BREAKING: Ben Johnson Identified as NIL Roadblock for Gophers Men’s Hoops

The Minnesota Gophers men’s basketball program is now under the leadership of Niko Medved, a Minneapolis native and former Gopher graduate assistant. He replaces Ben Johnson, another local product who graduated from DeLaSalle High School and played for Minnesota in the early 2000s.

Johnson spent four seasons as head coach, finishing with a disappointing 56-71 record (.441) before athletic director Mark Coyle dismissed him following a Big Ten Tournament loss to Northwestern.

One of the major challenges Johnson faced during his tenure was the rapidly changing landscape of college athletics. When he took the job in 2021, both the NCAA transfer portal and NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) policies were still in their infancy. Since then, the focus of major Division I programs has shifted away from traditional recruiting methods toward raising funds through boosters and collectives to attract and compensate players.

Minnesota Gophers MBB NIL fell behind under Johnson

The University of Minnesota brought in Ben Johnson with a clear goal: to keep top in-state high school talent from leaving for nearby programs or national powerhouses. At the time, local boosters believed Johnson was the ideal candidate to fix that issue. What they didn’t anticipate was just how drastically NIL would reshape the college sports landscape.

Not long after Johnson’s hiring over four years ago, it became evident that NIL had become the driving force in college athletics. Programs with deep NIL resources quickly rose to the top, while those lacking financial backing — as head football coach PJ Fleck famously warned in a passionate radio rant two years ago — were at risk of becoming development pipelines for the wealthier schools.

“So, if we want to keep our players — all these guys we currently have — they won’t be here next year without more NIL support. I just want to make sure everyone understands that. Our top players will be gone. We’ll basically become a Triple-A team for bigger programs. That’s the hard truth of where things stand. So please, reach out to Dinkytown Athletes…”

And ultimately, that’s exactly how things unfolded for the Minnesota Gophers men’s basketball program under Ben Johnson. He brought in talented players like Jamison Battle, Cam Christie, Elijah Hawkins, Pharrel Payne, and Joshua Ola-Joseph—some with deep Minnesota ties.

Johnson helped those players grow and improve significantly during their time in Dinkytown. But once they were ready to take the next step, they moved on—either to the NBA, like Christie, or to schools offering bigger NIL deals, such as Ohio State, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, and Cal.

Each offseason, Johnson and his staff faced the same issue: a lack of NIL funds. Instead of building around a strong returning core, they were forced to reload with under-the-radar players from the transfer portal, leading to patched-together, underwhelming rosters. The cycle repeated itself year after year—develop, lose, scramble to replace. That’s ultimately why Ben Johnson was let go.

Who’s to blame for Ben Johnson’s failures in Minnesota?

So, who’s really to blame? That’s been the burning question. Even as Ben Johnson was shown the door, plenty of local voices—media, fans, and even current and former coaches—rushed to defend him. They pointed the finger not at Johnson, but at athletic director Mark Coyle, arguing that he failed to give Ben the NIL backing needed to compete in today’s college basketball landscape.

One of Johnson’s strongest media allies, Star Tribune reporter Marcus Fuller, decided to dig deeper. He reached out to Derek Burns, founder of Dinkytown Athletes—the University of Minnesota’s official NIL collective—to investigate two key things: (a) how the NIL push is going under new head coach Niko Medved, and (b) who really dropped the ball during the Johnson era.

And what did Fuller find? That Medved, in just a few short weeks on the job, has already raised more NIL money than Johnson did in his entire final season.

How? According to Burns, it comes down to one crucial difference: Medved has fully embraced the NIL era. He understands what it takes to win in today’s game. In contrast, Johnson and his staff never fully adapted. In the end, it’s another stark reminder of the old saying: adapt or die.

“I’m optimistic about the near future of Gophers men’s basketball,” said Derek Burns, co-founder of Dinkytown Athletes. “With revenue sharing on the horizon and our NIL efforts performing better than ever, those factors combined are helping to close the gap in resources.”

Since Niko Medved took over, the Gophers’ collective has raised millions—more than it brought in during the entirety of the previous year—all within just a few weeks.

“Niko and his staff have been relentless in their fundraising efforts from day one,” Burns added. “There hasn’t been a single day where they haven’t been out there engaging with donors. That kind of consistency is encouraging. But even more important is their willingness to embrace what college athletics has become. They get it.”

Why was Ben Johnson protected with such fervor?

What’s been striking about the media’s defense of Ben Johnson is how the narrative around NIL expectations seemed to shift. From the moment Name, Image and Likeness entered the college sports landscape, it’s been widely understood that the head coach is the primary driver of NIL fundraising for their program.

That reality hasn’t changed. PJ Fleck made that clear with his vocal push in 2023, and he’s continued to lead the charge for Minnesota football. Like most major programs, it’s the head coach who partners with collectives like Dinkytown Athletes to not only attract top-tier talent but—perhaps even more crucially—retain the players they’ve already developed. Fleck and his staff have built a sustainable NIL model that protects their roster from being raided by wealthier schools.

The hope now is that this recent momentum carries over to basketball. Because if Minnesota doesn’t catch up quickly in the NIL arms race, it’s hard to see the Gophers becoming a consistent top-25 program again.

To be clear, not all of Johnson’s struggles were entirely his fault. His strengths—recruiting, building relationships, and his basketball IQ—were never in question. But in this new era, those things aren’t enough without the financial engine of NIL behind them. He wasn’t set up for success from the start, but in the end, his unwillingness or inability to adapt to the NIL reality sealed his fate. And that part falls squarely on him.