Here's the game story:
Star Tribune Newspaper of the Twin Cities Mar 10, 1996
GOPHERS 67, ILLINOIS 66
After all they have done - recover from a 3-6 Big Ten start to win seven of nine games, survive horrible shooting nights with sheer resilience and relentless defense, disregard history and Lou Henson's retirement party by winning at Illinois for the first time since 1978 - all the Gophers can do now is wait in front of the television late this afternoon.
The noise that burst from behind the closed doors of their locker room after Saturday's dramatic 67-66 victory at Assembly Hall suggests that their case before the NCAA tournament selection committee is good, very good. But at 18-12 overall and 10-8 in the Big Ten, is it good enough?
"We've won seven of nine, we've beaten ranked teams {Iowa and Penn State}, how many teams in the country have more momentum than we do?" junior reserve forward Mark Jones said. "It would be practically impossible to keep us out. It wouldn't be right. We've come together about as well as a team can come together. There aren't 64 teams better than us in the country, no way."
On Saturday, the final day of a regular season that began four months ago, the Gophers showed how far they have come. There was that opening night against Valparaiso in Hawaii, down 14 points before the game was 11 minutes old, when they persevered, as they had against Iowa on Wednesday and against Penn State the game before.
They have discovered a go-to guy (junior guard Bobby Jackson), role players (David Grim, Hosea Crittenden and Jones) and, only when they really, really needed it, Sam Jacobson's jump shot.
Jackson, who missed the first two months of the season because of a broken foot, followed his career-high 21-point, seven-rebound performance against Iowa with 24 points, including nine in the game's final 9 minutes when the Gophers rallied from a 55-45 deficit.
"He's an All-Big Ten performer, regardless of whether he gets any votes or not," Gophers coach Clem Haskins said. "This club reminds me of our '90 ballclub, when we jumped on Willie Burton's back and rode him to the final eight. We've jumped on Bobby's back down the stretch."
When Jackson wasn't slashing for important baskets or pulling up for jumpers in the game's final minutes Saturday, he was getting help from such players as Grim, Crittenden, Jacobson and Jones.
Grim scored 17 points off the bench. Crittenden played 16 minutes in relief of Eric Harris at point guard, and helped limit Illini point guard Kiwane Garris to six points in the second half after he had scored 11 in the first.
Jacobson shrugged off a lousy game on Wednesday and a lengthy shooting slump to hit the winning shot from the right wing with 14.5 seconds left. And Jones, a defensive substitution in the final 9 seconds, made like a beach volleyballer and spiked a loose ball toward midcourt to ensure the victory after Garris missed a potential winning shot with 5 seconds left.
The Gophers had lost their last 16 games at Assembly Hall, and hadn't won there since Kevin McHale wore a maroon uniform. Haskins, of course, had never won there in his 10 seasons. The Gophers arrived at the arena on Saturday to see the concrete place dressed in bunting and adorned with large-screen televisions for a postgame ceremony honoring Henson, who is retiring after 21 seasons at Champaign.
"People ask why we hadn't won here in what, it seems like, the last 30 or 40 years," said Haskins, who presented Henson with two worldwide airplane tickets, a gift from the University of Minnesota, after the game. "Lou Henson is why, he's one of the reasons you don't win on the road."
This time, the Gophers finished 4-5 in Big Ten road games, with victories at Ohio State, Northwestern, Michigan State and Illinois. That's the most since that 1990 team with Burton also went 4-5.
After finishes of 2-5, 2-4, 2-4, 1-6 and 2-9 in the past five seasons, the Gophers finished the season strong. Finally, they'll be able to make a point when the selection committee considers how teams ended the season.
"It'd be a crime if we didn't get in," Haskins said. "The way we're playing, we've got a chance to go a long ways. I tell our guys, `You don't measure success in the beginning, you measure it in the end.' The end is now."
