2024-25 Team Preview: Minnesota
Can a healthy Gophers squad get into the Big Dance?
A quick shoutout to Hoopla alum Celeste Taylor.
Taylor spent last season at Ohio State after an impressive run at Duke and was immediately the best defensive guard in the conference. She is the type of defensive talent any WNBA should want on the roster, and after bouncing around a few destinations, the Phoenix Mercury signed her to a rest-of-season contract.
The Mercury have used Taylor plenty in recent games, giving her at least 20 minutes in each of the last four contests. The offensive game continues to improve, but it’s nice to see Taylor get rewarded for what she can bring already. Now, she’ll get an opportunity to make an impact on a playoff roster.
Last Week’s Preview:
Overview
It was a topsy turvy first year for head coach Dawn Plitzuweit, but the positive signs for this Minnesota program became clear very quickly.
This program was on a three-season streak of losing campaigns despite some significant talent showing up on campus, so all I was hoping for from Plitzuweit was signs of potential growth down the line.
Under the new head coach, Minnesota came out the gates flying.
The Gophers started the year 11-1 with the one loss being to UConn. Even after some tough defeats to Indiana, Iowa and Maryland, Minnesota found wins against three future NCAA Tournament teams — Michigan, Michigan State and Nebraska — to sit at an unbelievable 14-4 on Jan. 20.
In the end, Minnesota hit 20 wins for the first time since 2018-19, an important milestone to show true, legitimate progress forward. However, the Gophers did so despite a six-week stretch right after that Jan. 20 win over the Spartans that saw Minnesota win just one of its next 11 games.
Key injuries certainly played a part in this collapse (we will get to those), and Minnesota was not likely to keep a pace that started thanks to an easy non-conference slate, but the Gophers also started Big Ten play proving they could absolutely beat solid competition at full strength.
Despite this 11-game lapse that ultimately cost Minnesota a shot in the Big Dance, the Gophers did get postseason play in the form of the WNIT, where they went all the way to the finals before losing to Saint Louis. To rebound from such a tough stretch was a great sign of the mentality the team should have moving forward.
Plitzuweit found success slowing things down — Minnesota went from the eighth-fastest pace nationally in 22-23 to 157th. This did not rapidly improve shooting percentages, but it limited the team’s mistakes in a big way:
Turnovers Per Game: 17.7 → 13.5 in 23-24
Fouls Per Game: 17.8 → 14.2
Assist-to-Turnover Ratio: 0.86 → 1.05
Those improvements, along with a defense that went from extremely bad to somewhat decent, made Minnesota a threat for large stretches of last year.
Here's last year’s Minnesota roster, sorted by Her Hoop Stats win shares:
Departures
Five players from last year’s Minnesota team are gone, but none of the top seven in win shares. That is a huge deal for a coach trying to establish a team identity in her second season.
Of the exits, Janay Sanders provided a nice scoring boost that will be missed, but the larger loss to me is the potential that is leaving through the portal. All three transfers out were true freshmen last season before the Gophers could really see what they have. The roster situation likely led to this, but it still could be a long-term regret if someone like McKynnlie Dalan shows up for a perennial tournament team like Gonzaga.
Returning Players
Did I mention Minnesota’s TOP SEVEN contributors from last season are back?
The Gophers are running it back with a lineup that once felt young and now feels experienced and poised to surprise a lot of people. I think there’s a whole lot of talent to be excited about in this group, but it all starts with Mara Braun.
Braun’s sophomore season started out on fire. Her shooting, rebounding and playmaking all made leaps of varying sizes, she dramatically cut down her turnovers and her defense made great strides. Braun’s offensive rating improved by 14.4 points and her defensive rating improved by 11.9 points from year one to two. It was the exact type of stuff I was hoping to see from her second season.
At her best, and if she continues to get better, Mara Braun is simply put one of the best players in the Big Ten, if not the country. She was able to return for some of Minnesota’s WNIT run and will hopefully be right back at full go to start her junior year. Her shooting efficiency can still get better (38.4% overall, 31.7% in 9 B1G games last season) and if it does, it’s really the last thing holding her back from launching into the stratosphere.
