The Minnesota Golden Gophers men's basketball team just refuses to make things easy and that was the case once on Saturday afternoon against Fairleigh Dickinson. The Golden Gophers after finding themselves trailing 21-20 at half time, dominated the second half of action, shooting 72% while outscoring the Knights 54-39.
Mike Mitchell and Dawson Garcia led the Gophers in the win with 18 points respectively, tied for the most points for all scorers. Femi Odukale and Lu'Cye Patterson also both contributed double-digit scoring efforts with 10 points each.
FDU was led by guard Ahmed Barba-Bey who had 15 points while fellow forward Jo'el Emanuel had 14 points in the win.
After the first 10 minutes of action that saw Minnesota leading 14-11 but making six of their first 13 shots, the Golden Gophers struggled for the final 10 minutes, missing 13 of their final 15 shots. Despite the ice-cold shooting, Fairleigh Dickinson was unable to must up much more offensive success of their own, and the Gophers found themselves down just one point at halftime, 21-20.
Coming out of the break, the Gophers made their first eight shots of the second half, flipping a 22-21 deficit into a 40-30 lead. That success would carry throughout the final 20 minutes of action, as the Gophers were 18-of-25 from the field and over the final five minutes made their final six shots to secure the victory.
FDU in the second half, struggled to find consistency early on making just four of their first 14 shots but did find success over the final 10 minutes, making 10 of their next 14 attempts. However, it was too late for the Knights to truly stage a comeback, they would narrow the deficit to as close as eight points but the Gophers' hot shooting would keep the Knights at arms reach in the final minute before ultimately pulling away.
The win improves Minnesota's record in the 2024-25 season to 7-4, they remain 0-2 in Big Ten play.
NEXT UP
The Gophers will be out of action for eight days until they face Morgan State on December 29. It will be their last non-conference matchup before entering the heart of conference play on January 2 against Purdue.
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