Minutes after the Gophers' sixth consecutive loss, thoughts of the next game were stirring. The players knew, already, that the results of the next one would be huge.
Saturday night's matchup against Nebraska marks the last chance the Gophers have to stop their landslide and head into the Big Ten tournament with some whisper of momentum.
"This is the second season," freshman guard Andre Hollins said. "We need to come out and make a statement. We need to get in a groove. We need to get ready for the B-10 tournament. We just need to refocus ourselves. It's a new season, a new beginning."
The Gophers are so sorely in need of a new beginning because their old one ended in a massive slump, a six-game losing streak that effectively has pushed the Gophers off the bubble and out of the NCAA tournament.
The only chance they have now is to win the Big Ten tournament -- a task that will require a lot more than some good vibes. The reality is, the Gophers have said all the right words before. The players are quick to say they still have faith in their team and have called every upcoming game for the last month "crunch time."
But when it comes to showing those sentiments on the court, the Gophers seem to be lacking. Against Wisconsin on Tuesday, the team let a 10-point lead dissolve in six minutes.
The game before, against Indiana at home, the Gophers never challenged and looked lethargic, trailing by as many as 24 and eventually falling by 19.
"It's not that we don't want to [play hard]," Hollins said. "We're just trying not to overreact. And that might affect our play negatively and we're trying to stay positive. I guess it's just a matter of opinion, and how you look at it -- but we're playing our hearts out out there."
As a veteran, Rodney Williams knows that such perceptions are something the Gophers -- or any team in a rut like this -- need to fight.
"Sometimes when things aren't going well, it will look like that," Williams said. "It just comes with it. We can't really worry about what other people are saying. We've got to stay focused on what we've got to get done."
For the Gophers, that's concentrating on several key things they've been struggling with in recent weeks. The team has had issues with turning over the ball all season and has struggled with rebounding since losing big man Trevor Mbakwe.
But perhaps just as alarming is the fact that in the past two games the Gophers haven't shot greater than 31 percent from the field and hit a season low on Tuesday with 22.7.
"I guess when things are going bad for you, they're going bad," Williams said. "The layups haven't even been going too good for us. ... We've got to keep putting them up there even if they're not dropping. Because as long as we get it up there, we've still got a chance to get a rebound."
As long as they keep putting them up against Nebraska, they have a chance to rebound from this long, ghastly stretch of basketball. But it will take a major statement from a team already deemed dead.
