Gophers coach Lindsay Whalen promises: 'Good things are coming. You have to believe that.'

The Big Ten women's basketball tournament is coming to Target Center, the sport's second big event to come to Minneapolis in a year after last spring's NCAA Final Four.

The Gophers are playing host for the tournament, starting Wednesday. But, competitively, they are on the periphery, not in the spotlight.

The Gophers finish the regular season Sunday against Purdue at Williams Arena at 10-18, 3-14 in conference, headed to their worst Big Ten finish of coach Lindsay Whalen's five seasons.

It has been a difficult year.

"I don't want to be in the position of not making the NCAA tournament, towards the bottom of the Big Ten," Whalen said. "We've had some struggles, some disappointments.''

Frankly, this was not totally unexpected. Whalen was faced with a slew of defections into the NCAA transfer portal after last year's 15-18 season which, coupled with graduations, eliminated 84% of the Gophers scoring.

The 2022-23 Gophers had 11 new faces and returned only one player — center Rose Micheaux — who had played significant minutes the year before. To fill the void, Whalen surrounded the top-10 recruiting class of Mara Braun, Amaya Battle, Mallory Heyer and Nia Holloway with veterans through the portal.

"There are games we are disappointed we didn't get," Whalen said. "Are there things we should have done differently, looking back? Yeah. That's for our staff to evaluate, see where we can be better.''

That said, Whalen is convinced things will get better. She expects dividends from the experience her talented freshmen have had. The Gophers will lose some experience to graduation, but Holloway — out this year with an injured knee — will return. Center Sophie Hart, the transfer from North Carolina State, will be eligible. Another recruiting class.

"Good things are coming,'' Whalen said. "You have to believe that.''

History lesson

Braun and her dad, Chris, have been doing some research.

They looked at top Big Ten players, their freshman seasons and what happened afterward. What they saw was both expected and exciting. Promising, perhaps, for this young Gophers team.

Two examples: Michigan guard Laila Phelia, an 8.8-point scorer as a freshman, up to 17 this year, is in the Big Ten's top 10. Indiana's Grace Berger went from 5.5 points as a freshman to 13.1 as a sophomore. Now she's the leader on a one-loss Hoosiers team that just won its first regular-season Big Ten title in 40 years.

As high school seniors, Braun, Heyer, Holloway and Battle made the leap together to the U. Perhaps, together, they can make a leap into their second seasons.

"All these players, they were decent their freshman year, but nothing crazy,'' Braun said. "And then, they adapted. That's something to be able to look at and, I don't know, learn from.''

Braun, Holloway, Heyer and Battle live together in an apartment off campus. Holloway hasn't been able to play, but she's seen it: Her friends' frustration with the losing. The bruises Heyer comes home with after battling down low in the Big Ten.

"This is not high school,'' Holloway said.

No, it's not.

As a point guard, Battle might have had the hardest road. "There are people I'm running into and just bouncing off,'' Battle said. "In high school, they bounced off me.''

Braun saw that after a strong start that included a 34-point game in a nonconference victory over Lehigh. Teams scout. It wasn't long before it seemed everyone knew her every move. After a relative midseason slump, Braun's recent play suggests she has come out the other side.

Reasons for hope

Each of the freshmen have had ups and downs.

Braun already has four of the top 10 scoring games for a freshman in Gophers history and Heyer has one. Battle has already set the freshman record for assists. Heyer has five point-rebound double-doubles.

Freshmen account for 47.3% of Minnesota's scoring. That number includes Katie Borowicz, who played a half-season in 2020-21 but missed last season for health reasons. Freshmen and sophomores account for 87.4% of the scoring. There will be no starting over next year.

But there have been problems, particularly with turnovers.

"Turnovers have been the microcosm of the season,'' Whalen said. "You can make passes in high school and AAU that you can't make here. You can tell them, but they have to experience it. It's like a hot stove. Your parents can tell you, but you have to touch it to learn.''

As a freshman in 2000-01, Whalen's Gophers team went 8-20 overall and 1-15 in the Big Ten. A year later they were 22-8 and 11-5 and Whalen was the conference player of the year — further data for the Brauns' research.

Actually, Braun has been known to tease her coach that they have already tripled her freshman conference win total. Here's another name: Micheaux, whose jump from averaging 4.7 points last year to 14.7 this year as a sophomore is the fourth-biggest jump in the conference.

"I hate losing,'' Heyer said. "It's not fun losing this many games. But I have hope this will help us in the future. We're going to grow. We're going to learn from this.''

This is what encourages Whalen.

"As a player, I figured it out,'' she said. "We are taking it on the chin this year. I take it hard. I take it personally. But I've always been able to figure it out and get to the good times.''

Sticking together

Ask the freshmen what the biggest job is this summer, and they all say the same thing first. Get stronger, bigger. Battle is tired of bouncing off people. Braun wants to finish better.

"Faster, stronger, bigger,'' Heyer said.

There are other things. Battle wants to add an outside shot. Braun wants to work on her handle, getting more ability to create space for her shot. Heyer wants to work on her perimeter game more. One good thing about the rehab from ACL surgery Holloway has done is that the work in the weight room has added 10 pounds of muscle to her frame.

But here's the most important thing: They'll do it together. All four have already signed leases for next season. These days it seems it doesn't take much to head to the transfer portal.

Not these four, though Braun has heard the question often this season.

"We chose to go here for a reason,'' Braun said. "We knew it wouldn't be pretty right away. It's been super frustrating. People are so quick to say, 'Oh, are you guys leaving?' We're like, 'No. We want to change things around here, because it means so much more.' ''

Said Holloway: "Sometimes you have to figure it out. Maybe the problem isn't the program. Maybe you need to get more mature, more skilled. We're willing to see what happens.''

A best-case scenario? The freshmen take a big step. Hart makes an immediate impact. Holloway's return and the incoming class provide the depth Whalen needs to play a more aggressive style.

But most importantly: doing it together.

"Leaving is a new-school mentality, where people leave when things don't go their way,'' Battle said. "We're here. We're not going to leave. We're going to change it. We're going to do what we said.''