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MINNEAPOLIS -- An off-court investigation and ankle injury slowed down Reggie Lynch earlier this year.Now his coach believes the redshirt junior is one of the Big Tens best players in the middle.Lynch and Jordan Murphy each had a double-double and Minnesota pulled away to beat Northern Illinois 77-57 Sunday.Lynch scored 11 of his career-high tying 18 points in the second half. His 11 rebounds were two off a career best.Murphy had 12 points and 10 rebounds for Minnesota (10-1). Nate Mason finished with 11 points and Akeem Springs and Dupree McBrayer had 10.I played pretty good, but everyone all around did very well, Lynch said.Accused of sexual assault in May and not allowed to practice with the team until it was announced in August he would not be charged with a crime, Lynch, who transferred from Illinois State, also missed the Nov. 25 game with an injured ankle.He just needs as many reps as he can, but I thought he was terrific today, said coach Richard Pitino. To me, I think hes one of the better centers in the league. . Hes a game-changer for us.Lynch feels like hes had a groove the whole time.I know how to play the game, he said. My teammates are finding me and everyone is playing really well. Even if Im in a little bit of pain on defense or trying to score I know my team has my back.Lynch and Murphy combined for 12 of Minnesotas first 21 second-half points as the Gophers, who led by six at the break, built a 50-38 lead. Springs, who played two seasons at Northern Illinois, had a 3-pointer and layup in that stretch.I thought that Lynch, he came out and it seemed like he wouldnt miss a shot in the first half. We tried to slow him down in the second half, but it just wasnt enough, said Northern Illinois coach Mark Montgomery.The Huskies (4-5) lost for the fourth time in five games. They were led by Marshawn Wilsons 19 points. Dontel Highsmith had 10.Northern Illinois has lost 14 straight games to Big Ten opponents since Dec. 14, 1999.Minnesota finished with a 48-28 rebounding advantage and was 25-for-30 from the free-throw line after entering the game with a 67.8 percent rate.PASSING FANCYMinnesota finished with 17 assists on 24 baskets.I think our whole team is really, really willing passers, Pitino said. Theyre very unselfish. . They look like theyre having fun together. Theyre constantly looking to share the ball.WELCOME HOMEA smattering of cheers could be heard when Northern Illinois Wilson made a play. He went to high school about 10 miles from Williams Arena and was a finalist for the states 2015 Mr. Basketball award. He had 13 points in his first six games before Sunday.BIG PICTURENorthern Illinois: The Huskies need to shoot better away from the basket. Northern Illinois had zero points outside the paint in the first half and finished with 10. The Huskies were 2-for-11 on 3-point attempts.Minnesota: The Gophers, who struggled in a 74-68 win over the New Jersey Institute of Technology on Wednesday but beat Georgia Southern by 37 on Friday, continue to seek offensive consistency. They shot just 30 percent in the first half despite a 5-for-21 start, but 53.6 percent in the second 20 minutes.UP NEXTNorthern Illinois: Plays its only home game in a 35-day stretch Wednesday against Olivet Nazarene. The Huskies have four road games in that span.Minnesota: The Gophers are home Wednesday against LIU Brooklyn before a nine-day layoff for final exams. Custom 49ers Jersey China . -- Tony Stewart is 20 pounds lighter and has a titanium rod in his surgically repaired right leg. 49ers Jerseys China .J. -- Marty Brodeur beat the Pittsburgh Penguins yet again. http://www.custom49ersjersey.com/ . - The Washington Redskins have cut defensive lineman Adam Carriker and punter Sav Rocca. Cheap 49ers Jerseys .C. -- Chris Thorburn thinks one of the reasons the Winnipeg Jets have been successful under new coach Paul Maurice is that theyre playing together as a team. Authentic Custom 49ers Jersey .com) - Manchester City midfielder David Silva is expected to miss the next four weeks because of a calf problem. Bulawayo and Kandy have more in common than you may suspect. They are both their respective countries second cities; they are both the sites of former kingdoms - the Kandyan in Kandy, the Butua in Bulawayo - and electricity has been a subject of discussion in both places. In Kandy, the talk was about why the lights stayed off at the Pallekele International Stadium during the Test match between Sri Lanka and Australia; in Bulawayo, its about how ZESA, the national power authority, managed to keep the lights on this winter after severe load-shedding last year.But there is one thing that is not the same: Zimbabwe, who were bowled out for 164 in the first innings against New Zealand, could not mount the same fightback as Sri Lanka, who were dismissed for 117 against Australia. Why?There are the obvious reasons, which were feared before the series, and have been discussed on each of the three days so far. Zimbabwes players dont get enough game time, not even in first-class cricket, and they dont have a deep enough