Gophers basketball recruiting classes shrink as rule changes reshape Signing Day

Last year, during the early signing period, the Gophers women’s basketball team inked four high school recruits, and the men’s team, three. There was a good amount of local fanfare, too, with future Gopher Tori Oehrlein signing athletic aid documents up at Crosby-Ironton. In the Twin Cities metro, Cedric Tomes did the same at East Ridge, and Nolen Anderson at Wayzata . But this year, across both programs, only two high school recruits participated in the ceremonial Signing Day — and none from Minnesota. Lexee Anderson, a 6-foot-7 center from Northern Ontario, will join the Gopher women for the 2027-28 season. Small forward Isaiah Santos , a four-star recruit from Katy, Texas, committed to the men. Advertisement Such small recruit classes are unusual for both programs, at least in recent years. The Gopher women, ranked No. 18 in the latest Associated Press poll, haven’t had only one recruit at the start of a November signing period since 2014. The men’s team has had at least two recruits at November’s Signing Day every year since 2018. But the smaller classes didn’t take either coaching staff by surprise. Large-scale changes in NCAA eligibility rules have led to what Gophers men’s head coach Niko Medved called “a roster crunch” across collegiate athletics.