Has there been a more enigmatic family connected to Gopher Hoops than the Colemans? Ben (uncle/cousin?) to Dan and Joe, was a promising power forward who transferred after his sophomore year in '81 to Maryland where he averaged 15 ppg/8 rpg over his last two seasons of college ball. The season after he transferred the Gophers won the Big Ten with Trent Tucker, Darryl Mitchell, and Randy Breuer leading the charge; the team had a deep front court with Breuer, Cookie Holmes, Zebedee Howell, John Wiley and Jim Peterson but one wonders if Coleman would have pushed the Gophers to another level instead of losing in the Sweet 16 to Louisville.
Dan started his career at Boston College, transferred before playing a game back home to MN where he bridged a four year career between Dan Monson and Tubby Smith's regimes. His game was always so tantalizing-he would put up 20 points/10+ rebounds against lesser non-conference opponents and then disappear in Big Ten contests. During his senior year which aligned with Smith's first season, Coleman's stats dropped across all categories, with his ppg decreasing by 2.5 points. He played in one NCAA tournament game in his freshman year, a solid and promising contributor off the bench for the squad led by Vincent Grier, Aaron Robinson, and Jeff Hagen, that lost to Iowa State.
Joe similarly bridged a coaching change, except he did not stick around for Richard Pitino's first season after Smith's firing. As mentioned above, he sprinkled the spectacular (29 points at Illinois) with inconsistency. Joe played in two NCAA tournament games during his sophomore year, highlighted by a double figure effort against UCLA in the Gophers first game of the tourney. It was hoped the Pitino hire would springboard his game to another level, but of course, that never came to pass.