The Minnesota Golden Gophers have gone into that big spat of ranked opposition about as well as they were probably expected to, and they've lost four of their last six games as a result. Even then, those two wins were an overtime victory over a team just as good as the Gophers, and an eight point win over the worst team in the entire Big Ten, Nebraska.
The Gophers aren't doing well at the moment and with March Madness coming up soon they're going to need to start stringing wins together at more of a rate than they have been, if you want to call the occasional wins they're pulling together 'strings'.
Saturday brings the Gophers their next opponent as the Northwestern Wildcats come to town, fresh off a loss to the Indiana Hoosiers. The Cats are the only Gophers opponent for the rest of the season who isn't ranked until they meet Nebraska again on the last day of the season. The game will be at Welsh-Ryan Arena at 7 PM ET.
For more on the Minnesota Golden Gophers, check out The Daily Gopher. For more on NCAA Hoops in general, head to the SB Nation NCAA hub at sbnation.com/NCAA-Basketball.