5 things the Gophers need to do in order to return to the NCAA Tournament

Gophers men's basketball is entering a new era with Niko Medved entering his first season as the program's head coach in 2025-26. Minnesota hasn't played in the NCAA Tournament since 2018-19, so what needs to happen in order for them to go dancing?

1. Two-year window

This is probably the last thing Gophers fans want to hear, but it's clear that the current iteration of this team has a two-year window to get back into the mix in the Big Ten. Cade Tyson, Langston Reynolds and Robert Vaihola are the only significant players with no eligibility beyond to 2025-26.

If everything goes to plan, which is naive to predict in modern college basketball, Minnesota could return players such as Chansey Willis Jr., Isaac Asuma, Bobby Durkin, Jaylen Crocker-Johnson and Nehemiah Turner in 2026-27. The staff will be able to truly see what they have with all these new pieces and fill things in around them.

2. The Isaac Asuma leap

Minnesota's ceiling in 2025-26 will strongly lean on how big of a leap Asuma takes. He flashed serious potential as a true freshman with six games scoring 10 or more points. His decision-making looked like that of a veteran starter, and he was an efficient shooter from the field.

If he overtakes the Gophers' backcourt as a sophomore and beats out Willis Jr. and Reynolds for the lead guard role, it likely means he made serious improvements in the offseason. Asuma arguably has the highest ceiling of any player on the roster, and great guard play is what wins games in March.

3. Big man dilemma

The Big Ten has become a big man's league. Between Zach Edey's back-to-back National Player of the Year campaigns and Michigan rolling out Danny Wolf and Vladislav Goldin, every team in the conference seems to have a dominant seven-footer.

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One of the biggest questions Minnesota currently faces is that it doesn't have a natural five. Crocker-Johnson and Vaihola will likely work as the team's main frontcourt contributors in the short term, but can Turner develop into the dynamic center they need to keep up with the conference? Or will the Gophers' serious lack of size catch up to them in the middle of conference play?

4. Which Cade Tyson will we see?

Minnesota's last significant addition from the transfer portal was a big one when Tyson joined the program on June 1. After two great seasons with Belmont, he took a serious step back with North Carolina last season, averaging only 2.6 points in 7.9 minutes per game.

At 6-foot-7, Tyson was one of the best players in mid-major basketball in 2023-24, averaging 16.2 points, 5.9 rebounds and 1.6 assists per game on 49.3/46.5/85.5 shooting splits. Minnesota might not need him to perform at that level, but they will need to see something much closer to Belmont Tyson than North Carolina Tyson, if they want to outperform expectations this season.

5. Who will lead the team in scoring?

Minnesota's biggest weakness might be that they don't have a clear No. 1 scoring option. Durkin, Willis Jr., Reynolds, Asuma and even Tyson could probably lead this team in scoring on any given night, but who will lead the team for the season? Almost every great team at any level of basketball has an alpha, and the Gophers will need to find theirs.