Saturday's Big Ten: With 3 starters out, Gophers beat Scarlet Knights 68-65

Payton Willis scored a career-high 32 points, matching a program record with eight 3-pointers, and short-handed Minnesota snapped a four-game losing streak with an improbable 68-65 win over Rutgers on Saturday.

Missing three starters, including their top scorer, the Gophers (11-5, 2-5 Big Ten) took the victory with the conference-minimum seven scholarship players available.

Luke Loewe added 19 points and Treyton Thompson, who had played just 28 minutes this season, added 10 points and six rebounds in helping give first-year coach Ben Johnson his first conference win at Williams Arena. 

Geo Baker scored 17 of his 25 points and five of his career-tying seven 3-pointers in the second half for the Scarlet Knights (11-7, 5-3), who came in with six wins in their last seven games plus a four-game win streak over the Gophers. Ron Harper Jr. added 12 points and Paul Mulcahy seven assists with seven points.

More Big Ten Results

Iowa 68, Penn State 51: Keegan Murray had 15 points, eight rebounds and three blocks and Iowa beat Penn State 68-51 on Saturday.

Kris Murray, Keegan's twin, scored 10 of his 13 points in the second half for Iowa (14-5, 4-4 Big Ten). Patrick McCaffrey and Jordan Bohannan added 11 points apiece.

Seth Lundy hit a 3-pointer to give Penn State (8-8, 3-5) its first lead with 2:27 left in the first half, but Bohannan answered with a 3-pointer 51 seconds later and the Hawkeyes led the rest of the way. Kris Murray followed with another and Keegan made 1 of 2 free throws to cap a 7-0 run that made it 30-25 at halftime.

The Nittany Lions twice cut their deficit to three in the second half but Iowa answered with a 3-pointer each time and they got no closer. Bohannan made 3 to make it 35-29 about two minutes in and 11 seconds after Myles Dread hit from behind the arc to pull Penn State to 44-41 but Kris Murray answered from deep with 10:59 left.

Keegan Murray, who went into the game No. 2 nationally in scoring at 23.3 points per game, made just 4 of 12 from the field and 1 of 7 from behind the arc but scored from there, including a 3-pointer to give Iowa a 64-49 lead with 2:29 remaining.

Dread finished with nine points on 3-of-6 shooting, all from 3-point range.