There are better days ahead for the Gophers women’s basketball team even if it might not seem like it right now. The program seemed to be on an upward trajectory a month and a half ago. Frankly, a trip to the NCAA Tournament didn’t seem out of the question.

Then sophomore guard Mara Braun suffered a foot injury and everything felt apart.

The loss of their best player proved to be insurmountable for the Gophers. They only won twice in the past month and a half without Braun in the lineup. She watched helplessly from the bench on Thursday night at Target Center as No. 11 seed Minnesota bowed out of the Big Ten Tournament with a 76-57 loss to No. 6 seed Michigan.

For the second straight game in the Big Ten Tournament, sophomore guard Amaya Battle led the Gophers in scoring. She finished with 22 points in the game, shooting 7 of 15 from the field, and 7 of 8 from the free throw line.

That wasn’t nearly enough to compete with a balanced attack from Michigan, which featured junior guard Laila Phelia pouring in 23 points to lead the way, and grad transfer guard Lauren Hansen adding 14 points of her own. The game itself wasn’t much of a contest after Michigan went on a 10-0 run in the early stages to build a comfortable cushion.

Though the Gophers chipped away as much as they could throughout the game, they simply couldn’t string together enough stops to make things interesting. The dominance was best exemplified down low as Michigan finished with 36 points in the paint.

Meanwhile, Battle had a little more trouble scoring against Michigan after dropping a career-high 32 points against No. 14 seed Rutgers about 24 hours earlier. Not that it deterred her from making noise. She worked hard to get to the rim against solid defense on the perimeter, then found a way to finish against some big bodies in the paint.

It looks like Battle might’ve turned a corner in her development this week. That’s a good sign for the Gophers moving forward. She looked comfortable as the primary ball handler, and perhaps most importantly, she never backed down from a challenge.

Some other silver linings for the Gophers included freshman forward Ayianna Johnson finishing with 12 points, freshman forward Ajok Madol putting up 11 points off the bench, and sophomore forward Mallory Heyer grabbing a career-high 17 rebounds.

As for Braun, she sat on the Gophers bench in stretch clothes living and dying with every possession, wishing she could be out there competing with her teammates.

The good news for the Gophers is that Braun will be back next season. There’s no doubt this season would’ve played out much differently had she never gone down.

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