At halftime and early in the second half of Saturday evening's matchup between Minnesota and Penn State, it appeared the Nittany Lions were going to roll to a victory, at home up 16 points with a 47-31 lead.

However, when the clock showed double zeroes on Saturday night it was the Minnesota Golden Gophers on the victorious side with an 83-74 win over the Nittany Lions.

Minnesota in their win had five players with double-digit scoring efforts with star forward Dawson Gracia leading the way with 20 points. He also had four rebounds and three assists. Guard Cam Christie also had a terrific game with 19 points, eight rebounds, and five assists.

For Penn State, four Nittany Lions finished with 10 or more points with Ace Baldwin leading the team with 16 points on 6-of-10 shooting including 3-of-5 from three-point range. Center Qudus Wahab had one of his best games of the season offensively as well with 15 points on 7-of-8 shooting.

Early in Saturday's game, Penn State was shooting well from the field with a 52.9% shooting percentage in the first half but also was strong on the boards, outrebounding Minnesota 17-11 while dominating the paint 24-12. That success, however, was unable to carry over into the second half, the Nittany Lions would end up shooting just 35.7% in the second half while being outrebounded 22-11 by the Golden Gophers in the process.

The turning point of Saturday night's game was a 15-2 run over the first three minutes of the second half that turned Penn State's then 16-point lead into a 49-46 lead with just 16:37 remaining in the game.

That 15-2 run for Minnesota would ultimately become a 25-5 run that gave the Gophers a 56-52 lead by the 13:00 minute mark of the second half.

Despite a quality effort, Penn State was never able to reclaim control of the game's momentum.

In the final 10 minutes of the game, the Nittany Lions perhaps pressing and feeling the pressure, struggled mightily from the field, hitting just 6-of-18 attempts to end the game while Minnesota had plenty of confidence and all the momentum on their side, hit eight of their last 11 shots en route to their win. The Gophers also went to the line 16 times in the second half, making 15-of-16 attempts to help seal their win.

As a whole, the Golden Gophers outscored the Nittany Lions 47-27 in the second half, making nearly 60% of their shooting attempts from the field. Cam Christie was especially dominant in the second half with 15 points on 5-of-7 shooting as well as making 4-of-5 free throw attempts. Dawson Garcia also had a double-digit second-half effort with 13 points on 4-of-9 shooting.

The win drops Penn State's record to 9-11 overall and 3-6 in conference play while Minnesota is now 13-7 overall and 4-5 in Big Ten play.

The Penn State Nittany Lions will take on the Rutgers Scarlet Knights next Wednesday, January 31 at 8:30 p.m. in Piscataway. Minnesota, on the other hand, will have a bit of a longer layoff not playing till next Saturday, February 3 at 2:00 p.m. as they host the Northwestern Wildcats at Williams Arena.