Big Ten Basketball: 2024 offseason grades for each team (Minnesota Golden Gophers - Grade: C)

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Per Tristan:

Minnesota Golden Gophers - Grade: C​

After winning 19 games, the Gophers had a chance to return everyone back from the team outside of backup forward, Parker Fox. They brought back star forward Dawson Garcia (17.6 ppg and 6.7 rpg), one of the stars of Big Ten Basketball. But outside of starting guard Mike Mitchell also coming back, not much else went right for the Gophers.

Several other players opted to leave, including key sophomores, Joshua Ola-Joseph, Braeden Carrington, and Pharrel Payne. Starting point guard and top Big Ten passer Elijah Hawkins transferred out to Texas Tech (after originally announcing his return), while freshman standout Cameron Christie entered the NBA Draft, though he wasn’t a first-round pick.

So how good is the new supporting cast for Minnesota? Joining Garcia in the frontcourt is center Trey Edmonds, along with Frank Mitchell, who averaged a double-double at Canisius. Five transfer guards are joining (Brennan Rigby, Femi Odukale, Caleb Williams, Tyler Cochran, Lu’Cye Patterson), none coming off elite campaigns for their respective programs. However, Patterson was a double-digit scorer at Charlotte.

Retaining Garcia alone gives Minnesota a solid grade, and there should be enough depth to keep them competitive in the conference. But they lost a ton of production that they didn’t have to and on paper, probably got worse compared to last season.

bustingbrackets.com

Big Ten Basketball: 2024 offseason grades for each team

It's been a 'big' offseason for the Big Ten these past few months, for multiple reasons. One if the many somewhat surprising results from the transfer portal/NB
bustingbrackets.com bustingbrackets.com

Go Gophers!!
 

Save you some time...Michigan St, Penn State, and Wisconsin received C- grades.
Minnesota C
Everybody else B or higher.
 

The first sentence is inaccurate (a chance to bring everyone back outside of back-up forward Parker Fox).

Hopefully the rest will prove inaccurate as well (the probably got worse part).
 

Once again, for fun. Looking at Power 5 Collectives, Big Ten (Ave. $10.2M) is second behind SEC ($12.7M) from published data (nil-ncaa.com). Approx. 90% of all Collective funding goes toward Football and Basketball. From a smaller data pool of reported BB NIL, the average P5 basketball program receives approx. 24%, but some known to receive more^, some less*. Using 24% as average distribution, this is what translates in B10.

School/Grade/$NIL Collective/$Est.BB NIL

UCLA/A+/$5.9M/$1.4M
IND/A+/$13.6M/$3.3M
Neb/A/$7.9M/$1.9M
OSU/A/$20.2M/$4.9M
MD/A/$3.7M/$896K
ORE/A-/$20.2M/$2.5M
MICH/B+/$16.4M/$3.9M
USC/B+/$?/$?M
RUT/B+/$3.6M/$870K
NW/B+/$?/$?
ILL/B/$9.3M/$2.2M^
WASH/B/$9.4M/$2.3M
PUR/B-/$5.5M/$1.3K
IOWA/B-/$9.7M/$2.3M
MINN/C/$7.2M/$1.7M*
PSU/C-/$13.8M/$3.3M*
WIS/C-/$9M/$2.2M
MSU/C-/$16.4M/$3.1M
 





What the article does not take into account is that some of the players who left did so because they were disgruntled over playing time and other issues. So the Gophers have a chance to improve the attitude of the team and have a more cohesive locker room - which is certainly worth something.

And of the players who left, Payne and Hawkins were solid, but the others were fringe players and/or inconsistent. It's not like everyone who left was an all-conference player.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
What the article does not take into account is that some of the players who left did so because they were disgruntled over playing time and other issues. So the Gophers have a chance to improve the attitude of the team and have a more cohesive locker room - which is certainly worth something.

And of the players who left, Payne and Hawkins were solid, but the others were fringe players and/or inconsistent. It's not like everyone who left was an all-conference player.
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True... I would also say Christie getting drafted didn't positively impact our offseason grade. Debate all you want about if it's good for the program long term... It didn't help us for next year.
 



Off-GridTNgopher said:
Even I don't think it was an f-..... D+ is where I sit
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It's definitely an F-. It's the worst off-season we've ever had, by far.

We officially became a farm-team.

