The Gophers men's basketball team has been in a recent pattern of bad-good-bad-good seasons. Is this the year Richard Pitino's program breaks out of the cycle and earns a repeat trip to the NCAA tournament?
First take: Michael Rand
At this point in Pitino's tenure, contending for a tourney berth every year should be an expectation.
My biggest concerns about this year's team are overcoming key missing pieces — early departure Amir Coffey, the graduated Jordan Murphy and injured Eric Curry chief among them — and figuring out how this team is going to score.
Minnesota reached the NCAA tourney and won a game last season without having a very efficient offense. The Gophers attempted among the fewest threes in college basketball last season both as a per-game number (343rd out of 353 teams) and percentage of overall shot attempts (344th out of 353 teams).
They didn't take them because they didn't make them (305th nationally at 31.7%). They masked that deficiency by getting to the free throw line and executing with veteran players. I'm not convinced they can do that this year.
Marcus Fuller: Consistency no doubt has been lacking with the Gophers since before Pitino arrived. Not since 2009 and 2010 under Tubby Smith have the Gophers reached back-to-back NCAA tournaments.
Basically starting over with seven newcomers makes it easy to dismiss Pitino's chances of repeating the success of last season with 22 wins and getting to the NCAA tournament's second round. Eight of Minnesota's top 10 players are either sophomores or freshmen. You mentioned the injury to Curry, and the key departures of Coffey and Murphy. But there's potential to go dancing again with some talented new faces.