I’ve been blogging about the Gophers for more than 15 years. Back in the long-long-ago when I was just an intern at a PR agency looking for a creative outlet to share my thoughts, Tubby Smith was announced as Minnesota’s next head coach. It was an exciting time. After years of futility, there was once again opportunity for a program that had been to a Final Four just a few years before that. Finally, we might again land big-time recruits, a competent coaching staff could unlock talent and make the Gophers a perennial NCAA Tournament participant and contender. We had a chance.
Blogging was a natural intersection of the burgeoning social media landscape at the time and one of my true loves – college basketball. I filled out my first March Madness bracket in 1995 and watched with great fanfare as Weber State made a Sweet Sixteen run and Tyus Edney lit up the highlight reel. I was hooked and had been hooked ever since.
Until March 28, 2024. The day that Pharrel Payne entered the transfer portal. A minor administrative step in the whole swing of things, but one that signaled the sport I had poured years of energy, effort and passion into had finally jumped the shark. I realized I barely recognized it. NIL, a wide-open transfer portal, the Wild West landscape we find ourselves in. All of it. The passion I had for so many years was a leaking reservoir. And I found myself saying, “I can’t do this anymore.”
Not to knock Payne. I am huge proponent of “get paid while you can, kid.” Players should be profiting off their own likeness and should go where pastures are greenest. That’s not the point of my essay.
What the Payne transfer laid bare to me is the Gophers have no chance to compete in the current college basketball landscape. And if the team you cheer for has no chance, then what the hell is point of being a fan?
We have no chance because, if we’re being completely honest with ourselves, the University of Minnesota doesn’t have the boosters, history, program cache, coach, system … anything to sell to players in the current mutation of the sport. They gotta make do with transfers and good old bootstrapping. Crucially, without a huge NIL war chest, the only hope is to land local 3-star recruits and hope they develop into talented, productive college players. That was Coach Ben Johnson’s hope, anyways. It’s not the worst idea, but it hinges on a central tenet – the guys you bring in have to stick around.
With Payne, you had exactly that type of player. A local kid that, while raw, had the skills and physical attributes to develop into an all-conference athlete. He played well in his freshman season, and you could realistically project him as a talented forward. His sophomore season was even better, and it felt like we were on the right track. Finally cooking with gas, as it were. The team missed an NCAA Tournament berth, but with a developing core of local talent, the pieces were definitely in place.
Until they weren’t. Texas A&M came in, threw a bag at Payne, he left (as anyone would) and that was that. Years of cultivating this local talent; down the drain with no recourse. Braeden Carrington, Joshua Ola-Joseph and Elijah Hawkins followed suit, and Cam Christie went pro (but almost certainly would have transferred). The strategy was demolished, and the Gophers had to start over once again.
It’s not unlike operating a lemonade stand, except it’s not a free market. The competing stands down the block start with $500 to build their stands and set up infrastructure. They can even buy high-quality lemons to make the product with. The Gophers, on the other hand, start with $25, have to grow their own lemons, and then the wealthy, successful stand owners can come and take your most high-quality lemons whenever they want.
Is this supposed to be fun? For the third time in four years, Ben Johnson is creating a roster nearly from scratch, and fans have the arduous task of figuring out who the new guys are on the roster. That’s entertaining in small doses – like when you bring on a grad transfer for the final piece of the puzzle – but exhausting when it’s multiple players every year. And in the back of your mind, you’re left thinking if these players you are spending energy getting to know are even going to be around in five months.
There are simple solutions, sure. “Play better,” “get better at recruiting,” “develop a system that players want to be a part of,” or “get more NIL money.” I’m old enough to remember when Ben Johnson lured a legitimate 5-star recruit to Minnesota, who signed a letter of intent, only to be offered a bag by Louisville before evaporating into thin air. What the hell are we even doing here?
Obviously, more NIL money would solve a lot of issues. Dinkytown Athletes is doing a great job for the U, considering the circumstances, and the fact that we hung on to Dawson Garcia in the face of these headwinds was a major win that shouldn’t extinguish all hope. But that whole dance just undercuts the basis of why I fell in love with college basketball in the first place. There used to be an art to it. Success was attainable if you had the right coach and right recruiting strategy, not just the most money. Programs like Minnesota had a chance. That chance, I’m finding, no longer exists unless you’re lucky enough to gather the right combination of transfers who can win.
Tony Bennett, former head coach of Virginia – ONE OF THE BEST PROGRAMS IN THE NATION – suddenly retired this year because, “he wasn’t suited to navigate the current landscape of college basketball.” Here you have a championship-winning coach, still in his prime, realizing that he doesn’t have the chops to compete in today’s environment. Real cool sport we’ve got here, guys.
Unfortunately, as Bennett’s retirement indicates, I don’t think this is something you can simply coach your way out of. It’s a structural issue that can only be solved with some real changes in the sport.
Am I abandoning college basketball? Honestly, I considered it, but it’s not something I can just leave behind, and I love cheering for the University of Minnesota. Plus, I still love it as a creative outlet and what else are you supposed to watch during the winter? However, my enthusiasm is muted, and with the current roadblocks in place for the foreseeable future, it’s impossible to get excited about what “could be.”
Until real change happens, the rich will get richer and entrench themselves as immutable, successful programs, while everyone else will just recycle each other’s players hoping to catch lightning in a bottle. I hope it happens soon.
