Indiana pulls away in second half to beat Gophers

Minnesota has one more regular-season game remaining.

In games the Gophers men's basketball team has started flat, coach Ben Johnson has often had an inkling before the game that his team would start slow. 

That wasn't the case Wednesday night. After two good days of practice, Johnson expected his Gophers to be ready and hungry in their home finale. 

Instead, they came out slow and never found any kind of a rhythm offensively in a 70-58 loss to Indiana at Williams Arena in Minneapolis. 

"They did a much better job of playing with force and got us on our heels, we just never — it snowballed — we never were able to regroup," Johnson said. 

Johnson said the Gophers never had the right mentality Wednesday night. Parker Fox, who was the U's most efficient offensive player with a team-high 14 points on 5-for-5 shooting, echoed that sentiment postgame. 

"Credit to them and taking advantage of it, but we just didn't play the way we want to play basketball," Fox said. 

The Gophers (18-12, 9-10 Big Ten) were within punching distance, down just five points entering the second half. But Pharrel Payne took a hard fall and gingerly walked to the bench with just 52 seconds into the second frame. 

While he returned with 8:06 remaining in the game, the offensive woes for the U had really snowballed by then and the Indiana lead was up to 15. 

Payne, who's been dealing with a back issue throughout the season, was the Gophers' most effective scorer in the first half, where he poured in all eight of his points. 

"I don't know if the hit flared it up, but you know, pop back in and I thought he finished it decent," Johnson said. "But it happens this time of year. Lot of guys are banged up and you just got to find a way to keep fighting, and to his credit he wanted to go back in, he didn't want to sit out, he wanted to keep playing." 

Payne appeared to be running a little gingerly after his return. Meanwhile, the Gophers couldn't string many baskets together, and when they did, the Hoosiers (17-13, 9-10) matched them bucket for bucket. 

Mackenzie Mgbako made a trio of 3-pointers during the Hoosiers' second-half run on his way to 15 points. The driving force, however, was big man Kel'el Ware, who tallied 26 points and 11 rebounds. The U never found an answer for him. 

"God's granted him with a lot of cool abilities," Fox said of Ware. "Even if you get him off his spot and you wall him up and you're physical with him, he's 7-foot with probably a 7-6, 7-7 wingspan, and he could just finish over the top. ... Saw (an Indiana coach Mike Woodson) quote about how they want to play inside out still, and Ware pops out and he goes 2 of 3 from 3.

"So, you know, the ball didn't bounce every way that we wanted it to bounce today, but you got to give them a little credit as well." 

Fox provided the Gophers a bit of a scoring punch in the second half, with nine of his 14 points coming after the halftime break. But that didn't counteract the otherwise lackluster offensive showing from Minnesota. 

The Gophers shot just 22 of 57 from the field (39%) and 5 for 26 from 3 (19%). They also had just 12 assists to 18 turnovers, which Indiana turned into 21 points. 

"Some of the plays we made we haven't made in a long time," Johnson said. "It kind of reminded me more of (the) beginning of the year. We'll have to look at the film, but it just felt like the movement was just delayed. We were just a step slow on everything."

The Gophers have one more regular-season game remaining to get right before the Big Ten Tournament. They visit Northwestern on Saturday for an 8 p.m. tipoff.