MINNEAPOLIS – Gophers men’s basketball fans hoping to be reassured by an expected thrashing of Wisconsin-Green Bay on Saturday night at Williams Arena were likely left a little queasy after Minnesota escaped with a 72-65 overtime victory.
Jaylen Crocker-Johnson, who hadn’t hit on any of his first three three-point shots, drained his fourth attempt of the night from outside the top of the key with 90 seconds remaining in the extra session to put his team up, 66-63. The Colorado State transfer then sank a running one-hander from the right side to push the lead to 68-63 with 50 seconds to play on a night where Minnesota shot 41% from the floor.
“They were constantly changing defenses, something they hadn’t shown and we weren’t prepared for,” said first-year Gophers coach Niko Medved, whose team improved to 3-1 while dropping the Phoenix to 1-4. “But we didn’t let that frustration get to us. We hung in there down the stretch.
“Winning is hard. We’ll take it.”
Gophers senior guard Cade Tyson, a transfer from the University of North Carolina, led the hosts with 27 points, followed by Crocker-Johnson, a junior, with 11 points. Sophomore guard Isaac Asuma scored nine.
“You go through adversity in a season and it came down to a five-minute game and we found a way to get it done,” said Medved, whose team hosts Chicago State (0-4) on Tuesday. “This is going to be great for us, because teams are going to throw a curve ball at you in a season. This is something we’re going to build on.”
Doug Gottlieb, Green Bay’s second-year coach and host of a national radio show, said he got caught with “wonky lineups” late in the second half and during overtime. Sometimes too small and sometimes too big.
“By overtime, kids are exhausted and nobody shot the ball well,” said Gottlieb, whose record with the Phoenix fell to 5-32. “In overtime, it got crazy physical and we didn’t execute and we got thirsty, with too many guys coming towards the ball on offense when what we wanted was to spread (Minnesota) out.”
Minnesota converted 20 of 39 free-throws, leading Medved to joke that he felt he was “in the Twilight Zone” watching players he knows can regularly convert from the charity stripe do otherwise. He added that he was inclined to let Crocker-Johnson continue to shoot from the field, having watched him do it well last season.
“Sometimes the worst thing you can do is try to shoot your way out (of a slump), but I know Jalen will snap out of it,” Medved said. “When the game’s on the line and he was open, he had the guts to step up and knock it down. You can’t play scared.”
The Gophers hit on just 29 percent of their field-goal attempts during the first half but sank six of their first 10 shots from the floor after intermission. They entered the break trailing, 27-23, to a foe that at one point last winter endured a 20-game losing streak and which fell by 19 points at St. Thomas earlier this week.
Minnesota earned its first lead of the second half at 33-32 and five minutes into the stanza. The Gophers fell behind twice more before surging ahead at 46-45 with 6 minutes, 25 seconds remaining in the second half. The game became tied, 54-54, with two minutes remaining in the half.
“I told our guys we’d get a really spirited effort from them,” Medved said, noting that one of the Phoenix players suffered a serious injury against the Tommies and that he expected the player’s teammates to rally around that loss.
Minnesota led, 60-56, with 18 seconds remaining in the second half, but Green Bay’s Preston Ruedinger sank a three-point shot with 12 seconds on the clock. Then, after Tyson hit a free-throw to make Minnesota’s lead 61-59 with 10 seconds to play, Ruedinger made a driving layup with one second remaining to force overtime.
Ruedinger and Marcus Hall led the Phoenix by each scoring 15 points.
“It was a frustrating game, but I think our 11 new guys will settle in and we’re going to be ok going forward,” Medved said. “I’m a process guy. It’s unrealistic to think you’ll jump on teams early all the time.”
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