The Wake

There’s no doubt that both men’s and women’s Gophers basketball are in a rebuilding phase. The men’s team lost Vincent Grier, a third-team All-American and the team’s leading scorer. The men’s team also lost Adam Boone, J’son Stamper, Maurice Hargrow and Zach Puchtel. The women’s team had five players leave the team after the season that weren’t graduating, including Jamie Broback, Natasha Williams and Center Liz Podominick. The Gopher basketball program has seen better days.

The best place to start rebuilding is with the head coach. Dan Munson deserves to be replaced – not by an outsider but by someone who knows Gopher basketball, Pam Borton.

You’re skeptical and understandably so, but there’s no better way to be a progressive research institution than to start a major sports experiment by having the first female coach of a men’s basketball team in NCAA history.

Let’s look at the numbers.

The Gopher men’s basketball team finished last season 16-15, with only one win versus a Top 25 team – Iowa, ranked 23rd on Feb. 18. In the Big Ten, the Gophers finished 5-11.

Munson was hired by Minnesota to rebuild the basketball program after the Clem Haskins fiasco. He came highly regarded after taking Gonzaga to the elite eight. However, at Minnesota, it has been one let down after the next.

This year, Munson’s squad will take on Bemidji State and Winona State in its two exhibition games. Both are Division II schools. Then the Gophers will battle North Dakota State and Long Island. NDSU and Long Island had combined records of 21-31 last year. It’s better to lose to good teams than barely beating bad ones.

On the other side of the spectrum from Munson is Pam Borton. A coach whose stock has risen since coaching basketball at the U. Borton’s record at Minnesota is 95-33 in her first four years as Head Coach. This season, Borton has a chance to reach 100 victories before any other U of M women’s basketball coach.

Past and Present
In her career, Borton is 164-79 (67.5% winning percentage), whereas Munson is 168-118 (58.7% winning percentage). Let’s not forget that Munson coached at Gonzaga for two years where he beat up the likes of San Francisco, UC-Santa Clara, Saint Mary’s and Loyola Marymount. Borton, however, coached at Vermont University and led them to a record of 69-46 over the four seasons she spent as head coach. Her career-winning percentage has risen slightly from 66.7% to 67.5% since she began at Minnesota. Munson’s career winning percentage has decreased dramatically, from 75.3% at Gonzaga to 58.7% overall.

Munson’s career at Minnesota is a joke. It is borderline hilarious that the Gopher basketball media guide touts “five postseason appearances in six years” when four of those five appearances were the NIT. Borton has led the women’s Gopher basketball team to four consecutive NCAA tournaments, reaching the Sweet Sixteen three times, including a trip to the Final Four.

In a sports world, where mediocrity is often penalized, the Gophers seem to let mediocrity slide and even reward it. This attitude comes to the surprise of fans that have seen coaches with winning records at other schools get released year after year because they can’t win the games. It would be a perfect opportunity to go off on a Glen Mason rant, but, oh hell, I’ll spare you the time.

Pam Borton, or anyone else for that matter, should be given a shot at coaching the men’s team. If she starts right now, she’ll have roughly three weeks to grab the players by the balls and have them ready for their first game against Bemidji State on Nov. 3.