Dawson Garcia opened the 2024-25 season with 30 points, and transfer senior Cade Tyson decided not to let Gophers fans dwell on the past too much and dropped 30 to open the season as well.
The North Carolina native scored 27 and 28 points in the two exhibition games against North Dakota State University and appears to have a bright future finishing his college career for the Gophers.
Along with an 87-60 win against Gardner-Webb, the Gophers men’s basketball team might have instilled a newfound confidence in fans that this team is on the right track to success.
With the departure of their top five scorers and the arrival of 14 faces, including a new head coach, the majority of Gophers fans understood this season to be a standard rebuild.
Though an NCAA March Madness bid would be extreme optimism for Minnesota, which has not appeared in the tournament since 2019, the game showed that the Gophers seem already in sync with one another. Head coach Niko Medved is ready to coach a team that competes.
After the Gophers started the game 23-1, it became clear this would be a comfortable win.
Junior Jaylen Crocker-Johnson, who followed Medved from Colorado State University, notched a double-double, the fourth in his college career.
“One thing for us is the unselfishness and the bond,” Medved said. “For as many new faces that’s really shown up right away.”
The players, the majority of whom have only been playing with each other for a couple of months, showed that unselfishness repeatedly throughout the game. Ball movement was one of their biggest strengths, leading to 25 assists on 30 buckets.
This was maybe too good for senior Chansey Willis Jr., who went scoreless that night, 0-7, but he tacked on three assists and was able to set the pace for the Gophers.
“We had one play where we were too unselfish, where Rob made a great play to Chansey,” Medved said. “Had he just laid it in, he would have scored today.”
Post-game, Tyson made sure Willis Jr.’s contributions did not go unnoticed.
“I want to shout out Chansey Willis Jr.,” Tyson said. “A lot of his stuff don’t show up on the stat sheet, but he really got the game started for us and he was huge for us throughout the whole game.”
Willis Jr. previously averaged 16.8 points per game at Western Michigan University and is one of the many new transfer students.
The best news for Gophers fans is that Medved preached unselfish play, consistent defense and toughness throughout Big Ten media days, and he delivered. The team executed on everything he promised.
An exciting start for the Gophers’ men’s basketball, but due to the competitiveness of the Big Ten, there will be little room for error. The Gophers will jump into more challenging opponents quite quickly, after playing Alcorn State University on Saturday.
During Big Ten media days, sophomore Issac Asuma, one of the only Gophers who returned to the team this season, said he wanted the team to bring it for the fans and show the newcomers how exciting the Barn can be.
“If we build it, they’ll come,” Asuma said, quoting “Field of Dreams.”
“We gotta win games and they’ll be there and I think we’re going to be able to do that this year,” he said.
