In her third season as head coach of the Gophers’ women’s basketball team, Lindsay Whalen will look to clinch a spot in the NCAA Tournament for the first time under her tenure.

Whalen will have a lot of roster turnover heading into the 2020-21 season. Leading scorer, Destiny Pitts, transferred to Texas A&M, and guard Mercedes Staples transferred to San Diego State. The departures continue as sisters Taiye and Kehinde Bello, Jasmine Brunson, and Masha Adashchyk have all graduated. The six players combined for 49.1% of the Gophers’ scoring a season ago.

The Gophers will be very young this season with three incoming freshmen, a handful of contributing sophomores and only one player in her final year of eligibility.

Point Guard
The point guard position was predominantly run by Pitts – the former Big Ten freshman of the year – for the first 15 games of the 2019 season. She averaged 16.3 points and 3.3 assists per contest until Whalen suspended Pitts on Jan. 12 for what was described as “conduct unbecoming of the team.” Pitts later decided to transfer to Texas A&M.

This opened the door for Brunson to take on the role of directing the offense. Brunson averaged 9.8 points and 3 assists while starting every contest but three. She has now graduated, so the Gophers will look for a new face to control the offense in 2020.

Look for sophomore Jasmine Powell, a former four-star recruit, to take on a bigger role in 2020. She led the team with 375 points and 96 assists and was second in points per game behind Pitts, averaging 12.1, while only playing 26.3 minutes per game in her freshman season.

Shooting Guard

Gadvia Hubbard started all 31 games from the shooting guard position in 2019. She played the most minutes on the team, with 32.4 per game, and averaged 11.2 points, 3.4 rebounds and 1.8 assists per game.

The Virginia Beach, Virginia, native returns for her redshirt senior year in 2020, and she will likely play a very similar role this season.

Small Forward

A season ago, Sara Scalia started all but one game for the Gophers, playing at both the two and three position. The Stillwater, Minnesota, native averaged 10.8 points and 4.1 rebounds in 32.2 minutes per game in 2019. Entering her sophomore season, with a number of scorers leaving, Scalia has a chance to be a main contributor in the Gophers offense in 2020.

Power Forward

In 2019, the power forward position was handled by a combination of Adashchyk, Scalia and Klarke Sconiers. With Sconiers and Scalia likely seeing time at other positions this season and Adashchyk having graduated, a large gap is open at the power forward position heading into this season.

In comes graduate-transfer Laura Bagwell-Katalinich. Bagwell-Katalinich, an Academy of the Holy Angels graduate, decided to play for the Gophers after a year at Penn and three years at Cornell. The 6’0” forward started 50 of 52 games over the last two years for the Big Red, averaging 14.8 points, 7.5 rebounds, 1.9 assists and 1.2 steals per game, while shooting 45.6% from the floor and 79.9% from the free-throw line. The Minneapolis native will play a large part in the Gophers’ hopes of returning to the NCAA Tournament in 2020.

Center
The post was usually controlled by Taiye Bello in 2019. Standing at 6’2,” Bello was able to use her size to her advantage. For the duration of the season, she nearly averaged a double-double with 11.8 points and 9.8 rebounds per game. Her production will be missed, as the Gophers only return one player taller than 6’0” who played at least 10 minutes per game last year.

Sconiers was that player — in her freshman season she averaged 2.5 points and 1.6 rebounds in only 10.5 minutes per game. Sconiers fits the trend of sophomores that will be asked to step into a much bigger role in their second season.

Redshirt sophomore Barbora Tomancova could also play a role at the center position in 2020. She appeared in 19 games last season with a small workload of only 7.5 minutes per contest.

In September, five Gophers’ alumni signed professional contracts to compete in the International Swimming League for the 2020 season.

Kierra Smith signed with the LA Current, Conner McHugh and Lindsey Kozelsky signed with DC Trident, Tevyn Waddell will be joining the NY Breakers and Bowe Becker will be rejoining the Cali Condors.