High school recruiting officially became irrelevant. Which makes the off-season boring.

The hope of a new coach turning us around officially became irrelevant.

Watching a team develop for the future just became irrelevant. Which will make many seasons boring.
 

EasyThere Pilgrim said:
It's definitely an F-. It's the worst off-season we've ever had, by far.

We officially became a farm-team.

High school recruiting officially became irrelevant. Which makes the off-season boring.

The hope of a new coach turning us around officially became irrelevant.

Watching a team develop for the future just became irrelevant. Which will make many seasons boring.
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Just leave. Save us from your boredom. 😏
 







SelectionSunday said:
Jon Rothstein not very high on Gophers or their newcomers.

x.com

x.com x.com
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That's for sure. On the whole, the prognosticators have been negative but this one is the most negative I've seen. We see a boatload of these predictions every off-season. Unfortunately, what I've never seen is a post-season assessment of the predictive accuracy of them.
 


TwistingMyMelon said:
I wouldn't say that. According to Torvik, we have the 7th most experienced team in D1 so most of these players have an extensive record of playing.
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Sure they do, just not at this level. That's the mystery. Ben has done a good job of getting guys to perform a level up- but this is a mass makeover. I am pretty optimistic but we have to really, really be good on defense to make the tournament.
 

Pretty much universally picked between 16th and 18th. Yikes. Oh well. 228 days.
 

bga1 said:
Sure they do, just not at this level. That's the mystery.
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Sure, there's going to be some uncertainty but, if we consult recent history, we're not flying blind here. Going back to Pitino, here are the transfers that have come from non-majors:

Joey King (Drake) - had his weaknesses but a good shooter and regular contributor

Malik Smith (FL International) - very streaky but still a contributor

DeAndre Mathieu (junior college) - really good contributor especially in his first season with us

Carlos Morris (junior college) - a disappointment overall but he still showed some ability and productivity in a number of games

Reggie Lynch (IL State) - a major impact player. Too bad he couldn't behave himself.

Akeem Springs (UW Milwaukee) - great transfer addition

Brock Stull (UW Milwaukee) - a dud; unfortunately, the UW-Milwaukee connection didn't strike twice

Alihan Demir (Drexel) - mediocre but he did fill a need on a team without much depth

Liam Robbins (Drake) - great addition (although injury prone)

Brandon Johnson (Western Michigan) - solid contributor

Jamison Battle (G. Washington) - great addition (for his first year anyway)

E.J. Stephens (Lafayette) - solid, if unexceptional, contributor

Luke Loewe (William and Mary) - weak offensively but played hard and had a great motor

Sean Sutherlin (New Hampshire) - capable bench player

Charlie Daniels (Stephen F Austin) - I guess the less said the better

Ta'lon Cooper (Morehead State)- starter; one of the better players on a bad team

Taurus Samuels - the backcourt equivalent of Charlie Daniels

Elijah Hawkins - so good that we couldn't keep him

Mike Mitchell - starter; didn't disappoint and thankfully still here

I don't include Payton Willis because he originally transferred from a major.

So, from the list above, there are few duds but most helped us to one degree or another. More importantly, most of these players were able to compete at the Big Ten level at least to an acceptable degree. This team appears to be one of the deepest teams we've had in the last 11 years. I'm not pessimistic. I think history is on our side.
 



TwistingMyMelon said:
Of course not. They rarely keep their evaluations visible after the season so they can be critiqued on a post-season basis.
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Found it. He had them 14
collegehoopstoday.net

Big Ten Offseason Breakdown

Summer time means a look ahead to next season! Each week moving forward, we will preview one conference in college basketball from soup to nuts. Check below for this week’s breakdown on the Big Ten. Big Ten Preseason Power Rankings1. PurdueProjected Starting 5:G Braden SmithG Fletcher LoyerG...
collegehoopstoday.net collegehoopstoday.net
 
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fan of Ray Williams said:
Found it. He had them 14
collegehoopstoday.net

Big Ten Offseason Breakdown

Summer time means a look ahead to next season! Each week moving forward, we will preview one conference in college basketball from soup to nuts. Check below for this week’s breakdown on the Big Ten. Big Ten Preseason Power Rankings1. PurdueProjected Starting 5:G Braden SmithG Fletcher LoyerG...
collegehoopstoday.net collegehoopstoday.net
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So, last place last offseason and last place this offseason. Well, at least he's consistent. If he sticks with that prediction long enough, chances are he'll be right eventually.
 

