09-10 Overall Record: 21-14
09-10 Conference Record: 9-9
09-10 Conference Efficiency Margin: +0.01 (5^th)
Percent of Returning Minutes: 63.0
Percent of Returning Freshman Minutes: 10.8

Minnesota returns the third fewest minutes in a conference where they barely posted a positive efficiency margin. Only 11 percent of their minutes are going from freshman to sophomore. They are bringing in zero top 100 recruits. All of these things point to a decline for the Golden Gophers, but it may not be too steep of one if things break right.

The offense does seem likely to get a little worse, what with leading shot-taker Lawrence Westbrook departing and no obvious candidate to fully step into the void. In general, players don't drastically change their shot diets as they go through their college careers. There are exceptions, of course, but a player like Blake Hoffarber isn't likely to dramatically increase from the 18 percent shot diet he's taken the past two seasons, at least not without some damage to his efficiency. Complicating matters further is the fact that the most shot-happy guys after Westbrook are either gone (Paul Carter, Devron Bostick, Damian Johnson) or indefinitely suspended (Devoe Joseph).

Until Joseph returns, that leaves an awful lot of shots for guys that haven't shown a tendency to take them. Colton Iverson and Ralph Sampson have hovered around 17 percent shot diets. Al Nolen? 15 percent. The guy that might be in line to take the most shots for the Gophers is also the highest rated recruit on the roster--Rodney Williams. Williams quietly put together a solid freshman campaign, shooting 68 percent on twos and keeping his turnovers under control, but he wasn't a major part of the rotation. His perimeter shot still needs some work, but there's clearly some people that are expecting big things from Williams this season. If Minnesota is to keep their offense from falling off a cliff, they certainly will need big things from Rodney Williams. Otherwise, we may see a lot of Gophers trying to do more than they are truly comfortable doing.

On the defensive end, the status quo seems like a reasonable expectation, but Damian Johnson is a big loss. There aren't a lot of reliable defensive stats out there, but it's fairly safe to say a guy is a good defender when he finishes, like Johnson did, in the nation's top 50 in both steal and block percentage. Luckily for the Gophers, they've got two more great shotblockers in Iverson and Sampson, so the lane isn't about to get very inviting for Minnesota opponents, and they have one of the conference's great steals guys in Al Nolen. A full season from Nolen should help to counter the defensive loss of Johnson.

As far as the newcomers go, the most important one is pretty clearly Trevor Mbakwe. It's been a long wait for Mbakwe to finally suit up for the Gophers, but he should be able to fill Paul Carter's backup big man role right away. The other new players are non-top 100 freshmen, so it's hard to expect a lot of production beyond Minnesota's top seven. Tubby Smith likes to use a deep bench, but that may not be the best strategy with the roster he's got this season.

This Minnesota team looks a little worse than the one that stormed into the NCAA Tournament last season. With an improved Big Ten around them, it could even be a struggle for the Gophers to reach the .500 conference mark that served them so well this past Selection Sunday.

- Posted by Mike Portscheller