Pioneer Press: Gophers win bowl and NCAA tournament game for first time ever. But …

BleedGopher

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per Greder:

For the first time in the same academic year, the Gophers have won both its football bowl game and an NCAA men’s basketball tournament game.

Minnesota’s football team beat Georgia Tech, 34-10, in the Quick Lane Bowl on Dec. 26 in Detroit. Last Thursday, the 10th-seeded men’s basketball team then beat No. 7 seed Louisville 86-76 in the first round of March Madness on Thursday in Des Moines, Iowa.

The U lost to No. 2 seed Michigan State in the second round, 70-50, on Saturday.

While the wins are considered steps in a winning direction for young coaches P.J. Fleck and Richard Pitino, it’s a feat that has been achieved at 12 of the 14 Big Ten programs, and every other school in the Big Ten West division had previously won both in the same year since 2010-11.

But Penn State and Rutgers have never done it, so the Gophers have ditched inclusion with that lackluster group. Both Fleck and Pitino have tried to put their achievements in this type of context.

Fleck has noted that the 2018 season was the first time in school history Minnesota has won the last regular-season game and a bowl game. Pitino has pointed out that because of vacancies brought by NCAA rules violations, the Gophers’ win Thursday was only the program’s second official NCAA tournament win in the past 29 years.

The Gophers nearly did the double in 2016-17 when coach Tracy Claeys led the U to its best bowl win in recent history, 17-12 over Washington State in the Holiday Bowl, but Pitino’s fifth-seeded Gophers were upended by No. 12 Middle Tennessee in the first round that March.

The U’s lack of matching success in football and basketball extends to the late 1990s, when basketball coach Clem Haskins produced wins during that now-vacated era. They won a first-round game in 1994, but Jim Wacker went 3-8 on the football field that year. When the U advanced to the Final Four in 1997, new football coach Glen Mason was just starting his rebuilding process at the U and went 3-9.

Excluding consolation games, Illinois was the first Big Ten school to win both an NCAA tournament game and bowl game in the same season (1951-52), while Ohio State and Iowa joined the Gophers in achieving the double this school year.

https://www.twincities.com/2019/03/...ncaa-tournament-game-for-first-time-ever-but/

Go Gophers!!
 


Winning a bowl game is success? Half of the teams win a bowl game. I’d rather be 10-3 and lose a bowl game. Bottom line, just improve on 7-6.
 

Winning a bowl game is success? Half of the teams win a bowl game. I’d rather be 10-3 and lose a bowl game. Bottom line, just improve on 7-6.
It is better than losing.

Sent from my LG-H820 using Tapatalk
 



Winning a bowl game is success? Half of the teams win a bowl game. I’d rather be 10-3 and lose a bowl game. Bottom line, just improve on 7-6.

Actually 29% of teams win bowl games (38 of 130)
9% of D-I basketball teams win a game in the main field (32 of 351), the % goes up to 10% if you count the first 4.
 

I am surprised that OSU & Iowa had never had the double until this year.
 

What a weird stat, or fact. It reminds me of the baseball guys...

"Hey, Bob. Joe Slugger is the first switch hitter in MLB history to hit an opposite field home run from the left side of the plate in a day game played on a Sunday between Memorial Day and Labor Day after hitting a pop fly in his previous at bat."
"We just witnessed history, Jim".
 

Winning a bowl game is success? Half of the teams win a bowl game. I’d rather be 10-3 and lose a bowl game. Bottom line, just improve on 7-6.

Not the point of the story at all but thanks for sharing.
 



I am surprised that OSU & Iowa had never had the double until this year.

Both OSU and Iowa have done it several times in the past. I think what Greder meant was that IA and OSU joined Minnesota in pulling off the double-double this year. Not that they joined Minnesota in doing it for the first time ever this year.
 

Both OSU and Iowa have done it several times in the past. I think what Greder meant was that IA and OSU joined Minnesota in pulling off the double-double this year. Not that they joined Minnesota in doing it for the first time ever this year.

Greder was wrong when he stated that every other team in the west had done it since 2010. Nebraska has never won a NCAA game.
 


Winning a bowl game is success? Half of the teams win a bowl game. I’d rather be 10-3 and lose a bowl game. Bottom line, just improve on 7-6.

NDSU could maybe do it too.....if they chose to move out of JV football.
 






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