Big Ten Basketball: 2024 offseason grades for each team

Minnesota Golden Gophers - Grade: C

After winning 19 games, the Gophers had a chance to return everyone back from the team outside of backup forward, Parker Fox. They brought back star forward Dawson Garcia (17.6 ppg and 6.7 rpg), one of the stars of Big Ten Basketball. But outside of starting guard Mike Mitchell also coming back, not much else went right for the Gophers.

Several other players opted to leave, including key sophomores, Joshua Ola-Joseph, Braeden Carrington, and Pharrel Payne. Starting point guard and top Big Ten passer Elijah Hawkins transferred out to Texas Tech (after originally announcing his return), while freshman standout Cameron Christie entered the NBA Draft, though he wasn’t a first-round pick.

So how good is the new supporting cast for Minnesota? Joining Garcia in the frontcourt is center Trey Edmonds, along with Frank Mitchell, who averaged a double-double at Canisius. Five transfer guards are joining (Brennan Rigby, Femi Odukale, Caleb Williams, Tyler Cochran, Lu’Cye Patterson), none coming off elite campaigns for their respective programs. However, Patterson was a double-digit scorer at Charlotte.

Retaining Garcia alone gives Minnesota a solid grade, and there should be enough depth to keep them competitive in the conference. But they lost a ton of production that they didn’t have to and on paper, probably got worse compared to last season.