Minnesota is missing star Mara Braun again. This time the Gophers are learning how to win

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Playing without leading scorer Mara Braun is not exactly an experience Minnesota wants to endure, with the third-year guard wearing a walking boot on her right foot while relegated to an encourager role from the sideline rather than facilitating the offense, hitting outside shots and fiercely defending the perimeter.

The upside for the Gophers? They've done this before, making the challenge just a little easier to meet. They're 23rd in the latest Associated Press poll, their second straight week in the Top 25 after the program was absent from the national rankings for more than five years.

“Everybody has to step up and do a little bit more than they’ve done in the past, and we’re starting to see that come to fruition this year more than we did last year,” coach Dawn Plitzuweit said. “Last year when it happened, we were not prepared in the same way that we were this year because our players have had another full year of development.”

Braun broke her foot when she landed on an opponent in a game about a year ago. The Gophers, who were 14-5 at the time, lost eight of their last nine regular season games without her. Braun returned after surgery and a two-month recovery to play in their first two WNIT games, but she aggravated the injury and missed the next three games in that tournament, including the title game loss to Saint Louis.

After playing in the first five games this season, Braun suffered a reinjury in practice and had another procedure. In the meantime, the Gophers have grown up. They're 17-2 overall and 5-2 in Big Ten play entering their game against 24th-ranked Michigan on Wednesday night.

“I feel like this time we know how to handle it better,” junior forward Mallory Heyer said. “I just feel like we have more pieces, a deeper team, to be able to help with her absence.”

Heyer and sophomore guard Grace Grocholski have thus improved their ballhandling skill and decision-making in transition. Amaya Battle, a junior guard who joined Braun and Heyer in a heralded 2022 recruiting class brought in by former coach Lindsay Whalen solely from high schools around the Twin Cities area, is having a breakthrough season with a career-best 3-point shooting percentage (38.2) and a turnover rate she's cut in half. Freshman Tori McKinney has taken full advantage of the opening in the starting lineup without Braun and is one of five players averaging double-digit points per game.

Nebraska transfer Annika Stewart has been a sparkplug off the bench with 44.8% shooting from 3-point range. Grocholski is a budding star who had 27 points and 10 rebounds for her first career double-double to lead a spirited rally at Northwestern from 16 points down early in the fourth quarter for an 87-82 win on Sunday.

Imagine what the Gophers would be capable of if Braun were on the court with them.

“Sometimes you might want to play the what-if game,” Heyer said, “but at the end of the day you’ve just got to stick with who you’ve got cleared to play and who’s on the floor and just try to get it done with the players you’ve got healthy.”

Minnesota's first game as a ranked team last week was a 99-92 loss at No. 8 Maryland, a daunting trip that was only the beginning.

With the conference schedule at 18 games, two fewer than the men, teams now play only one opponent twice, in most cases a regional rival. As the bad luck of the draw would have it for the Gophers this season, five of their six games against the other Big Ten teams ranked in the latest AP poll are on the road, including the daunting Southern California double: at No. 4 USC on Jan. 30 and at No. 1 UCLA on Feb. 2.

They play at No. 12 Ohio State on Feb. 13 and finish the conference slate at No. 21 Michigan State on March 1. The Gophers also took their first loss at then-No. 25 Nebraska on Dec. 8.

The progress in Plitzuweit's second season suggests plenty more success ahead for this group, even in such a grueling conference. The door for Braun's return remains open, Plitzuweit said, but the benefit of taking a medical redshirt and preserving a year of eligibility will undoubtedly enter the equation with team doctors.

In the meantime, the Gophers will ponder a question the coaching staff asked prior to the season and again before the game at Maryland: Can they play their best even when they physically don't feel that way? That challenge could also be applied to taking the court without their best player.

“Last year that was an area that we weren’t quite as prepared for, whether that was physically or whether that was understanding that you could do those type of things. Whatever that was, we didn’t have that last year in us ... the same way," Plitzuweit said. "We're better at it this year.”

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