Gophers men's basketball builds early lead, fends off Texas A&M-Corpus Christi's rally

Ben Johnson's biggest fear during the Gophers men's basketball team's hot start this season was that his players would start believing the hype and stop playing like underdogs.

Coming off Saturday's big win at Michigan, the Gophers were 15-point favorites over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, one of the top teams in the Southland Conference.

There was no letdown in sight when an early three-point barrage led to a 26-point lead, but the Gophers committed 28 turnovers to give the Islanders some life before escaping 79-71 in front of an announced crowd of 9,001 at Williams Arena.

"My biggest worry, was there going to be a mentality drop-off?" the Gophers first-year coach said. "It's easy to fall into human nature after a big win and everybody's talking about you. I thought our mentality for most of the game was pretty good to get off to a good start."

The Gophers (9-1) seemed eager to put on a show for the home crowd early, making nine of their 11 three-pointers in the first half to lead 46-27 at halftime.

Payton Willis, who led four double-figure scorers with 17 points, was 4-for-5 shooting from beyond the arc in the first half. E.J. Stephens had 16 points, 12 of them in the first half, including six on a pair of threes.

"Coach Johnson even said in [Tuesday's] shootaround let's go out and try to break the record for threes," Stephens said. "Everybody's shot just felt great today. We were moving the ball well when we drove it getting guys wide-open shots."

Johnson's players were riding high after shocking the Big Ten with a 75-65 upset against the Wolverines over the weekend. The program's first victory in Ann Arbor, Mich., in a decade.

The last time the Gophers played at the Barn, they fell 75-67 against Michigan State in the Big Ten opener, but they kept fans engaged after nearly erasing a 19-point deficit.

The opposite happened Tuesday to the Gophers after Corpus Christi (9-2) trailed 56-30 when Willis sank his fifth three-pointer of the game.

The Islanders used a 19-1 run to give the Gophers a scare after forcing 17 turnovers in the second half.

BOXSCORE: Gophers 79. Texas A&M-Corpus Christi 71

"I thought it was just being careless, stuff we really haven't seen all year," Johnson said. "More one-handed passes than we've thrown and guys not playing off of two feet."

Jordan Roberts' three for Corpus Christi cut the lead to 57-49 at the 12:16 mark, but Minnesota started to lean on its defense instead of outside shooting to turn the momentum back in its favor.

Stephens' jumper ended a field-goal drought that lasted 6 minutes, 40 seconds. And a steal by Charlie Daniels 30 seconds later led to Sean Sutherlin's fast-break finish that brought energy back to the crowd.

Jamison Battle, who had 27 points in the win at Michigan, kept the rally going with a transition dunk to make it a 16-point lead with 7:20 remaining. Battle finished with 10 of his 16 points in the second half.

But the Islanders, who forced 24 turnovers in a win against Nebraska-Omaha last week, wouldn't go down without battling their Big Ten foe until the final buzzer.

This was Minnesota's sixth game this season decided by single digits, which included an 81-76 win Dec. 5 at Mississippi State. The Gophers have been able to pull out several close games with a veteran presence on the court, including six seniors in a seven-man rotation.

The Gophers, who don't play again until next Wednesday against Green Bay, rarely have gotten sped up this season as they did Tuesday night. The pace was far from what they were used to. Entering Tuesday's game. the Gophers were tied with Iowa for fewest turnovers per game (8.3) in the nation, including just 11 turnovers in the previous three games.

"Those turnovers were leading to easy baskets for them," Willis said. "But we have an experienced group and we stayed poised. Every team we've played against made a run in the second half, but we've been able to withstand it."