NCAA Basketball: Most exciting under the radar seasons of 2019-20

Minnesota, who swept Ohio State

Coming into 2019-20 coach Richard Pitino did not have very much in the respect of expectations placed upon him and Minnesota Basketball. Over his previous six seasons coaching in Williams Arena, Pitino has led the Maroon and Gold to the NCAA tournament just twice, while ending the Big Ten season with a winning record once. When their 8-12 Big Ten season ended, the only surprise was how it ended for every team in the NCAA.

The “Barnyard” never saw the home team nationally ranked, but there was no loss of excitement playing in the Big Ten this year. In mid-November the Golden Gophers traveled to Butler and lost by eight, three days later they lost by five to DePaul. In conference play, they opened up with a 20 point loss to Iowa, before bouncing back with a 13 point win at home versus Ohio State Basketball. All this before losing a double-overtime game by five at Purdue which saw Sasha Stefanovic hit a three with 13 seconds left in regulation for Purdue, then Minnesota lose the lead with six seconds in the first overtime.

There is no denying Minnesota had some bad losses in 2019-20, but they had some thrilling losses as well.  From late February into early March, they suffered losses to Maryland by one, Wisconsin by two and Indiana by five.

With Daniel Oturu on your roster leading the conference in blocks and rebounds while finishing second in scoring (20 ppg), as well as having Marcus Carr who averaged 6.6 assists per game for second in the conference, the Golden Gophers were exciting. It is only when you consider the seven games decided by five or less, six being in conference play and the seven additional games decided by less than ten, that you realize you wish you were paying more attention all season.