What matters, in the end, is the final:
Gophers women’s basketball team 60, Purdue 58 in the Big Ten opener at Williams Arena on Sunday.
Amaya Battle stole the ball, was fouled and made both free throws with 3 seconds left to give the Gophers the come-from-behind victory.
Mara Braun — whose jumper tied the score with 13 seconds left — finished with 21 points. Battle had 15 and Sophie Hart, who battled foul trouble much of the game, had 14. Madison Layden led Purdue with 17 points.
The Gophers finish made up for a game in which they struggled to shoot the ball. They shot 35.8% overall and made just five of 19 three-pointers. Still, Minnesota (9-1) won for the sixth consecutive time.
The game started slowly. In the first 10 minutes the two teams combined for seven points each and a combined 6-for-32 shooting.
The Gophers, especially, struggled mightily to hit a shot. They were 3-for-23. The only thing that kept them in the game was forcing four Purdue turnovers and scoring five second-chance points off seven offensive rebounds.
Things got better in the second for the Gophers, at least a little. Mara Braun 0-for-6 in the first quarter, started hitting in the second, scoring 10 of the Gophers’ 18 points on 3-for-5 shooting, though her streak of hitting consecutive free throws ended at 37, a program record.
Grocholski, Maggie Czinano and Hart had buckets and Braun had four points in a 10-0 run that put the Gophers up 23-13 on Czinano’s put-back bucket with 3:55 left in the half. Unfortunately the Gophers were out-scored 5-2 the rest of the way, going the final 2½ minutes of the half without a point. It ended with the Gophers leading 25-18.
A mistake-prone third quarter had Purdue (6-4) up 37-34 before Braun and then Battle scored, putting the Gophers up 38-37 with 1:24 left in the quarter. But then the Boilermakers hit consecutive threes around two missed Gophers free throws, giving Purdue its biggest lead of the game, 43-38, entering the fourth.