Minnesota and St. Thomas met in men's basketball on Friday night for the first time in 92 years, ending a long gap between schools that sit just 3 miles apart along the Mississippi River. The game drew an expected crowd of about 10,000 at The Barn by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, turning a rare local meeting into the kind of night both programs could point to.
The timing mattered because Minnesota does not often get that kind of turnout at home. The Gophers topped 10,000 fans only twice last season, against Wisconsin and Nebraska, and this game gave the program another full building in a matchup that carried a local edge far beyond ordinary nonconference play.
That edge has limits. St. Thomas is in its sixth year as a Division I program after moving directly from Division III, and it has won 48 games over the last two years. It ranked 113th last season, while Minnesota ranked 82nd, so the balance of the matchup did not make it a clean resume builder for the home team even if it offered something fans wanted to see.
Medved said the appeal changes once the local element is stripped away. If the name comes off the jersey, he said, there is no upside to Minnesota playing St. Thomas, and he added that emotion aside, the game does not always make much sense. He also said he was willing to do it now because he thinks it is good for basketball in the Twin Cities.
That is where the real friction sits. The NCAA's quadrant system sorts 365 teams into four groups to judge the quality of wins and losses, and extra ticket sales do not count in tournament selection. In other words, a sold-out building helps the atmosphere, but it does not change how the NCAA weighs the result.
Johnny Tauer put the scheduling problem in plain terms: there is no doubt one team usually takes on more risk than the other, and the system creates incentives to play opponents you are expected to beat. He said a lot of mid-major programs would like a path to an at-large bid for really strong seasons, then added that it takes two to tango. That is the part that leaves the future of this matchup unresolved. The first game in 92 years arrived because both sides said yes, but Medved does not sound eager to promise a regular series.
