Football season is just around the corner, but Gopher hoops is taking the headlines today with the release of their 2025-26 non-conference schedule. The goal

Typically the non-conference schedule is important for any program with aspirations of making the NCAA Tournament. The goal is to schedul mid-major programs that are good enough to boost your strength of schedule but not quite good enough to beat you, along with a couple of other Power 5 teams that are going to be a Quad 1 (or 2) wins for you. You want it to be challenging, but not too challenging.

Racking up non-conference wins against weak teams helps a little…until you struggle in conference play and your wins are exposed as fraudulent. It is a tricky balance for the coaching staff. And the last couple of seasons saw very weak non-conference opponents.

But this is a transition season for the program, with a new coaching staff and so many transfers, and that goal may not seem objectively realisitic. But Niko Medved won’t share that reality and that will certainly be something they will aspire to accomplish. And he seems to have giving his team a challenging schedule in his first season.

EXHIBITION

The North Dakota schools offer a new challenge for the program. Over the last several years, Minnesota has schedule exhibition games against the D2 or D3 schools in the area. Now they are stepping that up a notch with games against North Dakota State and North Dakota in October.

THE NON-CONFERENCE GAMES

Nov 3 – Gardner-Webb (H)
Nov 8 – Alcorn State (H)
Nov 12 – @ Missouri
Nov 15 – Green Bay (H)
Nov 18 – Chicago St (H)
Nov 22 – San Francisco – in Sioux Falls
Nov 27 – Stanford – in Palm Desert, California as part of the Acrisure Invitational
Nov 28 – Santa Clara or St. Louis – Acrisure Invitational
Dec 14 – Texas Southern (H)
Dec 21 – Campbell (H)
Dec 29 – Fairleigh Dickinson (H)

So we have 1 true road game, against a solid SEC program. We have three neutral site games against decent mid-majors and Standford. And then we have scheduled seven games against teams that should be very beatable.

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS

Missouri is an outlier game – This is truly a challenging game for Minnesota. Mizzou was a 6-seed in last year’s NCAA Tournament, finished 19th in KenPom’s rankings and Dennis Gates appears to have his program trending in the right direction. They lost three starters but return their leading scorer and added a dynamic scorer from the portal. This team should be good and will be at home.
Heading to Sioux Falls – A game back at The Pentagon and facing the San Francisco Dons out of the West Coast Conference. They finished in third place last season, behind Saint Mary’s and Gonzaga who top the conference every year. A solid team but they lost their leading scorer to the portal and two other starters to graduation. Chris Gerlufsen has improved in all three seasons after replacing Todd Golden, but he may have a lot to replace this year.
Acrisure Invitational – Here is a chance to face ACC powerhouse, Standford on a neutral court just outside of Palm Springs. Medved’s Colorado State club played out there last year, taking third place. Stanford finished in the upper half of the ACC last year, missing the NCAA Tournament. They have lost three of their double-digit scorers from last season and this might be an opportunity for a P5 win. Of the possible second game opponents, I would expect St. Louis to win and they would be a challenging opponent. They should be a potential NCAA Tourney team.
Best of the Rest – It is so hard to say. Gardner-Webb, Campbell and Texas Southern were the highest ranking teams from last season, but turnover is so high for everybody that it is impossible to judge who is likely to be competitive next year.
The Fighting Camels – First of all, this is an all-time great nickname. Secondly, Campbell had a decent year last season but they lost their leading scorer to Charleston and a few other key pieces to graduation.
Fun Fact – Way back in the day, when I was holding on to the dream of becoming a college basketball coach, I had a couple of phone conversations with Rick Skuggs who was the Gardner-Webb head coach.
Prediction – I see Minnesota going 9-2 with this non-conference schedule. Losing to Missouri and Saint Louis.