There's no dancing around it: this was a huge test for the Gophers, and one they flunked. After two close games, the Gophers were put on trial on their own home court. The assignment wasn't a doozie (after all, Iowa had just beaten Wisconsin), but they certainly weren't the league's best (and are realistically probably somewhere in the middle of the pack, just like the Gophers). But the question was thrown out before the game: is this Gophers team for real, and can they make any noise in the Big Ten? Tonight wasn't a death sentence, but it was a mark of serious problems. The Gophers lost a double-digit lead. They struggled to shoot – from anywhere. They had no semblance of an inside game. They couldn't hold onto the ball. Against the Hawkeyes' zone defense, they looked lost. They choked down the stretch. We'll get into more analysis tomorrow, but for tonight I'll let you ponder the numbers for yourselves:
- With three minutes remaining in the first half, the Gophers had turned over the ball only twice, but after a sloppy second half, the team finished with 12 – half of which were Sampson's.
- The Gophers shot 4-for-23 from the three-point line, good for 17.4 percent – their worst performance from behind the arc in eight games.
- The Gophers were shooting very well early on – and finished the first half shooting 53.8 percent – even after ending the half on the wrong end of a 10-0 run. But in the second half, their shooting effort sunk to 37.5 percent.
- Minnesota won the rebound competition – by one – but the momentum felt so lopsided by the end of the game that Rodney Williams was sure they had gotten beaten on the boards for the fourth game in a row.
