MINNEAPOLIS -- With his team struggling against Western Carolina in the first half, Gophers coach Richard Pitino's halftime message was simple:
Play harder.
"I yelled at them very, very loudly," Pitino said of his halftime speech. "They responded. I didn't think our effort was great. I didn't think our energy was great. I think they needed to be woken up a little bit."
Whatever exact words Pitino did say surely woke his team up. Minnesota stretched its one-point halftime lead into an 84-64 victory over the Catamounts on Friday at Williams Arena. After a first half in which the Gophers didn't do many of the little things right and were outrebounded 19-8 -- and outworked, by their own admission -- they made sure to take their coach's words to heart.
Minnesota beat Western Carolina on the boards after halftime, 18-15. The Gophers also forced 12 second-half turnovers. And point guard DeAndre Mathieu scored 10 of his 16 points after the break to turn a game that was too close for comfort into an easy victory.
"We came together as a team," said Mathieu, who added a team-high six assists. "It was like, we're not going to come out here and get upset today. We're just going to play a lot harder than we did in the first half."
Rebounding has been a problem for the Gophers for much of the season, but it was magnified in the first half against a Western Carolina team that entered Friday's matchup 252nd in the country in rebounds per game. No Minnesota player had more than two rebounds before halftime, and the Gophers allowed the Catamounts to grab 10 offensive boards.
That rebounding discrepancy let Western Carolina hang around in the first half. The Catamounts scored 12 of their 38 first-half points via the offensive glass.
"I think a little bit of them shooting 53 percent was their offensive rebounds," Pitino said. "We were playing good first defense, then they'd get an offensive rebound. Our first part of the game, they got three loose balls and they scored 10 points off of those three loose balls. It was loose balls and blockouts that caused their shooting percentage."
Mike Brown had 14 points in the first half for Western Carolina, while James Sinclair added 10. Meanwhile, Justin Browning had five rebounds -- just three fewer than the Gophers had as a team at the break.
Minnesota has had a few games this year in which it has gotten out to a slow start, and others where the Gophers have faded in the second half. Pitino said after Friday's win that he's not worried just yet about his team's inability to play a solid 40 minutes. But the problem in the first half Friday was effort, something that yielded some screaming in the locker room at the half.
"Playing harder is not something he should have to stress to us," said Gophers junior Joey King, who had 13 points and five rebounds in the win. "That should be an expectation, playing for his team. The last thing he should have to do is stress playing hard and make effort plays. That's something we came out and did in the second half."
While the Gophers rebounded better after halftime, Minnesota also tightened up its defense. Those two factors led to Western Carolina shooting a mere 38.5 percent from the floor in the second half. As the Catamounts struggled to hang with the Gophers, Minnesota started running away midway through the final 20 minutes.
A three-point play from Mathieu put the Gophers up by 10 and elicited perhaps the loudest cheers of the night as the senior point guard flexed his muscles at the crowd following his layup. From that point on, Minnesota's lead never dipped below eight points as the Gophers shored up those mistakes they were making in the first half.
"Obviously we had a really poor first half, but the way we bounced back in the second half sort of shows the type of team we are," King said. "We made some big-time mistakes and didn't come ready to play in the beginning. We were able to snap back and come out and get a good win."
Friday marked the first of six straight home games for Minnesota after the Gophers had several road or neutral-site games against the likes of Louisville, St. John's and Wake Forest. Western Carolina certainly doesn't have the big-school name that some of Minnesota's previous opponents do, but the Catamounts showed in the first half that the Gophers have to take every team on their schedule seriously.
"I think it's human nature to look at the calendar and think, 'OK, this is a long month,'" Pitino said. "But like I told them at halftime, 'This is our livelihood. This is your livelihood as players. It's mine as a coach. How could you waste any minute of the game?' I thought they were much better in the second half."
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