Two Saturdays ago, the Minnesota Golden Gophers' fortunes were looking up. They had won three of four games including a pair of wins on the West Coast against USC and UCLA.

Now, the Gophers find themselves reeling after back-to-back losses, narrowing the gap between them and the reality of missing out on the college basketball postseason completely.

The Gophers on Tuesday night saw the Northwestern Wildcats—losers of 10 of their last 14 games—enter Williams Arena, jump out to an early double-digit lead, and never look back, delivering a 75-63 loss to the Gophers. Minnesota never led in the game, and Northwestern led for all but 38 seconds of total game action. It was a disastrous loss for the Gophers and one that has moved their margin of error over the remaining three games to near zero.

As Minnesota's window of opportunity to significantly strengthen their chances of making the Big Ten Tournament faded away on Tuesday night, head coach Ben Johnson, composed but frustrated with his team's performance, discussed the latest setback.

"I don't know," Johnson said when asked if he felt there was a carryover into Tuesday night from the program's previous loss to Penn State on Saturday. "I this one felt it was just we're just we're stuck, you know, and that's what we've got to fight through. We've got to fight through being stuck and we are just really mentally stuck right now," he added.

The loss was Minnesota's fourth straight at Williams Arena, dropping their season record at home to 10-8 and 2-7 in conference play—a drastic difference from their 4-4 record on the road this season against Big Ten competition.

"I can't pinpoint what it is necessarily about just when we're not on the road, but we're a totally different team," Johnson said in frustration. "You know last week, that's what we've talked about, you know, the last couple days was just playing relaxed, don't worry about anything else than just playing like we did in California. Playing relaxed and not playing stuck," he added about how the coaching staff tried to handle the team's return to Williams Arena after a successful road trip.

Despite the coaching staff's best efforts, the Gophers once again played stuck, and it reared its ugly head in the opening minutes.

"I think you just saw it the first couple plays the game," Johnson noted about the opening minutes of the game that saw Minnesota turn the ball over three times in under three minutes, resulting in a 10-0 lead for Northwestern. "Which is like we're that half-second slow, right? We're a half-second late and you know against good teams and obviously we knew they're a really good offensive team, especially what they, you know, done the last couple games. You can't give them those open looks early and they built those confidence, but you know, we've got to get out of that just stuck feeling."

Despite the results, Johnson believes his team still has the mental toughness they're striving to find, at least when playing at Williams Arena.

"We have it," he said when asked if his team possesses the mental toughness needed. "It's just for whatever reason we're like this, right? You know the teams that we've beaten, and to win however many, we've won more games on the road than parts of it. So we have it. It's just the ability to sustain it and keep the momentum that we just haven't been able to do, and that's the that's the problem."

The good news for the Gophers is that only one of their three remaining contests is at home: a March 5 matchup against Wisconsin. That game will be sandwiched between a pair of road contests at Nebraska on Saturday and at Rutgers on Sunday, March 9.

With the Gophers just one game up on the Penn State Nittany Lions for the final spot in the first-ever 16-team Big Ten Tournament, Ben Johnson will need his players to dig deep and play with perhaps their strongest mental toughness of the season over the next two weeks.

"We obviously do," Johnson said when asked about his team needing to play with desperation over their final three regular-season games. "You know, that goes without saying. I'm more on them because we’ve got to get back, right? You know, and that's my job, if you get right, you give yourself a chance," Johnson continued.

"But if you're not right, you're going to keep having that stuck feeling. And so, that’s what we know it is, right? I don’t want to put that on our guys even more. I don’t want them feeling that. I need to work with them to get them back. If we get them back and get right, we give ourselves a chance."

The Gophers will have four days to get right, as they'll face a 17-11 Nebraska Cornhuskers squad on Saturday. Nebraska, desperate to keep their NCAA Tournament hopes alive after losing three of their last four, will pose another tough challenge. Tip-off is currently set for 1:00 p.m. CT.

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