The Gophers played exceptional defense "for the most part". But looking at the first SCSU goal notice 4 Gophers standing in front of Wilcox basically flatfooted in addition to providing a partial screen for Benik. One of the Gophers (Marshall or Alt and they knew it) could have easily made an attempt to move in, drop and block the shot or at least cause Benik to think twice and hesitate. They didn't look desperate enough at that point and that's not going to cut it tonight when SCSU ramps up their play for the split.
On SCSU's second goal, Rau showed why he's probably the gutsiest player on the Gophers, especially considering his size, when he attempted a full face, body block on his knees in front of a hard windup by LeBlanc, who rifled a nice ka-ching off the pipe on his PP goal. But again the goal was assisted by a partial screen on Wilcox from Parenteau standing behind a kneeling Rau and it looked like Wilcox was frustrated and said something about it.
I like the fact that they're protecting the paint, but they've got to be more desperate with shot blocks and sacrifice the body tonight and watch the screens if they really want this sweep.
