Three years. A WNIT Finals run, a WBIT title, and a Sweet 16. Dawn Plitzuweit has turned Minnesota women's basketball from an afterthought into a problem the rest of the Big Ten has to game plan for, and the Gophers just made sure she isn't going anywhere.

Head coach of the Minnesota Gophers Women's Basketball team, Dawn Plitzuweit, and the Gophers have agreed to a contract extension, which was approved by the Board of Regents at their June meeting. Plitzuweit is now under contract with the Maroon and Gold through 2032.

According to Mitchell Northam with USA TODAY Sports, the reworked deal raised Plitzuweit's annual base salary to $1.1 million.

Plitzuweit made $900,000 last season, meaning she got a bump of $200,000 with her extension. Her contract also includes annual escalators of $30,000. That will put her base salary in the 2031-32 season at $1.25 million. 

Now if you ask me, Coach Plitzuweit has earned every single penny. After just 3 years, Coach P is 2nd in program history in win % (65.7%) with an overall record of 69-36. Those 69 wins put her at 4th most in Minnesota history, and she is only 14 wins away from 2nd place (which would put her behind only Pam Borton and her 236 wins).

You can see another point that shows how special Dawn Plitzuweit has been by looking across the conference.

She is in the top half of the Big Ten in winning percentage, currently sitting 9th among active coaches. Plitzuweit was 3 wins from 7th and 7 wins from 5th. So her margin to climb even higher is slim.

That's just the hard numbers. And the hard numbers don't tell the full story. They don't account for the fact that in 2 of those 3 seasons, the Gophers were the youngest team in the Big Ten. They don't account for Minnesota losing its star player to a foot injury in 2 of those years. Or for the Gophers losing a 3 year starter in Mallory Heyer to the transfer portal, just 10 days before the 2025-26 season tipped off.

So when I say 7 games from a top 5 win percentage, look at the breaks. The Gophers dropped 10 of their last 12 in Plitzuweit's first year once they lost Mara Braun. There were a handful of close losses last year with Minnesota missing Tori McKinney, including a 2OT heartbreaker to Maryland decided by a single point. A lot of those tough breaks ultimately helped this program find success through adversity over the long haul. But there is a very reasonable argument that Coach Plitzuweit could be a top 5 coach in conference win percentage. And that isn't nothing.

In just 3 years, the Gophers have finished with the following:

That Year 3 finish is the best season the Minnesota Gophers have had since 2004-05. It's also the second highest seed in program history, only behind the 3 seed from that '04-05 squad.

Despite the adversity. Despite the lack of credit from the AP and national media. The Gophers have lived by their mantra of "Find A Way."

Even with all of that said, the best could very well be yet to come. The Minnesota Gophers boast a top 20 recruiting class according to 247Sports, coming in at #17. That freshman class includes 2 top 40 players in Natalie Kussow (28) and Tori Oehrlein (39). And that ranking doesn't even account for the severely underrated Kylee Paben (Nebraska Gatorade Player of the Year) and Adit Kuol.

Minnesota also pulled in a rockstar 3 woman transfer class that should have the Gophers right back in the competitive conversation for the 2026-27 season.

Minnesota's star is rising, and a lot of that has to do with Coach Dawn Plitzuweit being at the helm. The program is in great hands, and if she wants to be here as much as this fanbase wants her here, the Minnesota Gophers could be a team to watch in the Big Ten for years to come.

The Dawn Plitzuweit era isn't winding down. It's just getting started.

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