Seven-Foot-Two Malick Kordel Drains Four Dunks as Gophers Crush North Dakota 85-50 in Season Opener
Seven-foot-two center Malick Kordel showed just how wide the physical discrepancy was between the Gophers and North Dakota men’s basketball teams on Monday night, powering through an 18-0 second-half run with four dunks at The Barn.
The nonconference matchup ended in an 85-50 rout. Kordel, a senior transfer from Michigan who played just 58 minutes across 14 games during the Wolverines’ national championship season a year ago, came off the bench for 15 minutes to contribute 13 points, five rebounds, and a block.
“Fans see he’s big, he’s athletic and he just continues to get better and better,” head coach Niko Medved said. “He’s a load down there. I thought we did a good job of finding him. … His little run there in the second half, again, we had a lead, but I thought that really, really broke the game open for us.”
Durkin Leads Balanced Scoring While North Dakota Struggles From the Field
Bobby Durkin paced the Gophers with a game-high 16 points, hitting four 3-pointers. North Dakota entered the contest picked to finish sixth in the eight-team Summit League.
The Gophers established control early, building a lead of as many as 23 points before heading into halftime up 16. In the opening 20 minutes, Minnesota recorded 13 assists on 15 field goals. Durkin led all scorers in the first half with 12 points on 4-for-5 shooting from beyond the arc.
North Dakota endured a frigid start, hitting just 4 of 28 shots (14%) to open the game before making their final four attempts of the half to finish the period at 25% shooting. Hopkins native Jayden Moore led North Dakota off the bench with 13 points on 6-of-13 shooting.
Complementing Durkin and Kordel, Jaylen Crocker-Johnson added 15 points for Minnesota, while Isaac Asuma chipped in 13. The victory extends Minnesota’s recent dominance over North Dakota, moving the Gophers to 21-2 in the head-to-head series since 2014. Minnesota previously defeated North Dakota 82-62 in an exhibition last year.
Minnesota Plays Short-Handed Amid Ongoing Eligibility Issues
Minnesota played without three roster pieces on Monday. Cade Tyson remains sidelined due to an eligibility case in federal court, Chadrack Mpoyi is dealing with an NCAA eligibility issue, and Winters Grady is out with a little foot thing.
“Nothing at all that serious,” Medved said of Mpoyi. “We are just trying to figure out if he’s going to be held to the new (five-for-five) rules eligibility-wise or the old rules. I don’t want to put him in a game potentially or do anything to risk a year of eligibility for him. Until he’s cleared that is what’s going on with him.”
The Gophers return to the floor on Friday to host St. Thomas at 7 p.m. The Tommies enter the matchup projected to finish second in the Summit League preseason poll.