The ISL is entering only its second season of existence after a successful 2019 campaign last October. The ISL presents competitive professional swimming in a unique and exciting way. The league competes in teams of 16 men and 16 women. There are five North American-based teams and four European-based teams plus one in Tokyo, Japan. Last season, the league was known for its atmosphere — each event took place in front of an electric atmosphere that resembled more of an EDM concert rather than a swimming meet.

Becker and Smith will be entering their second seasons within the league, and Smith will be looking to defend a title after winning a league championship with the France-based Energy Standard in 2019. This year will be the first ISL season for McHugh, Kozelsky and Waddell. According to McHugh, all five swimmers are currently training together before leaving to begin their season.

Before joining the Condors, Becker, a freestyle specialist, had a terrific career with the Gophers. In his final season, he reached the NCAA Championships where he would finish runner up in the 100-meter freestyle event, falling short by .003 seconds. The Las Vegas native used this disappointing result to help him reach where he is at today.

“I just want to find things in my swimming to get better at,” Becker said. “I don’t want to hear the good part of the race, I want to hear the bad parts so I know I can keep improving. I definitely used it as motivation.”

Smith, who graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2017, is arguably the most decorated swimmer out of the group. The Kelowna, British Columbia, native still holds three school records. In the 2015 NCAA Championships, Smith took home gold in the 200 breast with room to breathe, winning the final race by more than two seconds, an event that she later finished in seventh in at the 2016 Olympics. The world-class swimmer found creative ways to stay in shape during these unpredictable times.

“My dad and I started a 16-week half marathon training program when I went back home in March. I learned to enjoy the process of running and how to not judge myself if it was a good run or a bad run,” Smith said.

“My childhood swim coach opened up his pool in April, and it even snowed one day. I was able to train in his 10-meter backyard pool for four months,” she said.

McHugh had quite the collegiate career with the Gophers as well: He finished as a six-time All-American. Now he will be joining fellow training partner, college teammate and backstroke specialist Kozelsky with the DC Trident. McHugh couldn’t be happier to have a familiar face on his team.

“I am really thankful for that and looking forward to that. We both grew up in the Midwest [and] both swam breaststroke, so it will be very fun to experience the ISL together and be on the same team,” McHugh said.

Kozelsky left her name on the Gophers swimming record books before graduating last spring. The Albert Lea, Minnesota, native currently holds the program record in the 100-meter breast, 200 medley relay and 400 medley relay. She realized that competing in the ISL was an opportunity she couldn’t pass up before moving into teaching.

“It’s a wonderful platform for swimmers to swim after collegiate athletics. It is a wonderful opportunity to grow the sport of swimming,” Kozelsky said. “This swimming opportunity will give me so much more perspective going into the classroom.”

Waddell etched her name into Minnesota’s record books multiple times during her collegiate career. The Mitchell, South Dakota, swimmer currently holds the school’s top spot in the 100 backstroke, 200 medley relay and 400 medley relay, as well as all-time best times in the 100 and 200 back events. Waddell hopes to get the most out of her swimming career before she begins a potential career in law.

“This opportunity fit in perfectly because I previously didn’t have any plans for this year. My intentions were going to law school in the fall of 2021 anyways,” Waddell said. “It will be fun to swim against big names that have gone or even won the Olympics.”

Amid the pandemic, the ISL will be using a bubble-like atmosphere in Budapest, Hungary, similar to the NBA’s in Orlando, Florida. There will be no fans, and the season will include strict medical protocols, including the housing of athletes in single rooms on Margaret Island, and each team will be allocated their own training pool.

Swimmers will be tested twice for COVID-19 before leaving their country of origin and then twice in Budapest before they can be cleared to train. Athletes are expected to be tested every five days.

The season begins Oct. 16 and runs through Nov. 22, with the finals taking place in late December at an unconfirmed location.

The competition will take place without spectators with five matches in October. Those will be followed by a further five starting in November to decide the top eight teams that will qualify for the semi-finals held from Nov. 19-22. The top four teams will then progress to the final in late December at an unconfirmed location.

In early August, many doubted the Big Ten conference would play football in 2020.

