William & Mary Transfer Guard Luke Loewe Commits to Minnesota

Photo: William & Mary Athletics

New Minnesota Gophers men’s basketball head coach, Ben Johnson, has been on the hunt for ball handlers to fill an obvious void for 2021, after Marcus Carr and Jamal Mashburn Jr hit the transfer portal. William & Mary’s senior guard transfer, Luke Lowe, should help.

The growth that Loewe has shown during his first four seasons are pretty incredible. He averaged just five minutes per game as a freshman, averaging just one point per game. His run increased dramatically to over 20 MPG, as a sophomore, but his production lagged behind. That changed his junior season, when he jumped from 3.9 PPG the year before, to 10.7 PPG. Then, he flourished as a senior and earned his way onto a power-5 roster for his final year of college basketball.



YearMPGFG%3PT%PPGAPGRPGSPGTOV
17-185.2.435.2861.10.50.50.10.3
18-1924.2.444.2263.91.81.90.51.1
19-2031.0.544.43910.71.72.10.41.2
20-2136.0.439.29816.23.23.41.41.5
sports-reference.com/cbb


Ben Johnson had options

Minnesota took Luke Loewe over one of their own, Ish El-Amin, who never received an offer from Ben Johnson and the Gophers. He committed to Rhode Island earlier this week. I wrote about the possibility of El-Amin coming back to his hometown and Johnson clearly had some interest. But, Luke Loewe (Wisconsin native) gets the transfer offer over Ish and he’s jumped on it.

Loewe is being brought in to shoot and play defense. He was a 2X CAA All-Defense player and All-CAA last season. He’ll have to return to his 2019-20 form on the shooting side, if Ben Johnson and his staff are going to squeeze all of his ability out of him. He shot 44% as a junior, but regressed to under 30% last season.

Let’s see what Ben Johnson has in store for us next. We still haven’t heard any assistant coach announcements yet.

Eric Strack | Minnesota Sports Fan