifted around a bit, but the same five guys are coming back this year. If Falale does decide to opt out, what could that mean for the Gophers offense? And is there anybody you think that might step up in the right tackle?

O’BRIEN: Yeah, right now, I think it would be a little bit hard to project who would necessarily step up into the exact right tackle spot. The Gophers do still have some players that are kind of reserves on the offensive line, like Axel Ruschmeyer, and I’m blanking on his name right now, John Michael Schmitz. And both of those players would either step up into either the right tackle position, or they would play another position and they could move guys around whether it be Blaise Andries, who’s moved around before, Connor Olson.

O’HARA: For sure. Yeah. And just kind of having to shuffle like that. How difficult could that be for a team, you know, starting out right away in the season, when you think you kind of have your entire offensive line intact moving in, and now having to shift it right away?

O’BRIEN: It definitely could play an impact in maybe pass coverage. I would say, given how heavily of run team the Gophers are, that a lot of the offensive linemen, whether you’re a starter or a reserve, you’re expected to know the pass block or run blocking schemes as well as the pass blocking schemes. But, sometimes if it’s a third-and-long, players might have to switch up coverages and or roles, I should say and pass blocking schemes. So, that communication might take a little bit longer for some of those reserves who haven’t gotten as much game time. As far as that, it might take them a little bit longer to adjust to that.

O’HARA: Yeah, as far as the past blocking thing, all we have to do is point to our hometown, Minnesota Vikings to see that, you know, sometimes you can run block, but you can’t pick up the pass block. That’s just as far as you have to look. But the Gophers will kick off their season, on Oct. 24 here at TCF Bank Stadium, but unfortunately, given the circumstances fans will not be permitted. But the game is nationally televised on ABC. It’ll start at 6:30 p.m. So, don’t forget to tune in. Brendan, it was a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us.

O’BRIEN: Yeah, of course, Nolan. Thank you.

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O’HARA: In other news, on Oct. 9, the Board of Regents passed a revised athletics department proposal to cut three men’s sports in gymnastics, tennis and indoor track and field. The proposal passed on a 7-5 vote. The athletics department had previously proposed to cut both indoor and outdoor track and field, but a revised proposal came before the Board on Friday. So, after the 2020-2021 school year, indoor track, tennis and gymnastics will be discontinued. This proposal will only save the department $1.6 million in next fiscal year.

The University will host three championship events between 2023-2026. In 2023, the University will host the men’s swimming and diving championship. In 2024, the University will host the men’s Frozen Four. And in 2025, the University will host the women’s Frozen Four. The University will partner with local venues to accommodate these events. The University is already scheduled to host one of the regionals in this year’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament, the 2021 men’s gymnastics championship and the 2022 NCAA women’s basketball Final Four.

The Gophers men’s and women’s basketball teams practiced for the first time on Wednesday. Both teams lost a number of key contributors from last season and will rely on underclassmen and transfers to step up in the upcoming season.

That’s all for this week. Remember to check our website mndaily.com for more coverage. Join us again next week for the “Weekly Rundown” on all things Gopher sports.

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NOLAN O’HARA: Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the “Weekly Rundown,” presented by the Minnesota Daily. I’m your host Nolan O’Hara. We had a bit of a hiccup with last week’s episode, but that should be on our website now if you want to catch up on Gopher football. Today, I’m with one of our reporters Matt Kennedy. Matt, how’s it going?

MATT KENNEDY: It’s going good Nolan. Currently, in the heat of midterms, as I assume other students on campus at the University of Minnesota are doing, which can be stressful yet Gopher football’s on the way back, which is exciting. And there’s a ton of sports to watch right now with the NHL draft being on last night, the NBA Finals and MLB playoffs. So overall, it’s a great time to be rabid sports follower like myself.

O’HARA: For sure, it’s been it’s been fun and looks like the Lakers are doing pretty good and football’s been back and some fantasy football with our Daily sports league here.

KENNEDY: Yes.

O’HARA: But Matt’s joining us here today mostly to discuss the upcoming Board of Regents meeting this Thursday and Friday. For those of you who haven’t heard, the athletics department has proposed cutting three men’s sports in indoor and outdoor track and field, gymnastics, tennis, citing financial difficulties amid the pandemic and Title IX compliance. After the athletics department made this announcement, there was a protest by student athletes, fans and supporters, who marched from Athletes Tillage to Morill Hall, where president Joan Gable’s office is. Matt was on the ground covering the protest for us, and he recently broke some news regarding Title IX compliance that the athletic department cited in making these cuts. Matt, tell me a little bit about the athletic department’s decision and these new developments you found out about Title IX compliance.

