The 1996–97 Minnesota Golden Gophers men's basketball team represented the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...

during the 1996–97 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. The team, coached by

Clem Haskins Clem Smith Haskins (born August 11, 1943) is an American former college and professional basketball player and college basketball coach. In the fall of 1963, he and fellow star player Dwight Smith became the first black athletes to integrate the W ...

, played their home games in Williams Arena in Minneapolis, Minnesota as members of the

Big Ten Conference The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representati ...

. They finished the season 31–4, 16–2 in Big Ten play to win the Big Ten championship. They received the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament as the No. 1 seed in the Midwest region. There they defeated Southwest Texas State and

Temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a building reserved for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. Religions which erect temples include Christianity (whose temples are typically called churches), Hinduism (whose temples ...

to advance to the Sweet Sixteen. In the Sweet Sixteen, they defeated Clemson and

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...

to advance to the Final Four for the first time in school history. There they lost to

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...

. In 1999, an academic fraud scandal revealed that Minnesota academic counseling office manager Jan Gangelhoff had done coursework for at least 20 Minnesota basketball players since 1993. Four players from the Minnesota basketball team were immediately suspended, pending an investigation for academic fraud. Head coach

, men's athletic director Mark Dienhart, and university vice president McKinley Boston all resigned. The NCAA sanctioned Minnesota by vacating all appearances in the 1994,

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The Great Hanshin earthquake str ...

, and 1997 NCAA Tournaments and 1996 and

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...

National Invitation Tournaments, as well as individual records of those student-athletes found to have committed academic fraud. The NCAA further issued show-cause penalties for Haskins and Newby (both until October 23, 2007) and Gangelhoff (until October 23, 2005). The Gophers were also stripped of the Big Ten title due to the scandal.

Roster

Schedule and results

, - !colspan=9 style=, Non-conference regular season , - !colspan=9 style=, Big Ten regular season , - !colspan=9 style=, NCAA tournament

Rankings

Awards

Team MVP * Bobby JacksonAwards and Honors
, May 4, 2006. Access date September 28, 2008.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:1996-97 Minnesota Golden Gophers men's basketball team Minnesota Golden Gophers Minnesota Golden Gophers men's basketball seasons NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament Final Four seasons

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

Minne Minne, a Middle High German word for "loving remembrance", may refer to: *Courtly love in the German courtly tradition * Frau Minne, a personification of romantic love in German courtly tradition People * Danièle Djamila Amrane-Minne (1939–2017 ...