Shama: Gopher Basketball Collapse Historic

per Shama:

Minnesota is 2-12 since Lynch, the Big Ten’s best shot blocker, was told by the University he violated the school’s sexual misconduct policy. Coffey, another potential all-conference player prior to the season, has missed 12 of the last 14 games going into today’s Big Ten regular season finale at Purdue.

It will be an upset for the ages if Minnesota defeats national power Purdue. At best the Gophers might pick up a single win in the Big Ten Tournament later this week. A scenario with one more win before putting 2017-2018 to rest would leave the Gophers with a 16-17 final overall record including 4-14 in regular season league games. Those totals would be the third worst in more than 10 years with the 2016 team having records of 8-22 and 2-16, and the 2007 team with totals of 9-22 and 3-13.

A Gopher historian researched back to 1957 to find a disappointing season similar to this year. Minnesota was coming off a near Rose Bowl invitation in 1956 when national media ranked the football Gophers among the powerhouse teams in America. Minnesota even had a magazine cover boy quarterback in Bobby Cox, a possible All-American and Heisman Trophy winner.

http://shamasportsheadliners.com/

Go Gophers!!

It's not like players just underperformed. There were four legitimate reasons for the "collapse".

Yeah that's a bad take from someone that hasn't watched any games in my opinion. You could make an argument that it's Pitinos fault for not having depth, that's true but he had a lot of attrition after the video, unhappy with not being the starter instantly, and of course a bad first class (see other thread).

For historical precedent, I always go to Bud Grant's 1964 Winnipeg Blue Bombers. Practically everyone got hurt, and they finished 1-14. (They recovered the next year and advanced to the championship game.)