Will The Buzz Come Back?

So we are hours from the B10 home opener and there seems to be a bit of blase attitude about the Gophers. Even with the hoops fans, there is a bit of a quiet tone. The blogs are a little quieter, the message boards are subdued, and the media is remains Favre frenzied.

It makes sense with the somewhat disappointing on-court performance and the off-court issues, but what will it take to ratchet things back up? Will it take 11-7 or more and a PU/MSU Barn victory to really get the buzz going again? Or perhaps I've gotten lulled by the NC schedule and the fans will be ready for a real game and a beginning of the B10 season tonight?

Let's gear up for tonight and get the toasty confines of The Barn rocking. We can send the boys off to Iowa and Purdue with a full head of steam.

My hunch is the fans will be rarin' to go tonight. Usually we can count on that for the Big 10 home opener, even when expectations are down. Plus, this is the first truly meaningful game at Williams Arena this season, where the possibility actually exists there may be some tense moments.

I sure hope Gopher fans understand the importance of "not" losing this game to one of the teams likely to finish in the bottom tier of the Big 10. These first two games are ones the Gophers absolutely must have.

To rachet the excitement back up, I think that it will take some consistently good play from the gophers, even if they lose to the good teams. I may be alone in thinking this, but games like portland or T A&M where the overall level of play dropped off (both offensively and defensively) remind me too much of the general feeling of uncomfortable queaziness I felt during similar periods in last year's season. For me, this type of play will keep the lurking question around of what could have been without all of the drama this year, even though the two probably have little to do with eachother. I feel like the news updates that will occur about Mbakwe's status (whether favorable or not) will hinder excitement, taking focus away from what is actually done on the floor, to what is going on in some courtroom in FL.

Or a win over Purdue.

I don't think it's left for the semi fanatical side of the fanbase. I know my a$$ has been puckering and unpuckering for a few days now. For MSP at large though you have Favre, Mauer, The Wild, and even the Timberwolves, that will overshadow the Gophers for now. We as Minnesotan's are very fickle. Give us a winner and we'll live and die with you, give us a loser and we'll find something else to do. So it goes I guess.

We're favored by 14 tonight.

I can't wait.

The three games I got free tickets for allowed me to bring my son in. Plenty of room around me; not a lot of noise to scare him.

I guess that is the silver lining in this non-conference schedule.

I hope the students show up tonight. I know it's over break, but maybe there's a chance the rest of us kids will commute for the game...