Gophers could use a springboard game at Michigan State before the postseason

To keep their NCAA tournament hopes on track, and to end the regular season with a .500 record in Big Ten play, the Gophers will have to do something that hasn’t happened in the women’s basketball program since March of 2009: beat a ranked opponent on the road.

The Gophers (20-9 overall) have lost seven of their last 10 games, turning a 4-1 start to Big Ten play into an 8-9 conference mark heading into the regular season finale at No. 23 Michigan State on Saturday afternoon.

Minnesota stands tied with Washington in 12th place in the 18-team Big Ten, firmly on the NCAA bubble.

“Unfortunately, I feel like we’ve been in this position a lot,” said center Annika Stewart after the Gophers lost at home to a hot-shooting Washington team Wednesday night. “We’ve had a lot of close games we haven’t been able to [finish] out. So we really just have to go back to the basics.

“I think it takes all of us to buy into Coach [Dawn Plitzuweit’s] plan. I know we trust her. But it’s up to us to make sure we execute. And it really starts in practice.”

It’s most important that the Gophers execute on defense.

Injuries to Mara Braun and Taylor Woodson have taken leadership, depth and scoring out of the Gophers lineup. For much of the season — including the start of the Big Ten season — the team made up for it with stout team defense.

In recent games, the defense has been a problem.

In their last seven losses, Gophers opponents have shot 49.3% overall, made 40.4% of their three-pointers and scored 76.3 points. Compare that to season averages of 40.3%, 31.3% and 60.2, respectively.

To be fair, much of that is the level of the opponent. Of the Gophers’ eight conference victories, six have come against the bottom five Big Ten teams. The Gophers also had a victory against Illinois, which is looking better as the season progresses, and one against Indiana.

The Gophers are ending their toughest stretch of the schedule, with those seven losses including three teams in the top 10. All seven of those opponents could wind up in the NCAA field.

But what happened against Washington — one of the country’s most efficient teams — was disappointing for a team that had a week to prepare. The Gophers were up seven after a quarter, but Washington hit on 20 of 26 shots while out-scoring Minnesota 47-27 over the second and third quarters.

“You just go back to doing basic, simple fundamental things,” Plitzuweit said. “Take care of the ball and attack the rim and screen for each other. On the defensive side, we’ve got to find ways to keep kids in front of us, get better in some ball screen reads. And we’ll see if we can do that pretty quickly.”

The Gophers are 0-5 vs. ranked teams this season. The program has lost 29 straight games to ranked teams. The last time Minnesota won such a game was against Arizona State in the fall of 2019. The last time the Gophers beat a ranked Big Ten team was against Rutgers in February 2019. Their last road victory against a ranked opponent came at Notre Dame in an NCAA tournament opener in 2009.

A victory at Michigan State would change all of that, giving the Gophers the Quad 1 win they’ve been looking for. It would also bode well for a team fighting to get into the NCAA tournament.

1 p.m., Saturday at Breslin Center

TV, radio: BTN+; 96.7-FM

The No. 23 Spartans (20-8, 10-7 Big Ten) are currently 20th in the NCAA’s Net Rankings. The Gophers (20-9, 8-9) dropped to 35 after Wednesday’s loss. Michigan State has three Quad 1 wins and four Quad 2 wins. Among their better victories were against California in a non-conference game, and against Iowa, Washington, Illinois, Michigan and Indiana in conference play. Led by forward Grace VanSlooten (15.6 points per game, 53.4% shooting), and guards Julia Ayrault (14.8) and Theryn Hallock (14.4), the Spartans are 12-2 at home this season, with their only losses coming to Oregon and Michigan.