A couple nights ago we covered a Northern Sun doubleheader in Mankato. Last night it was the Minnesota Gophers staging their own special kind of doubleheader, meaning that if you wanted to see 2 games you bought 2 tickets. Sigh. But, the good news is that both the Gopher women and the Gopher men won to push their records to 11-1 and 9-3, respectively. In fact, it was another Unicorn Night in Minnesota basketball as the Timberwolves also won to make it a Thursday night trifecta.
Minnesota Gopher women 100 Lindenwood 45
So, just who or what the heck is a Lindenwood, anyway? Can’t say I ever heard of them until maybe a year ago. Well, it turns out that Lindenwood is a private university in St. Charles, MO. In fact, it claims to be the 2nd oldest university west of the Mississippi River, having been founded in 1832. They also claim to have one of the most extensive athletic programs in the country with 49 different sports. But, they also joined the NCAA D1 for the 1st time just, well, a year ago. It had only moved into D2 (from the NAIA) in 2012. In 15 years in the NAIA, it won 128 conference titles, 8.5 per year, in the Heart of America Conference. I’m thinking the other HAAC members were not sorry to see them go. As it is, Lindenwood won the USBC intercollegiate national bowling championship in 2018, and it has won national titles in clay, skeet and trap shooting.
Basketball, not so much. With their 100-45 shellacking against the Gophers last night, Lindenwood women’s hoops is now 4-32 in just over a year in D1. But you gotta hand it to them. They’ll play anybody: Cincinnati, Drake and Tulsa last year, Bradley, Cincinnati, Dayton and Minnesota this year.
The Gophers found the Lady Lions to be pretty easy pickings. The 1st 3 quarters were pretty much mirror images in which Minnesota shot 32-for-55 (58%) including 11-of-23 3s (48%) while the Lions shot 10-of-47 (21%) including 4-of-25 3s (16%). The quarterly reports were 29-10, 55-15 at the half (!) and 81-28. The 4th was more of a standoff but it was not enough to make the final score what you could call respectable. Lindenwood had 5 turnovers in each of the 1st 2 quarters, leading to 18 points off turnovers for the Gophers. Seriously, the Gophers offensive efficiency was high enough already, but it was sky-high after turnovers–18 points on 10 possessions including 5-of-5 for 12 points in the 2nd quarter.
One nice thing about this shootaround was that the Gophers bench finally got some minutes. Maggie Czinano was 2nd in scoring (behind Mara Braun, of course) with 12 points and she added an unlikely total of 10 rebounds. Niamya Holloway tallied 9 points and 5 boards, Ajok Madol 8 points, 4 boards and 3 assists, Janay Sanders 7 points and 5 assists, and so on.
So, now the Gopher women will start playing the real lions. No more lambs. Starting a week from tomorrow (Saturday) at Iowa, followed by 16 more games in the Big, Bad 10. We said earlier that a .500 record is probably a little much to hope for but, hey, we’re gonna hope anyway. But with an 11-1 record right now, 5-13 will get ’em into some kind of post-season. Well, make that 6-12 since there is also the Big, Bad 10 tournament to consider. But we’re thinking 8-10 or 9-9 is doable. Bottom line: Things are looking up.
Minnesota Gopher men 80 Ball State 63
The Gopher men won their 4th straight game, all of them without Dawson Garcia. Good for them. But, hey, when is Garcia going to be back? Because any optimism for the Gopher men is based on Garcia coming back, strong and healthy and preferably soon. I mean, this is the guy who was pre-season all-Big, Bad 10 and who scored 36 points against big, bad (The) Ohio State.
Still, the rest of the roster is playing pretty well, don’t cha think? Mike Mitchell, the 6-2 junior guard and transfer from Pepperdine, led the way last night with 20 points on 4-of-6 2s and 4-of-5 3s plus 4 boards, 5 assists and 3 steals. Elijah Hawkins, the other transfer guard, 5-11, from Howard, had 12 points, 7 boards and 9 assists. 6-9 soph post Pharrel Payne had 13 points on 5-of-8 shooting and 4 boards. 6-7 soph wing Joshua Ola-Joseph scored 12 points on 5-of-8 shooting. True freshman guard Cam Christie scored 11 on 2-of-5 2s and 2-of-6 3s. Isaiah Ihnen scored 8 on 3-of-7 shooting. Parker Fox continued to confound with his awesome athleticism. He had 5 boards and 2 blocks but scored just 4 points on 2-of-4 shooting.
In total, the Gophers shot a more than respectable 56% on 2s and 44% on 3s. Their FT shooting continues to be less than respectable, however, at 12-of-22 (54%) including a terrible 6-of-15 in the 2nd half. If the Gophers find themselves in a few close games this year, FT shooting is going to be an arrow through the head.
Letting leads slip away could be another bugaboo. The Gophers led 26-9 early behind Mitchell, Hawkins and Fox, but Ball State quickly got back within 35-27. It stayed about that way for the next 20 minutes when the Gophers scored 10 straight (Ola-Joseph 6 and Payne 4) to go from 64-57 to 74-57. Mitchell’s 4th 3 made it a 20-point game, 80-60 at 2:41, and coach Ben Johnson could finally relax. Whether he gets to relax against Maine next Friday remains to be seen, but after that there will be no time to relax over the course of 16 grinders in the Big, Bad 10. Let’s say for the sake of argument that the Gophers beat Maine to get to 10-3 (they’re already 1-1 in the Big 10), they’ll need to go 6-10 the rest of the way (7-11 in the conference) to assure themselves of some sort of post-season play. The Gophers are most assuredly not going to win 6 more Big, Bad 10 games without Dawson Garcia. Please, Dawson, come back! All is forgiven!
