The Gophers men’s basketball team shrugged off another bad-luck injury to add the latest chapter to its feel-good story on Saturday.
A day after starting forward Jaylen Crocker-Johnson was ruled out indefinitely with a foot injury — Minnesota’s third starter to go down this season — the U blew out Rutgers 80-61 at Williams Arena.
The Gophers’ (13-14, 6-10 Big Ten) hot shooting led to their second-straight victory and stopped Rutgers’ (11-16, 4-12) run of two wins in a row.
Minnesota was 60% from the field and 58% from 3-point range. It was the first time the U shot that percentage from the field since February 2024 and the U’s 15 made threes Saturday were the most in a Big Ten game this season.
When head coach Niko Medved was hired last March, he put out a mandate to add outside shooting and he checked that box with transfer portal additions Cade Tyson and Bobby Durkin.
Tyson scored a game-high 27 points on 7 of 9 from deep. Dukin added 12 on 4 of 7 from behind the arc.
When Durkin made three treys in a row in the second half Saturday, fans at The Barn chanted “Bob-by!”
Langston Reynolds added 19 points and nine assists and provided good defense on Scarlet Knights leading scorer Tariq Francis, who was held six points below his scoring average. He had 10 points on 4 of 12 shooting.
On Friday, head coach Niko Medved said Crocker-Johnson will likely miss the rest of the season after pain became too severe in his injured foot. The U’s leading rebounder and second-leading scorer had missed the two previous games, a 69-57 loss to Washington last weekend and a 61-44 win over Oregon on Tuesday.
Without Crocker-Johnson, Minnesota’s rotation stayed at six total players, with five playing more than 3x minutes.
Saturday’s 11 a.m. tipoff led to a groggy start for both teams at The Barn; Minnesota missed its opening five shots, while Rutgers began 2 for 9 from the field.
Coming out of the under-16-minute timeout, Minnesota put together a 9-0 run over next three minutes to take an 11-6 lead.
Minnesota surged late in the half taking a 36-23 lead at the break. Cade Tyson and Isaac Asuma each hit threes in the last minute of the half.
The threes would keep falling in the second half.
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