Old Gophers Reappear at Michigan in 72-50 Loss

Fresh off their near-perfect performance against Michigan State, the Gophers on Wednesday night reverted to the bad habits that got them off to an 0-6 start in the Big Ten. They allowed Michigan to go on an unfathomable 33-4 run in the first half to build a painfully-quick 29-point lead. That was ironically much too deep of a hole for the Gophers to dig their way out of.

Looking at those numbers really puts into perspective just how poorly Minnesota played in the first half (and just how well Michigan played). After starting the game tied at 2-2, the Gophers got outscored 8-to-1 (33-4) over the next 13 minutes or so. Yikes. It’s hard to imagine ever seeing a bigger run between two comparable teams. Much of that was due to Minnesota simply not coming out ready to play. But just as much credit should be given to Michigan for coming out extremely ready to play (after having lost three games in a row). I don’t remember a Wolverine team ever playing as tight of defense as these Wolverines did in the first half Wednesday night. It wasn’t a surprise that the Gophers had a hard time scoring. The surprise was how poorly they defended and how they got outhustled. Sure, Michigan made some tough shots, but they also made a lot of open shots.

The highlight for Minnesota was Vincent Grier probably having his best game of the 2006 season. Grier finished with 19 points (on 9 of 16 shooting) and 5 rebounds and for the most part looked like the Vince of a season ago. Beyond that though, the highlights were few and far between. Moe Hargrow scored 8 points, Rico Tucker had 7, and J’son Stamper added 6.

Up next is conference-leading Iowa on Saturday afternoon. Will we see the Gopher team that has knocked off back-to-back Top 15 teams at home, or will we see the one that digs giant holes for itself? We’ll see.

Here’s the box score.

Talk about the game on our Gopher Basketball message board.