Then on Aug. 4, Gophers’ star receiver Rashod Bateman decided to opt out of the 2020-21 season to prepare for the 2021 NFL Draft and also cited concerns over COVID-19. Bateman has asthma.

But on Wednesday, the Big Ten announced its altered plans to play an eight game conference season beginning the weekend of Oct. 23-24. The Big Ten cited added protocols and information by the Big Ten Return to Competition Task Force as reasons for starting the season.

Now, the junior receiver wants to return to the Gophers for the fall season, according to Pete Thamel, a college football reporter at Yahoo Sports.

Source: Minnesota star WR Rashod Bateman wants to play for Gophers in 2020. He’s back on campus and enrolled as a full-time student. He’s signed with agent and finds himself in the same scenario as other high-profile players around the country.

— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) September 18, 2020

“Minnesota star WR Rashod Bateman wants to play for the Gophers in 2020. He’s back on campus and enrolled as a full-time student,” Thamel said on Twitter.

According to Thamel, Bateman will need clearance from the NCAA in order to return in 2020. Bateman has already signed with an agent, which makes him ineligible per NCAA rules, but he could return through the Student-Athlete Reinstatement process.

Bateman was second on the team in receiving yards and touchdowns last season with 1,219 yards and 11 touchdowns behind only Tyler Johnson, who Minnesota lost to the NFL Draft. Without their top two receivers from a season ago, the Gophers are thin at the receiving position. They will return their third and fourth leading receivers in redshirt juniors Chris Autman-Bell and Demetrius Douglas. Bateman’s addition would add much needed depth.

In late March, Gophers’ wrestling standout Gable Steveson was coming off of a Big Ten heavyweight championship victory and was preparing for the NCAA Championships where he would remain the No. 1 seed among heavyweights. Unfortunately, the entire world quickly flipped upside down, and like most people, Steveson did not know what his immediate future would entail.

After a five-month layoff of competitive wrestling, Steveson is set to compete in the 2020 Beat the Streets NYC virtual benefit on Thursday. The junior heavyweight is reportedly weighing around 260 pounds before he is set to wrestle Wisconsin’s Trent Hillger, an opponent who Steveson holds a 3-0 all-time record against. Although Steveson has experience against his opponent, he tries to enter each match with the same mindset.

“I really try to treat each opponent the same. He is a great opponent but I will just try to be myself and do what I do, and I think I will be successful,” Steveson said.

Hillger, a redshirt junior, has finished fourth in the last two Big Ten Championships within the heavyweight division and will be a great test for the Apple Valley, Minnesota native.

Steveson will have more to overcome than just his opponent. Beat the Streets is historically one of the more electric atmospheres in freestyle wrestling, but all six matches in this year’s event will be held outdoors without fans in an undisclosed location somewhere in the New York Tri-State area. The event is expected to begin at 5:30 p.m. Central Standard Time on Sept. 17, with the safety of the participants as the priority. Steveson told the Star Tribune he tested negative for COVID-19 before leaving the state and was tested again after landing in New York on Wednesday.

The event will also follow state and local health and government restrictions as well as the USA Wrestling Return to Events Guidelines.

Overall, the Minnesota heavyweight doesn’t seem too concerned about the altered atmosphere.

“It won’t really bother me. I go there to wrestle my match, and the fans come to watch. At the end of the day, my goal is to win my match and come back home,” Steveson said.

Gophers’ wrestling head coach Brandon Eggum couldn’t be more excited to see one of his own wrestlers compete in an event like Beat the Streets, as it historically showcases some of the best wrestling talents in the country.

“It’s always a positive to have one of your guys spotlighted in a big event like this because it really showcases your program and the University of Minnesota,” Eggum said.

Beat the Streets will be partnering with FloWrestling to showcase this year’s event fundraiser. The virtual telethon will include well-known coaches, athletes and celebrities, along with the six matches. This year’s event will make it 11 straight years of Beat the Streets showcasing a unique wrestling event that has raised millions of dollars in hopes of continuing the organization’s mission, to develop the full human and athletic potential of urban youth and to strengthen the wrestling culture within New York City.