Niko Medved's Gophers are clearly struggling — is it time to worry?

The last five halves of basketball have not looked pretty for Minnesota.

Nov 18, 2025; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; Minnesota Golden Gophers head coach Niko Medved reacts during the second half against the Chicago State Cougars at Williams Arena. Mandatory Credit: Matt Krohn-Imagn Images | Matt Krohn-Imagn Images

After a pair of blowout wins to open the season, the Gophers trailed Missouri by only two points on the road at halftime last week. They proceeded to get outscored by 21 points in the second half, and they've now struggled against bottom-of-the-barrel UW-Green Bay and Chicago State at home. Is it time to be concerned about this Gophers team?

Out of 365 schools, Green Bay and Chicago State have the 325th and 352nd-rated defense in Division I college basketball, respectively, according to KenPom.com. The Gophers combined to shoot 42 of 107 (39.2%) from the field against them.

"Clearly, we're struggling a little bit on offense. We knew, watching the film on these guys, this team played really, really hard. Kinda the style they play, a little bit chaotic, but they really paint collapse, so they force you to drive. I thought for a lot of the game, we did a great job moving the ball and finding open guys. Tonight, we really struggled to make shots; it got frustrating," Gophers head coach Niko Medved said after the Chicago State game.

Subscribe: Sign up to receive the free Gophers On SI newsletter

Minnesota had a much better start on Tuesday night, as it jumped out to a 22-8 lead. When the shots stopped falling, Chicago State fought all the way back and even took a 47-45 lead with 7:51 to go in the game.

"When things aren't going your way, we've gotta find a way to bring a little more juice, and energy, and pick guys up. And that's something that you've gotta go through as a team when you've got so many new guys, and learning what to do, and what you trust to get through it."

Jaylen Crocker-Johnson is the only player on Minnesota's roster whom Medved previously coached, and they returned only two players from last year's team. After winning their first two games by an average of 36.0 points, it's clear that the new-look Gophers have some issues they need to work through.

"I am going to take wide-open threes for Isaac [Asuma], Bobby Durkin, Cade Tyson, and even [Jaylen Crocker-Johnson]. He's a guy who shot 41% in Mountain West play last year... But we'll figure it out. We're going through that right now. I told the guys, 'Sometimes you look back on these seasons, and you look back in March at the end of the year, and you realize, you learned a lot about yourself in these games.'"

Things will only get harder for Minnesota, which has the opportunity to play a quality San Francisco program on Saturday afternoon at the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The Dons are currently the 81st-rated team in the country, according to KenPom.com. They will then travel to Palm Springs, California, for the Acrisure Invitational with Stanford, Santa Clara and St. Louis, before their first two Big Ten games of the season against Indiana and Purdue.

We should know very quickly if their struggles against the Phoenix and Cougars were just a bump in the road or who they really are.