St. Olaf men's basketball coach Dan Kosmoski strolled through Williams Arena last week and got nostalgia out of the way before playing the Gophers in Wednesday's exhibition game.
The longtime Minnesota hoops figure known widely as "Koz" once called The Barn home when he played for Jim Dutcher during the Gophers glory days with Kevin McHale, Mychal Thompson, and Flip Saunders in the late 1970s. He was a Clem Haskins assistant on the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight teams at the U in 1989 and 1990.
"I've spent a lot of time there as a coach and as player," said Kosmoski, who has been coaching St. Olaf since 1994. "The memories just flooded in."
On the opposite bench Wednesday, second-year Gophers coach Ben Johnson and assistant Dave Thorson have their own personal connection with Kosmoski, too.
That's one of the reasons why the Gophers contacted St. Olaf to gauge interest in playing an exhibition game this year. "Once a Gopher, always a Gopher," Kosmoski said about what Johnson told him.
"It's a Gophers family and always will be," Kosmoski said. "It just hit me. He didn't have to do this. He recognized there are traditions and history. He gave this Division III coach a [great] opportunity to play an exhibition game."
Johnson, a former Gophers player and DeLaSalle standout, attended the popular Clem Haskins camp growing up. Kosmoski was the "mastermind" behind the camp becoming a Minnesota basketball staple for 14 years.
"That was a big one," Johnson said. "If you were a basketball player you did that one. They would get huge numbers. The overnight camp was crazy popular. Obviously, they were winning, so it was a big draw. Koz was a big focal point of getting that organized."
Thorson, a DeLaSalle coaching legend, worked at the camp with Kosmoski before he was hired to join Haskins' staff in 1990. They spent a lot of time studying film and strategizing together with the Gophers, including the last two seasons when Thorson was also a full-time assistant.
"For most of the time over the four years we were roommates on the road," Thorson said. "The cool thing about Koz at the end of the day, he's lived so many different eras of Gophers basketball. People forget he was also a Hall of Fame athlete at Owatonna. He was an incredible athlete. He coached with Dutcher, Coach Haskins, and [Flip]. It only made sense that we played him."
It will be a strange feeling, though, for Kosmoski and Thorson not to be sitting together on the bench below the U's raised floor. They had never coached against each other since leaving the Gophers at the same time in 1994.
"Dave was my guy; he always has been," Kosmoski said. "Look at what he did at DeLaSalle. I've been blessed to be here for 28 years. We just kind of have gone full circle and we'll touch base Wednesday."
Kosmoski took over St. Olaf's Division III basketball program in Northfield, Minn. Thorson became DeLaSalle's coach. Both experienced great success in their own right.
Thorson won nine state titles before returning to become a college assistant again at Drake in 2017. Kosmoski has 352 wins and counting, including the school's first ever NCAA tournament in 2014.
The Oles, who are playing their first Division I opponent since 2009, have been to four NCAA tournaments under Kosmoski and went 16-11 last season.
The path that "Koz" took after spending nine seasons as Haskins' assistant with the Gophers ended up being so rewarding that he stayed for nearly 30 years. He has no intention of retiring anytime soon.
"I was able to coach kids at a high major and now these kids here," Kosmoski said. "It's all about teaching and learning. I've been blessed to [be able to do that] for many years."
