Marcus: How cool would it be if Duke played MN to give Tre/Hurt chance to play in MN

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gophereric30 said:
I mean, I dont love the fact that we would be catering to the guys who elected to go elsewhere. But I dont think you can pass up a date with Duke at home either.
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Right. I don't agree with the folks who are mad at guys like Tre and Matthew, but I understand the disappointment that they aren't Gophers. I'm disappointed too. But a home game vs Duke would be awesome. The Barn would rocking! I guarantee that just about everyone who says it shouldn't happen would love to attend such a game.

Duke doesn't usually do home and homes, so it's possible the game would end up at a "neutral" site like Target Center if it happened. Either way, it would be good for our program.
 

gopherguy15 said:
Agreed. Duke coming here with MN players would hurt us in recruiting even more. Let's be honest though, I don't think the powers that be at ESPN will ever give us a game against Duke. Reminds me of two years ago when the Gophers had a preseason top-20 rank. That would've been a good year to mix it up and give us a game against an ACC power, and they still didn't give us Duke or UNC. Miami ended up being good that year, but it was the same typical matchup that we always draw.
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How could it hurt us even more? When is the last time we won a recruiting battle against Duke? If they are going to take MN high school players anyways we might as well get something out of it.
 

bizzle22 said:
How could it hurt us even more? When is the last time we won a recruiting battle against Duke? If they are going to take MN high school players anyways we might as well get something out of it.
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x2
 

Ope3 said:
The last time the Gophers played Iowa State in the regular season, it was a Home and Home. Gophers lost to Iowa State in one of Monson's last games on 11/21/06 at Williams Arena.

The next year the Gophers beat Iowa State in Ames on 11/20/07.

Prior to that the Gophers/Cyclones had a 4 year stretch when they alternated 1989-92.
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Oops! Nevermind
 

bizzle22 said:
How could it hurt us even more? When is the last time we won a recruiting battle against Duke? If they are going to take MN high school players anyways we might as well get something out of it.
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Right! Got breaking news for everyone. The next five battles we have with Duke in recruiting probably aren't gonna go our way either!
 


Holy Man said:
This would be a terrible idea. Rewarding a player we wanted to come here with a game in their home state would be foolish from a recruiting standpoint. I know UNC under Dean and I think even MSU now does try to get their out of state players a game near their families. I get it. But there is no way on God's green earth that guys we recruited and teams we recruit against should be given the opportunity to rub it in our face. If a Minnesota kid goes to Liberty or Furman, we didn't recruit them, and they want to come and play here, that's a different story. Come on back. Stanford, Duke and Kentucky? Forget it.
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All due respect, if the opportunity presented itself I'd say go for it. No hesitation whatsoever. Not many sellouts happen anymore at the Barn, and this would be one in addition to raising the attractiveness for selling Season Tix or multi-game packages.
 

I would love to see the Gophers get a home game against Duke, but I would lose a little enthusiasm for it if two of Duke's top players were from Minnesota. On the other hand, I would support Duke playing an away game at St. Thomas or a similar school...that would be funny. It's very unlikely to happen one way or the other.
 

How about we play against UNC instead?

I like how one of the comments put it. Tre had a chance to play in his home state last year but ended up losing to MSU. Similar can be said for Crandall and Travis. I'm glad that none of them got a chance to come back to Minneapolis and play in the Final Four in front of family and friends. They all could have played the entire year in front of family and friends.
 

Duke would never schedule a game at Williams Arena. They would schedule a game at Target Center however. They've done similar things in the past where they've scheduled "neutral" games in the city of a senior player, like Portland for Singler, Chicago for Scheyer, etc Those games aren't on campus but in an NBA arena.

No way this happens though. Pitino isn't dumb. What's in it for Minnesota? It would send an awful message to people like Suggs, etc
 




Pewterschmidt said:
Duke would never schedule a game at Williams Arena. They would schedule a game at Target Center however. They've done similar things in the past where they've scheduled "neutral" games in the city of a senior player, like Portland for Singler, Chicago for Scheyer, etc Those games aren't on campus but in an NBA arena.

