South Dakota, Minnesota's opponent on Saturday (2 p.m.; BTN-plus) has four Minnesotans on the roster:
Senior Eric Robertson, who is averaging 8.1 points a game, was a Mr. Basketball finalist at Wayzata; Freshman Dan Jech averaged 16.2 points, 10.2 rebounds and 1.4 blocks last year at Rochester Mayo and is the fourth-best scorer for South Dakota, putting up 10.6 points a game; sophomore D.J. Davis, who is averaging 6.6 points and 1.1 steals a game, earned all-state honors at Bloomington Kennedy; and Junior Tyler Flack, who was named to the Class AAAA All-Tournament team after leading Lakeville North to a runner-up finish in his senior year. Flack hasn't played yet this season after redshirting last year due to an early-season injury.
None of those players are at the same level as Jake White, the Nebraska Omaha big man from Chaska who dropped 23 vs. Minnesota on Nov. 27, but the Gophers know they'll be getting the foursome's best shot in the homecoming.
"Obviously being from Minnesota and not getting the chance to play here, they're going to have something on their shoulder," Nate Mason said on Friday. "We've got to expect that."
Pitino wants his young team to stay the course.
Mason said that after the Gophers' 89-83 win over Clemson on Monday, coach Richard Pitino had to get after the team following a lackadaisical practice.
"After the Clemson win, we were obviously happy, but we kind of laid back in practice one time and coach was on our [butts] about it," Mason said. "He said it was human nature coming off a win like that that we were going to fall down, lay down a little bit, but we can't have that happen because we've got a good South Dakota team coming in."
Pitino attributed that momentary slack to a young team learning how to handle the ups and downs of a long season.
