Patrick Reusse: In schedule and on court, normal is out

"Life on Mars" was a television hit in Britain and now there's a U.S. version on ABC. The hook is that a modern-day police detective gets hit by a car and awakes as his 2lst Century self in 1973.

There was a similar experience for longtime followers of Gophers basketball on Saturday afternoon at Williams Arena.

We found ourselves in 1963, when John Kundla's starting lineup consisted of Eric Magdanz and Mel Northway from Minneapolis, Bob Bateman from International Falls, Terry Kunze from Duluth and Tom McGrann from Watertown, S.D.

Freshmen were not eligible for varsity competition, so it was the next year that Lou Hudson (North Carolina), Archie Clark (Michigan) and Don Yates (Pennsylvania) integrated the lineup and expanded forever the Gophers' recruiting map.

Now, all these decades later, here was a Gophers lineup that included Minnesotans Blake Hoffarber, Jamal Abu-Shamala and Al Nolen, as well as freshman Colton Iverson from Yankton, S.D. The interloper in Saturday's time travel was Damian Johnson, a junior from Thibodaux, La., and currently coach Tubby Smith's best player.

The opponent was North Dakota State -- No. 5 on a slate of 10 nonconference home games that constitutes a ripoff of patrons that would embarrass Tom Petters.

There's a game in the Barn on Tuesday night against Virginia, thanks to the annual ACC-Big Ten Blowout, but beyond that Tubby and Co. have shown no conscience toward their consumers in arranging this pre-Big Ten schedule.

The great Gophers tradition is Big Ten games on Saturday -- and particularly Saturday afternoon -- in the Barn.

For this season, there is one Saturday game among the nine home conference games -- an 11 a.m. start against Ohio State on Jan. 3. The Big Ten finale against Michigan also is a possibility for a Saturday.

There are two Big Ten home games set for Sundays, with the five others being played on various weeknights. This is being done for the glory of the Big Ten Network, where you can enjoy veteran analysts such as Spencer Tollackson, as was the case on Saturday.

Affable young man that he is, Spencer might want to restrict his commentary to basketball. There was a promo for Saturday night's Gophers hockey game, and Tollackson tossed in a platitude that he couldn't remember the last time Don Lucia's team was out of the top 10.

Ah, Spencer, the answer would be 2007-08, which was your senior basketball season.

The Bison arrived with three ultra- experienced starters in Ben Woodside, Mike Nelson and Brett Winkelman. Those seniors were knocked back immediately by the Gophers' defensive pressure, led by Johnson and Nolen.

It was 14-1 for the home team when NDSU coach Saul Phillips finally called a timeout to rescue his wobbly troops.

There were 3 1/2 minutes gone and already it was clear the Gophers would run their record against the nonconference confections to 6-0.

Minnesota's strong defensive edge showed only in spurts after that early burst, and Nelson, Woodside and Winkelman combined for 54 points. They couldn't alter the result -- a no-doubt, 90-76 victory for the home team.

The Gophers can be certain of two things when the Big Ten schedule starts, mercifully, in 31 days: One, they will be facing bigger, quicker athletes; and two, the Big Ten officials will not be giving them all the calls against Michigan State, Ohio State, et al, as was the case against NDSU.

Finally, NDSU's Phillips threw off his suit coat, Clem Haskins style, with 13 minutes left and got a technical. Apparently, the visiting coach from a lower-tier league didn't understand that the financial guarantee for playing in a Big Ten arena includes getting short-strawed by the officials.