After two last-place finishes in the Big Ten, the trickle of information about the Gophers’ men’s basketball team’s secret scrimmage against Colorado State on Oct. 21 did not appear to be a harbinger of improvement for the upcoming season.

The U suffered a lopsided loss to a Rams team picked to finish fifth in the Mountain West Conference. A college basketball insider by the name of Trilly Donovan, who has had some big scoops, shared the shocking score: Colorado State 87, Minnesota 49.

But on Wednesday, Gophers head coach Ben Johnson wanted to clarify a few things that went into that scrimmage. Johnson said his team had different rotations every four minutes and they agreed to certain parameters with the Rams.

“There are tradeoffs,” Johnson said. “You might ask, ‘Is there something you want us to do defensively? Really deny or pressure early? Can you give me that look for 10 minutes?’ That is the benefit when you those types of (scrimmages).”

There will be no such preconditions when Johnson’s team hosts a scrimmage against Division III’s Macalester at 7 p.m. Thursday at Williams Arena. The Gophers season begins for real on Monday against Bethune Cookman at the Barn.

“(In an) exhibition, they’re going to do what they are going to do, but in these (scrimmages), we need to get something out of it.”

Those scrimmage agreements might mean no zone defense or no pressing if the other team had yet to work on that facet of their preseason.

“You talk about that with the coach (Niko Nedved) on ‘What do you have in? What do you not have in? And there is stuff for them,” Johnson said. “They wanted to work on their offense, so he didn’t necessarily wanted us to press all the time.”

Johnson said against Colorado State he rotated players every four minutes and used different starting lineups in each half. He emphasized getting Parker Fox and Isaiah Ihnen quality minutes since the two forwards are coming back from missing the past two seasons with knee injuries.

The Gophers are incorporating six newcomers, including projected key contributors in guards Elijah Hawkins and Mike Mitchell Jr.

“For me, that part was really good (so we can) start to figure out what guys can and can’t do,” Johnson said. “It shows them on film the good and the bad, which they have to see. From that standpoint, I thought it was really good.”

The Gophers and Rams also played a six-minute session, primarily for younger players including two freshmen — guard Cam Christie and forward Kaydn Betts.

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