Michigan State bounces Gophers from Big Ten men’s basketball tournament

The first of Thursday’s four Big Ten men’s basketball tournament games at Target Center created what felt like a home-court advantage for the Gophers.

A few sections filled with fans in maroon and gold cheered during warmups as their mascot, Goldy Gopher, pumped them up with the U band playing in the background.

With Minnesota playing host to the tournament for the first time, the Gophers took a 34-32 halftime lead against Michigan State, but they were overmatched in the second half in a 77-67 loss.

“I thought the energy was even better than I expected,” senior Parker Fox said about the Gophers faithful showing up for an 11 a.m. game. “Unfortunately, it didn’t go the way we wanted it to go.”

BOXSCORE: Michigan State 77, Gophers 67

The ninth-seeded Gophers (18-14) had their highest conference finish since 2018-19, but they face a potential end to their season after losing five of the last six games. A bid to the NIT is no guarantee with Ohio State, Iowa, Maryland and Penn State ahead of them in NET ranking entering Thursday.

The eighth-seeded Spartans (19-13) outscored the Gophers 44-30 in the paint and shot 62% from the field in the second half to advance to play No. 1 seed Purdue in Friday’s quarterfinals.

“We knew it was going to be a grind,” Gophers coach Ben Johnson said. “Kind of a must-win game for both teams. We knew it was going to come down to the details. I just thought in the second half around the midway point, we couldn’t get consecutive stops.”

Minnesota’s players played with a sense of urgency early, jumping out to a 7-0 lead behind Dawson Garcia, who scored 10 of his 19 points in the first half.

There were eight lead changes and four ties before the U pulled ahead at halftime. Fox scored nine of his 11 points off the bench in the first half for the Gophers, who shot 50% from the field and scored 10 points off turnovers.

The Spartans split the regular-season series with Minnesota, including a 59-55 Gophers victory on Feb. 6 at Williams Arena. That was the last time the Gophers held an opponent under 70 points in a game.

Defensive issues plagued the Gophers in recent losses, especially in a 90-66 loss last weekend at Northwestern. That carried over to Thursday with Michigan State guards Tyson Walker and A.J. Hoggard combining for 32 points, mostly on dribble penetration.

Elijah Hawkins’ three-point play after Michigan State was called for basket interference made it 49-44 early in the first half, but the Gophers compounded poor defense with a bit of offensive bad luck.

Hawkins threw an alley-oop to Payne that appeared to be going through the basket before the ball popped out midway through the second half.

The Spartans took advantage with former Cretin-Derham Hall star Tre Holloman nailing a three-pointer during a 15-2 run that was capped by Malik Hall’s layup for a 59-51 lead with 7 minutes, 27 seconds remaining.

Michigan State’s physicality made it difficult for the Gophers hold on to the ball (Payne had seven of the team’s 12 turnovers) and finish at the rim. Players were stripped or forced into a tough shot with contact.

Garcia seemed determined to score any way possible, so he threw in a couple off-balance layups to pull the Gophers within 65-59 with 4:18 left. Walker answered with nine consecutive points for the Spartans, who were still playing for an NCAA tournament berth.

“We still want to play more basketball,” Garcia said about the NIT. “We’d love to help ourselves out and put ourselves in a better position, but that wasn’t the case. Now it’s in other people’s hands.”