When the regular season ends, the top eight teams will receive first round byes, the top four teams will be awarded a double bye. With his back up against the wall and his job on the line, Ben has responded with one of the most talented basketball teams that the University has put on the floor in recent history.

The Gophers are currently 17-9 (8-7) and ranked 72nd in the NET. If they finish with 10 conference wins or more, it will be just the third time that’s happened at Minnesota since before the turn of the century (2016-17, 2004-05).

After a win at The Barn on Thursday night vs former Gopher Jamison Battle and the Ohio State Buckeyes, Minnesota is knocking on the door into NCAA Tournament conversations, but most bracketologists still refuse to acknowledge their existence.

Minnesota picked up its 17th win of the season tonight. Gophers only won nine a year ago. If Ben Johnson can retain the majority of his roster, the NCAA Tournament should be the goal in 2025.

— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) February 23, 2024

Why? Because of their #72 NET Ranking. Head coach Ben Johnson wanted to build confidence in a team that desperately needed to see some W’s pile up early on. It worked, in a sense, but it also hurt in today’s college basketball, which is ruled by NET rankings.

What are the NET Rankings and why do they matter?

Sure, there is still a committee that holds final say on who goes dancing on Selection Sunday, but it’s the NET Rankings that they are instructed to hold most valuable. Here’s how the NET Rankings work and how they are weighted. The first bullet point explains Minnesota’s low ranking, despite a chance at making history as a program:

• Beating bad teams won’t really help you, but losing to them will destroy you
• Road wins are more valuable than home wins
• Offensive & Defensive Efficiencies matter too, along with margin of victory

Quad System: In the NET Rankings system, the entire country is broken down into four different tiers or “quads”, but a team’s quad can be different, depending on where the game is played. Beat a top-30 team, it’s a Quad 1 win no matter the location. On the road, however, any opponent with a top-75 NET Ranking becomes Quad 1.

Related: Gophers Cam Christie Earns Big Ten Freshman of the Week Honors

The Gophers are 1-5 vs Quad 1 opponents this season and have three such games left. All of them are on the road: @ Nebraska, @ Illinois and @ Northwestern. The Gophers have already beaten Nebraska and Northwestern at home. Both wins were Quad 2, because the games were played at Williams Arena (where only top-30 counts as Q1).

Beating Iowa in Iowa City would have counted as Quad 1, which is why blowing that massive 19-point 2nd half lead hurt the Gophers March Madness chances so badly. Ben Johnson and his boys have handled all quad 4 games and don’t have any remaining. The Gophers’ only Quad 3 loss came vs Indiana, on the road. They get that rematch on March 6.

Minnesota Remaining Opponent Quads

How can the Minnesota Gophers get into the NCAA Tournament?

So, the question arises: how do the Minnesota Gophers secure a spot on the tourney dance floor next month? The easy answer is to win the Big Ten Tournament. Since that has never happened in the program’s history, it’s probably not a route we should count on, though.

Luckily, if the Gophers handle their business the rest of the regular season, they’ll be in the final field of 68, no matter what Jon Rothstein thinks. What will that take? Again, their NET Ranking Friday morning is #72. To safely secure an at-large bid, they need to get to #60. If they can rise to #65~ish, Selection Sunday will be a sweat

Related: Iowa Wolves Sign Former Gophers Guard and DeLaSalle Grad Gabe Kalscheur

This five-game stretch to close the season will decide their fate, and there isn’t a lot of room for error. But really, the most important game is Sunday. Lose @ #43 Nebraska and it’ll be an uphill battle the rest of the way. But get a win in Lincoln and the Gophers will add their second Q1 victory of the season and impossible for bracketologists to ignore.

At that point, it would be more about not screwing things up. Stay close vs Illinois and Northwestern, DO NOT lose at home vs struggling Penn State or Indiana and it’d be hard to keep the Gophers out. Throw in a Big Ten Tourney win or maybe an upset in Northwestern to close the regular season, and they’ll probably be a lock.

If the Gophers win three of their final five games, they’ll reach 12 conference wins for the first time since 1996-97, which doesn’t officially count. So officially, it would be the first time since 1981-82.

Related: Minnesota Gophers Cam Christie Earns Big Ten Freshman of the Week Honors

With 10 games still remaining, the Gophers have already collected more conference wins (5) and total wins (14) in 2023-24 than either of Johnson’s first two seasons as head coach.

No NCAA Tournament love (yet) for Minnesota Gophers

Yet… you still won’t find much, if any, Minnesota Gophers discourse surrounding the 68-team 2024 NCAA Tournament field. As of Tuesday, they stand 91st in the NET rankings and good luck finding them listed anywhere as a possible bubble team.

For example, ESPN released a new version of their ‘Bubble Watch’ feature on their subscription site (ESPN+) Tuesday morning. In it, college basketball insider John Gasaway lists teams from each conference who are considered ‘locks‘ to get in to the tourney, along with teams that ‘should be in‘ and those with ‘work to do‘.

For the Big Ten, Gasaway lists Purdue and Wisconsin as NCAA Tournament ‘locks’; Illinois and Northwestern as ‘should be in’ teams. Schools with ‘work to do’ include Michigan State and Nebraska. One team you won’t find in the Big Ten section, however, is the Minnesota Gophers.

Even though they’re ahead of Nebraska in the standings and their results on the season include wins over both the Huskers and Northwestern, both of which are named in ESPN’s feature as bubble teams that are likely in, as of today.

So, what gives? Well, Ben Johnson’s 2023-24 squad ranks all they way down at No. 91 in the NET ratings, which is widely used to determine who dances in March and who stays home or heads to the NIT Tournament instead.

