Minneapolis draws praise as a growing base for Big Ten basketball

Northwestern women's basketball coach Joe McKeown has a soft spot for Minnesota. He owns a home here. He is friends with Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve, who was his assistant at George Washington in the early 1990s. Two of the best players he has recruited while at Northwestern were from Minnesota in Nia Coffey and Abi Scheid.

"I'm one of the biggest fans of Minneapolis and Minnesota, except when I play the Gophers,'' McKeown said Tuesday at the first of two Big Ten Conference media days at Target Center.

In particular, he appreciates the amount of talent being produced by the state, and the way the state has embraced girls' and women's basketball. To him, having the 2023 Big Ten women's basketball championship at Target Center is only fitting.

"I don't think you could have a better venue,'' he said. "So, hopefully, you can see the Wildcats in the championship game.''

In some ways Minnesota has been a focal point for women's basketball for a while, with Reeve's Lynx winning four titles between 2011 and 2017.

Last spring's Final Four at Target Center drew sellout crowds, with 18,286 at the semifinal round and 18,304 fans watching South Carolina beat Connecticut in the title game. And now the Big Ten women's tournament will come to Target Center for at least the next two seasons. The men's 2024 tournament will be held here, too.''

Maryland coach Brenda Frese saw how strongly the fanbase would react while she coached Lindsay Whalen and the Gophers to an at-large berth in the NCAA tournament in 2002.

"It's the best of the best,'' Frese said. "They support women's teams. They love their sports and athletics as a whole. I think that's why it's such a great fit for us to be able to come in here and have the Big Ten tournament here.''

Conference Commissioner Kevin Warren got a taste of all that during his years working for the Vikings.

"Minnesota, Minneapolis, St. Paul, the Twin Cities, this entire region is basketball hungry,'' Warren said. "I was fortunate to live here for 16 years, with my time with the Vikings. People here are going to be really excited, and probably somewhat surprised, about how basketball is supported here in the Twin Cities.''

Monday many coaches talked about the challenges the NCAA's transfer portal present. Of course, one of the high-profile moves this off-season was former Stillwater High School standout Sara Scalia's decision to transfer from the Gophers to Indiana. A consensus second-team all-conference pick, Scalia was eighth in the league in scoring (17.9) and second in threes made per game (3.4).

"There are some really good pieces to it, there's some frustrating pieces to it,'' Indiana coach Teri Moren said of the portal. "We have benefited from the portal. I'd be lying if I told you we haven't. … We're excited about Sara joining our basketball team."''

Purdue men's coach Matt Painter said at Big Ten media day that his program fought through nagging injuries this summer, especially to younger players.

One of those players was former Wayzata standout Camden Heide, who played only three games in his senior season, sidelined with an injured foot at Wasatch Academy in Utah. The 6-7, 205-pound Heide also was out the entire summer with the Boilermakers going through the recovery process.

"Cam is very athletic, can really shoot the basketball," Painter said. "We're excited about him. But he's had a little bit of that injury bug like the rest of our guys."

Warren was asked if the Big Ten had any further plans to expand the conference's 14 teams beyond adding UCLA and USC next season. He only said they were "mindful of expansion."

"Our priority is just to make sure that we take care of our 14 member institutions now from a basketball [scheduling] standpoint, from a conference standpoint," Warren said. "And that we do everything that we possibly can to make sure we flawlessly integrate UCLA and USC."