Huskies lose to Minnesotain semifinals of NIT

Still alive in late March, Minnesota is finally learning to win the close ones.

The short-handed Golden Gophers improved to 3-3 in overtime games this season, beating Washington 68-67 on Tuesday night in the NIT semifinals behind 20 points from freshman Andre Hollins.

Hollins scored five of Minnesota's seven points in the extra period. With the shot clock winding down and the Gophers clinging to a one-point lead in the final minute, he banked in an off-balance shot to put Minnesota up 68-65.

"We had to gut it out in overtime," Hollins said.

The sixth-seeded Golden Gophers (23-14) will face No. 3 seed Stanford in Thursday night's championship game at Madison Square Garden. The Cardinal beat Massachusetts 74-64 in the first semifinal.

The top-seeded Huskies (24-11), who trailed by 15 late in the first half, sent the game to overtime when C.J. Wilcox stole the ball in the backcourt and hit the tying layup with 16.3 seconds left.

"Any time you're fighting back, it's always tough," Huskies coach Lorenzo Romar said. "But in the second half, I thought we were a team."

The Golden Gophers are making a long NIT run despite losing star forward Trevor Mbakwe to a season-ending knee injury in their seventh game. Senior center Ralph Sampson III has missed the last six with a sprained right knee.

Terrence Ross led the Huskies with 21 points.

Washington, which trailed by six with 91 seconds left in regulation, pulled within 59-57 on Ross' 3 with just under a minute to go, the closest the Huskies had been since midway through the first half.

Tony Wroten, a freshman who is Washington's second-leading scorer at 16.2 points per game, has struggled during the NIT, and he had just nine points Tuesday.

The Huskies, who finished atop the Pac-12 standings, came into the NIT looking to prove they belonged in the NCAA tournament after they became the first team to win a regular-season title in one of the six power conferences and still miss the NCAAs.

Stanford 74, UMass 64: Anthony Brown scored a season-high 18 points and Josh Owens had 15 points and 12 rebounds to help Stanford advance to the NIT championship game with a win over Massachusetts.

The Minutemen took their first lead since early in the game with about 8 minutes left, but Brown hit a 3-pointer to push the Cardinal (25-11) back on top, then later scored seven points during an 11-3 run that put Stanford in control.

Brooklyn native Chaz Williams led fifth-seeded UMass (25-12) with 19 points.