Part of that comes down to scheduling. Anticipating this weekend’s back-to-back games at the Briann January Classic tournament in Tempe, Ariz., Plitzuweit had the team practice Saturday, a day after beating Vermont, to get used to working on back-to-back days, before getting some time off, affecting preparation time.

There were some missed assignments, things to clean up, but, overall, Plitzuweit was pleased.

Particularly with her bench players. The Gophers staff is working with both Woodson and McKinney to not play to fast. Both showed signs of that early but settled down. Woodson scored 10 of her points in the second quarter. McKinney scored seven straight points in Minnesota’s 11-2 finish to the third.

The Gophers out-rebounded Lowell 53-32 and outscored the River Hawks 46-14 in the paint, 15-0 on the break, 50-11 off the bench.

This weekend’s games — against Oregon State on Saturday, Southern Methodist on Sunday — will be a step up in difficulty. Oregon State was an Elite Eight team in last year’s NCAA tournament and SMU is a part of the ACC Conference.