Minnesota wins third straight in rout

As a team in search of faster starts, the Gophers got exactly what they needed Sunday in a 75-52 home win against Northwestern.

The Wildcats missed their first 14 field goals, and Minnesota held leads of 11-0, 21-4 and 30-9 in the game’s first 15 minutes.

The Gophers (3-4 Big Ten) dominated Northwestern (2-5 Big Ten) from start to finish — a rare occurrence during a Big Ten season that has been defined by parity.

“I thought we caught Northwestern on a down day,” head coach Tubby Smith said. “We had plenty of time to prepare, and I thought that was the difference on why we played well today.”

Minnesota has been a much-improved team since losing its fourth-straight conference game to Purdue on Jan. 8 at Williams Arena.

With a modified starting lineup featuring Julian Welch at the point and Joe Coleman at shooting guard, the Gophers have won their last three games in convincing fashion.

On Sunday, Welch had his best game in more than a month, scoring 14 points on 7-for-8 shooting. The junior added six rebounds and five assists — his first game with at least five rebounds and five assists this season.

Coleman was equally stellar. The freshman led Minnesota with 16 points on 5-for-7 shooting and 6-for-10 from the free-throw line. He also had five rebounds for the second consecutive game and set a career-high with three assists.

In one sequence late in the first half, Coleman recorded two of his three steals, a breakaway dunk and an assist within 1:07 to give Minnesota a 38-19 lead.

The Gophers took a 41-24 lead into halftime and never led by fewer than 14 points thereafter.

“I felt like we came out of the gate and jumped on them quick, and just took it from there,” Welch said. “[We] continued to not let up and push that lead open.”

The Gophers’ 17-point halftime lead was their largest in a conference game since March 2010. Yet they maintained their intensity in the final 20 minutes, and for the first time since February 2011, they outscored a Big Ten opponent in both halves.

Much of that can be credited to Coleman’s impact on the offense. With his slashing ability and physical play, the freshman has not only given himself a chance to succeed, but he has helped his teammates play at a noticeably higher level.

All five starters scored for Minnesota — a feat the team hasn’t accomplished since November 2010 — while combining to shoot 63 percent from the field.

As a team, the Gophers shot 58 percent (30-for-52) and limited Northwestern to 33-percent shooting (18-for-55).

“We’re all really aggressive going to the rim,” Coleman said. “If we drive and kick, it kind of hurts the other team — they don’t know which one to pick, if they want to stop us on the drive or stop us on the kick.”

It’s a legitimate predicament for Gophers’ opponents, as Minnesota has multiple outside scoring options on both of its units, as well as a trio of guards — Coleman, Welch and Austin Hollins — that can beat defenders off the dribble.

“I like it a lot,” Welch said of the three-guard lineup. “It’s a quicker team — we get up and down [the court] a lot easier. Now that we’re running the flex offense, we’re able to take our opponents off the dribble and get to the lane either for a layup or [to] kick it out for the shooter.”

Prior to implementing the flex offense, the team was 0-4 in conference and often looked confused on offense, especially when faced with a zone defense.

Northwestern used a 1-3-1 zone defense Sunday to little effect. On multiple occasions, Minnesota passed or dribbled its way out of the trap for an easy layup or dunk.

The Gophers had 42 points in the paint to the Wildcats’ 18, shot 69 percent from inside the 3-point line and committed just 12 turnovers.

It was the kind of performance the team has always been capable of, Smith said.

But without Coleman’s emergence, it might never have happened.

“We’ve added some toughness to our lineup when we inserted Joe Coleman,” he added. “It’s been huge for us, and it’s been contagious. I see Ralph [Sampson III] has been more aggressive; Rodney [Williams] has been more aggressive. Our entire team has benefited.”

Perhaps the freshman has woken a sleeping giant — a roster filled with size, quickness and athleticism — or perhaps the team is simply lucky to have played three opponents on bad shooting nights.

Either way, Coleman appeared convinced that this Gophers team is the one that has been there all along.

“It just shows that we can still win games and that we weren’t just at the bottom of the Big Ten for a bad reason,” Coleman said of the team’s three-game winning streak.

“We were just in a slump, and we got out of it.”