Can Gophers men’s basketball build a true home-court advantage?

ROSEMONT, ILL. – Gophers men’s coach Ben Johnson looked around at his peers at Big Ten basketball media days Thursday, hard pressed to find a program that didn’t have a home-court advantage.

Even the new Big Ten programs UCLA, Southern California, Oregon and Washington seemed to him like they would probably be tough to beat on their respective home floors.

“As we continued to expand this league — you have to win at home now,” Johnson said.

With the Gophers picked to finish last in the conference by the media for the second year in a row, the perception is they might put up the least resistance of anyone at home.

The success the Gophers had at home last season proved otherwise.

The Gophers picked up 16 of their 19 victories at Williams Arena, the most for the program since 2016-17. That tied with Purdue for the second-most home victories in the Big Ten, behind only Nebraska’s 18.

Don’t forget that the Gophers won only six times at home in Johnson’s second season in 2022-23.

“Whatever we can do to help keep that momentum is huge,” Johnson said. “The goal is for our fans to realize it’s fun to feel like you’re a part of winning and to go watch a team that can win.”

Numbers aren’t everything, but attendance continues to drop overall.

Average attendance at Williams Arena for Gophers men’s games declined from 9,451 two seasons ago to 8,139 last season, but the atmosphere at games clearly improved.

“We were talking to a couple Penn State players who were saying how crazy our fan base is,” senior guard Mike Mitchell Jr. said at media day. “It makes our environment that much better. It helps a lot.”

As of Tuesday, the Gophers had sold 4,442 non-student season tickets, according to data obtained by the Minnesota Star Tribune. Those numbers could increase before the Nov. 6 opener vs. Oral Roberts, but they are down from 4,780 last season and 5,704 two seasons ago.

“We want it to be full every night,” Gophers senior forward Parker Fox said. “But you grow that over time, and you have to win to do it. We get that. Nobody wants to watch a team that doesn’t win games. That’s boring.”

Northwestern’s full capacity at Welsh-Ryan Arena is 7,039, less than half of the Gophers’ 14,625 at the Barn. But the Wildcats reached back-to-back NCAA tournaments while creating a home-court advantage with smaller crowds the past two seasons.

“It didn’t always used to be like that,” said Johnson, a former Northwestern player. “But it is now because they downsized to under 8,000, but every seat is packed. And you feel that as a player. It’s an environment.”

College basketball attendance nationally has been slow to recover from pre-COVID levels. Johnson also understands the financial obligation for fans is more than ever before, especially with NIL for athletes.

Still, the Gophers were better last season when the crowd energy was there to give them a boost. They won five consecutive Big Ten home games, including vs. Ohio State, Michigan State and in overtime vs. Northwestern.

“The place was rocking,” Gophers senior forward Dawson Garcia said. “Those were big-time wins for us and fun to be a part of.”

Interest grew with Gophers fans who wanted to see Minnesota’s up-tempo offense with Elijah Hawkins racing down the court to connect with Pharrel Payne and Fox for alley-oop dunks. They were engaged watching Cam Christie and Mitchell hit three-poniters or Garcia dominate inside and outside.

A few starters are gone, but Garcia, Fox and Mitchell are back to play with a versatile group of newcomers. Johnson encourages fans to come watch a new Gophers squad play the same exciting style this season.

“We still want to play fast,” he said. “We still want to be exciting. We’ve got guys who can shoot it. It’s still the same formula. We got to tweak it a little bit because of the personnel, but I don’t want to change the blueprint of how we play.”