Lindsay Whalen will experience basketball success again (if she can keep Gophers' young core together)

Lindsay Whalen, while seated behind a table at Target Center last month during Big Ten media days, pointed out that she was on the same floor she played on during her 15-year WNBA career, including her nine seasons with the Lynx.

Now she's in her fifth season leading the Gophers women's team. Playing success has not translated into coaching success.

"When I was calling 'fist out' right here as a player, if you [would] say that [by] 2022, this is exactly how it is going to go, I wouldn't have thought this is how the journey would have been to this point," she said. "You never can tell. None of us can."

Has it been a lesson to be learned? Or an experience to be lived? For Whalen, it probably has been both. One of the most decorated basketball players in hoops history — including her induction into the Naismith Hall of Fame in September — Whalen has yet to lead the Gophers to an NCAA tournament appearance. But the first-time coach received a one-year extension in March, locking her up through the 2024-25 season.

Some fans grumbled when the extension was announced. Her 60-57 record, 28-44 in the Big Ten, suggests that she's not the right fit or reflects her inexperience or both.

And this season has the look of another rebuilding year, as she welcomes back just three returning players. She dealt with an exodus following her first season in 2018-19 following a 21-11 season, and this was before the pandemic hit or the turnstile that is the transfer portal was established.

Few coaches survive four seasons of growing pains, and some observers might find it easy to demand that athletic director Mark Coyle pull out his shortlist of replacements if Whalen can't win this winter in Year 5. But Coyle knew what he was getting when he hired Whalen: A local basketball icon with zero head coaching experience. It was a move with the long haul in mind.

And if you're Coyle, how would you react if you call Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve and Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma — two of the greatest women's coaches of all time — for their input and both tell you to hire Whalen and never look back?

Exactly. You hire Whalen, give her all the support she needs and hope that the seeds she's been planting eventually blossom.

"There's been some days you just take it as it comes," Whalen said. "There's been some tough days. There's been some great days."

Whalen believes she's learned and grown since her first year. It would help this project if that growth turns into more victories this season. The Gophers won 15 games last season and looking at her roster it's hard to imagine more than that this season. Where is the scoring and rebounding coming from?

Graduation and transfers — including leading scorer Sara Scalia fleeing to Indiana — left the Gophers with three returners: Katie Borowicz, Rose Micheaux, and Maggie Czinano.

The Gophers hit the transfer portal hard for replacements, but the program's immediate growth will be linked to a freshman class that includes three top-55 recruits in Mara Braun, Amaya Battle and Mallory Heyer. Braun hit five three-pointers and scored 23 points against Wisconsin-River Falls on Sunday during an exhibition game and looks to be an impact player.

As the Gophers open their regular season on Monday against Western Illinois, prepare to watch how the newcomers adjust to an unforgiving Big Ten in which six teams are in the preseason AP Top 25. The grueling conference season will end in Minneapolis in March, when the Big Ten women's tournament comes our way for the first time.

Between now and March and beyond, the program needs to start gaining some traction. The young core needs to develop quickly. The roster needs more continuity. And Whalen must stack good recruiting classes, which will be a challenge because three of the top Minnesota prep players in the Class of 2023 already have committed elsewhere.

If Whalen can go 3-for-3 on those to-dos, she'll be winning more games and leading the program back into the NCAA tournament.

Once that happens, then Whalen's journey will feature more of the success she enjoyed so often as a player.