TwistingMyMelon said:
So, last place last offseason and last place this offseason. Well, at least he's consistent. If he sticks with that prediction long enough, chances are he'll be right eventually.
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In his defense, think they did finish last in Ben’s second season and 13th in his first. Easy target, I guess.
 

fan of Ray Williams said:
In his defense, think they did finish last in Ben’s second season and 13th in his first. Easy target, I guess.
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Yes, they were an easy target but that is part of my point. As I've said before when people talk about the poor predictions for the Gophers, very few prognosticators will ever predict a significant turnaround (either a good or bad one). I get that. Better to be among a bunch of people who were wrong than risk being the lone person who was wrong (The Emperor's New Clothes syndrome). But, that position takes no courage particularly since there is never a published meta-analysis done after the season to grade prognosticators.
 

I
TwistingMyMelon said:
Sure, there's going to be some uncertainty but, if we consult recent history, we're not flying blind here. Going back to Pitino, here are the transfers that have come from non-majors:

Joey King (Drake) - had his weaknesses but a good shooter and regular contributor

Malik Smith (FL International) - very streaky but still a contributor

DeAndre Mathieu (junior college) - really good contributor especially in his first season with us

Carlos Morris (junior college) - a disappointment overall but he still showed some ability and productivity in a number of games

Reggie Lynch (IL State) - a major impact player. Too bad he couldn't behave himself.

Akeem Springs (UW Milwaukee) - great transfer addition

Brock Stull (UW Milwaukee) - a dud; unfortunately, the UW-Milwaukee connection didn't strike twice

Alihan Demir (Drexel) - mediocre but he did fill a need on a team without much depth

Liam Robbins (Drake) - great addition (although injury prone)

Brandon Johnson (Western Michigan) - solid contributor

Jamison Battle (G. Washington) - great addition (for his first year anyway)

E.J. Stephens (Lafayette) - solid, if unexceptional, contributor

Luke Loewe (William and Mary) - weak offensively but played hard and had a great motor

Sean Sutherlin (New Hampshire) - capable bench player

Charlie Daniels (Stephen F Austin) - I guess the less said the better

Ta'lon Cooper (Morehead State)- starter; one of the better players on a bad team

Taurus Samuels - the backcourt equivalent of Charlie Daniels

Elijah Hawkins - so good that we couldn't keep him

Mike Mitchell - starter; didn't disappoint and thankfully still here

I don't include Payton Willis because he originally transferred from a major.

So, from the list above, there are few duds but most helped us to one degree or another. More importantly, most of these players were able to compete at the Big Ten level at least to an acceptable degree. This team appears to be one of the deepest teams we've had in the last 11 years. I'm not pessimistic. I think history is on our side.
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I love this post. More information than the original post. Thanks for sharing this insight.
 

I have never understood why people feel compelled to make season predictions before practices even start. So many variables, so many unknowns. Players X,Y, and Z could suddenly jell, have career seasons and the team plays exactly as the coach envisioned. Or those players could all get injured and the team culture turns into poison halfway through the year and things fall apart.

I know one of the qualifiers seems to be based on past performance. Honestly, based on past performance, nobody could have predicted I would ever have figured out how to tie my shoes when I was a little tyke.

Do these folks get some kind of mental boner if their guess is close? Do they feel any shame or embarrassment if their predictions are way off? It seems very rare that any of these people ever get their predictions even 80% correct, so why bother?
 


Chico Gopher said:
I have never understood why people feel compelled to make season predictions before practices even start. So many variables, so many unknowns. Players X,Y, and Z could suddenly jell, have career seasons and the team plays exactly as the coach envisioned. Or those players could all get injured and the team culture turns into poison halfway through the year and things fall apart.

I know one of the qualifiers seems to be based on past performance. Honestly, based on past performance, nobody could have predicted I would ever have figured out how to tie my shoes when I was a little tyke.

Do these folks get some kind of mental boner if their guess is close? Do they feel any shame or embarrassment if their predictions are way off? It seems very rare that any of these people ever get their predictions even 80% correct, so why bother?
Click to expand...
I take it you're a velcro guy to this day. 😏
 

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