Parker Fox didn’t return for an eighth year of college basketball to be on the receiving end of a scathing locker room exchange from Gophers coach Ben Johnson.
“That locker room was an experience for sure,” Fox said. “It gets to kind of almost like a boiling point and something needs to be fixed.”
Fox took it personally that he could do more to help the Gophers (6-5), who have lost four of the past five games heading into Saturday’s game against Fairleigh Dickinson at Williams Arena.
“My leadership is oftentimes vocal, but more importantly it has to be lead by example,” Fox said. “These last 10 days have been tough, but we’ve been learning a lot about how hard it is to win.”
The Gophers have nine scholarship seniors, including six newcomers. Johnson expected them to help set the standard for competing consistently. It shows up in practice but not enough in games.
“I think we play hard in glimpses, but we don’t play hard long enough,” Johnson said. “We pointed it out over and over that when we do play hard, and we stick to our scheme on offense and defense, good things happen. When we don’t, there’s a big gap between our success and failure.”
Garcia, averaging a career-high 19.3 points and 7.1 rebounds, said he learned from the 40 minutes Johnson addressed the team after that Indiana loss.
