Richard Pitino is hoping that lessons learned bring new results.
The first rapid-fire tournament setting he coached the Gophers through did not go well.
At the Maui Invitational, the Thanksgiving tournament Minnesota participated in this year, the Gophers got a rough first-round matchup in Syracuse, but it was that game that turned out to be the highlight.
Minnesota stayed close with the Orange before falling 67-75. The next day, however, the Gophers crumbled against Arkansas, and on the final morning threatened to drop even the contest for last place to Chaminade, the tournament's only Division II team.
Ultimately, the Gophers escaped the mid-game deficit and pulled out the 83-68 victory, but it was tough to consider the trip a success (for them at least; personally, I got a fantastic tan). By the end of it, Minnesota simply seemed exhausted.
If the Gophers achieve their goals now -- in the week before the Penn State finale, Pitino had been emphasizing five wins in five games, Mo Walker said -- they'll have to play a similar schedule at the Big Ten tournament, which starts Thursday with an opening matchup against Penn State.
"Maui taught me a little bit too, what to do, to understand legs and so on," Pitino said "So you're playing hopefully four games in four nights, and we've got to be aware of that."
One major difference, he pointed out, are the game times.
In Hawaii, once the Gophers fell to the loser's bracket, they played the earliest game each of the last two days -- both falling around 9 a.m. local time. Minnesota was 1-3 in games played before 4 p.m. in the league slate this season. In Indianapolis, the Gophers will play in the evening bracket, with their first game tipping at 6:30 ET.
