With top freshmen sidelined, Amaya Battle steps up to lead Gophers past Rutgers

Williams Arena was supposed to be the place where two of the Big Ten Conference's best freshmen women's basketball players would meet Wednesday:

Rutgers' Kiyomi McMiller is the second-highest-scoring freshman in the country. Filling in for the injured Mara Braun, Tori McKinney has become a key player in Minnesota's early success.

Neither played.

Instead the story was the Gophers defense, a balanced offense and another win: 76-50.

Minnesota won its sixth consecutive game overall, its fourth in a row in the Big Ten. They improved to 16-1 and are 4-1 in the conference, their best start in Big Ten play since opening 14-1 in the 2014-15 season.

Next player up.

"When somebody goes down, it's like everybody can do a little bit more to make up for that void," said junior point guard Amaya Battle, who did just that. She went 7-for-15 overall, was 3-for-6 on three-pointers, and had six rebounds, five assists and two steals.

She was part of a balanced attack. Freshman McKenna Johnson took advantage of an expanded role to score 15 points in 21 minutes, hitting six of 11 shots. Alexsia Rose, moved into the starting lineup, helped kick-start a defense that held Rutgers to 31.7% shooting.

McMiller couldn't help the Scarlet Knights (8-8, 0-5) as she watched her second consecutive game amid the controversy that surrounded her benching over the weekend and her subsequent reaction.

Center Sophie Hart had her second career double-double (14 points, 11 rebounds) and Grace Grocholski had 12 points to go with eight assists and seven rebounds.

Offensive balance and impressive defense has led to a strong conference start. To be fair, the four opponents the Gophers have beaten so far have a combined two conference victories. But the Gophers are take care of business. Now they have to do it against a ranked team at No. 8 Maryland on Tuesday.

BOXSCORE: Gophers women 76, Rutgers 50

Big Ten standings

Gophers coach Dawn Plitzuweit said it was a difficult game to prepare for, not knowing who would and would not play. The team held out hope McKinney would be able to play, but had to pivot when she remained in concussion protocol and watched from the sideline in sunglasses.

Turns out Rose and Johnson combined to make up for McKinney's loss. Rose helped set the defense. Johnson, meanwhile, scored 15 of the Gophers' 19 bench points.

"Alexsia did a great job of stepping in and contributing, specifically on defense," Plitzuweit said. "McKenna is someone who does a good job of being in attack mode. Now we have to get her more solid in some other areas."

She and Battle combined to make the game one-sided. After taking a 19-11 lead after one quarter, the Gophers expanded that lead to 18 after a 22-12 second quarter. Battle scored nine points in the quarter, and Johnson hit two threes and scored eight. Together they scored 17 of Minnesota's 22 points, hit seven of 12 shots and three of six threes.

"We call her 'The Microwave' for that reason," Hart said of Johnson. "She just heats up no matter what, no matter the time."

The two characteristics of the Gophers' four Big Ten victories have been fast starts and strong defense. That was certainly the case in a lopsided win over Penn State. At Wisconsin the Gophers started strong, then used defense to ensure the victory.

The Gophers have kept four consecutive conference foes under 40% shooting, with opponents averaging 35.1% overall, 27.3% on threes and 53.8 points.

But now the job gets tougher, with two consecutive road games, including next Tuesday at No. 8 Maryland.

"We have to keep starting games well," Battle said. "We can't get behind. That's what happened in the Nebraska game [an 84-65 loss], and we had to try to dig out of that hole."