Gophers Ben Johnson says 2024-25 roster is ‘deepest team that I’ve had’

Ben Johnson says 2024-25 Gophers 'deepest team that I've had'

Gophers men's basketball coach Ben Johnson spoke with reporters on Wednesday as summer workouts for Minnesota come to a close.

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - The University of Minnesota men’s basketball team is wrapping up eight weeks of summer workouts on Wednesday at Athletes Village, and it might be the most excited Ben Johnson has been about his program.

The Gophers went 19-15 last season, 9-11 in the Big Ten and won a game in the NIT. But they lost six players to the NCAA transfer portal, and Cam Christie to the NBA. Johnson went to the portal himself and brought in seven new players, as well as incoming freshman Isaac Asuma and Grayson Grove.

The incoming transfers include guards Brennan Rigsby (Oregon), Femi Odukale (New Mexico State), Lu’Cye Patterson (Charlotte), Tyler Cochrane (Toledo) and Caleb Williams (D-III Macalester) and forwards Frank Mitchell (Canisius) and Trey Edmonds (Texas-San Antonio),

Johnson said this year’s squad is his deepest team in his four years, with 15 healthy bodies.

"There’s a reason why guys are going to get better this year, it’s because the competition is real. We haven’t had that. We can literally go three teams of 5-on-5 , we’ve got 15 guys and all three teams can be competitive depending on how I divide it up," Johnson said. When a guy knows that they need to show up everyday otherwise somebody could take minutes from them or opportunity, I think that’s a good thing."

Dawson Garcia update

Dawson Garcia, the Gophers’ top returning scorer and rebounder, missed the end of summer workouts with a foot injury that required surgery. He was expected to miss about a month, but will be fully-healthy when the team reconvenes in September.

"He’s doing really good. If you see him now, he’s bouncing around the gym. I know he’ll be ready to go. The positive part of it is he probably did need a little bit of rest. It was good to get him off his feet and rest him a little bit," Johnson said. "I also know what he can do, and this is a big summer of trying to figure out what other guys can do. It was a really good opportunity for the new guys to have a bigger stage, a bigger platform, get way more reps, more run."

Explaining the E-squared shirts

If you were able to attend a Gophers’ summer workout, you’ll have noticed that every player work a black shirt that had "E-squared" on it. He said the message is simple: Everything, every day.

"Whatever you got, whatever you’re doing, you want to give everything that you have every single rep every day and make that a consistent habit," Johnson said. "That constant reminder that to be really good, I think the biggest key is consistency. If you can make that consistency a habit in everything you do, I think there’s carry over to that."