No way this happens though. Pitino isn't dumb. What's in it for Minnesota? It would send an awful message to people like Suggs, etc
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What's in it for minnesota? Are you kidding me? Umm, maybe knock off a top 5 ranked team in front of the whole state including recruits from minnesota. Besides that, nothing would be riding on that game. I agree with another poster. Just give me Alabama state!
 

No interest in getting blasted by Duke and hearing another round of "well, if we could just lock up the border" on the radio, in the newspaper, and on Gopher Hole. Maybe in a year or two.
 

It will not happen, but if Duke was the Gophers’ ACC Challenge opponent I would welcome it. Same deal if it’s North Carolina, or Virginia. The Barn would be full, and it’d be a home non-conference opportunity rarely seen here. That Hurt and Jones play for Duke is a side-bar.
 
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The thing is. There's nothing we can do to stop Duke from playing here if they want to. When they did the Chicago homecoming game for Scheyer they played against Iowa State in the United Center. They could play Iowa, Iowa St, Wisconsin, Creighton, Nebraska, or maybe some other team in the region at Target Center if they want to. Might as well be us.

Highly doubt it will happen, but it would be dumb to pass up the opportunity to play a high profile game in our own backyard even if it isn't at the Barn.
 

golfing18now said:
No interest in getting blasted by Duke and hearing another round of "well, if we could just lock up the border" on the radio, in the newspaper, and on Gopher Hole. Maybe in a year or two.
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Yep. Getting blown out by a top 5 team does nothing for me. All it does is boost our strength of schedule.

Now if we have a good team like we did two years ago then I'm all for playing a top 20 or top 15 team like Miami. In that game we had a reasonable chance to win. I'm all for big games where I think we have a decent chance to win. But Duke will be a top 5 team and we'd be likely to lose with or without Coffey next year.
 

Cracks me up with this site. For years everyone bitches about how our non conference schedule sucks and as soon as someone says how about a home game against Duke everyone says, nah we'd get blown out lol whatever.
 

gophereric30 said:
Cracks me up with this site. For years everyone bitches about how our non conference schedule sucks and as soon as someone says how about a home game against Duke everyone says, nah we'd get blown out lol whatever.
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Not everyone, not even sure if it is a majority. Several have said bring it on, others have said not going to happen anyway so why worry about it.
 

gophereric30 said:
Cracks me up with this site. For years everyone bitches about how our non conference schedule sucks and as soon as someone says how about a home game against Duke everyone says, nah we'd get blown out lol whatever.
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I think everyone here wants to see Puke play and get beat in Williams Arena. The idea that we would set up the game so that a couple of guys who chose NOT to play here could have a triumphant return is what people reject.
 

gophereric30 said:
Cracks me up with this site. For years everyone bitches about how our non conference schedule sucks and as soon as someone says how about a home game against Duke everyone says, nah we'd get blown out lol whatever.
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I don't think you read the thread.

We don't think it would be neat for guys like Hurt and Tre to get a shot to play at home. They had an opportunity.

I bet most of the people on here who are against the Duke game would be cool with a North Carolina or Virginia game.
 

bga1 said:
I think everyone here wants to see Puke play and get beat in Williams Arena. The idea that we would set up the game so that a couple of guys who chose NOT to play here could have a triumphant return is what people reject.
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Exactly right. I wish the best for both of them, but I don't need to see them play here. I also don't want all the program bashing that would inevitably result.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
I don't think you read the thread.

We don't think it would be neat for guys like Hurt and Tre to get a shot to play at home. They had an opportunity.

I bet most of the people on here who are against the Duke game would be cool with a North Carolina or Virginia game.
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Also exactly right.
 

die hard gopher said:
Yep. Getting blown out by a top 5 team does nothing for me. All it does is boost our strength of schedule.

