MINNEAPOLIS -- On a night when another Big Ten team suffered an upset at home, the Gophers made sure they didn't land on that ever-growing list.
Minnesota had to hold off a second-half surge from visiting Furman, a team that came to Williams Arena on Monday with a 2-7 record. Richard Pitino's team could have easily joined the likes of Purdue, Indiana, Nebraska and Michigan State as Big Ten teams that have lost at home to smaller nonconference opponents.
Thanks to some big shots late by freshman Nate Mason and senior DeAndre Mathieu, the Gophers avoided the upset. Minnesota topped Furman 86-76 in a game that was much closer than that down the stretch.
After blowing out other nonconference foes by 20, 30 and even 50 or more points, Monday's test was one that the Gophers said was welcomed.
"That was what we needed," said Minnesota forward Joey King, who had a team-high 19 points in the win. "Blowing teams out really doesn't help that much, so getting a good punch from Furman today, it was great to test our character. It was really good to pull out the win."
The Paladins were in the game in the second half thanks to some hot shooting. Furman was 7-of-12 from 3-point range after halftime and shot 63 percent from the field in the second half. That included 10 second-half points from Stephen Croone, who scored a game-high 25 points for Furman in the losing effort. Geoff Beans also scored 11 points after halftime, including three 3-pointers.
Nobody anticipated a game this close between a Gophers team that ranked 22nd in Ken Pomeroy's ratings and a Furman squad that was 296th on that list. But college basketball -- and the Big Ten in particular -- has been ripe with upsets this year.
Minnesota is glad it wasn't the next in line.
Earlier in the night Monday, Purdue lost at home to Gardner-Webb, and No. 10 Kansas was upset on the road by unranked Temple. Previously, the Michigan Wolverines lost to NJIT in Ann Arbor. Nebraska dropped a home game to Incarnate Word, and Texas Southern went into East Lansing, Mich., two days ago and upset Michigan State by seven.
The Gophers have seen these other upsets and know that almost any team can beat anybody on a given day. So when Furman's Daniel Fowler hit a 3-pointer to put the Paladins up 72-71 with 4:43 to play, Minnesota looked just as vulnerable as those other Big Ten schools who have lost at home.
"At halftime when we came in, he's like, 'Purdue is down at home. I told you guys this is a tough one,'" Mathieu said. "Teams are upset-ready. We took that in mind. We came out strong in the first half. The second half, they just made a bunch of shots. Our defense wasn't as stellar as it's been."
When Furman did take the lead late in the second half, Minnesota made sure it was for only a brief moment. After a shot by Fowler put the Paladins up 64-62, Mason hit a big 3-pointer to bring the Williams Arena crowd to live and give the Gophers the lead. Following Fowler's 3-pointer later in the second half, Mo Walker scored and converted the three-point play to put the Gophers back on top.
Furman answered, but Minnesota threw another counterpunch. This time it was Mathieu slicing into the lane for a layup that gave the Gophers a two-point edge. Mason knocked down another 3-pointer to put Minnesota up by five, and the Gophers didn't look back from that point.
"He's really mature. He's a big-time player," Mathieu said of Mason. "He's not a freshman. He definitely doesn't play like a freshman, doesn't think like a freshman. No other freshman steps in and makes those kind of shots. That's big of Nate. He's really helped us out a lot this year in the early part of the season."
Monday's 86-76 victory means all eight of the Gophers' home games this year have been double-digit wins. But the 10-point margin was easily the closest any of Minnesota's non-conference games at Williams Arena this year. The Gophers' wins at home before Monday were by an average of 30.1 points per game (skewed a bit by a 52-point rout of Franklin Pierce).
At any rate, it was the first time all year Minnesota fans -- and the players, for that matter -- have had to sweat it out. In the long run, that may be a positive thing for the Gophers.
"For us, that's what we needed," Pitino said. "We had talked the last couple days and I was on these guys, and they were on me funny, like, 'Why is he on us? We're winning by 20, 30 points.' . . . This was great for us. I'm really happy. Well, I don't know if I'm happy. But it was good that we experienced it."
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