Since the pandemic, Gopher men's basketball fans have grown accustomed to few high-major opponents on the team's nonconference schedule.
It's been boring.
Head coach Niko Medved has changed that for his second season at Minnesota. The U's season opener is 8 p.m. Monday against North Dakota at The Barn, followed by a Friday night home tilt against crosstown upstart St. Thomas.
After that, the Gophers head to Cincinnati of the Big XII Conference on Oct. 9 — the first of five games against non-Big Ten, power-conference opponents this season. Minnesota averaged only 1.8 of these high-major games over the past five years, and they haven't played this many since six dotted former head coach Richard Pitino's schedule in 2019-20.
"I think we built a schedule that — if we do what we're supposed to do, and we compete in the Big Ten — we put ourselves in a really good spot to get into the NCAA tournament," GophersAD Mark Coyle told the Pioneer Press last week.
In an injury-marred season in 2024-25, the Gophers went 15-18 overall and 8-12 in Big Ten play. They finished 11th in the conference, but are picked to finish 13th this year, according to the annual Columbus Dispatch poll.
Medved described this year's schedule as an attempt to not leave any regrets.
"You never want to look back and say you didn't give your team a chance to do it," Medved said at Big Ten Media Days in October. "We're doing that with the schedule that we put together … Your nonconference strength of schedule and the success that you have plays a massive part if you're on the cut line of getting in" to the NCAA Tournament.
The Gophers haven't made March Madness since 2019 and forward Jaylen Crocker-Johnson and Kyan Evans believe this year's team is the most talented they've been a part of — and Medved coached Crocker-Johnson, Evans and the rest of Colorado State to the second round of the 2024 tourney.
That team was a bank shot away from making the Sweet 16.
This season, the NCAA Tournament is expanding from 68 to 76 teams, creating more opportunities for programs to punch their ticket.
The Gophers will play in only one road game (Cincinnati) among these five nonconference games. Four others sites are neutral — Oklahoma State and Utah at the Charleston, S.C., Classic on Nov. 20 and 22; California at the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls, S.D., on Nov. 28; and Southern Methodist at the Comerica Center in Frisco, Texas, on Dec. 12.
That means no high-quality, non-Big Ten competition at The Barn this season.
"We want to give our fans quality (Power Four conference) games at home," Coyle said. "That's a big part of scheduling. So, there's no doubt we'll have those in the future."
Cincinnati will come to Minneapolis during the 2027-28 season.
Medved said efforts were made to play bigger nonconference games at home but. obviously, other teams also need to agree.
"Some of that was just circumstances," Medved said. "Last year, for example, we were close to starting a series that would have played at home this year, but then we had that Missouri game we had to return" in Columbia last season.
Medved wants to book home-and-home series but said those have become "tricky" to schedule because of the way the NET rankings use them to determine the NCAA Tournament field in March.
"A lot of these teams want to play these one-off neutral games," Medved said. "… The rosters change, circumstances change year-to-year. The way the metrics are on a neutral court, it maybe becomes more advantageous to both schools as far as the risk-reward from playing the game."
The Gophers men's basketball program's high-major nonconference opponents over the past seven* years:
2026-27 — 5 (Cincinnati, Oklahoma State, Utah, California, SMU)
2025-26 — 2 (Missouri, Stanford)
2024-25 — 1 (Wake Forest)
2023-24 — 1 (Missouri)
2022-23 — 3 (DePaul, Virginia Tech, Mississippi State)
2021-22 — 2 (Pittsburgh, Mississippi State)
2019-20 — 6 (Oklahoma, Butler, Utah, DePaul, Clemson, Oklahoma State)
* — List does not include the abridged 2020-21 pandemic season.
