The brutal stretch of four consecutive games against ranked opponents is finally over for Northwestern, as Minnesota, a team with even more struggles than the Wildcats, comes Welsh-Ryan Arena on Thursday night. Other than the Penn State game, Northwestern was not picked by KenPom to win any of its previous five losses, but the site gives Northwestern an 84 percent chance of winning beating Minnesota.
The Golden Gophers are in free fall and have lost 14 of its last 15 games, including a current 11-game slide. But as Northwestern’s experience against Penn State shows, the Wildcats cannot afford to take this game lightly.