UW men end losing streak with first road win of season at Minnesota

The drought is over.
The Washington men’s basketball team snapped a six-game losing streak and got its first win in nearly a month with a 71-68 win Saturday at Williams Arena in Minneapolis.
The Huskies (11-10, 2-8 Big Ten) got their first victory since beating Maryland on Jan. 2, and it was their first road win of the season, having lost their previous five (they are 2-0 on neutral courts).
It was a battle between teams at the bottom of the Big Ten standings, but Minnesota (11-11, 3-8) had won three of its previous four games and was a 4 1/2-point favorite.
“It’s awesome for the guys,” UW coach Danny Sprinkle said. “We deserved it. We’ve been playing good basketball, and we’ve played maybe the hardest schedule in the country. We’ve had our chances to win games and for whatever reason we didn’t make plays and some of the other teams did.
“But I thought our guys did a good job learning from all of those lessons in January — taking care of the basketball in the final 10 minutes and making sure we take good shots. And it comes down to guys making plays. I wish I could say it was coaching, but it’s not.”
Washington, which led by 10 points at halftime, showed grit, holding off a Minnesota rally led by Dawson Garcia, who scored 23 of his team’s final 25 points.
Minnesota went on an 8-0 run — with all the points coming from Garcia — to take a 52-51 lead with 8:13 remaining. It was the Golden Gophers’ first lead since it was 23-22.
Washington responded with a 6-0 run to regain the lead at 57-52, and then it was back and forth.
Minnesota tied the score at 64 on a free throw by Garcia. The Huskies regained the lead at 67-64 on a free throw and then a put-back from Great Osobor with 1:32 left.
Minnesota, meanwhile, had three straight turnovers after tying the score at 64.
Garcia made a layup with 12.3 seconds left after a Husky turnover to pull Minnesota to 67-66.
Washington’s DJ Davis answered with a pair of free throws with 9.7 seconds remaining to make it 69-66. Garcia missed a pair of free throws a couple of seconds later and Mekhi Mason clinched the win for UW with two free throws.
“Tyler Harris was phenomenal all [game]. … I thought Zoom [Diallo] was terrific and guys came in and made free throws at the end — DJ and Mekhi — and that’s what it takes, especially for this group,” Sprinkle said. “It’s got to be all hands on deck. We’ve got to have seven or eight guys contributing every night.”
The Huskies — playing with two new starters, Tyree Ihenacho and Mason replacing Diallo and Davis — had a 40-30 lead at halftime.
A big reason for the 10-point lead was a great first half from Tyler Harris.
Harris had 15 points on 6-of-8 shooting and four rebounds in the opening half and made all three of his three-point attempts.
The Huskies were 6 of 10 from long range in the first half (after going 9 for 43 in their previous two games) and were helped when Garcia went to the bench with his second foul with 10:30 left and did not return until the second half.
Perhaps the most important stat from the first half was Washington’s 20 rebounds compared to eight for Minnesota.
That said, Minnesota had a fast start in the opening minutes. The Golden Gophers took early leads of 9-3 and 11-5 thanks to hot shooting, making their first five shots from the floor.
But the Huskies also were shooting well early, and they took the lead 15-14 with 13:43 left in the first half, on a three-pointer from Davis.
Washington’s lead grew to 22-16 before Minnesota’s defense tightened up, forcing the Huskies into contested shots late in the shot clock, leading to a 7-0 Golden Gophers run that gave them a 23-22 lead.
But the Huskies were resilient again, going on a 9-0 run, with Harris scoring the final five points, to take a 31-23 lead.
That lead expanded to 10 points by the end of the half, and the Huskies needed that cushion heading into the nail-biting second half.
Harris finished with 23 points for the Huskies on 9-of-12 shooting.
“He was awesome,” Sprinkle said of Harris. “It’s hard to be consistently good for 40 minutes, and I thought he was.”
Osobor had 16 points and 10 rebounds. Diallo, who made some big baskets in the second half, added 11 points.
Garcia finished with 28 points for Minnesota.