Related: Minnesota Gophers Keep March Madness Hopes Alive with Huge Win at the Barn vs Northwestern

Their low NET rating is due to a rather weak 2023-24 schedule. Ben Johnson packed it early with confidence boosting non-conference matchups and his team took advantage… but home wins vs cupcake opponents don’t move the NET needle.

Not only that, but the Gophers are playing in a down Big Ten conference this season. Sometimes, the Big Ten has five to seven teams scattered throughout the AP top-25 and 10-12 teams worthy of a March Madness birth. This week, they have three (Purdue #2, Illinois #10, Wisconsin #11) in the top-25 and they’re looking like a conference that’ll be lucky to get six teams into the dance.

Huge opportunity for Ben Johnson’s Gophers vs Michigan State

But on Tuesday, the Gophers can change everything about conversations currently being had around the NCAA Tournament and which Big Ten teams belong in. Following two-straight wins over Penn State and Northwestern, Minnesota welcomes another bubble team, the Michigan State Spartans, to Williams Arena tonight.

What’s on the line? Everything that Ben Johnson and his team have been working toward all season. A win over Sparty on Tuesday would give the Gophers their first quad-1 win of the season, which would launch them up the NET rankings, and their 6th conference dub of the season, which would be good for 4th place in the Big Ten standings.

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Not only would a rosier NET picture help the way bracketologists see Minnesota this season, but they’d be impossible to ignore if they are sitting ahead of Nebraska, Northwestern and Michigan State in the conference standings, and they hold wins over all three perceived tournament teams.

So, if Ben Johnson and the 2023-24 Minnesota Gophers men’s basketball team wants more respect on its name, when national talking heads start March Madness conversations; if they want more run in the local papers and on local sports sites (like MSF) then they need to take care of business tonight at the Barn. They win tonight, and everybody will start paying attention.

Yet, Minnesota still hasn’t cracked the top-75 (not a typo) in either the NET (85) or KenPom (78) rankings. We’ve already discussed why they rank as low as they do and how, in theory, they can climb. But looking at the schedule, it’s nearly time to make theory into reality.

Related: Despite All the Winning, Gophers MBB Struggling in Rankings

The Gophers play their first of a four-game Big Ten stretch on Friday night vs the Indiana Hoosiers. By the time it ends on January 23, we (and the rankings systems) will have a much better idea of how good Ben Johnson’s 2023-24 squad really is.

Make that 7️⃣ wins in a row for @GopherMBB. 😤

Relive the best moments from the Gophers’ 65-62 win over Maryland! 🙌 pic.twitter.com/qZZWWkQKtY

— Big Ten Men's Basketball (@B1GMBBall) January 10, 2024

Friday, Jan. 12: Gophers @ Indiana Hoosiers (11-5)

The Minnesota Gophers are set to visit Bloomington, Indiana, marking only their third road game of the season. Much like the Gophers, the Hoosiers have had a solid start to their season but remain mostly unproven. They have an 11-5 overall record (3-2 in the Big Ten).

Indiana currently ranks No. 100 in the NET Rankings, 15 spots behind Minnesota. A victory on the road in Bloomington alone wouldn’t significantly impact the Gophers’ standing in the NET, but there are ways for them to help themselves.

First, it’s a true Big Ten road game, which the NET likes. But beyond that, the Gophers can play efficient basketball on both ends of the floor, which is also NET friendly. If they do that, there’s a good possibility they secure victory by 10 points or more, a margin the NET also holds as valuable.

Related: Gophers MBB Grabs Another Early Season Big Ten Win vs Maryland

But most importantly, they’d stack another win, which would give them a 4-1 record and their best start to conference play since 2008-’09, under Tubby Smith.

Monday, Jan. 15: Minnesota vs Iowa Hawkeyes (9-6)

Staying in the spotlight and securing strong NET and KenPom rankings involves winning the games you’re expected to, particularly when playing at home. The Gophers will face a very middling Iowa Hawkeyes squad at The Barn on Monday.

This is a should-win game for the Gophers, if they want to maintain their momentum early in conference play and, especially, if they want to climb the NET rankings Tuesday morning. The 9-6 (1-3) Hawkeyes currently rank 67th in the NET, giving the Gophers yet another opportunity to stack conference wins before the schedule really starts to test Ben’s inexperienced team.

Thursday, Jan. 18: Minnesota vs Michigan State Spartans (9-7)

The Michigan State Spartans may not have had the ideal start they hoped for, but there’s a reason why, at 9-6, they rank in the top-25 of the NET. They’ve had one of the toughest schedules in this year’s college basketball season, a slate that has included losses to Duke (#13 NET), Arizona (#2), Wisconsin (#12) and Illinois (#11). Even James Madison (#59), who beat the Spartans in their season opener, is now 15-1.

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Michigan State has one victory against top-tier competition, beating Baylor (#14) back on December 16. Under the leadership of Tom Izzo, the Spartans currently hold a 1-3 record in the Big Ten and an overall record of 9-6. A win next week in East Lansing would see Minnesota start to skyrocket up the NET rankings.

Keep winning and March Madness will come calling

If the Gophers can sweep these next three games or at least win two of three, they will set themselves up for a massive border rivalry game on Jan 23 vs the #12 Wisconsin Badgers. Ben Johnson and the Gophers have a huge opportunity at the Barn on Jan 23.

They have some tremendous opportunities coming up and have chance to give themselves some more national attention. Winning conference is the key to boosting there ranking and March Madness resume.