Gophers Handle North Dakota State 63-49

A win is what we wanted, and a win is what we got. It started out painfully ugly and looked for a moment like Minnesota might walk away with a 2-0 victory, but the Gopher offense eventually caught up with the defense and pulled away to a comfortable victory over the Bison.

There were more minutes played than points on the board for much of the first half, and it took a late flurry just to get to the 23-18 score that Minnesota took into the locker room. Unlike some years past however, this time the Gophers had strong defense to keep them in the game. They held NDSU to 21% shooting in the first half, which made their own 32% good enough for a lead.

Things started clicking a little better in the second half, as Minnesota worked the ball inside, connected from long-range a few times, and had success getting to the free throw line. The Gophers scored 40 points in the second half behind 54% shooting, and they still manage to frustrate NDSU’s offense, which shot just 36% after the break and 29% for the game.

Lawrence McKenzie led the Gophers with 20 points and 10 rebounds. He forced a few bad shots and had some turnovers, but I’ll take 50% shooting and double-digit rebounds any day. Fellow juniors Dan Coleman and Spencer Tollackson combined for 25 points and 8 rebounds and had solid nights. Spencer started slow in the first half and battled foul trouble, but he did a good job of using his size to get pretty much whatever shot he wanted when he was in there.

Limar Wilson scored 7 points in his Gopher debut while committing just one turnover, and fellow point guard Kevin Payton put up 7 rebounds, 6 assists, and 0 turnovers in his debut. I’ll take that performance from the point when other guys are able to take care of the scoring.

As I said in my preview, I didn’t care how we won as long as we won. And win we did. The team also did a pretty good job of delivering on my keys to the game. A Winona State hangover may have been responsible for the slow start, but whatever the reason was, they overcame it. The rebounding wasn’t great (allowing 19 offensive boards is way too many), but they at least held their own. And most importantly, the intensity and defense were good.

The offense clearly still has a long ways to go, but that’s what November is for. Hopefully we’ll see steady progress over a very busy next two weeks.

Here’s the box score.

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