Guys like Mike Mitchell Jr., Elijah Hawkins and Pharrel Payne have all stepped up and become major contributors next to star big man Dawson Garcia and blossoming freshman, Cam Christie.

Related: Ben Johnson Found a Future Star in True Freshman Cam Christie

Minnesota Gophers vs NET and KenPom rankings

But despite Minnesota’s improved play on both ends of the floor and the wins they’ve piled up early in the season, they’re having troubles climbing up the various ranking systems in college basketball, currently sitting 88 in the NCAA NET Rankings and 78 in the KenPom.

Both the NET and KenPom rankings are calculated through advanced statistics and efficiency. The NET keys on beating good teams, especially on the road, and blowing out bad teams. On top of winning games, you need to have a good NET efficiency rating.

Obviously, these rankings aren’t perfect but the fact that they both have the Gophers in the same ballpark tells the story of why they still have a lot of mountain to climb, if they want to be considered an NCAA Tournament team.

Luckily for Minnesota, there is plenty of time to raise their ranking, and while their schedule has been light to this point, they’ll have plenty of opportunities vs better competition throughout the rest of their Big Ten schedule.

What are the experts saying?

One of the most well-known and highly regarded voices in Big Ten basketball is Andy Katz (Big Ten Network), who updates his own non-algorithm based rankings throughout the season. On Tuesday, Katz placed the Gophers as his 9th best Big Ten team, as of today.

More movement in @TheAndyKatz's Power Rankings. 👀

Do you agree with his 1-14?

📍 @AutoOwnersIns pic.twitter.com/WkbLtmvh4W

— Big Ten Men's Basketball (@B1GMBBall) January 9, 2024

9th seems a bit low, especially since the Gophers’ 3-1 conference record, not to mention they’re ranked behind Nebraska (6th), despite already beating them earlier this season. The other two Big Ten opponents that Minnesota has beaten this season, Maryland (11) and Michigan (14th) sit at or near the bottom of Katz’ rankings.

Related: Gophers Resume Big Ten Play with Win Over Wolverines in Ann Arbor

The most well-known bracketologist in college basketball is Joe Lunardi, (ESPN). In Lunardi’s latest bracket projections, he has only six Big Ten teams getting into the NCAA Tournament, with Nebraska being his “second team out”.

pic.twitter.com/q6VAkAxlFp

— Joe Lunardi (@ESPNLunardi) January 9, 2024

Beating Nebraska seems to be the biggest thing the Gophers currently have going for their March Madness resume and could end up being the early victory that helps them eventually get in.

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

Why are the Gophers low in rankings and how will they climb?

The primary reason for the Gophers’ relatively low ranking at the start of the season is likely due to their limited exposure to true road games, having played only two so far this season (1-1), with a total point differential of -8.

Success in away games holds significant weight in college basketball, especially if the victories come with a substantial point margin. As the Gophers progress through the Big Ten season, they face a stretch of eight out of their last 16 games on the road.

While maintaining their home court advantage is crucial, the key to making significant strides in the rankings is by beating good teams (preferably on the road) and securing double-digit victories vs lesser competition.

But again, the Minnesota Gophers play in the Big Ten and their conference season is only 5 games old. If they win more games than they lose, they will have a chance at dancing. If they can win the games they should, and steal some that they shouldn’t, they’ve set themselves up early to be a lock.

So when they hung with #19 Michigan State last week at The Barn, ultimately losing 67-75, then followed that up on Saturday with a 75-65 victory over Michigan in Ann Arbor, many fans (myself included) thought the 9-1 Gophers had passed a pretty significant test.

But then the AP and USA Today top-25 polls came out on Monday and, outside of a few votes, Minnesota was nowhere to be found. Michigan State, on the other hand, jumped up seven spots in the AP and eight spots in the USA Today. Sparty now ranks #12 in both polls thanks to wins over the Gophers and 5-5 (0-2) Penn State.

For the third straight week, a new No. 1 sits atop the AP Poll ????

