All Gophers

The Gophers may have found a steal in UNC transfer Cade Tyson

Tyson had a disappointing season with the Tar Heels, but Minnesota could be the perfect place for him to return to his Belmont form.
Will Ragatz|
Cade Tyson scored a game-high 28 points in the Gophers' exhibition win over North Dakota State.
Cade Tyson scored a game-high 28 points in the Gophers' exhibition win over North Dakota State. | Brad Rempel, Gophers Athletics

In this story:

Minnesota Golden Gophers

The biggest takeaway from the Gophers' blowout exhibition win over North Dakota State on Thursday night is that Niko Medved and company might have found a steal in UNC transfer Cade Tyson.

Tyson led Minnesota with 28 points in 24 minutes in his first unofficial game at The Barn, hitting six of his nine three-point attempts and nine of 13 shots overall. No one else scored more than 11 for the Gophers. It's just one exhibition game against a low-level D1 opponent, so we shouldn't put too much stock into anything that happened, but this was quite the first impression from one of Medved's new wings.

Two offseasons ago, Tyson was one of the more coveted players in the transfer portal. The North Carolina native had spent his first two seasons playing for Belmont in the Missouri Valley Conference, where he emerged as an elite-level shooter at 6-foot-7. Tyson averaged 15 points per game in his two years at Belmont, hitting 44.6 percent of his threes on nearly five attempts a night. As a freshman, he was the MVC rookie of the year. As a sophomore, he averaged 16 points and six rebounds while shooting over 46 percent from deep, which earned him All-MVC honors.

In the 2024 offseason, Tyson was ranked as the 34th-best transfer in college basketball by 247 Sports. He was pursued by a number of high-major teams and ended up signing with the Tar Heels to play for a blue blood in his home state. Unfortunately, his one season at UNC did not go to plan. Tyson hardly saw the floor, especially when ACC play began. He averaged 7.9 minutes and 2.6 points per game for the season. In a small sample size, he shot 29 percent from three. His confidence seemed to leave him.

So Tyson went back into the portal this past summer. This time, 247 Sports had him ranked, coincidentally, 247th. On June 1, he signed with the Gophers, who have built a roster almost entirely out of transfers in Medved's first season with the program.

And for at least one night, Tyson sure looked like the Belmont version of himself. Starting at small forward for the Gophers, he scored 12 points in the first half against NDSU. After sitting for a while in the second half due to foul trouble, he checked back into the game and almost immediately went on a personal 11-0 run. Tyson hit three threes and had a dunk off of a offensive rebound to turn the Gophers' nine-point lead into a comfortable 20-point advantage. There's a lot to like about his game as a 6'7" wing who can light it up from outside the arc and also use his size to get to the rim.

Again, the stage and the opponent should be taken into account here. As North Carolina fans will point out, Tyson's one big game in a Tar Heels uniform came last December against La Salle, when he hit five threes and scored 23 points. He has some athletic limitations and has largely feasted on lower-level teams when he's had success in his college career, so the onus will be on him to prove that he can play well against Big Ten opponents.

Still, Minnesota might be the perfect place for Tyson, now a senior, to get his confidence back and show that he's capable of playing a big role on a major-conference team. Medved and the Gophers should have plenty of guys who can step up and score, so they won't need Tyson to drop 28 all the time. But if they can get some fairly consistent three-point shooting and overall production from the former Belmont star, it'll go a long way toward improving their outlook this season.

More Gophers basketball coverage

Published | Modified
Will Ragatz
WILL RAGATZ

Will Ragatz is a senior writer for Vikings On SI, who also covers the Twins, Timberwolves, Gophers, and other Minnesota teams. He is a credentialed Minnesota Vikings beat reporter, covering the team extensively at practices, games and throughout the NFL draft and free agency period. Ragatz attended Northwestern University, where he studied at the prestigious Medill School of Journalism. During his time as a student, he covered Northwestern Wildcats football and basketball for SB Nation’s Inside NU, eventually serving as co-editor-in-chief in his junior year. In the fall of 2018, Will interned in Sports Illustrated’s newsroom in New York City, where he wrote articles on Major League Baseball, college football, and college basketball for SI.com.

Share on XFollow WillRagatz
Home/Gophers Basketball