If there’s any silver lining to last year’s Braun injury, it’s that we got to see more of what Amaya Battle and Grace Grocholski can bring to the table. Battle showed more initiative in her sophomore season, increasing her scoring and assist numbers with only a slight dip to her efficiency. I think she works best as a pass-first guard that can drive and force contact, but that also should work excellently next to Minnesota’s other scoring talent.
Grocholski’s freshman campaign told me one thing: She can shoot, and she’s not afraid to absolutely let it loose from three. Grocholski’s 227 three attempts were 23rd among all D-I players, and she hit them at a solid 34.8% rate. This backcourt looked great when all three pieces were out there, and I’m simply hoping for more of that in 24-25.
The Sophie Hart addition proved to be a big one for the Gophers. Hart came from less than six minutes per game across two seasons at NC State to 30 starts in 30 games for Minnesota, and her numbers were rock solid across the board in the larger role.
Rounding out the returning starting five is Mallory Heyer, who I think could be a quiet X-factor for this unit. Heyer is a tremendous rebounder who also took on a larger perimeter presence last season. She should continue to be an excellent supporting option for a big scoring boost, and could be much more than that if she can get back the interior scoring success she had as a freshman.
Maggie Czinano is the longest-tenured Gopher and should continue to get action as a solid bench scorer with reliable facilitating. She is joined by Niamya Holloway, who enters her sophomore year after proving herself as a potential defensive menace. Her 4.0 steals per 40 minutes and 5.0% steal rate were among the best in all of college basketball. I’m very curious to see how she is utilized this season within the rotation.
Incoming Players
Of the six new faces the Gophers are bringing in, the two forwards with Big Ten experience catch my attention.
Annika Stewart has long played a solid bench role for the Cornhuskers, and her ability to stretch out to the three-point line should be of use for this Minnesota roster. On the other end, Taylor Woodson saw limited action as a freshman for the Wolverines, but is a former Top 60 recruit from Minnetonka. I feel like she could be in for a big leap.
Alexsia Rose was a high-volume scoring option at UMass, and Jordan Brooks had a very successful run prior to CSU Bakersfield at Victory Valley, but both appear to be veteran depth options for a roster that returns so much already. That also makes it interesting for the two incoming freshman and how much we will see them with a pretty solid established rotation.
That being said, Minnesota has not been afraid to play freshman in recent seasons, and McKenna Johnson could flash enough in the preseason to get a big role. She was a high-level scorer coming in and enrolled with the team in the middle of last season. That extra leg up on development tells me she’s like be a big part of this year’s team.
Outlook
Projected Starters
Amaya Battle - G
Mara Braun - G
Grace Grocholski - G/F
Mallory Heyer - F
Sophie Hart - C
Projected Big Ten Finish: 10th
Minnesota is likely to run it back with the same starting lineup as last season, and rightfully so. This unit was 14-6 before Braun’s absence and was playing the best basketball I have seen this program play since I started writing this newsletter.
I feel legitimately not good having the Gophers down in 10th. This is a NCAA Tournament-caliber team without question in my eyes, but that’s just what the Big Ten looks like headed into 24-25.
For Minnesota to get into that tournament, or to get into the top half of the conference, they really just need each of these core pieces to play a little bit better and improve a touch more and that’ll be more than enough. If multiple pieces of this Uber-talented backcourt can get their efficiency north of 40, if Stewart and Woodson provide reliable bench minutes at forward, if McKenna Johnson is an instant difference-maker, Minnesota has the ceiling to do some big things.
None of these ifs feel like large ones, either. Minnesota really should get that with this roster in a second year under a head coach that has already proven capable of shifting this program in the right direction. I want the Gophers to look more like the final vision that Plitzuweit was hoping to achieve, something that should feel lofty in year two, but now feels realistic with such a massive piece of the core coming back.
This Gophers team was a true delight to start last year, and I simply want to see a full season of that. Mara Braun is one of the most exciting players this conference has, and the whole roster is stuffed with exciting potential talent to build on. This is a good team that can push to greatness with a few things landing right. There is no major hurdle for Minnesota to clear here past continued simple development. To be able to say that is extremely exciting after so many recent seasons filled with frustration.
Photo Credit: Minnesota Athletics
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