Former Benilde-St. Margaret’s standout and 2024 Miss Minnesota Basketball winner Olivia Olson scored 21 points to help No. 9 Michigan rally past the Gophers 70-60 Monday, Jan. 5, in Ann Arbor, Mich.
Olson, a sophomore guard who was last season’s co-Big Ten Freshman of the Year, scored 13 points in the second half as the Wolverines recovered from a 12-point deficit early in the second quarter.
The Wolverines (12-2, 2-1 Big Ten) remain unbeaten in eight games at home. They were coming off a 64-52 loss at Washington on Jan. 1 that ended a seven-game winning streak.
Grace Grocholski scored 22 points to lead the Gophers (10-4, 1-2), whose four-game winning streak ended. They were coming off a 71-48 victory at Indiana on Dec. 29.
On Monday, the Gophers led by nine after the first quarter and took a 22-10 lead in the first minute of the second. But they went cold, going scoreless for nearly six minutes, to let Michigan get back in it.
The Wolverines, who entered the night ninth in the nation in scoring (89.2 points per game), trailed by one at halftime before Olson got them off to a good start in the second half.
She scored nine points to fuel a 10-4 Michigan run to start the third quarter. A spark from Finau Tonga helped the Gophers come back, as they took a brief one-point lead with less than a minute left in the quarter and trailed by a point going into the fourth.
Michigan scored the first seven points of the fourth quarter to open an eight-point lead with 7:29 remaining. Grocholski’s three-pointer with 4:18 left cut the Wolverines’ lead to 57-53, but Michigan went on a 9-3 run to go up 10. The Gophers got within 66-60 with 1:51 remaining but made only one of their last seven field-goal attempts, with zero in the final 3 minutes.
