The Minnesota Golden Gophers were never able to overcome the loss of forward Trevor Mbakwe Sunday night, as they fell 86-70 to the Dayton Flyers in the championship game of the Old Spice Classic in Orlando. Mbakwe had nine points and four rebounds before leaving the game in the second half when his right knee buckled. He later returned courtside on crutches and his own Twitter account did not seem to bear good news:
TMbakwe32 Trevor Mbakwe Lord please get me through this
Mbakwe still made the all-tournament team, but the Gophers allowed five Dayton players to reach double figures lead by Kevin Dillard with 19 points. Chris Johnson had 18 for hte Flyers, while Josh Benson had 16.
The Golden Gophers were led by 12 points from Julian Welch and 14 points from Austin Hollins, but they were never able to recover from when Mbakwe went down with 18:35 left in the game and the Gophers trailing 39-30. Maverick Ahanmisi also had 10 points for the Gophers.