MINNEAPOLIS — Jordan Murphy had 19 points and 14 rebounds and Minnesota dropped Rutgers to 0-15 in the Big Ten with an 83-61 victory on Tuesday night. 

Joey King had 15 points and seven rebounds and Dupree McBrayer had 14 points, seven assists and six rebounds for the Golden Gophers (8-19, 2-13), who have won two straight conference games after an 0-13 start. The Gophers picked up their first Big Ten win with a victory over then-No. 6 Maryland last week.

D.J. Foreman had 13 points and 11 rebounds and Bishop Daniels scored 12 points for Rutgers (6-22). The Scarlet Knights turned it over 21 times and have lost 30 straight Big Ten games.

As bad as Rutgers has been this season, Minnesota was running neck-and-neck in the race to the bottom of the Big Ten before stunning the Terrapins at home. The crowd stormed the court to celebrate a rare victory that turned the game on Tuesday night into just another one between struggling teams rather than a showdown of teams looking for win No. 1.

As expected, a game featuring two teams with a combined 1-27 conference record wasn’t pretty. They combined for 21 turnovers and 11 missed free throws in the first half, but the Gophers opened the second half with a 25-7 burst to put the game away.

Corey Sanders missed the third game of a four-game suspension and Rutgers had only seven scholarship players available. That prompted Vegas odds makers to list the Scarlet Knights as 12 1/2-point underdogs to a team that lost its first 13 games of the Big Ten season. Sanders is the team’s leading scorer at 18.4 points per game and one of the few players on the roster that has proven he belongs, from a skill standpoint, in the Big Ten.

Without him, the Rutgers offense has been a mess, and the Scarlet Knights were losing conference games by an average of more than 21 each night, including a 50-point drubbing to Purdue on Jan. 18.

As crazy as it sounds for a Gophers team that went two months between victories, it sure looked like they came into the game taking this one for granted. The one area they have excelled in this season is taking care of the ball, averaging just over 10 turnovers per game. But they had 10 in the first half alone and gave Rutgers free drives to the lane over and over to fall behind by nine points midway through the period.

After Daniels threw down a thunderous dunk over big man Bakary Konat, the Gophers seemed to wake up. They responded with a 14-3 run to take the lead and then pulled away in the second half.

 

TIP-INS

Rutgers: F Jonathan Laurent had 37 points in his previous two games to emerge as a capable scorer in Sanders’ absence. But he was held scoreless in the first half and finished with eight points. … The Knights shot 40 percent but did make 5 of 7 from 3-point range.

Minnesota: Nate Mason scored 13 points. … Kevin Dorsey had 13 points, five rebounds and five assists.

 

UP NEXT

Rutgers: Visits Northwestern on Saturday.

Minnesota: Visits Illinois on Sunday.