Best Gophers of the Tubby Era: #25-21.

Throughout the summer I'll be writing up each of the 34 players who played for the University of Minnesota under Tubby Smith.  Why Tubby?  Because it's the most recent era that's over.  If this goes well perhaps I'll go back and do Monson as well.  I'll be looking at any player who played at Minnesota under Tubby at some point, even if it was just a year.  And I will be considering their entire Gopher career, so guys who started under Monson or finished under Pitino will have their whole career considered, but anyone who transferred in or out is only evaluated on their Gopher stats.  With me?  Here we go:

#34 to #31 can be found here.
#26-#30 can be found here.

25.  TRAVIS BUSCH (2007-2009).
-  I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking he should be higher based solely on his heart and his hustle and his grit.  Maybe so.  But grit and a can do it attitude can only get you so far - like a career total of 132 points in a gopher uniform.  I know you've talked yourself into remembering him as an impact player in his second year, but the fact of the matter is he only averaged 3.7 points per game that season.  I think he had a handful of good games in a row or something at one point.  Also, and I forgot this and only remembered when I was perusing my Busch archives, the team flat out decided not to renew his scholarship after his junior year.  So that's something.

24.  DEVRON BOSTICK (2008-2010).
-  Ranks up there with Antoine Broxsie as one of the most disappointing Gophers in my lifetime.  I remember reading up on him after the Gophers signed him out of JuCo and thinking damn he sounds good.  A polished scorer with two years of JuCo experience?  I figured him to come in and be instant offense at worst.  Never happened.  He averaged just 3.7 points per game in his Gopher career, and played less than 10 minutes per game his senior year.  Course, that'll happen when you shoot just 43%.  He had games where he started to look like he was putting it together, and he could certainly be a smooth offensive player at times, but time ran out before he could put it all together.

23.  CHIP ARMELIN (2010-2012).
-  Another disappointing Gopher, and other than Busch this whole post could just be labeled "The Disappointments", Armelin also never quite managed to put it all together.  He averaged 4.5 points per game in 12.5 minutes per game in his two years here, and although he certainly had some serious athletic ability it never really manifested itself.  He didn't put up good rebounding numbers, he wasn't a great defender, and he shot just 42%. He blossomed in his senior year after transferring to Mississippi State, but like I said, that means nothing here.  I initially had him below Bostick, but I forgot how ineffective Bostick actually was.  Armelin outscored him by 132 points, out-rebounded him by 32, and out-assisted him by 10.

22.  OTO OSENIEKS (2011-2014).
-  Another guy who never quite put it all together.  Oto had a weird career, culminating in a career ending injury until the Gophers needed another big guy and then suddenly he could play again.  His willingness to help the team is commendable, and he was maybe is a coach or grad assistant or something so that's great, but he also averaged just 3.5 points per game in his 3-year Gopher career and was a pretty god awful rebounder despite being 6-8.  I always liked Oto, and I really wanted him to succeed since it seemed to me everyone was a bit too hard on him.  Somehow, my want never made it so.

21.  PAUL CARTER (2008-2010).
-  Carter played just two years for the Gophers before transferring to UIC to be closer to his sick sister, but he ranks this highly because he's actually good.  He had the most points and second most rebounds of any player ranked so far despite just the two seasons.  Carter really made some strides between his first and second seasons and could have been a potential star, and he blossomed quite a bit once he enrolled at UIC.  It was a bummer when he left, and I'll always remember his huge block in the big comeback win in Madison which, by the way, I was in attendance for.  After the game and then after the bar we went to some pizza place and there was some punk kid there who moved our stuff and was sitting in our seat and he wouldn't move and wouldn't even look at us or acknowledge us in any way so Dawger slapped the pizza out of his stupid mouth and then we got kicked out.  Still got to take our pizza with us though.