Vanderbilt to play Minnesota in South Dakota. Huh?

If it was your dying wish to go to South Dakota in December to watch the Vanderbilt Commodores play a basketball game, your prayers have been answered.

For everyone else, you probably heard that Vanderbilt signed up to play a game in Sioux Falls on December 3 at the 3,200-seat Sanford Pentagon against the Minnesota Golden Gophers and your likely reaction was... well, that's a head-scratcher.

Per Google Maps, Sioux Falls is a 3-hour, 54-minute drive from Minneapolis.  The Sanford Pentagon, home of the D-League's Sioux Falls Skyforce, has a seating capacity that's about a fifth of the capacity of Minnesota's on-campus Williams Arena (one of three Division I arenas that features a raised floor, by the way, and Vanderbilt fans probably know one of the other two.)

From best I can tell, this isn't a home-and-home with Minnesota deciding to play their half of the series in Sioux Falls -- no, this was Vanderbilt and Minnesota just agreeing to play a game in South Dakota for the hell of it.  And no, Vanderbilt probably won't be playing a quality opponent -- the Gophers went 8-23, 2-16 in the Big Ten last year, ended the regular season with a 23-point loss to Rutgers (and a 33-point loss to a pretty bad Illinois team in the Big Ten tournament), and Richard Pitino (who I'm sure was totally hired on the merits) was allowed to keep his job after that.

Maybe that was the point -- Minnesota just doesn't want anybody to see it.