Mara Braun vows to stay with Gophers after Lindsay Whalen's departure
Mara Braun, the freshman from Wayzata who led the Gophers women's basketball team in scoring this season, says she has no plans to leave the University of Minnesota following the unexpected departure of head coach Lindsay Whalen.
Whalen allegedly stepped down from her role as head coach last week. The news broke one day after Minnesota's season ended with a loss to Penn State in the Big Ten tournament. Athletics director Mark Coyle claims the decision was made "mutually," though Whalen has yet to address the issue publicly.
"We came here to represent the state and turn the program around and I intend to help finish what we started. Coach Whalen and I have talked and she wants this for us as well," Braun told KFAN's Justin Gaard. "To shut down any speculation I am a Gopher and look forward to continuing Coach Whalen's vision for us and the program."
Some good @GopherWBB news this morning: @marabraun10 tells me she is staying at Minnesota. Statement: "We came here to represent the state and turn the program around and I intend to help finish what we started. Coach Whalen and I have talked and she wants this for us as well...
— Justin Gaard (@Gaardsy) March 7, 2023
Shortly after Braun made her decision, fellow 2022-23 freshman Mallory Heyer and Nia Holloway followed suit, confirming that they too would be returning to the Gophers. Amaya Battle, the fourth member of Minnesota's highly-touted 2022 recruiting class, has not yet announced any plans.
It's common in NCAA basketball for players to enter the transfer portal following a coaching change, so Braun sticking around provides an assurance to the next head coach that they'll have one of the top freshman in the Big Ten on the roster in 2023-24.
Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.