The Minnesota Golden Gophers were back at Williams Arena on Sunday afternoon and also saw a return to the win column. The Gophers defeated the Bethune-Cookman Wildcats 79-62, improving their record on the season to 6-3.

The Gophers were led in the game by Dawson Garcia who has 23 points and five rebounds on 8-of-15 shooting including 2-of-5 from three-point range and 5-for-5 from the free throw line. Brennan Rigsby also had a double-digit scoring effort in the win, finishing with 14 points on 5-of-12 shooting.

Minnesota as a team had a strong day at the free throw line after an ugly pair of games in Orlando, making 10-of-12 attempts.

In the win, the Golden Gophers would nearly lead wire-to-wire. Bethune-Cookman saw themselves take a one-point lead early in the first half at 9-8 but the Gophers would reclaim it 30 seconds later and never looked back.

In the first half, a trio of runs that all together saw the Gophers outscore Bethune-Cookman 22-4 allowed Minnesota to take a commanding 30-13 lead early. The Wildcats would claw back into it by halftime, however, making it just a 38-26 lead for the Gophers.

In the second half, Bethune Cookman would come out with an 8-0 run that immediately cut the Gophers' lead down to just four points. While in past games, the Gophers have struggled with stopping the bleeding, that wasn't the case on Sunday as Minnesota put together a 10-0 run over a two-minute span to establish a 14-point lead.

After establishing their big lead over the Wildcats, the Gophers would never learn back and continued to add onto to their lead, growing it to as much as 28 points with 4:38 remaining in the contest.

Bethune-Cookman would finish the game strong with 18 points in the final five minutes but the Gophers would hang on for a comfortable 79-62 point victory. The 17-point margin of victory is the Gophers' biggest of the season and their largest since their season-opening 80-57 win over Oral Roberts

The Gophers will now prepare for Big Ten play as they will face the Michigan State Spartans on Wednesday at 8:30 p.m. at Williams Arena. It will be their last game of the week before facing No. 14 Indiana next Monday in Bloomington.

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