Holy crap! The Gopher women just did 2 things they haven’t done in awhile. One, they played long stretches of bull-crap defense, which they haven’t done in more than a month, since December 8 at Nebraska. And, two, the played long stretches of bull-crap basketball…and won! I don’t know if they’ve done that in several years. I’ve said several times that the Gopher women are showing toughness that they hadn’t shown in years, and today it showed itself in a win that the Gophers maybe had no business winning.
Coming into today’s game at Northwestern I thought that, well, Northwestern is 0-5 but, hey, they’re a Big 10 team and they’ve got a very, very good coach and they’re at home. You know, anything could happen. But, honestly, I didn’t think that anything would happen. I didn’t expect a Gopher loss. And, things started out well enough. Not great, but well enough. The Gophers led 31-23 at 7:26 of the 2nd period, but then the wheels came off, certainly off the Gopher defense. But, over the next 17-and-a-half minutes, the Gophers could not get a stop to save their lives. Northwestern shot 19-of-29 FG, outscored the Gophers 46-27 and led after 3 by 69-58.
I mean, here was an opponent that came into the game shooting 41 percent and 35 percent on 3s, and that turned the ball over 19 times per game. After 3 periods against the Gopher defense, Northwestern was shooting 56 and 54 percent. And, they had turned the ball over just twice and led on points-off-turnovers 10-0.
Well, just then, the Gophers somehow rediscovered their mojo. In the 4th quarter, the Gophers shot 7-of-11 while the Wildcats shot 5-of-17. Northwestern finally turned it over 3 more times and the Gophers capitalized for a 5-0 edge on POT in the 4th. The Gophers battled back to within 78-73 at 4:00 pm a 2+1 by Grace Grocholski. Battle and Grocholski each hit a pair of throws to make it 78-77 and, after Northwestern went up 80-77, Tori McKinney hit a 3 to tie it up at 2:15. Then, inexplicably, Niamaya Holloway scored on a pair of back-to-back dribble drives to put the Gophers ahead 84-80. Niamya Holloway! Northwestern got within 84-82, but then Battle made 3-of-4 throws and grabbed a defensive rebound to ice it at 87-82. The score in the 4th quarter, when the chips were all down there on the table to be won or lost, the Gophers scored 29 points and Northwestern scored 13. If I was Northwestern, I would be devastated. Northwestern had this game won. All they had to do was not lose it.
Well, that’s wrong. Yeah, Northwestern probably lost this game, but the Gophers stormed back so hard and so well that I’d have to say that, no, Minnesota won this ball game in the way that winning teams do. It’s just that it was a game that they probably had no business winning.
So, it’s one thing that the Gophers came back to win. The list of of opponents and teams they’ve beaten and the scores, that’s one thing, and it’s pretty impressive. But more than that is knowing, as a Gopher fan, that they’ve shown such toughness that hasn’t always been part of their makeup. Now, that’s something to get excited about. I mean, just think about Niamya Holloway. She was part of that great recruiting class along with Amaya Battle, Mara Braun and Mallory Heyer. Well, Holloway lost her freshman season to a knee injury, and has been slow to bounce back. I remember in high school that she dominated good Lake Conference opponents without scoring. I thought she would be approximately as impactful as Braun and Battle and Heyer, just more on the defensive end. Well, today, she wasas impactful, if in small doses, and guess what, it was on the offensive end. Small doses that turned out to be big doses. It was she, Niamya Holloway, who scored 2 buckets inside of 2 minutes to take the Gophers from 80-80 to 84-80. Northwestern got within 84-82 at 0:26, but then Battle iced it, as I’ve already reported with 3-of-4 Ft and a defensive board after that.
Grocholski finished with 27 points and 10 boards while Battle finished with 18 points, 6 boards and 6 assists. Tori McKinney added 13. But to me McKinney and Holloway are comparable. 2 players who didn’t score a ton, McKinney because her teammate at Minnetonka, Alaiyah Crump, had to have the ball in her hands. Well, it turned out that Minnetonka won the state title without McKinney scoring a ton, and she was OK with that. Let Crump score a ton, McKinney will just make sure that Minnetonka won the game and the title by doing whatever needed to be done. But, if the Gophers need 20 from McKinney, we now think she can deliver. If you need some points from Niamaya Holloway, she can deliver.
So, anyway, I ‘m not here to put any pressure on anybody–Battle, Grocholski, Holloway, coach P, or anybody. I’m just here to say that they=re showing toughness that takes me back to the days of Lindsey Whalen and Janelle McCarville, and also of Debbie Hunter and Linda Roberts and Laura Gardner for those of you who are old enough to remember. The Gophers won their only big 10 title in 1981 with Hunter and Roberts and Gardner. If you don’t know about it, shame on you. But, I wrote earlier this year that someday we will look back on coach P as the best coach the Gophers have ever had. If anything, today’s win just adds to the pressure on coach P and her Minnesota Gopher women to be the best and the toughest since, well, since Lindsey Whalen herself.