Far from a masterpiece, the Gophers men’s basketball team prepared for the resumption of Big Ten play by pulling away from Fairleigh Dickinson in the second half of a 60-43 win Monday night.
Bobby Durkin scored a season-high 19 points and Jaylen Crocker-Johnson added 17 points and seven rebounds for Minnesota, now 8-0 at Williams Arena.
Playing for the first time in eight days, the Gophers outscored the Knights 19-1 in the opening 11 minutes of the second half to blow the game open.
“One of those frustrating games, but we found a way to get the job done,” said coach Niko Medved, whose team missed “a lot of great looks” and shot 38.6%, but had 20 assists on 22 baskets. The Gophers lead the nation in assist percentage at 74.6%.
“You just don’t make excuses. But really this group has been getting better, and we’ll respond and we’ll be ready to play at Northwestern,” Medved said.
That would be at 4 p.m. Saturday when Big Ten play resumes. Minnesota (8-5, 1-1 Big Ten) upset Indiana 73-64 in overtime Dec. 3 and were routed 85-57 Dec. 10 at fifth-ranked Purdue.
“Every night you’re not going to have your A game,” Medved said. “These guys know what conference play is, so we got to just keep doing the things I think that we’ve been doing to improve individually and as a team. I mean it’s on now playing the best league in the country.”
Since that Boilermaker blowout, Minnesota beat Texas Southern 89-53 Dec. 14 and Campbell 78-50 Dec. 21.
On paper, Monday’s matchup should have been a similar one-sided affair. In the latest KenPom rankings that are based on advanced analytics and metrics, Fairleigh Dickinson (3-10) is ranked 358th of 365 Division I men’s basketball programs.
Yet Minnesota, a 23.5-point favorite, struggled to find early offensive consistency against pressure and consistent fundamentals on defense, and led just 32-29 at the half.
“We just didn’t come ready to play. Coach chewed us out. We definitely had to respond, especially through adversity with people in foul trouble. We definitely responded and took care of business,” Crocker-Johnson said.
Durkin hit a triple after Langston Reynolds intercepted a pass in the paint, an offensive rebound led to a 3-point play for Crocker-Johnson, and another Durkin 3-pointer made it 41-29 five minutes into the second half.
Treys from Crocker-Johnson and Kai Shinholster made it 51-30 midway through the second half.
Making his fifth straight start, Durkin is quickly developing into a key forward for the Gophers. He is averaging 11.8 points, four rebounds and 2.1 assists in that span.
“I think just that, as you continue to get further into the season, just my confidence and comfortability with everything has helped a lot,” he said.
Fairleigh Dickinson missed its first 10 shots of the second half and committed six turnovers.
Minnesota’s domination occurred with top scorer Cade Tyson on the bench after picking up his fourth foul early in the second half. Entering tops in the Big Ten and fourth nationally in scoring at 22.8 points per game, Tyson finished with 12.
“I think it just shows that we have a lot of guys that can impact winning. Think we all do it in different ways,” Durkin said. “… I think everyone knew that we need to kind of pick it up overall as a team.”
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