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The Maryland men's basketball team visits Minnesota on Thursday night. You can say many things about Minnesota's performance as a team this year. The Golden Gophers have lost all of their conference games. They have terrible numbers statistically across the board. They're a pretty lousy team by all objective markers.
On closer inspection however, you'll see that this Minnesota team is very competitive against other very good teams. Minnesota was down two with three minutes to play at Iowa and lost by only four points. Look at some of their other close games this season.
Oklahoma State (home) - lost by two
Michigan State (home) lost by eight
Michigan (home) - lost by eight
Michigan (away) - lost by five
Indiana (home) - lost by seven
Indiana (away) - lost by six
Purdue (home) - lost by four
Illinois (home) - lost by five
Just saying: This could be a trickier game than some expect.
Records and rankings
No. 6 Maryland (22-4, 10-3 Big Ten)
Minnesota (6-19, 0-13)
Odds: Maryland opened as a 10.5-point favorite.
How to witness
Date: Thursday, Feb. 18.
Time: 8 p.m. EST.
Location: Minneapolis, Minn. / Williams Arena (a.k.a The Barn)
TV: Big Ten Network. Dave Revsine (Play-by-Play) and Jon Crispin (Analyst) will be on the call.
Radio: Terrapin Sports Radio Network - Johnny Holliday (Play-by-Play), Chris Knoche (Analyst); Flagships - WJZ-FM (105.7) / WJZ-AM (1300) / ESPN 980 (D.C.) Sirius 81, XM 81.
Stream: BTN2Go