Then either the freshmen are overrated and/or Whalen stinks as a coach, since Utah had no problem this year going from 5-16 to 21-12 thanks to adding two freshman from Minnesota, also the Gophers under Stollings went from being no good to miraculously making the 2nd round of the NCAA Tournament...
The Gophers were a Top-25 caliber team by the end of Stollings' last year, and the pollsters had the Gophers ranked in the top 25 before this season and much of the beginning of last season.
The Gophers probably would've made the NCAA Tournamnet last year if they knew how to inbound the ball...
Any coach given a Top-25 team should be able to at least randomly win one or two games against decent teams a year; only terrible head coaches can take Top-25 teams and not even make the NCAA Tournament. Whalen also has going winless against Illinois (responsible for half of their Big Ten wins...
That just proves how terrible the current coach of the Gophers is, since at least the Gophers won an NCAA Tournament game and never finished as bad as 5-13 (11th place) in the Big Ten under Stollings, while Whalen took over that 2nd Round NCAA Tournament / Top-25 caliber team and turned them...
He probably thinks/knows it's in his players' best interests that they play for teams with actual good coaches instead of having their talents wasted at schools with proven lousy head coaches like the U.
Every blind squirrell finds a nut. It was the perfect time to hire someone who could lead them to a Sweet 16 or beyond but Teague wasn't interested in trying to get a top assistant coach from a top program, or anybody else that would be a splashy hire.
Charlie Creme must've realized they were actually games on Sunday since his new update, which should basically be just fix his top 4 seeds to match the committee reveal, has Minnesota back under First Four Out (and Nebraska in Next Four Out)
Gophers would probably be in as of now if they had 1 more win.
Almost none of the bubble teams from other conferences are that impressive, so maybe it's assumed they don't want to have every Big Ten team in the field if they can avoid it.