It seemed like Elliott Eliason had put some thought into the question. And he was quick with a response.
Does he think the Gophers allow a few mistakes to snowball?
"You could say that," he said, his head down and shaking slowly. "I kind of like to use a quicksand analogy, personally."
Could you say that about the season?
After starting the non-conference schedule 12-1 and the Big Ten, 3-0, the Gophers have now lost six of their last eight, have fallen below .500 after the loss to Illinois and find their spot in the AP top 25 – the new one will be released tomorrow – threatened.
Yes, not all of these losses are bad. They Gophers have fallen to ranked Indiana, Michigan and Michigan State, Wisconsin is always tough and Illinois clearly is full of capable shooters.
But this is the league the Gophers play in – and if they can't learn to take some of these matchups very soon, they're going to quickly work their way into a very different conversation than the one they were hoping to be joining this time of year – a conversation laced with talk of the bubble, lingering disappointments and staff turnover.
Because the biggest concern with this Minnesota team is that they cannot seem to fix their woes, which are incredibly consistent and harmful from game to game. This loss to Illinois was no different – brought on by poor shooting (36.7 percent), rashes of turnovers (13 overall), a disjointed offense (no one able to find open spots except Austin Hollins) and the failure to defend the perimeter (Illinois had 11 3-pointers).
