The Minnesota men’s basketball team defeated Concordia-St. Paul, 106-58, in exhibition action on Thursday night at Williams Arena.
Jordan Murphy scored a team-high 22 points for Minnesota on 9-10 shooting and added 11 rebounds to complete the double-double. Fellow starter Nate Mason began his senior season with 15 points on 6-11 shooting from the floor. Amir Coffey hit a pair of three pointers and finished with 10 points.
Isaiah Washington, Jamir Harris and Hunt Conroy each made their debuts against Concordia-St. Paul. Harris finished with 12 points with Washington notching nine.
Bryndan Matthews, who scored 16 points on 6-10 shooting, along with Cody Carlson with 11, paced the Golden Bears offense.
Eleven different Gophers scored in the game, as Minnesota held Concordia-St. Paul to 35.6 percent from the floor, while shooting 52.7 percent on their own and committing just six turnovers.
Minnesota jumped out to a 7-0 lead in the game’s first two minutes. Murphy scored the opening bucket, giving the Gophers the lead for the remainder of the contest.
The lead for the Gophers extended to as much as 23 in the first half. Mason scored seven points during a Gophers 20-4 run from 16:25 to 10:23, pushing their lead to 31-9.
The Golden Bears put together a 13-4 run from 9:02 to 4:11 to cut the lead to 11 points. Minnesota responded by scoring nine of the final 12 points in the half, including a Murphy dunk and tip-in to move the Gophers lead to 22 at the break, 52-30. Murphy was the leader at the break with 18 points on 7-8 shooting from the floor and 4-6 from the free throw line.
To begin the second half, Minnesota connected on three 3-pointers, including a back-to-back pair from Mason, while Reggie Lynch also slammed home two dunks during the 18-4 run.
The lead grew to as large as 49 points during the second half as Concordia-St. Paul was unable to make a run.
The Maroon and Gold will play again on Sunday Nov. 5 against Green Bay for a charity exhibition game for hurricane relief at Maturi Pavilion starting at 12:00 p.m. The Gophers begin the regular season on Nov. 10 against USC Upstate at Williams Arena at 7:00 p.m.
(info and photo courtesy of Gopher Sports)