Minnesota showed they could play with Purdue for an entire game (even without Kelly Roysland), but came up short in their upset bid 58-55.

Emily Fox scored all of her 16 points in the second half and had two chances to put the Gophers ahead in the final seconds, but the shots did not fall. Leslie Knight also scored 16 points for MN and the Gophers dominated the boards. But the team only shot 37 percent and turned the ball over 19 times. Seven of those were from Brittany McCoy. But the freshman did a great job defensively on Katie Gearlds, who finished with 4 points on 2-10 shooting.

Fakhara Malone, Danielle Campbell and Lindsay Wisdom-Hylton carried the load for the Boilers who did a great job of making the extra pass for an easy lay-up. As Boiler coach Sharon Versyp pointed out, "We really didn't take a bad shot tonight. "

Despite the loss, Pam Borton thinks the Gophers took a big step. "This should give our kids a lot of confidence and keep us headed in the right direction, and we'll be getting some wins here soon."