Assigned to make the second basketball hire of his near decade-long tenure as Gophers athletic director Mark Coyle addressed the media Friday for the second time since firing Ben Johnson as coach early Thursday morning after a Big Ten tournament-opening loss.
Here are five key takeaways from Coyle’s comments the past two days about replacing Johnson and the future of the Gophers men’s hoops program:
Coyle has been on the phone with coaching candidates, members of his Gophers staff and media this week, all while going in and out of NCAA tournament selection committee meetings. Certainly he’s frustrated in the meetings when he knows the Gophers have no chance at making the Big Dance. Could that change soon with the next coach? It seems like a must for Coyle, who went to the NCAAs as the Syracuse and Boise State AD. The Gophers haven’t made it since 2019.
“That’s addicting. You want to get back to that experience,” Coyle said Friday. “That’s why this is such a critical hire for our department as we move forward. How can we find someone to get us back to the NCAA tournament? We have 38 opportunities to get to the NCAA tournament. There are 37 at-large spots and one [automatic qualifier] for the Big Ten if you win the conference tournament. … In my heart, there’s no doubt Minnesota can be one of those 38 teams.”
The Gophers women’s basketball program saw an abrupt coaching change when Lindsay Whalen resigned and was replaced by Dawn Plitzuweit in 2023. Plitzuweit was working at West Virginia, and Coyle identified her early in the coaching search but didn’t go full throttle on offering the job and sealing the deal until Plitzuweit’s team lost to Arizona in the NCAA’s first round March 18.
Could that be the timeline for Johnson’s replacement? Think active college coaches and potential candidates whose teams will play in the NCAA tournament, including Colorado State’s Niko Medved, Drake’s Ben McCollum, West Virginia’s Darren DeVries, Oklahoma’s Porter Moser, North Texas’ Ross Hodge and High Point’s Alan Huss.
“I always try to be respectful to coaches who are coaching in the postseason,” Coyle told the Minnesota Star Tribune on Thursday. “Once Dawn finished her season with West Virginia, then we had some pretty intense conversations with her and named her our head coach a day or two after that game.”
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