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Those pesky Gophers Przybilla's career night lifts Minnesota over Hoosiers
Posted: Wednesday February 09, 2000 11:41 PM
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- The Minnesota Golden Gophers and first-year head coach Dan Monson had a good laugh Wednesday night, followed by a good cry. "Every party has a pooper and that's me tonight," Monson said after the Gophers had their biggest victory and worst news of the season an hour apart. Minnesota stunned No. 10 Indiana 77-75 when Joel Przybilla scored the last of his career-high 33 points on a game-winning bank shot with 3.9 seconds left. But they lost junior forward John-Blair Bickerstaff for the season with a broken right kneecap. "We won that one for JB," Mitch Ohnnstad said. A.J. Guyton, who scored 27 points despite a 17 1/2-minute drought, was several feet short on a desperation 3-pointer at the buzzer, sending the Golden Gophers (12-9, 4-7 Big Ten) and the standing room-only crowd at Williams Arena into a frenzy. Then, the Gophers got into the locker room and Monson gave them the bad news on Bickerstaff, the son of former NBA coach Bernie Bickerstaff, who was injured six minutes before halftime when he was fouled by Guyton going up for a basket and had to be carried off on a stretcher. Bickerstaff needs an operation and is out for the season. "We're a real close team and we really wanted to win for JB," Przybilla said. "It showed that we stepped up when he went to the hospital." Kirk Haston scored 24 points for the Hoosiers (17-4, 7-3), who haven't won at Williams Arena in five years. His two free throws with 1:08 left gave Indiana a seemingly safe 75-70 lead. But Kevin Burleson, who had to guard Guyton when Bickerstaff went down, hit a 3-pointer with a minute left and Przybilla made it 75-73 with 39 seconds remaining. Przybilla blocked a shot by Haston with 10 seconds left, sped upcourt and took a dish from Terrance Simmons for the winning basket. Afterward, Hoosiers coach Bobby Knight refused to go to the media room or take questions from reporters. He did stop outside his locker room to make a few brief remarks. "It's a really nice win for them and it's a very, very tough loss for us because of what we're trying to do in the standings," said Knight, whose team is jockeying with Ohio State, Michigan State and Purdue in the Big Ten. "I didn't think that we moved well offensively, and that always is accompanied by somebody playing decently defensively," Knight said. "Minnesota just came right back at us." Or, more precisely, Przybilla did. Przybilla, the Big Ten's best shooter, was 16-for-19 from the field and hit all 11 of his shots in the second half. Minnesota has beaten Indiana the last four times the Hoosiers came into town ranked in the Top 25. Of course, the first three were the Gophers teams led by the likes of Quincy Lewis, Kevin Clark, John Thomas and Bobby Jackson, not Monson's first-year ragtag group that had lost six of seven. Shane Schilling had a career-best 13 points for the Gophers, who started off shaky and fell behind by 13 before storming back to trail just 35-34 at halftime. Guyton started the game by hitting 3s from all over, but after his fastbreak layup with 10:04 left in the first half gave the Hoosiers their biggest lead at 27-14, he was quiet. Bickerstaff switched with Simmons and shut down the Big Ten's leading scorer until he got hurt. Then Burleson came in and did the same. Guyton snapped out of his funk when he intercepted a pass from Przybilla with the Hoosiers trailing 47-41, made the basket, drew the foul and converted the bonus. Guyton's basket midway through the second half made it 57-56, a lead the Hoosiers held until the final minute when Przybilla capped his best performance. "It's just one of those moments where you're just feeling like
you're unstoppable," Przybilla said.
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