Gophers women’s basketball coach Dawn Plitzuweit awaits payoff for last season’s big finish

Starting her third season as Gophers women’s basketball coach, Dawn Plitzuweit told reporters at Big Ten media day Wednesday in Chicago that the team hopes to use what was learned at the end of last season.

The Gophers started the season 16-1 before losing seven of their last nine regular-season games and losing in the first round in the Big Ten tournament.

Then the Gophers regrouped and won the Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament (WBIT).

“It gave us five more games to prep and practice,” Plitzuweit said. “We learned so much along that path about how we need to do things better, more consistently. We shot the ball better in the last four games of the season, in the WBIT. We shot 39 percent from the arc. Before that, we were below that by 10 percentage points in the Big Ten season. So we have to look at why. And what did that process look like. So how do we repeat that process and apply it to his year and continue to get better.”

The Gophers overcame injuries to Mara Braun and Taylor Woodson and went on a 5-0 run in the WBIT to finish with a 25-11 record and back-to-back 20-victory seasons for the first time since 2019. The 25 victories were the most by a Gophers team since 2005, when they went 26-8 and reached the Sweet 16. The Gophers went 20-16, reaching the championship of the Women’s National Invitation Tournament, in Plitzuweit’s first season.

“I think it comes down to our pillars, really, and our building blocks within in our program,” said Plitzuweit, who has had just one losing season, her second, in 18 seasons as a college coach. “Our toughness. People think toughness is just defense. And defense is great, and get on the floor and taking charges. And while it is those things, it’s also doing little things really well. We qualify that in our toughness category, and for us that means continuing to get better all the time.

“And there is the togetherness piece. If you’re going to be tough, you’re going to play together. And the third component is find a way. … We’ve had this especially the last two seasons with injuries hitting us at Minnesota, at a very high level. Then we’ve had to find a way to do things differently than we have in the past.”

“It was really fun. We came together, after we really wanted to make the [NCAA] tournament but didn’t get the opportunity,” she said. “But we still got an opportunity to keep on playing, which we were super grateful for. And we came together. ‘If we’re here, we’re going to win it.’ Took a lot of toughness. We had to win five games in a row to do that. And only one of them was at home, so to do that we showed a lot of toughness and resilience. … We gained a lot of momentum we can bring into this season."

Braun returns after playing five games last season before breaking her right foot for the second time in two years. A redshirt junior, she has averaged 16.5 points in 56 career games.

In addition to Battle, Grace Grocholski, Sophie Hart, Mallory Heyer and Tori McKinney return. Battle, Grocholski, Hart and Heyer each started all 36 games last season, and McKinney started 30. Woodson, who averaged 8.1 points in 12 games before being injured, also returns.

Grocholski led the team with 473 points scored (13.1 average), and Heyer averaged 8.6 points and 8.1 rebounds.