Minnesota head basketball coach Ben Johnson met with the media following the Golden Gophers' 84-81 upset win over No. 20 Michigan on Thursday night. Here's everything he had to say.

I just said a couple of things. It took four years to finally get something to go our way a little bit. And I think it was obviously meant to be.

My guys have this togetherness, and I've been saying it. I've been telling people that we're getting better, and nobody probably believes me. I've been telling people that we're this close, and nobody probably believes me.

My players included. And I've had a great feeling about, you know, kind of the direction. And I understand, you know, we're nowhere near where we want to be.

And I know, well, I wish we could go back in time. But when you have a new team, it just, every year is different. And it takes so long for some guys sometimes to figure it out.

And that's okay. I know my job is to win games. And trust me, I want to do that more than anybody.

But I also know the team I have, I see them, I want them every day. And I understand the steps that we've had to take to get to this point. And it's painful sometimes.

But to my guys' credit, they have never wavered. They have never blinked. They have never doubted.

They have never listened to any outside noise. And I'm just happy that they finally get rewarded for all the work that goes on, seeing that they do. And again, you look at Frank Mitchell, who's put in overtime here during the break.

And, you know, a kid that now is just kind of fighting his way. And I had confidence to play him today because I see it every day. So this doesn't surprise me.

I see it every day. And just now he's getting the confidence to get back to who he is. It just takes time.

It just takes time. And I think the same thing with Lu’Cye. Like, yeah, you know, we all want it right away.

But it takes time. And now he's really found his way. And that's an energy and a vibe that, you know, you can't really coach it.

They just, they gotta grow into it. And I thought we've been hardened from all the games we had this year. From North Texas to Wichita to Wake Forest.

You know, you go on down. Ohio State, you know, Purdue. Just all those instances where we played well in stretches.

Or we just did everything but close. And they never gave up. And, you know, really credit goes to all our players.

Yeah, no, I mean, those guys, as they should, were extremely happy and excited. And I think, you know, I've been telling them to their, you know, blue in the face that, like, we are not far away. And again, it's easy for me to say because I've been doing this a long time.

And I, you know, when you're a coach and you're with your team and you've been doing it, you know things that they don't know. So you're trying to speak that belief into them because the proof isn't there yet. So, you know, I'm sure they were looking at me at times and probably rolling their eyes or, you know, being like, okay.

But they never lost sight of like, you know what, he also might be right. Because I felt that. And that's why I kept pushing them.

And I'm just so happy that they able to get the result that they earned and they took and they got from a really good team. And we have so much respect for Dusty and what that team, what that program is about. They're having a tremendous year and they made us play better.

I mean, they elevated our play. And the only way you win that game is if you do elevate your play. And I think our guys just did a great job responding.

And so I'm glad they celebrated.

You know, he's like I said, he represents this program so many different ways. And some of the losses he took personally in Indiana, you name it.

But to get a shot like that for him at home. Oh, yeah. I mean, not like that.

But just you look at him, just look at his stat line. I mean, you look at, you know, 43 minutes, four assists, no turnovers. You know, last game, he was one of the guys that was turning it over.

And he responded four assists, no turnovers, three steals. I thought his defense was phenomenal. Made two huge free throws.

And I don't know how many people remember the Ohio State game. You know, and I told him after that. I said, I'll go to my grade with you in my 10 times out of 10 on free throws.

And that kid hurt more than anybody after that game. And I know when he went to the line, you know, they were going to go in. I didn't have a doubt in my mind.

And I just thought his effort, what he's about from the day, you know, he came here on campus. That dude deserves this. He deserves that shot.

He deserves the opportunity to make that shot. He is everything that this program is about from here going forward. I love him.

I'm just excited that I get the chance to coach him. I'm glad that those guys in the locker room get to see his work ethic and who he is every day. But this is, you know, he deserves this.

I mean, there's no kid I've ever coached probably that deserves this moment and that shot against that team more than him.

Yeah, no, it was phenomenal. I thought our crowd's energy was unreal.

And, you know, I get it. It's hard, you know, when fans are fans and you look at a record and you're debating if you want to come out and it's cold and it's, you know, whatever weekday. But, you know, they matter so much in whatever we got to do.

