The annual Big Ten men’s basketball media poll — a vote featuring 33 reporters and led by The Columbus Dispatch and The Indianapolis Star — has been unveiled and it’s bad news for the Minnesota Golden Gophers as they sit dead last in the 18-team conference vote.
NEWS: The Big Ten Preseason Media Poll has been released:
Purdue
Indiana
UCLA
Illinois
Michigan State
Oregon
Rutgers
Ohio State
Michigan
Maryland
Iowa
Wisconsin
Nebraska
USC
Washington
Northwestern
Penn State
**Minnesota pic.twitter.com/LhUdiJwnG4— Tony Liebert (@TonyLiebert) October 2, 2024
Heading into Year 4 of the Ben Johnson era at Minnesota, the Gophers and Penn State are viewed as the two worst teams in the Big Ten, with both receiving nearly 100 fewer points in the poll than the 16th-place Penn State Nittany Lions.
Johnson and his staff had a chaotic offseason, losing Pharrel Payne and Elijah Hawkins to the transfer portal and Cam Christie to the NBA Draft. They were busy adding seven scholarship players from the transfer portal as replacements. The one sure thing this season is preseason All-Big Ten forward Dawson Garcia, who led the team in scoring last seasona and should be one of the most dominant scorers in the conference in 2024-25.
Johnson and Ohio State’s Jake Diebler are the only two coaches in the conference without an appearance in the NCAA tournament as a head coach. The new 18-team league is loaded with talent from the top to bottom, which means Minnesota’s odds of winning enough games to be considered for the tourney in March 2025 is a long shot.
With an objectively weak non-conference slate, the margin of error for Minnesota to make play deep into March isn’t looking good. They’ll have to prove everyone wrong if 2024-25 is going to be remembered as a success.
