Basketball: Gophers and St. Thomas to play each other in 2026-27 season

After five years of no games against each other, the Gophers and St. Thomas men’s and women’s basketball teams will play each other for the first time as Division I neighbors this upcoming season.

The Minnesota’s men will host the Tommies at Williams Arena on Nov. 6; the U women will welcome the Tommies to The Barn on Dec. 1, the schools said Monday.

When St. Thomas went Division I for the 2021-22, then-Gophers men’s head coach Ben Johnson expressed no interest in playing the upstart Tommies, despite them being only four miles away in St. Paul.

“I don’t think we are ever going to play St. Thomas,” Johnson said in 2022. “It’s no disrespect. It’s just — we’ll leave it at that.”

But after Johnson was fired in 2025, new head coach Niko Medved initially said he would be willing to play the Tommies, but not likely on an annual basis.

“I’m not opposed to doing that,” Medved told the Pioneer Press last spring. “I’m not going to play St. Thomas every year.”

There were efforts for the men’s teams to play each other last year, but a finalized plan did not come to fruition.

The Gopher men have not played St. Thomas since 1934. Minnesota was 6-1 against the Tommies when they were Division III from 1907-1934. All games were at the U.

In Medved’s first year, the Gophers men finished 15-18 overall and 8-12 in Big Ten play. They missed out on the NCAA Tournament, but took a bid to play in the College Basketball Crown.

John Tauer’s Tommies finished with its second consecutive 24-10 record, with identical 12-4 marks in the Summitt League. They missed out on March Madness in its first year of eligibility and instead, they took a spot in the National Invitational Tournament.

This is the first time the women’s programs will play against each other.

The Gophers women are coming off its finest seasons in two decades. Under head coach Dawn Plitzuweit, Minnesota went 24-9, including 13-5 in Big Ten play. They reached the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA tournament before falling to UCLA, the eventual national champion.

The Tommies women went 16-16 last season, 8-8 in league play.