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Minnesota Basketball: Drake transfer Liam Robbins gains waiver, set for 2020-21

By Carter Landis

MADISON, WISCONSIN - MARCH 01: Head coach Richard Pitino of the Minnesota Golden Gophers looks on in the second half against the Wisconsin Badgers at the Kohl Center on March 01, 2020 in Madison, Wisconsin. (Photo by Dylan Buell/Getty Images)
MADISON, WISCONSIN - MARCH 01: Head coach Richard Pitino of the Minnesota Golden Gophers looks on in the second half against the Wisconsin Badgers at the Kohl Center on March 01, 2020 in Madison, Wisconsin. (Photo by Dylan Buell/Getty Images) /
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Minnesota Basketball will officially have transfer center Liam Robbins for the upcoming season. How big is this for the Gophers?

Earlier in April, as the transfer portal has become an ambiguous form of an unpaid NCAA free agency, Richard Pitino double-dipped into the bag of big men transfers. One of those transfers, Liam Robbins, a 7-footer from Drake, recently received a waiver from the NCAA and will be eligible to play for the Gophers in 2020-2021. Brandon Johnson, a forward from Western Michigan, also committed to Minnesota Basketball in April.

Robbins, a junior from Davenport, Iowa, averaged a team-leading 14.1 points and 7.1 rebounds per game, starting 34 games last season as a sophomore for the Bulldogs, who finished 8th in the Missouri Valley Conference. Robbins also led the team with 2.9 blocked shots a game. He is a traditional center who sets good screens and scores well down low by posting up and being physically dominant.

Robbins announced he was transferring from Drake on Twitter on April 4th, then tweeted his commitment to Minnesota the next day on April 5th. He adds a solid big man to the Gophers rotation, which has been thinned out due to All-Big Ten center Daniel Oturu declaring for the 2020 NBA Draft. He has a good chance of starting at the center position for Richard Pitino.

Minnesota will need all the help they can get in the frontcourt, as the Big Ten is full of talented big men on almost every team, notably Illinois’ Kofi Cockburn and Iowa’s Luka Garza, who both withdrew their names from the draft to return to school, not to mention Wisconsin’s Nate Reuvers and Indiana’s Trayce Jackson-Davis as well.

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Robbins’ eligibility waiver has to have Pitino feeling relieved he’ll have an experienced and physical center to be able to push around the talented players he’ll have to face night in and night out. The Gophers would like to re-establish themselves as contenders in the Big Ten, and adding Liam Robbins to the team should help them be considered sleepers.

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