KENNEDY: Yes, so one of the big things that I talked with RegenT Michael Hsu about this, and another one person I talked to Mike Burns, football being back fluctuates things a lot. This decision made by Mark Coyle was before he knew that Big Ten sports would be coming back, especially football. So it’s the biggest revenue booster at the University of Minnesota. It accounts for two thirds of the athletic department’s revenue in 2019 through 2020. So you’d think that this decision is pretty premature on just knowing that it was made before anyone knew that football would be returning. And it may have to delay this decision of discontinuing sports or maybe bring them back since there’s a lot more money now coming back for the athletic department to thrive.

O’HARA: And your article that you wrote for this last week, it talked about Title IX compliance, and there are some kind of unannounced things that are happening there. Can you explain that situation a little bit?

KENNEDY: Yes. So I spoke with Michael Hsu – he’s on the Board of Regents – on Sept. 27. Before this breaking news broke out that there besides gymnastics, track and field and tennis on the men’s side being cut, there’s also being major cuts on the women’s side, including cross country losing about 14 of its members. So it would go down from 34 rostered members to 20. And indoor track and outdoor track, both losing 18 members. So the roster spots would go down from 68 to 50. And that was pretty unknown. And it was being kept in the dark by Mark Coyle, according to Michael Hsu, and you wanted to get that out there. And it’s in my article, if you want to read more about it, but yeah, so it was pretty unexpected.

O’HARA: Yeah, make sure to check out Matt’s article at mndaily.com. But back to the conversation with Hsu with those cuts. You said he was left in the dark because in the press releases they only mentioned you know that men’s tennis, men’s gymnastics, men’s indoor and outdoor track. Did the Regents expect that women’s cuts were going to go along with it? Or were they left in the dark like the rest of us?

KENNEDY: I think what Michael said to me was that this was apparently the plan from the beginning. And he was just when he talked to me on Sept. 27. Before my article came out about this issue, he said he knew about it and he actually he wanted to get this out as soon as possible. I feel like the Regents knew about it and nothing was being said, and Coyle also in his initial press conference about where he was really somber, had really somber announcement, talking about the discontinuation of men’s track and field mentioned gymnastics, men’s tennis. He never said anything about it. Pretty much, almost half of women’s cross country team. Their roster spots being cut and a boatload of track and field athletes will probably have to be cut as well if this plan goes through.

O’HARA: So it’s looking like as far as Title IX compliance, the U’s kind of having to overcorrect itself and re-get-themselves back into compliance after cutting these three men’s sports, right? And looking at it for the women’s side, what does it mean for the sports that are facing cuts? You mentioned the cross country team, what other sports are facing cuts? And what can it mean for those programs?

KENNEDY: Yeah, so golf, which originally had nine will be cut down to eight, gymnastics, which originally had 20 will be cut down to 18. Rowing, actually, I missed that. That’s another big sport that’s facing cuts, that will go down from 75 to 60. So 15, roster spots will be cut. Softball, there will be two less roster spots. So we’ll go from 23 to 21; swimming and diving will go from 38 to 30, it’ll lose eight roster spots. So basically, these are all being cut to align with the fact that all these men’s sports are being discontinued. There’s 58, men’s roster spots that just with coils current plan will not be there in 2021 through 2022 school year. And those sports, again, are being cut to get $2.7 million back for the University to spend going forward. And many people think cutting the sports and also cutting women’s roster spots just for $2.7 million isn’t enough, you’re not getting enough money back for this.

O’HARA: That definitely led to a reaction from a lot of student athletes, fans, supporters of teams. And yeah, they will only save $2.7 million this fiscal year. So, there isn’t a lot of money coming back. And I remember talking to Mike Burns, a coach we’ve checked in pretty frequently with, at the protest. And he was saying, just with that information about the football team being back that they should delay the vote. I know you’ve spoken to him recently, again, he’s been very vocal about trying to save not only his program, but gymnastics programs across the country. Right. When you talked to him again, what were some ideas that he had to save the program? What did he say? And I know he sent you some new information as well.

