10 Big Ten wins is 'the standard' for Ben Johnson and Gophers basketball

The Gophers are trying to do something they've only done twice since 1997.

Ben Johnson / GopherSports YouTube /

Year four of the Ben Johnson era of Gophers men's basketball is only 19 days away from tipping off with an exhibition game against Bemidji State. With one of the oldest rosters in the country, Johnson is focused on building off of last year's 19-win squad.

Highlighted by a trio of fifth-year guards — Lu'Cye Patterson, Tyler Cochran and Femi Odukale — Johnson and his staff were busy adding veteran talent from the transfer portal this offseason. The newcomers join an experienced returning core of Dawson Garcia, Mike Mitchell Jr., and Parker Fox.

"One thing that benefited us from going in the portal with older guys is that they've played college basketball, so we're not doing nearly as much teaching as we were last year, I mean not even close," Johnson said. "That's why we're able to be ahead on both sides of the ball so much more right now."

Johnson had the best season of his head coaching career last season, compiling a 19-15 record, highlighted by a first-round win in the NIT against Butler. A lot of the players from last year's team are now elsewhere, but it will be important to build off the momentum they found last season. Minnesota will have nine new players on its roster.

"The work of becoming a winner was established. I don't want these guys to come in here and not feel like they did win nine league games, to win 19 games, to get postseason in the NIT, and to win a game on the road," Johnson said. "There's a lot of winning that went into that and so the returners need to view themselves like that, and this is not a rebuild from that standpoint."

A non-conference schedule that lacks a marquee home game will make it much more important for the Gophers to find success in conference play this season. Johnson realizes that, and he's looking to do something the program has done only twice since 1996-97 (and not since 2016-17), which is win 10 or more conference games. With the Big Ten moving to 20 conference games in 2018-19, that just requires going .500 in league play.

"They got to carry themselves in everything they do as if we're building off last year, even though we're a new team because that's exactly what we're doing," Johnson said. "The standard is to build off 19 wins and two build off nine league wins. We talked about even here, I think we've won 10 league games since the 90s, I think maybe three times... and we were one win away from doing that in year three last year. We've talked about, we're going to emphasize more just the number 10 because that is the standard."

The Gophers officially began practice for the 2024-25 season last week, with everything going into full swing today. After two exhibition games against local Division III programs, the regular season will begin on Nov. 6 against Oral Roberts.