Gophers postgame: Full-court pressure and up-tempo offense look like a winning combination

The Gophers came into tonight wanting to improve on three things:

1. Turnovers

2. Rebounding

3. Shooting

They succeeded in two of the three (hint: the first two), and gave us a No. 4 (defensive pressure) and No. 5 (up-tempo offense) to be excited about, so we'll almost forgive them for the shooting bit ... almost.

On opening night, the Gophers buried American at the Barn, 72-36, in one of the most up-tempo, consistently intense, effectively pressing games I've seen them play.

Now before you go off on me with a litany of curses and shouts that their opponent just wasn't, um, that good, hear me out:

b) A team can soundly beat another team and play without energy (we've seen that right?) and a team can soundly beat another team and do so in a contagious, energetic way -- and then maintain that energy despite the fact that they've got the team out of reach by four touchdowns or so.

The Gophers were the latter tonight. They should have dominated that team and they did. But they also did it in a way that inspired.

The thing that impressed me most was the Gophers' use of the full-court press. Coach Tubby Smith has long talked about pressing more, and playing more up-tempo on the other end. Tonight, the Gophers actually did it and maintained it pretty much throughout the whole game. They showed how well conditioned they were, how focused they were and how good they can be when they do that right.

This is how everyone wants this team to play, right? This is what the athletic roster seems built for?

"He preaches that every year, he tells us to go do it," Rodney Williams said of Smith and their style of play tonight. "That first five minutes when you're going, running, you get a little tired. But today it seemed like we had a little bit of juice and we were able to do that basically the whole game."

Other notes from tonight's win: