MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. – The Drake University men's basketball team came up just short in hard-fought 68-67 loss at Minnesota Monday, Dec. 11, evening at Williams Arena. The Bulldogs led for nearly 30 minutes against the previously No. 14 ranked Golden Gophers before Minnesota pulled away late in the second half.
Drake (5-5) was led by 14 points from Minnesota native
Graham Woodward (Edina, Minn.) as the senior was 4-of-9 from the three-point arc with three assists.
Ore Arogundade (Chicago, Ill.) was 3-of-4 from the arc and 6-of-10 overall to finish with 15 points while
De'Antae McMurray (Alton, Ill.) had another strong showing with 12 points, five assists and five rebounds.
"It would be hard for me to ask for a better effort," said Drake head coach
Niko Medved. "They played their hearts out and played together. They were locked in and fought like crazy tonight, we just came up a little short."
Minnesota (9-3) enjoyed a comfortable size advantage at every position and benefitted from Jordan Murphy's 24 points and 18 rebounds. Amir Coffey added 16 points, all in the second half, to propel the Gophers to the victory as Minnesota shot 62.1 percent in the second half.
"Coffey is a future pro – that's a challenge. Murphy is a future pro – that's a challenge," Medved said of the difficulty in defending the pair. "We mixed up some of our rotations in our post blitz and gave them a couple of easy scores that maybe got them going a bit. On the other side, these guys are hard to score on in the lane, they're long."
The Bulldogs extended a second-half lead out to eight points twice in the first three minutes of the period, but Minnesota answered with an 11-2 run to tie the game at 43-43 on a Nate Mason three-pointer with 12:43 left in the half. Less than four minutes later, the Gophers took their first lead of the game on a Dupree McBrayer three-pointer that put the Gophers up 50-47.
Minnesota held that lead for the remainder of the contest, but Drake threatened in the final minutes with a Woodward three-pointer off a McMurray assist drawing Drake within two points, 64-62, with 2:09 remaining. Minnesota extended its lead back out to six points before an Arogundade layup with seven seconds left put Drake back within striking distance. Drake's defense forced a turnover as Minnesota brought the ball up the court and the Bulldogs capitalized with a three-pointer from Woodward as time expired to trim the margin to the 68-67 final.
"We fought hard tonight and I love these guys," Woodward said. "It was a tough one, but we came in and we fought. We'll build upon this."
The Bulldogs opened the game with a 6-1 lead on a pair of three-pointers and stretched that lead to 11-3. Minnesota rallied with an 8-0 run to tie the contest, but Arogundade answered with a three-pointer to retake the lead.
"I thought we did a great job following our gameplan and making them [Minnesota] a half-court team," Medved said of the first half.
The Bulldogs held the lead for the rest of the first half and led by as many as eight points three times until Minnesota trimmed that margin to 28-24 at halftime. McMurray scored seven of his points in the opening half to help the Bulldogs maintain their lead, which was the first halftime lead an opponent has held at Williams Arena since Nov. 14, 2016.
Drake returns to Des Moines for finals this week and to prepare for this weekend's Hy-Vee Classic at Wells Fargo Arena. The Bulldogs face Iowa at 1 p.m. on the Big Ten Network to begin the doubleheader in downtown Des Moines.