player pool to fulfill all the requirements of a winning team. They also dont have a financially stable board, or many solid structural plans to back them, but Sri Lanka have managed to rise above that and, on occasion, Zimbabwe have, too.Then, there are the less glaring factors to take into consideration; the ones that the modern age and its instant lifestyle cause us to forget even though they may still be relevant today. Put simply: competing properly in Test cricket takes a bloody long time.Sri Lanka played their first Test 34 years ago, in 1982. Since then, they have competed in 249 matches. Zimbabwe played their first Test ten years after that, in 1992, and have only had 98 matches since then. Of those, Zimbabwe have won 11. In Sri Lankas first 98 Tests, played over a period of 18 years, they won 18.The evidence suggests the so-called smaller Test nations need several decades before they can develop the consistency of bigger ones. Even New Zealand, who first played in 1930, took 45 matches before they won their first Test, only won seven of their 98 Tests, and have only recently begun what is considered a steady improvement.Perhaps, Zimbabwe can be forgiven for how long it is taking them to get things right, but that may not take away from the focus on their personnel. While Sri Lanka seem to find players who become match-winners - Kusal Mendis and Lakshan Sandakan are their latest - Zimbabwe have an oversupply of what seem to be middling cricketers. Perhaps, conditions in Sri Lanka allow for the development of more specialised skills than those in Zimbabwe, where pitches tend to follow a trend of slow, low and unexciting, and produce a glut of batsmen with averages in the 20s, part-time spinners and medium-pacers.Zimbabwe dont have players who bamboozle and blaze, but slowly, they are finding a small selection of those with quiet determination. Look at Brian Chari. With a first-class average of 20.89, he may not come off as an immediate candidate for a Test call-up, but in the absence of regular openers Vusi Sibanda and Tino Mawoyo, and on the back of a 98 against South Africa A, hhe was selected and then asked to do much more than he would have expected.ddddddddddddhari, who hadnt kept wickets in his two Tests prior to this, had to take over after Regis Chakabva took ill. He had to do it for 166.5 overs, over more than five sessions. He had to stand up to Graeme Cremer, who was turning the ball out of the footmarks. He made a few mistakes and missed a few chances but, for a first-timer, he did an adequate job. And then, just when he thought he could put his feet up, he was called in to bat in the first over, when his senior-most team-mate, Hamilton Masakadza, was dismissed cheaply for the second time. Its hardly surprising Chari could not cope with a Boult inswinger and left a bat-pad gap for the ball to find his off stump, and even less so that Masakadza lauded his effort.A lot of credit to him for the way he has carried himself. He has never kept before, and to have kept the way he did for a day-and-a-half really showed a lot of heart, Masakadza said.Zimbabwe also dont have the old hands like Herath, but if they can hang on to their players with experience, they have some who are willing to take responsibility. Their captain, Graeme Cremer, bowled 35 overs on the second day, including 26 in one spell, and Masakadza himself is an example. He was visibly pained at the post-play press conference when he spoke about his own failure in this match, and its clear his underperformance is weighing on him. My biggest disappointment is the way I got out in the first innings. Its still playing on my mind. I was set and I could have dragged the innings a little deeper. As a senior player, its never easy to take when things go awry, he said.Where Zimbabwe get it wrong is that the energy of youth and the wisdom from their experienced players rarely have the kind of meeting Mendis and Herath had in Kandy. They dont fire as a collective unit. Sometimes, that is because theyre not playing in the same team. Sibanda or Mawoyo, for example, could have been the perfect foil for Chari. Tinashe Panyanagara or Tendai Chatara would have complemented Michael Chinouya. Injuries have been mostly to blame for them missing each other, circumstance and selection may also be the cause.Some curious picks in Zimbabwes squad, which did not seem to be based on first-class numbers or recent form, and a recent change in coach and captain have meant Zimbabwe are unsettled in every way. Compare that to New Zealand, who are set to have Mike Hesson at the helm until 2019, a stint of seven years, and who enjoyed a smooth transition from Brendon McCullum to Kane Williamson, and its clear why the hosts are playing in such helter-skelter fashion and the visitors in entirely the opposite.Zimbabwe almost beat New Zealand at this venue five years ago. That they are being so badly outplayed now is a sign both of how much they have slipped since then and of how much New Zealand have progressed. If Zimbabwe hope to turn Bulawayo into Kandy one day, they have to find a way to close that gap. ' ' '