Minnesota hosts New Orleans following Johnson’s 29-point game

New Orleans Privateers (3-3) at Minnesota Golden Gophers (4-2)

Minneapolis; Thursday, 7 p.m. EST

BOTTOM LINE: New Orleans faces the Minnesota Golden Gophers after Jordan Johnson scored 29 points in New Orleans’ 79-74 victory over the Central Arkansas Sugar Bears.

The Golden Gophers have gone 4-1 in home games. Minnesota ranks second in the Big Ten with 17.5 assists per game led by Elijah Hawkins averaging 4.8.

The Privateers have gone 1-2 away from home. New Orleans is 0-2 in games decided by less than 4 points.

Minnesota makes 45.8% of its shots from the field this season, which is 2.3 percentage points higher than New Orleans has allowed to its opponents (43.5%). New Orleans has shot at a 43.3% rate from the field this season, 3.2 percentage points above the 40.1% shooting opponents of Minnesota have averaged.

TOP PERFORMERS: Dawson Garcia is shooting 47.4% and averaging 18.8 points for the Golden Gophers. Mike Mitchell Jr. is averaging 2.2 made 3-pointers for Minnesota.

Johnson is scoring 23.3 points per game and averaging 3.0 rebounds for the Privateers. Khaleb Wilson-Rouse is averaging 10.3 points and 2.7 rebounds for New Orleans.

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The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.