Ben Johnson has lamented a handful of games that got away from the Gophers men’s basketball team this season.

“You look at the schedule, and you just want to punch walls,” Minnesota’s head coach said Monday. “Because there are a couple games where, if this happens here or that happens there, now you are looking at maybe eight or nine, maybe 10 conference wins.”

The Gophers, who finished 7-13 in the Big Ten regular season, didn’t have any small margin to sow more frustration Wednesday in first round of the conference tournament.

The 12th-seeded Gophers bowed out in a 72-64 loss to 13th-seeded Northwestern at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. The Wildcats, a two-point favorite over Minnesota, will play fifth-seed Wisconsin on Thursday afternoon.

Johnson has now gone one-and-done in three of the four Big Ten tournaments since taking over in 2021-22. Barring an unlikely bid to a lower-level postseason tournament, Minnesota’s season will end at 15-17.

“Nobody expected us to be here,” Dawson Garcia said postgame about the U being picked in preseason to finish last (18th) in the conference. “We expected to be here and do better, so I guess we fooled everybody but disappointed ourselves.”

Despite a dip from a 19-15 record last season, Johnson did not sound like he was concerned about his job status, already talking about potential returning players and adding new ones via the NCAA transfer portal.

On Wednesday, the Gophers shot 38% from the field and 32% from 3-point range, but bucked a mostly season-long struggle at the free throw line, going 81% from the stripe.

“It was kind of ironic, we were really good from the line, which we haven’t been for a lot of the year,” Johnson said in his postgame news conference. “We’ve never kind of been able to, in a game, have multiple guys play really well that we need to. Or be able to shoot it well from the floor and shoot it well from the line. It’s been one or the other, and we try to survive that way. It’s just so tough to do that in this league.”

Gophers starting guards Mike Mitchell and Femi Odukale didn’t score until nine minutes were left in the first half. Mitchell hasn’t appeared to be fully healthy amid a long shooting slump to end the season, but he got it going late with three late 3-pointers. That pair of U guards combined for 15 points.

Meanwhile, Northwestern guards Ty Berry and Jordan Clayton combined for 24 points.

Garcia led Minnesota with 22 points, but the all-Big Ten second-team player dealt with a lot of extra defensive attention and was 7 of 13 from the field. He had to try to create a lot for himself.

Northwestern ran Minnesota through a gauntlet of screens in their first match-up this season, with the Wildcats winning 75-63 at Williams Arena on Feb. 25. Northwestern star Nick Martinelli, the Big Ten’s scoring leader this season (20.2), poured in 29 at The Barn last month.

On Wednesday, Northwestern kept putting the Gophers through screens to get Martinelli free for good looks at the basket, and the all-Big Ten second-teamer was hot in the first half with 16 points and finished with 28 on 12 of 22 from the field.

The Wildcats were distancing themselves toward the end of the half, going up 32-23 with 1:22 remaining, but Minnesota went on a 6-0 run to make it 32-29 at the break. Lu’Cye Patterson had a steal and jumper in the lane during the spurt. He finished with five points and fouled out.

Northwestern went on a 12-3 run to begin the second half, opening up a 44-32 lead with 15:26 remaining. They were in control the rest of the game..