Do you agree with this week’s rankings? pic.twitter.com/l5rgJ3JiNT

— FOX College Hoops (@CBBonFOX) December 13, 2021

Which unranked team deserves to be ranked the most? ???? pic.twitter.com/ODWI7JCckz

— FOX College Hoops (@CBBonFOX) December 13, 2021

The Minnesota Gophers went from 0 AP Poll votes last week, to 3 votes on Monday. Michigan, the 6-4 Big Ten team that Minnesota defeated last week, got 8 votes. You need north of 150 votes to have any chance of cracking the top-25. The Gophers were already getting a little love last week (Dec. 6) in the USA Today Coaches Poll, receiving 7 votes. The problem? They got the same exact amount this week, as if those games vs the Spartans and Wolverines meant nothing.

Hurt by Victory

So the AP and Coaches Polls only come out once per week. Other ranking systems and polls that the college basketball world trusts update daily. Ben Johnson’s Gophers are seeing more of the same disrespect with those. In fact, all of the daily updated polls people care about actually dropped Minnesota down following their win on Tuesday night over Texas A&M Corpus Christi.

The 9-1 Islanders came to The Barn and the Gophers jumped on them right from the tip, taking a 20-point lead into halftime. It looked like a route in the making, even midway through the second half. But Minnesota committed 28 total turnovers, many of which came in the second half, allowing TAMU-CC to cut the lead to single digits at the finish line.

The maroon and gold had been one of the best offenses in the country in the turnover department, averaging just 7.8 per game through nine games. But coughing up the basketball was the obvious reason they couldn’t put the Islanders away last night. Still, the final score of 79-71 projected a game that was much closer than what actually unfolded in reality, which was a matchup that Minnesota mostly dominated.

.@lukeloewe23 on the assist to Payton Willis (@UnlimitedRange0) for anotha ❸.

CC: @GopherMBB pic.twitter.com/izJKf7J3vu

— Minnesota on BTN (@MinnesotaOnBTN) December 15, 2021

Dunk time with @battletime510 ????. @GopherMBB pic.twitter.com/Wednx9CHEp

— Minnesota on BTN (@MinnesotaOnBTN) December 15, 2021

A win is (not just) a win

So let’s get back to the daily updated polls and rankings mentioned above. They hated Tuesday’s win. The NET Rankings, the system recently created by the NCAA to help the Tournament Committee make their March selections, dropped Minnesota from #35 to #36 after the victory. If you feel slighted by that, the rest of this blog won’t make you any happier.

All three of the other most-widely used polls and ranking systems also dropped the Gophers after their win over Texas A&M-CC yesterday. The Massey rankings dropped them from at #30 to #33. KenPom and ESPN BPI must have forgotten that Minnesota has a basketball team, ranking them #69 and #66 respectively before the win and dropping them down to #74 and #70 after.

I know that other teams have played more difficult schedules than what the Gophers have, but this is no longer an untested team. The four games they played before Tuesday were against ACC, SEC and Big Ten competition. Three of them, Michigan St., Michigan and Mississippi St. are NCAA Tournament caliber. They beat two of them, both of which rank ahead of the Gophers in some of the polls above.

Today (12/15) after beating Texas A&M-CC, the Gophers dropped in the polls above that update daily:

NET: #36
KenPom: #74**
ESPN BPI: #70**
Massey: #33

**Michigan and Mississippi State rank higher

— Minnesota Sports Fan (@realmnsportsfan) December 15, 2021

It won’t matter.

At the end of the year, where the Minnesota Gophers ranked in the middle of December won’t matter. This team plays in the deepest conference in the nation. When Big Ten play resumes at the beginning of the new year, there will be plenty of good competition to go around.

If Ben Johnson and his new squad can win most of their games at Williams Arena and beat struggling teams on the road, they’ll set themselves up to dance when it’s all over. And dancing in March is something NOBODY would’ve tried selling you a month ago.

Eric Strack | Minnesota Sports Fan