Now if we have a good team like we did two years ago then I'm all for playing a top 20 or top 15 team like Miami. In that game we had a reasonable chance to win. I'm all for big games where I think we have a decent chance to win. But Duke will be a top 5 team and we'd be likely to lose with or without Coffey next year.
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If we have Coffey we can hang. Coffey took down both Trent and Tre twice in high school. Oturu, Gabe and Omersa will be amped, Carr will be fine. In our barn, we took down Purdue last year, no reason we couldn't take down a bunch of freshman in November in a hostile environment

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bemidjigopher said:
If we have Coffey we can hang. Coffey took down both Trent and Tre twice in high school. Oturu, Gabe and Omersa will be amped, Carr will be fine. In our barn, we took down Purdue last year, no reason we couldn't take down a bunch of freshman in November in a hostile environment

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Coffey had Hopkins talent around him while Tre and Trent had Apple Valley talent around them. Now Tre will have Duke talent around him so I'm not sure what they did in HS matters anymore.

We could maybe hang some if get Coffey back and a grad transfer guard and PF but I still don't think we'd have a great chance to pull it off. Duke's team next year will be much more talented than Purdue was this year. Kentucky, Texas Tech and Auburn, all ranked in the top 15, all got blow out by a bunch of freshman and Duke last year and that was in November.
 

die hard gopher said:
Coffey had Hopkins talent around him while Tre and Trent had Apple Valley talent around them. Now Tre will have Duke talent around him so I'm not sure what they did in HS matters anymore.

We could maybe hang some if get Coffey back and a grad transfer guard and PF but I still don't think we'd have a great chance to pull it off. Duke's team next year will be much more talented than Purdue was this year. Kentucky, Texas Tech and Auburn, all ranked in the top 15, all got blow out by a bunch of freshman and Duke last year and that was in November.
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Yeah but Duke won't be nearly as good as they were this year, outside of Tre they have some serious backcourt depth issues. All Iam saying is, November will be a good time to play a young team in their first true road test. Heck my first ever gopher game I attended we gave the Fab five a very rude awakening

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Ope3 said:
Not everyone, not even sure if it is a majority. Several have said bring it on, others have said not going to happen anyway so why worry about it.
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Maybe on this thread yeah. I've been reading on here for years about how we never get a good opponent for home games and now we say Duke would be great, and alot of people dont want it. I would think a top 5 team possibly in our building would trump 2 guys electing to not come here.
 

bga1 said:
I think everyone here wants to see Puke play and get beat in Williams Arena. The idea that we would set up the game so that a couple of guys who chose NOT to play here could have a triumphant return is what people reject.
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I hear ya. I agree with you.
 

gophereric30 said:
What's in it for minnesota? Are you kidding me? Umm, maybe knock off a top 5 ranked team in front of the whole state including recruits from minnesota. Besides that, nothing would be riding on that game. I agree with another poster. Just give me Alabama state!
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I agree with this.
Hosting duke is a zero lose situation.
Not supposed to win. But if you win with Oturu, Gabe, Coffey...maybe you give some of the other Minnesota 5 star guys pause to think about how they could be legendary Players at Minnesota or could end up being just another guy at duke.

For instance, Trent Jr was just another guy at Duke
 
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Totally play Duke at home. You never know. We beat North Carolina a few years ago in the ACC - Big Ten Challenge
 

XMan said:
Totally play Duke at home. You never know. We beat North Carolina a few years ago in the ACC - Big Ten Challenge
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We beat UNC in the Puerto Rico tournament, not the challenge. UNC was really good that year too, won the ACC.

I remember that well. Not in a good way. I was really excited about that Gopher team. Won the Puerto Rico Tip-Off against a pretty strong field. Then Nolen went down with the foot injury, Joseph got suspended and transferred, Mo tore his ACL, Hoffarber had to play point, and things went south.
 

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