The Minnesota Gophers will continue to climb the very, very high hill that is Big Ten basketball in 2025-2026. For those of you who like numbers, this will be the Gophers’ 131st season, during which a “fair share” of Big Ten titles would be about 12. For the record, the Gophers have won Big Ten titles in 1906, 1907 (the first two ever awarded), 1917, 1919, 1937, 1972, 1982 and 1997. Some people don’t like to count the one in 1997, but if you count it, the Gophers have 8 Big Ten titles, about 2/3 of what a fair share might have been. More to the point, they’ve won 4 Big Ten titles in 106 years since 1919, which is only about 1/3 of a fair share for that entire period of time.
So, the Gophers have often struggled since their 3rd and final national championship season of 1919, and yet the Gophers’ recent struggles, since about 2000, are pretty much unprecedented. As of the end of the Clem Haskins era in 1999, the Gophers were 646-660-3 (.495) in the Big Ten. They had been over .500 as recently as the end of the Bill Musselman era in 1975. Since 2000, they are 169-296 (.363) in the Big Ten, and thus dragging their overall conference record down to 815-956-3 (.460), an all-time low. Right now, they would have to win 141 straight games to get back to .500.
The Gopher men are not going to bounce back just yet, and whether they can ever bounce back is a legitimate question. Even if the early, positive reports about new coach Niko Medved all turn out to be true, how meaningful will that be long-term? Those reports are that he has increased his team’s NIL money by a couple of million dollars, and that his first roster, recruited like those of his predecessor off the transfer portal, is more athletic than the ones that Ben Johnson recruited. Time will tell.
But, even if all of this proves to be true, the Gophers still have several significant disadvantages in recruiting basketbalol taloent to the U. One is population. Minnesota is a small state, with many, many fewer local athletes to choose from compared to schools located in California, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan, for starters. Of course, recruiting is a national game and so it is perhaps more significant that “lots of people think we’re on the north pole,” in the words of retired Gopher athletic director Joel Maturi. Then there’s all those Minnesota kids who go to Wisconsin. “They’ve won,” Maturi said, “and we haven’t. And everybody who has gone there has had an incredibly positive experience.”
And, finally, as Maturi said, “What are you going to do with the Barn?” Us old-timers love the Barn, but the kids are not impressed. It’s just an old gym. And right now, nobody–not the U, not the state, not anybody–has any money or any plans for an upgrade. So, on top of all of that, add in the fact that other schools are offering kids more money and, Houston, we have a problem. And, so, for the 5th straight year, the Gophers are piecing a lineup together from the portal. Even if Medved proves to be more adept at this than Ben was, it’s still a tough way to make a living.
As a result of all of said machinations, the Gophers depth chart for 2025-2026 looks like this.
Center
Jaylen Crocker-Johnson, 6-8, junior, transfer from Colorado State, where he was coached by Niko Medved and averaged 9 ppg and 4 rebounds.
Nehemiah Turner is expected to play if he can, because at 6-10, he is the Gophers only true post. He scored 8 ppg with 4 rebounds at Central Arkansas. He averaged about 18 ppg in the final 10 games, however, and his size will be an important addition to the team if he’s good enough to play. Central Arkansas of course represents a pretty low level of D1 ball so, yet again, time will have to tell.
Power Forward
B.J. Omot, 6-8, senior, a transfer from California, where he averaged 11 ppg and 3 boards. He played high school ball in Mankato, MN.
Peter Vaihola, a 6-8 senior, scored 7 ppg with 7 rebounds last year at San Jose State.
Wing
Cade Tyson, 6-7, senior, a transfer from North Carolina, where he averaged just 3 ppg. He might not have played much at North Carolina but, hey, it’s North Carolina. In fact, he’s a former North Carolina Mr. Basketball. I expect him to be the Gophers best or second-best player, along with Chansey Willis, and probably its leading scorer.
