Minnesota Basketball: 2021-22 season preview for Golden Gophers

Schedule outlook

Minnesota plays in the Big Ten, so its schedule is going to be difficult no matter what. But there’s a lot of fluff in the non-conference portion of the schedule, which should help pad the program’s win total.

The Golden Gophers open their season against Concordia-St. Paul and Kansas City before participating in the Asheville Championship. The tournament opens the game with a sneaky challenge against Western Kentucky before Minnesota faces either Princeton or South Carolina.

Outside of the potential match-up with the Gamecocks, Minnesota only has two high majors on its non-conference schedule. The games come back-to-back: a road trip at Pittsburgh on November 30 for the Big Ten/ACC Challenge and a road tilt at Mississippi State on December 5. Neither are marquee games.

Other non-conference games include Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Green Bay, and Alcorn State, all at home. It won’t be much of a resume in the eyes of the selection committee, to the season get to that point.

In the middle of non-conference play, Minnesota has a back-to-back against Michigan State and at Michigan. When conference play kicks back up in January, their first three games are against Illinois, at Indiana, and at Michigan State, a challenging stretch, arguably their toughest of the season.

A key stretch for the team to take advantage comes starting on February 9. Minnesota gets Nebraska on the road, Penn State at home, Ohio State on the road, then Northwestern back at home. Going 3-1 in that stretch would help pad the team’s Big Ten record.