The players pressed white sweat towels over their faces. They bent over their knees and bowed to the floor. Minutes after the final score had been announced, many of the members of the Gophers men's basketball team stood at center court, glaring up at the scoreboard as if it might magically change and alter the result.
The Gophers had just dropped to an unthinkable 0-5 in Big Ten play with four of those losses coming by two possessions or fewer. This last one, they lost in the most heartbreaking fashion yet.
After plowing back from a 17-point deficit, Minnesota (11-7 overall) had a chance to steal its first conference victory, trailing by two points with 3.5 seconds on the clock. After getting the ball on the inbounds pass, DeAndre Mathieu — coming off the bench for the first time at Minnesota — drove end-to-end to lay up the Gophers' last offering and potential tying shot, the ball dropping in.
The crowd of 12,401 at Williams Arena erupted, desperate for something for which to cheer.
Seconds later, the call came: Mathieu's basket was a fraction of a second too late. Minnesota lost 77-75.
"It's like nothing is going our way," a watery-eyed Mathieu mumbled down in the locker room afterward. "It's never been this hard in a long time. This one definitely hurts though. I thought I got it off. I definitely thought I got it off."
Minnesota led by four with 3:11 to go, but three made free throws by Iowa (12-5, 3-1 Big Ten) and a three-pointer by Jarrod Uthoff put the Gophers back down by two. A successful Mathieu layup tied the score, but after a turnover on each side, consecutive perimeter shots, from Carlos Morris and Joey King, wouldn't fall. On Iowa's last possession, the 6-9 Uthoff struck again, slicing a long jumper over mismatched Andre Hollins' outstretched hand for the final two of his 22 points.
"If I would have jumped with him, I would have fouled him because I was literally right on him," Hollins said. "He made a tough shot."