Almost. It is such an oppressive word in life and sports. Almost. We came close. We almost did it… but couldn’t. Almost. It is the “what might have been” of all words in the English language.
It was right there. It was within reach. It was so close we could taste it. Almost.
Some NIT teams fail to make the NCAA Tournament because of wild inconsistencies. The Purdue Boilermakers are the Big Ten team headed for the NIT which most neatly fits this description. Purdue was a great team on its best nights and a horrible team on its worst nights, and the bad version of Purdue showed up just as much as the great version. The Boilermakers couldn’t stuff their bad selves into a drawer. “Bad Purdue” kept appearing on court often enough to scuttle Matt Painter’s plans.
Minnesota really isn’t in the same category as Purdue. Whereas the Boilermakers were all over the map, Minnesota – which did have its considerable ups and downs at times this season – offers a different profile of an NIT team: The team which came close to snagging big wins… but couldn’t finish the job.
This basic fact explains why the Gophers are headed – if anything – for the NIT, and actually have to get some work done to merely finish at .500 for the regular season:
Minnesota has been a 37-minute team in recent weeks. In a 40-minute sport, that is a crusher. The extra painful dimension of the Gophers’ downward turn is that those three late collapses against good-to-great teams (all three are expected to make the NCAA Tournament, with Maryland being a possible No. 1 seed if everything breaks right for the Terrapins) came at home in The Barn.
It’s not as though the Gophers got rattled by a fierce opposing crowd; no, Richard Pitino’s men panicked and shriveled in their own building, buckling under the weight of bubble pressure.
Some seasons end without an NCAA Tournament berth because of steady, prolonged displays of inadequacy. Minnesota doesn’t fit inside that box; the Gophers’ season is a failure not because they failed to play well in a number of their most important games. They merely floundered in the final three to four minutes when they were in a position to win… and couldn’t close the sale.
Almost. Other teams crossed the thresholds they needed to cross this season – maybe not all the time, but certainly often enough to get to March Madness. Minnesota almost crossed those same thresholds… but didn’t take the final few steps to the finish line in multiple instances.
Richard Pitino – if he isn’t on the hot seat already – will enter next season knowing that “almost” won’t be acceptable in Minneapolis.