During spring workouts, Ben Johnson's Gophers basketball team has no other physical presence like freshman Pharrel Payne, whose 6-9, 255-pound frame is a load in the paint for anyone in the Big Ten.
Payne, the Gophers' likely starting center next season, won't be the heaviest player on the roster when Washington State transfer and former two-sport athlete Jack Wilson arrives this summer.
The 6-11 Wilson said he showed up at his first basketball workout last year weighing an eye-popping 345 pounds for the Cougars, who used him in 14 games as a backup center. The tallest player in college football the past two years played 25 games as a reserve offensive lineman at Washington State as well.
Wilson said he fluctuates now between 295 and 315 pounds. That significantly outweighs Payne and just about every other Big Ten center last season outside of Purdue's 7-4 man mountain Zach Edey.
Wilson's looking forward to the physical battles with Payne in practice this summer.
"He's a beast," said Wilson, who signed with the Gophers last month. "In high school, I played in the [Nike] EYBL and you wouldn't see many taller guys like that. They were tall and gangly, but he's solid man. I'm excited to be working with him for sure. He's already a good player, but he's only going to be getting better."
Not that Gophers coach P.J. Fleck would be curious, but Wilson's football eligibility is up. He does still recall some of his pro combine-type numbers. He benched 225 pounds 30 times in a row, has a 7-1 wingspan and a 30-inch vertical jump.
"I wanted to be a strength coach, so naturally in my free time I lifted," said Wilson. "But then football, it got taken to another level. As an offensive lineman I ended up just putting weight on my frame. With that I got really strong, I got into a very different type of shape than I ever was in, but I developed underneath [the bulk] a lot more fast twitch and explosive muscle and ability. So coming back to basketball I just had to slowly cut a little bit of unnecessary weight from football."