It’s no secret that fans were hoping for a lot more from Gopher basketball last season, a season which saw the team go 4-14 in conference play and 15-17 overall.
A top-15 team in the preseason, in both the AP and the Coaches Polls, the Reggie Lynch fiasco sent the team spiraling off course mid-way through the year and Richard Pitino never managed to recover.
Nate Mason didn’t become the Player of the Year candidate many had predicted in his senior season and there was little depth to pick up the slack when he and Jordan Murphy had off nights, especially with Amir Coffey missing 14 games due to shoulder surgery.
The disappointment culminated with a 2-14 stretch to close the season.
Heading into 2018-19, the outlook is not much sunnier.
Minnesota is mid-pack in the Big Ten recruiting rankings and, while four-star center Daniel Oturu should contribute right away, where this team really needs help is at guard.
The departure of Mason (16.7 PPG, 4.2 APG) plus the transfers of Jamir Harris (14.1 MPG, 3.9 PPG) and Davonte Fitzgerald (13.3 MPG, 3.7 PPG) leave Pitino with a paper-thin backcourt, and he may have to give significant minutes to the likes of Isaiah Washington (20.0 MPG, 8.7 PPG, 24.1 3P%) and three-star freshman Gabe Kalscheur.
In a conference that has a litany of top-100 guards joining its ranks – Romero Langford (no. 5, Indiana), Ayo Dosunmu (no. 34, Illinois), Luther Muhammad (no. 61, Ohio State), Foster Loyer (no. 68, Michigan State), Joe Wieskamp (no. 74, Iowa), David DeJulius (no. 90, Michigan), Eric Ayala (no. 93, Maryland) – the Gophers risk getting left in a cloud of three-point dust. After all, they shot under 35% from three last season with Mason, who connected at a 39.1% clip and took almost twice as many triples as any other player.
The loss of key recruiters/assistants Kimani Young (hired by UConn) and Ben Johnson (hired by Xavier) will make it all the tougher for the team to remedy its dearth of guards going forward.
Unsurprisingly, the Gophers are not projected to be an NCAA Tournament team next season and were listed 12th of 14 teams in a recent Big Ten power ranking.
Online betting sites like Bovada, BetOnline, and TopBet are already taking wagers to win the 2019 NCAA Tournament, though Top bet is now in no pay mode. Bovada’s odds currently list five Big Ten teams:
1. Michigan: +2500
2. Michigan State: +2800
3. Maryland: +7000
4. Penn State: +8000
5. Wisconsin: +9000
Wisconsin’s +9000 odds equal a probability of just over 1%, so the fact that Minnesota doesn’t even crack the list, and probably wouldn’t be the next Big Ten team to do so, should tell you all you need to know about what those in Las Vegas think of their chances.
But enough with the pessimism. There are potential bright spots to the upcoming season. Even if a deep March run is not in the cards, Gopher fans may get to see certain players blossom into bona fide stars.
Murphy took his game to a new level last year, upping his scoring by over five points per game (16.8 PPG), raising his three-point percentage from 12.5% to 31.4%, and hauling in double-digit rebounds (11.4 RPG). What the 6’6 forward lacks in height, he makes up for in strength and hustle, and Pitino will be counting on him to keep up his progress as a senior.
The bigger jump could come from Coffey, however. He burst onto the scene as a freshman averaging 12.2 PPG in 33 minutes,and made modest gains as a sophomore (14.0 PPG) even though he saw the court a little less (31.6 MPG). The team’s 2-14 finish coincided exactly with his departure from the lineup (though he did return for two games in the middle). Now, with Mason out of the picture, he will be counted on even more to both score and facilitate.
Coffey and Murphy should be two of the better players in the Big Ten this year, and if they can both stay healthy and make modest gains from last year, this Minnesota team will be more competitive than early projections.