It is true that the 1997 Minnesota Golden Gophers did not comply with NCAA rules. Coach Clem Haskins ran afoul of college sports’ governing body. Many people in college sports regard that as a tainted season, and that’s a perfectly reasonable reaction.
Yet, regardless of whether you view Minnesota’s most recent Final Four season as a tainted achievement, it remains that the 1997 Gophers were really good. Bobby Jackson, who carved out a solid professional career with the Sacramento Kings, was part of a dynamic group which could really hoop.
Two years after Minnesota made the Final Four, another player with connections to the state of Minnesota, Khalid El-Amin, helped Connecticut and Jim Calhoun win their first men’s national title by beating Duke in the title game. El-Amin went to high school in Minneapolis.
Speaking of Duke, the Blue Devils denied Wisconsin a national championship in 2015 when Minnesota-born Tyus Jones starred down the stretch for Mike Krzyzewski. Jones attended high school in Apple Valley, Minnesota.
Some special high-end college basketball players have come from the state of Minnesota since the Golden Gophers made their last Final Four. This isn’t an attempt to say that Minnesota talent has been better than Wisconsin-based talent – we’re not going to go there. This is merely a way of underscoring the point that Minnesota-based prospects are not exactly scrubs. They can ball.
Yet, only Wisconsin has built a strong program this century. Only Wisconsin has SUSTAINED a strong program this century. Only Wisconsin has displayed annual high-level consistency this century.
As Minnesota comes to the Kohl Center for a Sunday game against the Badgers, it is striking to note that the Gophers – about to miss the NCAA Tournament for the fifth time in seven seasons under Richard Pitino – are plainly a program which misses the Big Dance more than it makes it… at least in the current century.
When this century began, how many people could have or would have confidently asserted that Wisconsin would not only be better than Minnesota in basketball, but would completely and utterly leave the Gophers in the dust?
Neither program entered this century with a towering legacy or a glittering identity in college basketball. One could see the seeds of what Dick Bennett was planting in Madison, but Clem Haskins – say what you want about the way he ran his program – was an objectively good on-court coach. Seven years before Minnesota made the Final Four, the Gophers reached the Elite Eight in 1990 and lost to the Kenny Anderson-Dennis Scott Georgia Tech team which gave Bobby Cremins his only Final Four appearance.
Wisconsin and Minnesota were not miles apart as basketball programs on the first day of the year 2000.
A full 20 years later, the gap between them is as wide as the Grand Canyon – in a long-term context and solely within the context of this season.
What is a good way to help a Wisconsin basketball fan appreciate how good life is, before Sunday’s game in the Kohl Center? Just look over to the Land of 10,000 Lakes, and see how much the Gophers are failing to realize their potential. No wonder you see Ethan Happ (in the 2019 photo attached to this story) blowing kisses to defeated Minnesota fans in The Barn.
That image summarizes the past 20 years of college basketball at these two schools.