Tomorrow, the Minnesota men's 2024-25 basketball season will tipoff when the Golden Gophers host the Summit Conference's Oral Roberts Golden Eagles at Williams Arena.

The Golden Gophers now in year four of the Ben Johnson era will look to take a step forward from their 2023-24 season in which the program went 19-15 overall including 9-11 in conference play. It was a significant step up from their 2022-23 campaign that saw them go just 9-22 including 2-17 in conference action.

This offseason, the Golden Gophers saw drastic turnover on their roster including six additions to the roster out of the transfer portal.

On the other end of the court, Oral Roberts will look to get back to on track this season after a 12-19 season last year which included the Golden Eagles posting a 7-8 record in non-conference action. The Golden Eagles are in their second season under head coach Russell Springmann who took over for now Wichita State head coach Paul Mills after Mills led the Golden Eagles to a 30-5 season in 2022-23 which included an NCAA Tournament appearance.

WHEN: Wednesday, November 6,

WHERE: Williams Arena

TELEVISION: B1G+

STREAMING: B1G+

RADIO: KFAN AM/100.3 FM (Mike Grimm, Al Nolen)

SIRIUS: 384

This will be the fifth time that the Golden Gophers and Golden Eagles have matched up, all four previous matchups being regular season games at Williams Arena. The first matchup between the Gophers and Eagles was in 2003, a 85-80 win for the Gophers. They also met in 2003 (100-80 Minnesota), 2005 (67-54 Minnesota), and 2017 (77-63 Minnesota).

After a down season, last year there are expectations that the Golden Eagles will have somewhat of a bounce back in 2024-25 but a tough season could still lie ahead. The Golden Eagles were picked fifth in the Summit League Preseason Poll behind Kansas City, South Dakota State, North Dakota State, and St. Thomas.

Notably, however, Oral Roberts does have the preseason summit league player of the year in Isaac McBridge. The graduate guard started 31 games last season, averaging 19.8 points, 3.5 rebounds, and 3.1 assist per game last season while averaging an incredible 38:41 minutes per game.

Overall, the Golden Eagles returned seven players from last year's squad but also welcomed ten newcomers to their roster including six transfers. The only other notable returners from last year's squad for Oral Roberts include senior forward Sir Isaac Heron who averaged 5.7 points and 3.7 rebounds a season ago.

Oral Roberts notably said goodbye to three of their top four scorers this offseason in guard Jailen Bedford (14.6 points, 6.4 rebounds - eligibility), guard Kareem Thompson (12.4 points, 6.9 rebounds - transfer portal to UNLV), and forward DeShong Weaver (9.7 points, 3.3 rebounds - eligibility).

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