Mara Braun had the best seat in the house for the Gophers’ five-game run to the Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament championship last spring. The problem, of course, was that it was a seat.
The guard from Wayzata would much rather have been playing but had become a student coach after breaking her right foot for the second time in two years. Still, she liked what she saw
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“We just took a big step as a team,” Braun said.
After advancing to the WNIT championship in 2024, and coming within a hair of an NCAA tournament bid, the Gophers found their happy place, literally and figuratively, in the 2025 WBIT. When it was over, they had the program’s second postseason tournament trophy and tied the team record with 25 wins.
And they knew they would have something special this season.
“I feel like we just found a different level of confidence, and I don’t know how to even put that in words, but you just kind of feel it amongst the team,” graduate post Sophie Hart said.
“We were excited — obviously to win the BIT, but also because we knew we were returning our core group. We kind of had found our confidence.”
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That core group included Braun, who hadn’t played a full season since her freshman year. Now a redshirt junior, she’s one of five Gophers players averaging 10 or more points a game on an experienced roster than can score from the perimeter and the paint, is tied for fourth in Big Ten point differential and leads the nation in fewest turnovers (328).
All that has translated to the team’s first NCAA tournament bid since 2018, and a program-best 13-5 finish in an 18-team Big Ten that sent eight teams to the Big Dance.
“We were just ready to play. It’s hard to describe, but it’s special,” Hart said. “You don’t get it with every team. It’s really special.”
The fourth-seeded Gophers (22-8) open the postseason against Green Bay (25-8) at 5 p.m. Friday at Williams Arena.
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This is the first time Minnesota has been host to NCAA games since the 2004 and 2005 seasons, when the Gophers advanced to the Final Four and Sweet 16 in consecutive seasons under Pam Borton.
The progression is easy to chart by the Gophers’ three postseasons — WNIT runner-up, WBIT champion, NCAA tournament berth. But this, too, is a step. The goal is to continue building.
“This is really important for us not only as a team, for them to keep getting better and to keep taking that next step, but certainly as a program,” Plitzuweit said. “We have an opportunity to put our brand — Minnesota women’s basketball — on a national stage. That’s really important for us.”
When Braun and classmates Amaya Battle and Niamaya Hollway committed to the Gophers as part of a top 20 recruiting class with departed Mallory Heyer, they said the goal was to make Minnesota basketball relevant again, citing the team that Lindsay Whalen — the head coach who recruited the group — and Janel McCarville led to the 2004 Final Four.
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Four years later, the Gophers are back in the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2018, when they beat Green Bay in Eugene, Ore., before losing to host Oregon in the second round.
“We wanted to come in and turn this program around, and I think every year we’ve made a move to do that,” Battle said. “We made it to the WNIT championship, won the WBIT last year, and now we’re in the tournament. So it’s only up from here, and we plan to make a good run.”
Ranked 18th nationally in this week’s Associated Press poll, the Gophers have three wins over ranked opponents this season, including victories over No. 11 Ohio State, a No. 3 tournament seed, and No. 7 Iowa, a second seed.
Those were the kinds of games Minnesota didn’t win last season, when they floundered down the stretch and were, essentially, passed for an NCAA berth by a Washington team that beat them twice down the stretch.
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“Once we got to the BIT, we were a little bit disappointed not to make March Madness,” junior guard Grace Grocholski said. “So I think we were like, ‘We’re here and we’re going to play to win this tournament.’ So I think we all kind of locked in and found that confidence at the same time.”
That confidence, and the joy the team feels when playing well, earned the Gophers a rare chance to advance to the Sweet 16 with two victories on their home court.
Now, Braun said, “It’s staying in the present, and knowing that yes, it’s fun and amazing to be in the tournament. But now we have to actually go out there and compete.”
“Playing in front of our home fans,” she added, “it’s going to be really important that we show out and get two wins on our home floor. Because that’s what we worked all season for, to have that opportunity. We want to make the most of it.”
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BARN DANCE
Williams Arena will play host to first- and second-round NCAA tournament games for the first time since 2005 this weekend:
Friday
2:30 p.m. — No. 5 Mississippi vs. No. 12 Gonzaga, ESPN25 p.m. — No. 4 GOPHERS vs. No. 13 Green Bay, ESPNU
Winners meet in final Sunday
TOURNEY TOUGH
Since Dawn Plitzuweit came to Minnesota, the Gophers are 9-1 in postseason play, advancing to the championship games of the WNIT and WBIT.
2024 WNIT
Gophers 77, Pacific 62Gophers 69, North Dakota State 65Gophers 65, Wyoming 54Gophers 74, Troy 69St. Louis 69, Gophers 50
2025 WBIT
Gophers 65, Toledo 53Gophers 78, Missouri State 71Gophers 82, Gonzaga 77 (OT)Gophers 66, Florida 52Gophers 75, Belmont 63
