Minnesota Basketball: Projected depth chart and rotation for 2023-24 season

It’s been a rough two years for head coach Ben Johnson since taking over at his alma mater in the Twin Cities. Minnesota Basketball has gone just 22-39 overall and a lowly 6-33 inside the Big Ten since his arrival, but as he enters a pivotal third season there is hope that better days are on the horizon.

Despite the transfers of Ta’lon Cooper and Jamison Battle, two key pieces from the 2022-23 team, the Gophers came away as winners over the offseason. They landed a pair of guards, Mike Mitchell Jr. and Elijah Hawkins, who are expected to contribute right away and most importantly, kept nearly their entire young core intact. That includes a trio of sophomores, Pharrel Payne, Joshua Ola-Joseph, and Braeden Carrington, who all showed flashes during a brutal campaign last winter

Those returnees, along with the healthy returns of two players who have missed each of the last two seasons (Parker Fox and Isaiah Ihnen) suddenly mean that minutes will be hard to come by in 2023-24. It will be Johnson’s most experienced roster since he has arrived and there is enough potential to believe this upcoming season could be a turning point for the program. However, the Gophers clearly have a long way to go before being considered any type of threat in the deep Big Ten.

Instead, this season should be all about steady progress and continued growth for the young guys, which could set up the team to return to the postseason in 2024-25, for the first time since before COVID.