Women's Hoops Blog

Inane commentary on a game that deserves far better


Friday, February 24, 2006

Minnesota clinched an opening round bye in next weekend's Big 10 tournament and ended a four game losing streak with a hard fought 65-58 win over Indiana.

Jamie Broback scored 20 points, including the 1000th point of her career, and grabbed 11 rebounds and dished out six assists to lead the Gophers. Shannon Schonrock played good defense on reigning Big Ten POW Cyndi Valentin, taking her out of the game and holding her to 9 points.

Freshman Nikki Smith scored a career high 18 points for the Hoosiers and Jenny DeMuth scored five key points late in the second half to bring a 16 point Gopher lead down to five with 1:46 left in the game.

April Calhoun answered with perhaps the biggest basket of the night, a twisting lay-up that put the Gophers back up by seven with just over 43 seconds left.

Calhoun on the win: “I think tonight’s game was a test for all of us. We had gone through a four game losing streak, and we knew we had to find our identity as a team if we were going to go into the post-season the way we wanted to."

Indiana will face Iowa on Sunday in a game that will decide the 5th seed in the conference. Minnesota faces Northwestern, and if they win will get the third seed by virtue of a tie breaker over Michigan State.