Bobby Durkin, 6-7, junior, a transfer from Davidson where he averaged 13 ppg, 6 boards and 2 assists while shooting 41 percent. While they play the same position, you can expect Tyson and Durkin to be on the floor together quite a lot.
Point Guard
Chansey Willis, 6-2, junior, a transfer from Western Michigan, where he averaged 17 ppg and 6 assists. As the point guard, Willis is probably the key guy for the Gophers. Is there any “chansey” that he’s the second coming of Elijah Hawkins?
Isaad Asuma, a sophomore from Cherry, MN, averaged 6 ppg for the Gophers last year.
Shooting Guard
Langston Reynolds scored 16 ppg on 59 percent shooting at Northern Colorado last year.
Chance Stephens scored 6 ppg at Loyola Marymount two years ago, then spent most of last year injured at Maryland.
The Gophers appear to have the ability to score some points, especially Willis, Tyson, Durkin and Omot . Along with Willis, Tyson is perhaps a key guy if he can recover the form that got him recruited by the Tar Heels in the first place. And the Gophers would seem to have some depth, assuming that some of them don’t turn out to be in over their heads in the Big Ten.
NIL and “House Payments”
So for those of you who might want to know, here’s a quick summary of what’s going on with the NIL and House Payments. NIL refers to Name Image and Likeness contracts that athletes sign directly with “collectives” representing private donors. You might have heard that Texas QB Arch Manning has America’s biggest NIL deal at $7 million. The biggest basketball deal is $4 for A.J. Dybantsa of Brigham Young. It has been reported that a dozen or more basketball programs have $10 million or more, including (only) Michigan of the Big Ten. The Gophers are reputed to have $3 to $4 million.
Just about a year ago came the newer model, the House payments. Grant House was a swimmer at Arizona State who sued not only for the right to be paid but for back pay for the years in which he was not paid. The courts agreed and ordered $2.8 billion, with a B, to be paid to a large group of athletes of the recent past. In addition to that, the courts drew up a scheme for players to continue to get paid. They ordered the 64 Power 5 football schools to pay their athletes $20.5 million per school. How the money is distributed among the sports is up to eacg school, buteach school is required to pay $20.5 million, no more and no less, to all of its athletes in all sports. The national average per school is reported to be $15 million for football, $3 million for men’s basketball, and something under $1 million for everything else. The Gophers are rocking the boat by giving just $13 million to football, $3 million to men’s basketball, and $2 million (4X the national average) to women’s basketball.
The House settlement also ruled that all payments–NIL and House–could only be for the actual value of goods and services provided by the players–that is, for promotions, endorsements, autographs, etc. These payments cannot be “pay for play.” They represent payments made for other services to their schools and/or their private funders, whoever they are. So NIL payments are expected to diminish, though this rule will be challenged in the courts and nobody really knows how it well end up.
Where NIL money is concerned Minnesota will never have the kind of money that Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, USC and Oregon will have. But the House payments have to be equal. Every school will spend exactly $20.5 million. So the Gophers are not hurt by House payments. NIL, on the other hand, hurts the Gophers. And if exorbitant “pay for play” contracts are eventually OK’d by the courts, then it is so much the worse for the Gophers. Right now, NIL and House payments to men’s basketball combined ange from $4 to $5 million among the “have nots” to maybe $13 million for Michigan. If “pay for play” is approved, the gap will get bigger and the Gophers will fall further behind. If not, the gap could get a little smaller and the Gophers would be at less of a disadvantage.
But none of that matters for 2025-2026. That die is cast with the rosters and schedules all determined for 2025-2026. And, honestly, there’s no reason to believe that the Gophers can be a .500 team, or is capable of finishing in the top half of the Big Ten. A close look at the Gophers schedule suggests to me a 6-14 record in the Big Ten and 15-18 overall, and that’s if they play well. The Gophers were 7-13 in the Big Ten last year under Ben Johnson. 20 wins for the Gophers and/or a .500 record in the Big Ten would make this a coach of the year year for Niko Medved.
I will have a preview of the men’s Big Ten season, covering all 18 teams, in a separate post.