Niko Medved, the new Golden Gophers men’s basketball coach, will put his team on the floor for home exhibition games this Thursday and October 25 against North Dakota State and North Dakota respectively. Back in June Medved quietly offered to have his exhibition schedule include a first ever matchup with St. Thomas at that team’s new home arena.
The Tommies (after leaving Division III) have competed at the Division I level since the fall of 2021 and some basketball fans are intrigued by the idea of the state’s two Division I teams playing each other. Asked by Sports Headliners on Saturday if he would make a future offer on a game with the Tommies, Medved said: “I don’t know. We’ll see. I mean hopefully at some point we will be able to do that.”
This is the first season Division I teams can play each other in exhibition games open to the public. Medved thought it would be “cool” to play the Tommies at their new Lee and Penny Anderson Arena.
The timing wasn’t right for the Tommies, though, who may have been surprised by the proposal. St. Thomas didn’t want the first ever game in the multi-use arena to be an exhibition and had agreed for more than a year to play Army on November 8. The UST women’s team will also play against the Cadets in a historic doubleheader.
Not so subtly, talk of matching up the Minneapolis-based Gophers and St. Paul-based Tommies has gone on for years. Sports Headliners is told Richard Pitino, the Gopher coach from 2013-2021, said he would play the D-III Tommies. Ben Johson, Pitino’s successor and head coach until last March, said no to the potential rivalry game.
At Medved’s introductory news conference in March he was asked about the Tommies. The two schools haven’t played each other in men’s basketball since 1934. He expressed interest in a game then and also noted his friendship with St. Thomas head coach John Tauer.
“I really like John,” Medved said Saturday. “He’s a great guy, a great coach. So, we have a lot of respect for him and what they do.”
From a St. Thomas perspective, where might things be headed for a future meeting between the two schools whose campuses are just a long walk away from each other?
“We’ve said for four years, and we continue to say, we’d love to play the Gophers either in a …game at their place or start a home and home series,” Tauer told Sports Headliners this summer. ”We’d love to play them in a regular season game and our (future) schedule) is wide open.”
Tauer isn’t interested in playing Minnesota in a future exhibition game. Medved isn’t interested at this time in a series of games.
Medved didn’t go into a lot of details, but he said there are many factors impacting Big Ten teams like his that go into the scheduling process. (These can include timing on the calendar, prior commitments with other teams, logistics, and finances.) It’s also no secret that who you play in non-conference games, and whether you win, can make or break an invite to the NCAA Tournament and March Madness. Medved acknowledged you schedule to make the tournament.
The Tommies, who won a Division III title under Tauer in 2016, are the preseason favorite in the Summit League poll to win the conference championship. Last winter the Tommies came within one victory of winning the league’s postseason title. This is the first season the Tommies will be eligible for the NCAA Tournament.
The Gophers are forecast to finish near the bottom of the 18-team Big Ten. Medved is rebuilding after Johnson’s last team missed the NCAA Tournament for a fourth consecutive year.
While the novice fan is intrigued by a Gophers-Tommies matchup, there is much more upside for St. Thomas. A mid-major program, the Tommies could flaunt their resume (including with state recruits) with a win over a team from the Power Four and prestigious Big Ten Conference.
Possible scenarios from a matchup could look like this:
A blow-out Minnesota win? The public conclusion: “What do you expect from a Big Ten team playing at home?”
A narrow Gopher victory? “See the Tommies could have won. They’re just as good as Minnesota.”
A St. Thomas triumph? “The Gophers can’t even beat a good mid-major program.”
It’s well-known among college basketball programs the Tommies are a risky booking and light years from being labeled a patsy by anyone. No Big Ten team is scheduling them this season or has any recent history with St. Thomas. The analytics and intuition tell Big Ten and other schedule makers not to play the Tommies who have talent starting with the head coach who is among the best in the country.
None of this is to say the Gophers are ducking the Tommies. A game at some point appears likely. Medved believes a matchup is a “great way to get everybody talking about local basketball.”
With a season tickets base expected to be similar in size to the 5,500-basketball capacity of the St. Thomas arena, the Gophers likely will play host to the first matchup in 14,625 seat Williams Arena. It’s believed the Tommies, who are challenged to find nonconference road games against prominent foes, would receive about a $100,000 guarantee to play at Williams Arena. The game could generate 2,500 to 5,000 additional single game ticket sales than normal for a home Minnesota nonleague game.
Gopher players, not having to be concerned about anything but competing against opponents, might welcome facing their neighbors. A small sampling of players last week was favorable about a UST game.
“I would love to play St. Thomas,” said B.J. Omot …”We’ll see who really runs the cities. So that would be pretty cool to play them.”
Guard Isaac Asuma is intrigued, too. “I think it’s slowly getting put into motion, so I am ready for it.”
A third native Minnesotan and Gopher, Grayson Grove, is on board. “That’d be really fun. I know a bunch of the St. Thomas guys. Good friends with a bunch of them, so I think it would be really fun to play against them.”
Gophers Notes
Medved’s team, which opens the regular season at home November 3 against Gardner- Webb, allowed fans into Williams Arena last Saturday to watch an intrasquad scrimmage. The team looked well drilled on fundamentals and effort was apparent.
Playing in front of fans may have prompted nervousness. Neither the maroon nor gold team scored until almost five minutes had elapsed. North Carolina transfer Cade Tyson’s two free throws took the goose eggs off the scoreboard.
Tyson played sparingly at Carolina last season after he transferred from Belmont where he averaged 15 points in 61 games. He told Sports Headliners last Friday his confidence “definitely took a hit” at Carolina where he played eight minutes per game.
Tyson, a 6-foot-7 guard-forward who could be the team’s best three-point shooter and scorer, said he’s “grateful” for lessons learned last year after a 2023-2024 season at Belmont where he was second in the nation in three-point conversion percentage at 46.5.
“I feel really good about my shot right now,” he said. “Honestly, I feel like I feel better about my shot when I am not thinking about it, too much. …Just let me go.”
Tyson is one of several mid-level transfers who are part of an almost totally new Gophers roster from last season. Another is Davidson transfer and forward Bobby Durkin who was asked about the low season expectations for Minnesota in the standings.
“I try not to think too much about that,” Durkin said. “Obviously, I saw it (the Big Ten media poll) and I think we’re not too worried about what that says. I think we have the belief in ourselves that if we can become the best that we’re able to, that we’ll have a great season.”