2025-26 Big Ten basketball season preview: Minnesota Golden Gophers

Minnesota coach Niko Medved.

With the start of college basketball season in early November, Inside the Hall is taking a team-by-team look at the Big Ten and a player-by-player look at IU basketball’s roster over the next two months.

Today, our team previews continue with Minnesota.

Previously: Penn State, Rutgers

It’s a new era for Minnesota basketball.

Ben Johnson was dismissed after compiling a 56-71 record over four seasons in Minneapolis and athletic director Mark Coyle recruited Niko Medved from Colorado State to lead the program.

The 52-year-old Medved, a native of Minneapolis, made the NCAA tournament in three of the last four seasons at Colorado State and had a winning percentage of .627 at the school.

The Gophers return only two scholarship players from last season’s 15-17 team and only one, Isaac Asuma, saw the floor.

The 6-foot-3 Asuma showed promise in his debut season last winter. A native of Cherry, Minnesota, Asuma scored in double figures six times and averaged 5.6 points, 2.9 rebounds and 2.1 assists in 24.7 minutes per game. He shot 35.7 percent on 3s.

Asuma will battle Western Michigan transfer Chansey Willis Jr. for the starting point guard role. Willis Jr., a junior, was a second-team All-MAC selection last season. In 32 minutes per game, Willis Jr. averaged 16.8 points, 5.8 assists, 4.3 rebounds and 1.7 steals and had the second-highest usage rate in the MAC. Like most smaller guards who transfer up and don’t have reliable 3-point shots, Willis Jr. will have to prove his game can translate to the Big Ten.

Look for Northern Colorado transfer Langston Reynolds and Davidson transfer Bobby Durkin to have significant roles in the Gopher rotation.

Reynolds, a 6-foot-4 senior, averaged 16 points, 5.6 rebounds and 3.4 assists while shooting 40.9 percent on 3s last season and earned first team All-Big Sky honors for the Bears.

Durkin, a 6-foot-7 junior wing, is another capable 3-point shooter. The Darien, Illinois, native averaged 13.5 points, 5.9 rebounds and 2.4 assists last season for the Wildcats and connected at a 35.5-percent clip from distance.

Cade Tyson, who began his career at Belmont before a rough season last winter at North Carolina, will look to get his career back on track under Medved. The 6-foot-7 senior from Monroe, North Carolina, averaged 15 points over 61 games at Belmont before a disastrous season last season for the Tar Heels. Tyson averaged 2.6 points and shot a dismal 29.2 percent on 3s at North Carolina and should be eager to prove he can produce at the high-major level.

Maryland transfer Chance Stephens, a redshirt junior, and freshman Kai Shinholster will provide guard and wing depth for Medved’s first season.

An undersized Minnesota frontcourt is likely to be anchored by Colorado State transfer Jaylen Crocker-Johnson and San Jose State transfer Robert Vaihola, a redshirt senior.

Crocker-Johnson, now at his third school in three seasons, made the move from Colorado State to Minnesota with Medved. He played in all 36 games last season and made 29 starts and was third on the team in scoring at nine points per game. At 6-foot-8 and 240 pounds, he’ll be a player Medved relies on heavily up front.

Vaihola, who is 6-foot-8 and 265 pounds, is undersized for the five but was an excellent rebounder for the Spartans. He ranked first in the Mountain West Conference last season in offensive rebounding percentage and 10th in defensive rebounding percentage. He was also third in the league in block percentage, so he’s capable of altering shots.

The frontcourt depth will be filled out by 6-foot-8 Cal transfer B.J. Omot, a redshirt junior, and Central Arkansas transfer Nehemiah Turner, a 6-foot-10 sophomore.

Omot is returning home to Minnesota after appearing in only four games last season for the Bears due to a wrist injury. In two seasons at North Dakota from 2022 to 2024, Omot was one of the best frontcourt players in the Summit League. In the 2023-24 season, he earned first-team All-Summit League honors while averaging 16.7 points and 4.2 rebounds per game.

Turner averaged 8.5 points and 4.2 rebounds in 18.1 minutes per game last season for the Bears, one of the worst Division I teams last season.

Grayson Grove, a 6-foot-9 redshirt freshman who was on last season’s roster, could also be in the mix for minutes at the four or five. A 3-star recruit in the 2024 class, Grove can stretch the floor and could provide a different look as one of the more mobile bigs on the roster.

Minnesota sits at No. 84 nationally in Bart Torvik’s preseason projections and is above only Rutgers and Penn State in terms of Big Ten teams. However, the Gophers should be fun to watch with their high 3-point volume under Medved’s modern offensive system.

Bottom line: It won’t be a surprise if Minnesota outperforms preseason expectations under Medved in year one. He was highly successful at Colorado State and pushed Maryland to the brink in last season’s NCAA tournament before falling 72-71 in the round of 32. The Gophers have assembled a strong contingent of shooters and Reynolds and Durkin should both be reliable scorers. There’s still a large talent gap between Minnesota and the league’s elite teams, which likely limits the program’s ability to compete for an NCAA tournament bid in year one.

Quotable: “This is a great group of guys. One thing I really believe in is recruiting character. We have a lot of guys that can shoot the ball, we have a lot of length on the perimeter but we are likely undersized inside. The one thing I can say, I can’t tell you who our leading scorer is going to be.” – Medved in a recent interview with Dan Barreiro of KFAN.

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