Minnesota win sets up Friday tournament match with Spartans

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Indianapolis — The Minnesota men’s basketball team is hoping the third time’s the charm in Indianapolis.

With a dominating 76-55 win Thursday against No. 11 seed Penn State in the first round of the men’s Big Ten Tournament at Conseco Fieldhouse, the No. 6 seed Golden Gophers advance to face MSU, which defeated Minnesota twice already this year and had a first-round bye. The Spartans and Gophers are scheduled to tip-off at 9 p.m. Friday.

The No. 3 seed Spartans (24-7 overall, 14-4 Big Ten), who captured a share of their second straight Big Ten title with a 64-48 win against Michigan on Sunday, have won three in a row.

Guard Devoe Joseph led the Gophers against Penn State on Thursday with 15 points while forward Colton Iverson shot 5-for-5 from the field for 12 points in 16 minutes.

The Gophers led by as much as 27 and outscored Penn State 34-18 in the paint, 26-11 in bench points and tallied 21 points off 14 Nittany Lion turnovers.

Minnesota (19-12, 9-9) shot 58 percent from the field.

“We came out with energy,” Joseph said. “It’s the Big Ten Tournament. We have goals we set at the beginning of the year, so we knew we had to play good basketball. We started out playing good basketball here.”

It will mark the third meeting of the year pitting the Spartans and Gophers. MSU beat Minnesota, 60-53, at home on Jan. 13 as part of a program-best 9-0 start to conference play.

Ten days later, the Spartans went to Minneapolis and junior guard Kalin Lucas hit a game-winning shot to earn MSU a 65-64 win.

“We felt like we had that game and it just kind of slipped at the end,” Iverson said. “It’s something we can’t let happen again. We have to come ready to play tomorrow and get it done.”

The Spartans, 13-10 in Big Ten Tournament history and 5-5 in Indianapolis, have not won a conference tournament championship since 2000. All the while, they’ve captured at least a share of four regular season titles.

Lucas, a two-time first team All-Big Ten member, leads the Spartans with 14.8 points per game in 31.1 minutes per contest.

Big Ten Sixth Man of the Year sophomore guard Draymond Green anchors MSU’s bench, chipping in with 10.1 points and 7.8 boards for the top rebounding team in the conference.

“Any (MSU head coach) Tom Izzo-coached team is always one of the top rebounding teams in the nation,” Minnesota head coach Tubby Smith said. “We’ll have to do a better job than we did today and we’ve got to really find a way for all our players to help out.”

Still, MSU will be without one of its top defenders in junior guard Chris Allen, whom Izzo suspended indefinitely this week for team issues.

“They’ve got a lot of good players,” Smith said. “Chris is a pretty talented player and, certainly, I know any time you lose a player that’s a starter and has the talent he has, it’s going to affect you. But they have a lot of depth, (MSU head coach Tom Izzo) plays a lot of players — I don’t think it will affect how we approach the game and prepare for the game.”

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