Penn State vs Minnesota Basketball Recap

It's been a tough season for the Minnesota Golden Gophers, but just when a shaken basketball team was losing control of its Big Ten opener, Lawrence Westbrook authored a timely story of redemption.

Minnesota was headed nowhere, and quickly so, on Tuesday night in Minneapolis, Minn. Coach Tubby Smith's ballclub - which led Penn State at halftime by a 34-27 count - got blitzed at the start of the second half, as a 17-3 Nittany Lion run put Ed DeChellis's crew in front, 44-37. With the Williams Arena crowd becoming increasingly restless, everyone in Gopher Gold and Minnesota Maroon knew that a sour season was head for another awful outcome.

After suffering close losses to Portland, Texas A&M and Miami, the Gophers couldn't afford to drop a decision to Penn State. A home-court setback to a lower-division Big Ten team would have done further damage to Minnesota's already-suspect NCAA Tournament resume.

That's when Westbrook entered the fray and changed the contours of this crucial contest in the Midwest.

The last time Minnesota and Penn State met - on Feb. 14 of this soon-to-end year - the Gophers' most explosive scorer was shut down by the Nittany Lions. A DeChellis-coached defense clamped down on Westbrook, limiting Tubby Smith's foremost offensive option to just four points. Almost 11 months after that horror show in Happy Valley, Westbrook - who is deeply needed by his teammates now that heralded recruit Royce White has left the Minnesota roster - had to shoulder the balance of the workload for the Gophers at the offensive end of the floor. When his team fell behind by seven points early in the second half, the senior from Chandler, Ariz., answered the bell for his band of basketball brothers.

While the Gophers began to tighten up their defense (UM forced 14 PSU turnovers while committing only seven in the game), Westbrook caught fire from the perimeter. He hit a 3-pointer to give Minnesota a 54-53 edge with 7:38 remaining, and after the Nittany Lions regained the lead at 56-54, Westbrook quickly answered with a medium-range jumper to tie the score at 56-all. Penn State never really went away in this game, but Westbrook would prove to be stronger than the Nittany Lions and their own scoring star, Talor Battle.

While Battle poured in 23 points and did more than any other PSU player to establish the visitors' seven-point lead early in the second half, Westbrook - who finished with 29 points on 11-of-16 shooting - knocked down the game's most significant shots. By hitting two 3-pointers in a 36-second span, Minnesota's main man on the floor gave the Gophers a 65-61 edge with 4:23 left. Thanks to a stronger defense, the Gophers denied Penn State a made field goal for the next 3:42, and by that time, Minnesota had established a 71-64 advantage. The Nittany Lions - in a last-ditch comeback attempt - sliced the lead to four with 41 seconds remaining, but Westbrook put the game away at the foul line and enabled Team Tubby to find its bearings in the Big Ten.

The fun's just starting in one of America's deepest and most competitive conferences. If Lawrence Westbrook can continue to score when called upon, the Gophers might still be able to build up their NCAA Tournament credentials during the Big Ten regular season.

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