When the Gophers faced Syracuse last week in the first round of the Maui Invitational, it was obvious they were short-handed.
With Mo Walker serving the last game of his six-game suspension and Joey King still nursing a fractured jaw, foul trouble was a real issue. Center Elliott Eliason was forced to sit for stretches and the Orange clobbered Minnesota in the paint at times, using its sheer size to overwhelm the Gophers. Even so, Minnesota played Syracuse closely, coming within two points with two minutes to go, and ultimately losing 75-67.
Now, a similar team comes to Williams Arena in Florida State – and the Gophers will see how much of a difference the full complement of frontcourt players makes. Minnesota is still undersized, particularly against the big, physical Seminoles, who have a pair of 7-footers in Boris Bojanovsky and Michael Ojo. Florida State is battle-tested and extremely tough. In a bit of scheduling misery for coach Richard Pitino -- "Embrace?" He asked aloud on Monday? "No. Fear? Yes. Embrace would not be the right word." -- the matchup falls immediately after returning from three games in three days on the islands.
Calling tonight's game an incredibly demanding challenge is an understatement.
'They're big, they're strong," Pitino said of the Seminoles. "We've got to try to use our speed as a bit of a strength … Syracuse, it appeared they were going over our back on a lot of rebounds. They were just so much bigger. We've got to do a better job of blocking out and driving them back. So we've got to try to speed them up a little bit more and try not to get in the half court as much as possible."
The Gophers have the advantage of being able to watch film of this Florida State team facing opponents that tried to do many of the same things Minnesota will tonight. Florida State has already played VCU – with its 'havoc'-style basketball – and Florida, whose coach, Billy Donovan was one of the major inspirations for Pitino's own philosophy. But the data isn't necessarily all that encouraging.
The Seminoles won decidedly over VCU in Richmond, and then came within a single point of beating No. 15 Florida on their court.
Both opponents have many more players recruited to the specific style, and have been doing it much longer than the Gophers – and both failed to ease FSU out of its comfort zone in a meaningful way.
