Red Panda Gets Crowd On Its Feet; Gophers Get Drilled 55-40

For five minutes Saturday at The Barn the product on the court was fantastic, and the crowd was rocking and fans were smiling. Then Red Panda finished her halftime performance and the second half started. The product on the court returned to uninspired and ineffective play and the crowd was silent. The Gophers managed an astonishingly low 40 points at home and suffered a 15 point drubbing from lowly Northwestern, who improved their dominance over Minnesota with its sixth straight win.

The once dominating home court advantage that was Williams Arena has turned into a playground of smiles and wins for far too many opponents. The Gophers dropped their second straight double digit home loss, this time to a Wildcat team that hadn’t won a Big Ten game before Saturday.

The Gophers played offensively as if they didn’t know that Northwestern was going to use the same zone that they used to beat them in the previous five games. The Gophers played defensively as if they didn’t know that Northwestern was going to use the same back door, methodical offense that they used to beat them in the previous five games. But to the surprise of few, the Wildcats did both, and dominated the entire game.

Dan Coleman (who continues to give great effort all year long) played all 40 minutes this afternoon and finished with 13 points and 11 rebounds. Lawrence McKenzie played 39 minutes 15 points, but Minnesota shot a miserable 3/19 from three-point land and managed a meager 20 points per half.

That’s really about it. What else can be said? Northwestern was winless in the Big Ten coming into this game and dominated it as if they knew The Barn was an easy place for opponents to play. And with that, Minnesota falls to 7-12 overall and 1-4 in conference play.

But at least Red Panda did her thing.