Gophers men’s basketball team tries but fails to add a home highlight against Wisconsin

Ben Johnson had hoped his Gophers men’s basketball team would give fans a proud, lasting impression Wednesday night in the final home game. Maybe another win over a ranked team.

After all, the biggest highlights this year came from court-storming victories against Oregon and Michigan in January.

But since those marquee wins, the Gophers have lost five straight games at home, including against bottom-half Big Ten opponents Washington, Northwestern and Penn State.

In front of an announced sellout crowd of 14,625 on Wednesday night, the Gophers showed the same fight that helped them pull off those earlier upsets, but they couldn’t take down No. 12 Wisconsin in a 74-67 loss on Senior Night.

“It’s unfortunate we couldn’t flip it into a win for everyone who came out,” Johnson said. “The other next piece is when you get it like that you want to be able to capitalize in all areas. It wasn’t for lack of effort. I thought the will was there.”

The reality is the Gophers (15-15, 7-12 Big Ten) just couldn’t play their best consistently at the Barn this season, finishing with a 2-8 home record in Big Ten play.

But even with one game remaining in the regular season, Sunday at Rutgers, the Gophers seem to be a lock to qualify for the Big Ten tournament. They likely can’t finish lower than 15th in the standings. That’s thanks to a 5-4 league road record.

Senior Brennan Rigsby was one the reasons the Gophers played so well on the road this season. He had a career-high 20 points and the game-winning three-pointer off the bench in Saturday’s win at Nebraska. He followed that up with 13 of his team-high 18 points in the second half Wednesday.

“[The coaches] just talked about going out there and being confident,” Rigsby said. “Just doing what I do and just trying to bring energy to the team and the crowd.”

BOXSCORE: No. 12 Wisconsin 74, Gophers 67

Big Ten basketball standings

In the second half, Rigsby had eight points during a 19-5 run to erase an 11-point deficit. The Gophers took a 53-51 lead on Lu’Cye Patterson’s three-pointer with 8:33 to play, but they weren’t able to build on that momentum.

The Badgers (23-7, 13-6) answered with a 19-9 run to pull away late Wednesday. They went 21-for-24 from the foul line and scored 38 points in the paint. John Blackwell, John Tonje and former Eastview standout Steven Crowl combined for 53 points.

In crunch time, the Gophers struggled on free throws (8-for-15 in the game) and allowed too many offensive rebounds to extend Wisconsin’s possessions (13 second-chance points).

“Those little things down the stretch, we can’t have those,” said Patterson, who finished with 15 points. “You can see that comes back to bite you.”

Wisconsin has nine straight wins in the Border Battle, including 80-59 against the Gophers in Madison on Jan. 10. But the Gophers played in front of the program’s first sellout at home since Feb. 16, 2020, against Iowa.

It was certainly a statement in itself that these Gophers drew their best crowd in the Johnson era when this wasn’t necessarily his best team.

Among the 10 seniors honored Wednesday was Dawson Garcia, who became one of the school’s top-10 all-time scorers with more than 1,500 points in three seasons.

An emotional Garcia seemed to get choked up hearing cheers from Gophers faithful before the game. He hit his first shot of the night but didn’t score again until helping to ignite a second-half rally. He finished with 11 of his 14 points after halftime, to go with eight rebounds.

Garcia, Mike Mitchell Jr. and Parker Fox were seniors who returned after last season. They weren’t able to match the success of last season in the Big Ten, but their careers aren’t done yet.

“I told our guys to expect to keep playing,” Johnson said. “Continue to play loose and continue to play free. We don’t want it to end.”