University of Minnesota Athletics
MBB: 2004-05 Men's Basketball Final Release
4/19/2005 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
2004-05 Storylines
• Minnesota advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1999 and made its first trip to the Big Dance under Dan Monson.
• Minnesota reached the 20-victory mark overall and the 10-win mark in conference play for the first time under Monson. It is the first 20-victory season since 1992-93 and the first 10-win league mark since 1989-90.
• Monson engineered one of the best turnarounds in Gopher basketball history, improving nine games from a season ago. The nine-game turnaround is the largest in school history, excluding vacated games.
• Vincent Grier was named All-Big Ten First Team by the conference coaches. It’s the third straight year, a Gopher has earned All-Big Ten First Team honors. Grier was also named all-district by the USBWA and the NABC.
• Three seniors, Jeff Hagen, Aaron Robinson and Brent Lawson had career years, recording career highs in every offensive category. Hagen was named honorable mention All-Big Ten, he also played in the NABC All-Star team at the Final Four and at the NBA’s Portsmouth Invitational. Lawson was the only Gopher player to start every game in 2004 -05 and Robinson entered the career three-point shooting charts and made the second- most three-pointers in a season in Gopher history.
• The Gophers led the Big Ten in field goal percentage defense (.424) and three point field goal percentage defense (.274) in conference play. They also led the league in steals at 8.56 per game.