I mean, sometimes you got to go through the second fans included in belief, but they can rally this team and we need them to rally this team. And it's so hard to win on the road. You have to be able to rely and fall back on an environment and atmosphere at home.

And so, you know, I don't know what we got to do to beg them, but I understand the record. I get it, but we need them. They're important.

They matter. We don't win this game, you know, without them. I know I felt the energy.

I know Michigan felt the energy. But just having that environment in this league at this level, you have to have it. And everybody, you know, what comes first, the chicken or the egg? Well, I know what comes first.

Fans have to be there. They have to believe. And sometimes I know they don't want to hear that.

And they want to hear, well, you got to win first. It don't work like that. You know, it doesn't.

And some people are going to say I'm wrong and I get it, but it doesn't. Like, that's the reality. We need the atmosphere.

You know, you go to Northwestern. They believed. They forced it.

They created the atmosphere. Then the players react to the atmosphere. You know, you go to any other school.

You go to Nebraska. I worked there. I've been there.

The fans created. The fans give the energy to the players. The players respond to the fans.

Again, people aren't going to like to hear that, but I'm just telling you, I know it. I've done it. This is 20 years.

So we got to somehow rally the troops and continue to get them to come back. But I really am thankful for the ones that were here because they were phenomenal. And they got to celebrate a big win.

So I actually called something. We didn't have a timeout.

And so there's a bunch of stuff you work on, but I called something. And the drip, the delay dribble messed everything up with the timing. So Kai kind of fumbled the ball in the inbounds pass.

And so it was kind of scrapped it. But we always have an action trail guy, whoever that is. You're obviously available for the flip, especially if you're defenders inside three or around three.

And I think Dawson just kind of went back to training and did what we did. And I thought Kai had great voice from fumbling the dribble to not just blasting it up and doing something crazy, but be able to kind of snake it, create contact with a guy, but get to the center so that the flip actually could take place. And Dawson did a great job, you know, training the play like we kind of worked on.

So it's a little bit of broken play combined with they kind of know the concepts of what we're trying to do and what we're trying to get done. And they read it great. And, you know, he had a hell of a shot.

You look at the turnover at the end of regulation and it's kind of similar to Ohio State where it's like, oh, my gosh, you know, like, yeah, I'll put some of that. Some of that, you know, I was kicking myself because I subbed him late and I was more thinking that we were going to get it in. It was for the free throw shooting and to have another handler out there and another guy with cutter with speed.

But, you know, I probably should have gone on a regular press. So obviously it's 2020 looking back on it. But, you know, it was a tough catch in the corner, you know, freshman.

But, you know, it is what it is. And we responded after that. But they found a way.

I mean, they're in Ohio State, something like that. Well, and I told these guys, again, I really believe this, like, you know, everything we've been through, they've learned from it. So the difference you can lose and not learn from it.

Well, then you get you get banged twice for the loss versus if you lose and learn from it and it's going to help impact your season down the line. Well, in a weird way, that's a win. And with the team that you're trying to grow and develop and establish confidence and get them to understand what winning even means.

We had to go through some of that because, again, it hardened us. And they learned from every single one of those lessons. They were unfathomable.

Like every time out, every huddle, there was this. They were unfathomable because we've been there so many times. And we actually worked on this week in practice by trying to end practices with a four-minute war or a four-minute game or today, you know, and shoot around, you know, the last 20 minutes or yesterday, the last 20 minutes of practice, put the score up there that we had at Maryland and let's play it through.

And you kind of psychologically, you know, work that to your advantage. And I think our guys did that. Like they, even through bad plays, they didn't fold.

You know, we were down nine and everything they talked about in their energy was we're going to find a way to win this game. And to do that with never having to one to win is hard to do, but they're doing it. And so now we've got to continue to just build on that.

You know, honestly, we get this warrior belt out and I gave it to everybody because the bench was great. Scout team in the prep was phenomenal. Everybody that played contributed.

I kind of joked though, you know, Tom Perrault, our longtime scorekeeper who passed away before the game, I think had a little impact on that shot from above. So it was everybody, your whole fans, Tom, the team, the staff, you know, everybody, you don't win a game like that with every, without every single person, managers included

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