Those who watched saw an unfair fight. A Division II team was forced to play a Division I foe in a loud road arena, and the battle on the boards was as uneven as the raised court to the arena floor.
But Southwest Minnesota State, the D-II squad, was the team crushing the Gophers in rebounding and ultimately won the battle of the boards by double digits: 41-28 in Sunday's exhibition. Afterward, despite an 81-64 victory, players in the locker room slumped at the mention of their rebound effort, memories of last year's feeble averages still fresh.
Senior forward Joey King called it a "red flag." His co-captain, senior guard Carlos Morris, had a similar reaction.
"I'm pretty sure there are going to be bigger guys in the Big Ten," he said, shaking his head. "We get outrebounded by these guys? We've got to wake up. It's definitely a wake-up call."
Hold off the alarm bells for now, because Sunday's exhibition downer doesn't count toward the official record. Starting Friday, however, with the season opener vs. Missouri-Kansas City, everything will. After losing a pair of senior centers and integrating a host of young players, the Gophers' rebounding aptitude could be the difference between hatching some surprises in coach Richard Pitino's third year and tumbling into the Big Ten basement.
As Sunday showed, the Gophers have their work cut out for them.
"It will be good for us," Pitino said then. "You don't want to get obliterated on the glass, but we know that's a weakness of ours that we've got to get better at."
Pitino said Thursday he expects 6-11 sophomore center Bakary Konate to be available Friday after missing nearly a month because of a stress fracture in his left foot. But even with Konate, Minnesota faces an uphill climb.