Four takeaways from the Gophers men's basketball win at Ohio State

Ben Johnson had the ultimate confidence in Ta'Lon Cooper to hit the second of two free throws with 1.7 seconds left in Thursday's 70-67 victory against Ohio State.

The Gophers coach called timeout after Cooper missed the first free throw to keep the score tied at 67-67, but he told his starting point guard and the rest of the team what to do when he made the next one.

That's exactly how it played out with Cooper nailing his last free throw to give his team the lead for good. And Dawson Garcia, who finished with a career-high tying 28 points, made a couple free throws to finish.

"I was not trying to ice Ta'Lon," Johnson said Friday about the last timeout. "You just know as a player in the heat of the moment just to take a deep breath can help. I had all the confidence in the world he was going to make the free throw."

The Gophers shot 9-for-16 at the line on the night, including four misses with under a minute left, but that didn't end up costing them their first conference win. Here are four takeaways from Thursday's victory at Ohio State:

Thumbs up for mic'd up

If Gophers fans ever wanted a behind the scenes look with the men's basketball team on gameday, it didn't get much better than Thursday's live broadcast against Ohio State on FS1.

Johnson and Ohio State coach Chris Holtmann wore microphones to record their conversations for the entire game with no commercials. Viewers got to see the interaction between Johnson and his players from the locker room to the sidelines.

"I don't think fans know everything that goes into a game scenario or situation what we're talking to players about," Johnson said. "You're slowly seeing everything that comes into play and our guys learning and growing. I thought that was pretty cool to see our guys be able to play as well as they did and to showcase themselves pretty good on national TV."

Best defensive performance

Be tough and physical. Don't back down. That was a big part of the Gophers' game plan against Ohio State, one of the most tough and physical teams in the Big Ten and nationally.

That physicality showed up early and often on the defensive end. They contested shots. They bumped players off their path. They kept the Buckeyes off balance and out of rhythm.

The Buckeyes' leading scorers Brice Sensabaugh and Justice Sueing combined to shoot 10-for-31 (32.3%) for the game. But the Gophers made them uncomfortable from the very start. Sensabaugh and Sueing combined to shoot 4-for-16 in the first half.

Nine turnovers forced turned into 13 points for the Gophers, but they also had six blocked shots by five different players.

"They're a tough, hardnosed and gritty group," Johnson said about the Buckeyes. "I thought we role switched. That was huge for our mentality and our psyche. We had to make it a football game. We had to go out there and embrace contact and play with physicality."

Garcia's growth

The only other time Garcia had 28 points in a college game before Thursday was his freshman year at Marquette in a blowout loss against Villanova.

It's easy to focus on the scoring, since Garcia had 12 straight points in the first half to help the Gophers lead by as much as eight points early, but he was making an all-around impact.

The biggest area of growth this season for Garcia is rebounding. He's averaging 18 points and eight rebounds in the last eight games. He's grabbed 33 total rebounds in the last three games, including a career-high 15 rebounds in last weekend's 81-79 loss vs. Nebraska.

The Gophers were outrebounded 39-32 vs. Ohio State, including giving up 14 offensive boards. But they held their own with help from Garcia who is 10th in the Big Ten with 7.8 rebounds per game.

Payne playing through pain

Johnson had a chance to listen to his audio from the TV broadcast of Thursday's game and had to laugh about how many times he asked if freshman Pharrel Payne was "good" to play.

"He was hurting but he didn't want to come out of the game," Johnson said. "I'm not questioning your toughness right now. We need to win the game."

The Cottage Grove native kept looking at his coach grimacing, so Johnson had to make sure his talented young big man could keep playing. It's a good thing Payne did because he scored six points in the second half, including an inside bucket to ignite the U on a 10-0 run.