The Minnesota Golden Gophers women’s basketball team kicks off the 2025-26 season on Thursday night when they host the North Dakota Fighting Hawks at Williams Arena. It begins year three for Dawn Plitzuweit
as the head coach of the Gophers, and hopefully another giant step forward. Minnesota went from WNIT runner ups to WBIT Champions a season ago and will look to try and make their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2017-18.
The Gophers return several players from last season’s WBIT Championship squad including a presuming starting five of Mara Braun, Amaya Battle, Tori McKinney, Grace Grocholski and Sophie Hart. One name missing from that group will be senior Mallory Heyer who announced two weeks ago that she would skip her senior season with Minnesota and enter the transfer portal. Minnesota will be relying on their depth to come from several different places—returnees from a year ago, and newcomers to the roster from both the transfer portal and as freshmen this season.
Returning from a season ago and expected to come off the bench will be redshirt junior Nia Holloway, and junior forward Taylor Woodson. Both have experienced severe knee injuries. Holloway did her freshman year and now enters her junior season in her third year off the injury and should be a presence in the front court off the bench. She saw more limited minutes last season than her first as a Gopher due to the presence of transfer Annika Stewart from Nebraska, but Holloway can be a quality defender and rebounder. Woodson is coming off of an ACL he tore last winter and has been full go for the past week and should be one of the first Gophers off the bench Tuesday night.
Minnesota hit the transfer portal and got a trio of players who all should push for immediate playing time. The top candidate is senior Brylee Glen from Kansas State. Glen redshirted last season with the Wildcats but has started 93 of the 102 games she played at K- State. The 5’10 guard is a versatile player who should be one of the first guards off the bench and give Plitzuweit a good guard rotation. Joining her are Finau Tonga from San Jose State and Tracey Bershers from UAB. Tonga is a 6’2 grad student who will backup Hart at center and pay play some power forward as well. Last year for San Jose State State Tonga started 16 games and was one of the most efficient players in the country scoring at a 58% clip averaging 8.7 points per game She will help the Gophers account for the loss of Heyer’s rebounding as she was the Spartan’s second-leading rebounder with 5.2 per game. Bershers is the sister of incoming freshman Zoey Bershers. She is more of a stretch wing like Annika Stewart was. The 6’2 forward is a three-point threat shotting over 38% for her career at Alabama-Birmingham.
Minnesota also likely will see freshman Makenna Christian play a role early. The Lomira, WI native was the #52 ranked recruit last season by ESPN/Hoopgurlz. The 6’0 guard averaged 25.3 points, 9.9 rebounds, and 2.3 assists per game en route to being named the Wisconsin State Player of the Year, Plitzuweit was quoted in the off-season as saying she can play four different positions on the court. Zoey Bershers is likely to see less tie at least initially as she deals with a calf strain suffered early in practice.
The expectations are high for this Gophers squad. Minnesota was ranked #18 in The Athletic’s preseason top 25 and #20 in On3’s. In addition, Minnesota received 15 votes in the AP’s Oct. 14 poll and one vote in the Oct. 23 WBCA poll. They will look to get off to a quick start against the Fighting Hawks. Minnesota is 37-15 all time in season-opening contests and 29-5 at home in season openers. They are 4-1 all-time against North Dakota with their last meeting coming in 2015. The Fighting Hawks won the initial game in the series in 1977 and the Gophers have won four consecutive.
North Dakota comes in as a team in flux. They have a new head coach in Dennis Hutter. Hutter was an assistant at UND last season and prior to that spent 19 seasons at Mayville State, where he compiled 314 wins and seven 20-win seasons. Minnesota’s main task will be shutting down center Walker Demers. Demers was selected to the 2025-26 Summit League Preseason Second Team and led the Hawks last season, averaging 9.5 points and 7.1 rebounds per game in 25 appearances. The Fighting Hawks were predicted to finish in 7th place in the Summit League by the league’s coaches.
Tip is set for 7:00 PM Tuesday night and the game will stream on B1G+.
