2025-26 Team Preview: Minnesota

Football is back, the Cleveland Browns found new ways to embarrass me, we are truly getting closer to the start of basketball season friends. Also, if the Aces would like to lose again ever, I would love for the Atlanta Dream to be in second, thanks!

Last Week’s Preview (Ohio State)

Table of Contents

• 2024-25 Overview

• Departures

• Returnees

• Incoming Players

• Outlook

2024-25 Overview

Dawn Plitzuweit’s first season as Minnesota head coach in 2023-24 displayed a whole lot of promise for where this team could ultimately go.

The Gophers won 20 games — nine more than the year prior — and did so thanks in part to a new slower pace that cut down on fouls and turnovers while improving the team’s net rating on both sides of the floor. It was a 7.4-point net ratings boost, but Minnesota still seemed like it had room to improve further.

The 24-25 campaign was a whole lot of that potential improvement personified. The team’s net rating again made a big spike, this time by 12.5 points to a +16.9. The team averaged a double-digit win per game, though some of that was due to a very light non-conference run that included six wins by 38 points or more.

Still, the continued progression of Plitzuweit’s vision was extremely clear. Minnesota’s pace again slowed, and again the turnover rates improved, this time to truly elite numbers. The Gophers turned it over 11.1 times per game for a 13.8% turnover rate, and finished with a 1.40 assist-to-turnover ratio. Those numbers rank sixth, sixth and ninth in the country, respectively.

The team scored more (+3.9 PPG), gave up less (-4.6 PPG), shot better (+1.8 FG%, +0.6 3PT%) and rebounded better (+1.8%) than it did the season before. The result was six more wins, a WBIT championship run and a 10.4-point boost to its Her Hoop Stats rating.

All of these numbers are terrific signs for the team as a whole, but if there’s an area of concern, it is with how Minnesota finished the season prior to that WBIT run. The Gophers went 2-8 in their final 10 games against Big Ten foes, and that slide is what kept them out of the NCAA Tournament. It felt very similar to the 2-11 slide Minnesota had the year prior, but promising postseason runs have helped both seasons end with relative highs all the same.

Here's last year’s Minnesota roster, sorted by Her Hoop Stats win shares:

Departures

Just like last year, Minnesota has retained almost the entirety of its main core, with five total departures and only two out through the transfer portal.

Annika Stewart is the most productive exit of the group, as the one-year Nebraska transfer did tremendous work off the bench in a limited role. Her spacing of the floor was a great wrinkle for the Gophers and will be a gap to figure out heading into next season.

Outside of Stewart, the transfer exit of McKenna Johnson is the other loss that could feel significant depending on Johnson’s development. She was a former four-star prospect and leaves after only one year with the program, but was only used sparingly in the back half of the season.

Returnees

This year’s Minnesota is going to be a great experiment for just how much keeping a core together matters when building a program. Every returnee but two — Taylor Woodson and Tori McKinney, who is only in her second overall season — is entering their third season or more with Minnesota, meaning they have been here for the entirety of the Plitzuweit era. That’s eight players together for three-plus seasons, an increasingly rare thing with the current state of the transfer portal.

Choosing the “most important” piece of this roster is difficult, as Minnesota has been at its best as a team greater than the sum of its parts. That said, the continued progression of Amaya Battle through the years has been a big part of the team’s success, and her final season with Minnesota should be no different.

Battle has continued to progress in key areas, upping her scoring production without dropping efficiency and avoiding turnovers as the team’s top facilitator. She’s also a fantastic perimeter defender and should be a huge factor again as a senior.

Grace Grocholski really impressed me last season. Her sophomore year was a big one, as she, too, improved across the board in both efficiency and volume. She has hit over 150 threes in her two seasons with the Gophers and has gotten better at taking on a large volume when called upon.

Grocholski was called upon often last season because Mara Braun went down five games into the year. Braun’s suffered two long-term injuries over the past two seasons, but is a true phenom when at full strength. She’s a tremendous scorer, passer, defender and an absolute bucket-getter, something Minnesota really could have used in some close defeats last season. If she can bounce back this season, Braun still has that potential to really soar this team to new heights.

Hey, remember the Tori McKinney season I wouldn’t shut up about? With all the buzz for the high-ranked true freshmen, McKinney’s season could have slipped through the cracks, but she stepped up into Braun’s spot in the starting five and played tremendously. Her length and athleticism gave opponents fits, and the extended starting run she saw could be huge for her overall development this season and moving forward.

I still haven’t mentioned two long-time starters in Mallory Heyer and Sophie Hart, who complement each other’s games well and give the Gophers a little bit of everything on offense. Both excel on the offensive glass, and Heyer has shown the ability to extend the floor.

The returning depth players of Taylor Woodson and Niamya Holloway both bring a great defensive edge that should keep them in the rotation. Woodson was great off the bench in non-conference play prior to injury, and is another great rebounder to add to the equation. Holloway played extremely short bursts, but saw action in 34 games because she is a difference-maker defensively, averaging 5.2 stocks per 40 minutes.

Incoming Players

Bringing three graduate transfers into a roster returning so much experience is a major sign to me that Plitzuweit also believes that this year’s team could be a significant one for the program.

Brylee Glenn is a great portal get for the Gophers. She was never a major scorer, but brings over 90 starts for a solid Kansas State team because she’s an elite defender with over a steal per game each season.

I also love the Tracey Bershers add as a seemingly clear replacement for Stewart as a veteran stretch-forward option. She was a great three-point shooter at UAB last season, and will arrive with her younger sister, Zoey, who will provide even more depth at forward. So, too, will Finau Tonga, another solid rebounder who has been a very efficient interior scorer through her collegiate career thus far.

Makenna Christian is the big signee from the 2025 class, and has the significant production in high school to cause real excitement for the program. Her arrival feels remarkably similar to McKenna Johnson’s — even down to the name — as a high-scoring four-star Wisconsin prospect, so Plitzuweit could try to get her more involved out the gates to avoid a similar fate in the portal.

Outlook

Projected Starters

• Amaya Battle - G

• Mara Braun - G

• Grace Grocholski - G

• Mallory Heyer - F

• Sophie Hart - C

Big Ten Finish: 8th

This is Dawn Plitzuweit’s deepest, most experienced roster to date for Minnesota. It also helps that it is largely players that she has already gotten to work with for multiple seasons already.

This is the same starting lineup I predicted last season, but this is anything but a certainty after how well McKinney played last year and with how many starts Glenn earned at Kansas State. I could see either of those two finding a spot, especially if Braun is not back to full strength, but her ceiling is so sky high that I can’t see her staying on the bench long.

Minnesota has beaten teams by doing it slowly and methodically, and the plan should be extremely similar again. If this roster can find a little more shooting success, it’s going to be extremely difficult to deal with all of this defensive prowess from a team that usually refuses to give its opponent free ones.

There are so many players that could spark this team to big things with just a little spike in production, as this team feels like it needs just a slight jolt on offense to start going to the moon. Braun’s health and Minnesota’s inability to fully compete with the upper echelon of the Big Ten to this point are what keep the team toward the middle of the standings, but those are narratives that can be easily disproven.

Minnesota honored Plitzuweit’s early efforts with a deserved contract extension this offseason, but this is the year where she can truly prove it all worth it. The time for building up is over: This roster is built up now, and Minnesota has the potential to be a terrifying team to play with all of the talent and cohesion in its lineup.

Photo Credit: Kelly Lynn, Minnesota Athletics

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