Gophers Cruise to 88-64 Win Over Grambling

Gopher Basketball

Well in my game preview I had my first key to the game as deciding on a rotation strategy, most notably because we were (supposedly) going to have our full roster for the second time this season. Due to a minor team violation, Maurice Hargrow did not play and J’Son Stamper missed the second half with a knee injury. With that, Coach Monson had to once again shuffle the line-up, which did not stop the Gophers as they sailed to a convincing 88-64 win over the Grambling Tigers Wednesday night at The Barn.

Vincent Grier (who according to Jeff Shelman of the Star Tribune committed the same team violation and will miss Friday night’s game versus South Dakota State) picked up the scoring slack vacated by Hargrow and gave the Gophers an early lead. Spencer Tollackson complemented Grier’s scoring with his aggressive post moves and played a big role in the Gophers first half offensive out-burst as they led 53-36.

Grier provided most of the first half highlights, but he also provided the biggest scare as he went up for a big time dunk on a fast break but Grambling’s Donte Gordon committed a hard foul and brought Grier crashing to the court. Grier was visibly upset with Gordon, but cooler heads prevailed and in typical Grier fashion, he took his emotions out on the offensive end as he finished with 16 first half points and Tollackson added 15 in the games first 20 minutes.

In the second half the Gophers methodically built a solid 20+ point lead and never let the Tigers back in the game and cruisesd to the comfortable 24 point win. The second half provided a number of highlights including Jamal Abu Shamala who continues to exhibit one of the smoothest strokes from the outside in quite a few years at The Barn. Abu Shamala kept his hot hand as he was a perfect 5/5 from the field, including 2/2 from three-point land. The crowd favorite is not afraid to shoot the ball and his teammates appear to have a lot of confidence in his game on the offensive end.

Rico Tucker also provided a big time highlight as he threw down a monster dunk in the open floor. Tucker, who had six assists and three steals to go along with his five points, had a beautiful behind the back pass on a fast break to a streaking Tollackson who slammed it home earlier in the game. Tucker still made a few unforced turnovers, but on a few occasions tonight he provided the type of highlight plays that the team and fans can really feed off of.

While he was the only Gopher not to score, Jonathan Williams did provide great defense and some highlight blocks. The freshman big man looks very confident on the defensive end and finished with five blocks and four rebounds. He also does a great job of setting hard, solid picks, which is often a lost art form in college basketball. Two seldom-used Gophers also provided the hometown crowd in the games last minute as hard-working and future Harvard graduate, Zach Puchtel got into the scorebook with a free throw (we won’t mention that it was banked in) and fan favorite Ryan Saunders drilled a three-pointer to put the finishing touches on the Tigers.

Brion Rush did put on a show for Grambling as he was 7/10 from three-point land including a few off-balance, NBA-range shots. He finished with 25-points and five assists and left the game to a nice applause from the appreciative Gopher crowd.

Grier led the Gophers with 25 points, six assists, five rebounds and four steals. Tollackson finished with 17 points and nine rebounds (seven offensive), Abu Shamala added 13 points and Dan Coleman chipped in with 12.

The Gophers won their fifth game in a row and improved to 7-2. With the Grier news and with Stamper tweaking his knee, it is not known when the Gophers will have a full roster. But with only two games left until the Big Ten season starts, the Gophers sure are learning the importance of roster shuffling.

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