After losing nearly everyone to graduation or the NCAA transfer portal last spring, Gophers men’s basketball coach Ben Johnson built a team, in fairly quick order, around his ace in the hole — returning power forward Dawson Garcia.
The basketball talking heads were unimpressed, picking Minnesota to finish dead last in the suddenly 18-team Big Ten, which tells you what you need to know about anyone’s preseason picks.
The Gophers (15-15 overall, 7-12 Big Ten) are set to play their regular-season finale Sunday’s noon tip at Rutgers (14-16, 7-12) with a chance to finish 11th in the conference and above .500 overall.
But the team wants more.
“This team has continued to fight, maintain confidence, and get better,” Ben Johnson, in his fourth season as the Gophers’ head coach, said Saturday. “They’ve gelled as a team. We’ve had to play through ups and downs, and we still figured it out. I know they don’t want it to end.”
The Gophers have secured a spot in the season-ending conference tournament, the winner of which earns the Big Ten’s automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. That’s not likely, but it’s not out of the question that Minnesota receives an NIT bid next Sunday.
Have the Gophers done eight for a second straight NIT bid?
“I wish I had a good answer,” Johnson said. “I have no idea, but I do know this: The best thing to do is keep winning. If you keep winning, all that takes care of itself.”
The only reason the Gophers aren’t a lock to make the second-tier postseason tournament is a handful of bad losses at home — North Texas, Northwestern and a double-overtime loss to Ohio State they had all but won in regulation.
Otherwise, the Gophers have the wins to make them attractive: No. 17 Michigan, then-No. 15 Oregon and Ivy League champion Yale.
Plus, the Gophers have a 7-8 record against Quad 1 teams. That’s a better ranking against Quad 1 — an NCAA tournament selection metric that uses opponents, sites and statistics to rank wins and losses — than eight teams ahead of them in the Big Ten standings, including Ohio State, No. 35 in the NET rankings.
If the Gophers are at least overachievers, and at best a first step in Johnson getting his program on track. He has one year left on his contract, and two guaranteed games to show athletics director Mark Coyle he is the answer.
Johnson said his team is essentially healthy, even Garcia, the team’s leading scorer who pulled himself out of last Sunday’s victory at Nebraska because of a sore ankle. And, the coach points out, Rutgers is a Quad 1 team, as well.
“I’ve talked to the guys about that: ‘Think of where we started. Now we have the opportunity to go on the road against a really good Rutgers team and play for the 11th seed (in the conference tournament).’ Now, it’s about the opportunity to challenge themselves and combine that with some momentum. It’s all positive.”
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