Minnesota prepares for a season-opening tipoff against visiting Bethune-Cookman on Monday in Minneapolis, and this time the Golden Gophers are looking for better results.
That said, it would be hard to envision worse results. The Golden Gophers are coming off a difficult season in which they went 9-22, including 2-17 in the Big Ten Conference to finish in last place.
A healthier roster, combined with a year of experience for some of the team’s key players, has Minnesota coach Ben Johnson feeling optimistic heading into his third season.
“Taking this over, I understood that Minnesota has never been a quick fix if you want to sustain it,” Johnson said.
The season marks a new opportunity for Golden Gophers forwards Parker Fox and Isaiah Ihnen, both of whom sustained torn ACLs in each of the past two seasons. A trio of sophomores, including Pharrel Payne, Braeden Carrington and Joshua Ola-Joseph, also return.
“They have no idea how it’s going to benefit them as sophomores with what they went through,” Johnson said. “It’s not going to get any harder ever again than it was.”
Minnesota’s most highly touted freshman is Cam Christie, a four-star recruit from the Chicago suburb of Rolling Meadows, Ill. Christie is the younger brother of Max Christie, who played at Michigan State and now plays for the Los Angeles Lakers.
Meanwhile, big man Dawson Garcia returns to the Golden Gophers after averaging a team-high 15.3 points and 6.7 rebounds last season.
Bethune-Cookman comes off a 12-20 season, including an 8-10 record in the Southwestern Athletic Conference. The Wildcats are led by former NBA All-Star Reggie Theus, who serves as the program’s athletic director and head basketball coach.
The season opener will mark the expected debut of Zion Harmon, who Bethune-Cookman says is the highest-ranked recruit ever to commit to the program. Harmon was ranked in the top 100 nationally by a number of publications and drew interest from Kansas, Kentucky and Louisville.
“I look at our depth,” Theus said. “I look at our size. And I think that we’re going to have enough size and depth to really deal with just about anything. The one thing we lack is a little experience.”
–Field Level Media