RandBall: This Gophers men’s basketball winning streak is shocking

The Gophers men’s basketball team started this season 0-6 in conference play, which included four losses by at least 15 points and another in double overtime to a mediocre-at-best Ohio State squad.

Picking a low point out of that morass is not easy, but quite possibly it was the uninspired second half that turned a close game into a blowout loss at Wisconsin and led to an airing of frustrations by players afterward.

Minnesota played better in a six-point loss at Maryland the next time out, but winless is winless. It was fair to wonder at that point whether the Gophers would win a game this entire Big Ten season.

That all makes what has happened since so shocking: The Gophers haven’t lost a game, defeating ranked Michigan and Oregon at Williams Arena with a strong victory at Iowa sandwiched in between.

Even if the burst has been brief and might prove to be temporary, what coach Ben Johnson’s squad has accomplished in those three games qualifies as a massive surprise, as Patrick Reusse and I talked about on Monday’s Daily Delivery podcast.

It was barely more than a week ago that the Gophers were buried in the standings, irrelevant with casual fans and languishing in the NET rankings. It was assumed that Johnson was on the hottest of hot seats and would be ousted at the end of the season.

But now, thanks to not just three wins but three quality wins, the outlook has been altered. Minnesota has climbed back into the top 100 of the NET rankings, with all three wins in its streak counting as Quadrant 1 victories. The Gophers are one of just two teams outside the top 50 with three Quad 1 wins on the season.

They will have a difficult opportunity for another one Tuesday night at No. 7 Michigan State. But if they lose there, the Gophers would have a chance to pick up several more wins in the second half of the conference season. Six of their final 10 regular-season games are against opponents with whom they are either tied or ahead of in the Big Ten standings.

Two weeks ago, I would have thought that even winning those games was a stretch. Even as Johnson talked about the team improving, it was hard to believe it based on results. A squad that lost so much firepower from an ascending team a year ago looked overmatched, especially whenever Dawson Garcia wasn’t on the court.

I still don’t quite know how the Gophers turned their season around and won three games.

I do know my default approach to how I think about them now is very different.