5 Takeaways From the Gophers' Largest Loss of the Season at Indiana

Minnesota entered Wednesday night winning three of its last four games with just six players. It looked like that finally caught up to them with a 77-47 loss at Indiana. Here's what we learned.

Indiana's two first-half runs

Indiana is firmly on the NCAA Tournament bubble, and it looked like a team that knew it needed a win on Wednesday night. The Gophers took their best punch with a 20-6 deficit right out of the gate, but they fought all the way back to make it 22-19. It looked like they were going to stick with the Hoosiers, but a brutal 8-0 run to finish the half, made it 43-28 at the half. Minnesota was never able to go on a run of its own and make things interesting in the second half.

Cade Tyson's 4th straight game with 20+ points

After a relatively quiet January and start of February, Tyson has regained the form he had at the start of the season over the last four games. With 21 points on 7 of 14 shooting from the field tonight against Indiana, he has now scored 20 or more points for the fourth straight game, which is a season-high mark, and the longest streak of his entire college career.

Niko Medved's zone

The Gophers' multitude of injuries has forced Medved and his coaching staff to play a lot more zone defense than they normally would. It has been a huge reason why some teams like UCLA, Rutgers or even Michigan have struggled at times, but Indiana looked like they were expecting it on Wednesday night with a 3-6 start from three-point range. The Gophers were never able to settle in defensively, and Indiana's offense finished 57.4% shooting from the field and 41.7% from three.

Huge night from Sam Alexis

Indiana is built as a relatively balanced team with six players averaging more than eight points per game. Alexis entered Wednesday night at the bottom of that list with 8.2 points per game. The Gophers did a decent job in the first half, holding Tucker DeVries and Lamar Wilkerson to just 13 points combined, but Alexis had 17 points in the first 20 minutes. Minnesota's margin for error is razor-thin, and it becomes even thinner when a team's sixth-leading scorer goes for 17 points in the first half and 23 points for the game.

Lack of a second scorer

Bobby Durkin has taken his game to another level over the last few games, but he struggled against the Hoosiers with just six points. Tyson was tremendous, but there was never a secondary option who stepped up. Langston Reynolds was held scoreless in the first half and finished with just five points. Isaac Asuma finished with 13, but that's not enough when you have just a six-player rotation.