KENNEDY: Right so, before we get into Mike Burns, I also want to say they’re also are being on some men’s sports, even there are some more popular men’s sports roster spots being added. So, basketball is getting two roster spots, football’s getting one roster spot added, same with men’s ice hockey, one roster spot added, and also wrestling two roster spots adds. So, that’s also something that I think it’s good that people should be aware of. But no, Mike Burns is not happy camper right now and for good reason. Because last year there, I would have to say 15 NCAA Men’s gymnastics programs offered around the country, and they’re slowly being reduced even further due to COVID-19. I know I will just cut their program. That’s one of them. So 80% of all Olympic gymnasts in the USA come from these programs. And according to him, and pretty much everybody else around gymnastics, that’s a pretty big deal. So he along with Hsu and others are in favor of trimming roster spots on these men’s teams and offering fewer scholarship money to athletes. And he had this great quote that you can also find in my article that says, “If you have a piece of skin cancer on your face, let’s not cut the whole head off. Let’s just focus on that piece of skin.” So, he’s very, very unhappy right now.

O’HARA: Yeah, and understandably so. I’m looking at it, they do need to fall into Title IX compliance, but basically, Burns is offering the [University] a number of other solutions that will put them in compliance without cutting entire programs. The only question with that is the fiscal cost. And many would argue that the money you’re saving the $2.7 million this fiscal year, it’s not worth saving, or rather for the 2021-2022 school year when the cuts would take place, that is not worth losing three men’s programs for, and just overall there have been a number of new developments since the athletics department announced this proposal. The first development being that Big Ten football returned. It’s going to be a huge financial boost for the department. That’s the biggest money making sport that the U offers. And now both the basketball and hockey seasons are expected to proceed as well. The Big Ten hockey team just announced their season start date. And that will also help with the financial picture. And now we’re seeing that they’re expecting to cut make cuts to women’s programs as well. So with the conflicts, the department’s claim of needing to meet Title IX compliance, and then seeing that they’re also expecting to cut women’s roster spots, that that kind of throws out their claim of saying this is this is solely because of Title IX compliance and financial issues. So looking at all these, you know, new developments, are you expecting any changes with the Board, they previously endorsed the proposal? Do you think any of these developments will change their minds?

KENNEDY: You have to keep in mind that the University of Minnesota offers the fourth largest Big Ten sports opportunities for students compared to all the other schools in the Big Ten. And but it’s on the eighth largest budget in the conference. So, I think that this protest by the teams will be successful. Though, given that the school’s needing a budgetary boost, the discontinuation of track and field gymnastics and men’s team, again, it only alots $2.7 million in savings. So there needs to be, in my opinion, more time to figure out how to save more money in the long run, without the huge downer of cutting sports for again, such a small gain. Because Michael Hsu, and Mike Burns are both in agreement that they need more time they need to see where this goes. And they can maybe go back to the drawing room, you know, after the 2020 through 2021 academic year.

O’HARA: Right. That was that was one thing Burns reiterated to me last time I spoke with him. He was just saying, you know, there’s time, there’s no need to push anything through right now. And we’ll see where it goes in the future. And we will have to wait and see but for not very long because the Board is expected to vote on this proposal. And its meeting that takes place this Friday and Saturday rather Thursday and Friday.

KENNEDY: Yeah. And also, I’ll just add this in there. Mike Burns also has a really in depth 26 page proposal on three models that can help not only save the gymnastics program, but other programs that got discontinued as well.

O’HARA: For sure, I remember reading that the other day he does, he sent Matt a couple of proposals that he thinks could be helpful in not losing three sports and just trimming roster spots or he’s even had some other ideas as well. But we’ll definitely be there for the coverage on the Regents’ vote this Thursday and Friday. And make sure so make sure to check our website, mndaily.com for all updates and anything Gopher sports. Matt, really appreciate you joining me, appreciate you coming in.

KENNEDY: No problem. My pleasure Nolan.

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O’HARA: In other news: The Gophers rowing team has announced its captains for the 2020-21 season. Meade Avery, Lindsay Eliasen and Gabby Mullally will lead the team this season. Gophers’ wide receiver Demetrius Douglas has opted out of the 2020 Big Ten football season. Douglas graduates this fall and is planning to focus on his life after school. More football players are yet to decide whether to play in 2020. Head coach P.J. Fleck wouldn’t name names, saying he wants players to make the decision for themselves. Gophers freshman defenseman Brock Faber was selected in the NHL Draft with the 45th overall pick by the Los Angeles Kings. The Big Ten announced the start date to its 2020-21 season, beginning as soon as Nov. 13. There will be a 24 game conference schedule, and four additional games against independent Arizona State. That’s all for this week. Be sure to check our website mndaily.com and tune in again next week for the “Weekly Rundown” on all things Gopher sports.