MINNESOTA 75 – RUTGERS 74
Rutgers men’s basketball suffered a heartbreaking, last second loss to Minnesota on Thursday night as Jameson Battle connected on a three-pointer as time expired to give Minnesota the 75-74 victory. The heartbreaker comes as Rutgers held a 10-point lead with 1:15 to play.
BOOK IT pic.twitter.com/dIoVs6GaEg
— Minnesota Men's Basketball (@GopherMBB) March 3, 2023
“Obviously, it was a very difficult game,” Head Coach Steve Pikiell said. “I knew this would be a difficult game and we didn’t finish it off. We had turnovers, some missed free throws, some bad block outs, and just didn’t finish. It’s a very difficult way to end, but I wanted to congratulate Minnesota. They’ve been hanging around in all their games and Ben (Johnson’s) done a good job. He has a ton of injuries that they’re healthy now. It’s just a tough one on the road and we had our chances, obviously, but you have to finish it off and we didn’t.”
The loss drops Rutgers to 18-12 on the year and 10-9 in the Big Ten. Their status for the NCAA Tournament will come into question as they get ready to face Northwestern on Sunday night from Jersey Mike’s Arena. After that the Big Ten Tournament kicks into high gear next week from Chicago.
“We’ve had a lot of tough losses, and we’ve had some great wins too,” Pikiell added. “I like how we played. I liked how our offense (played). We scored, we passed the ball. We had 19 assists. We got back to that. We got to get off the mat and get ready. We got a lot of season left, then we got the next season β the Big Ten tournament. Anyone could win that thing, and then season after that.”
