Ahead of shock departure, Whalen was planning for next season

Whalen, who is transitioning to a role as an assistant to athletics director Mark Coyle through April 2025, coached Minnesota for five seasons, battling through the COVID years and losing multiple star players – Sara Scalia and Destiny Pitts – via the NCAA transfer portal.

This season, her fifth at the university where she led the Gophers to the Final Four as a point guard, she featured a starting five that included three freshmen: Mara Braun, Amaya Battle and Mallory Heyer.

Minnesota had one of the youngest rosters in a Big Ten that could very well put multiple teams in the Final Four. A whopping 87% of Minnesota's 71.4 points per game were scored by freshmen and sophomores. 

In her postgame press conference following Minnesota's 72-67 loss to Penn State in the opening game of the Big Ten Tournament on Wednesday, Whalen gave no indication that it would be her final game. 

"I cannot thank our seniors enough for what they've done and for how they played this year. We'll carry that moving forward with this group we have. It's a special group. We learned a ton and this is a group that's going to continue to get better," Whalen said. 

When asked about cutting down on turnovers in the future, Whalen said "that's something that we'll continue to work on." She mentioned there are "things that we work on and improve upon going into the postseason and summer."

Braun, who led Minnesota with 25 points against Penn State, said Whalen's message in the locker room was to "remember this feeling" and "remember the hurt and come back hungry next year."

Whalen was also active on social media after the season-ending loss, retweeting a prep hoops writer who wrote: "Say what you want about this year's [Gophers] squad but this group never quit. Never. Not even once. In a couple of years we'll look back on this season & realize how important their resilience this year was as a building block for the success to come at Minnesota."

Yet, in a prepared statement issued by Minnesota Athletics, Whalen said: "Now is the right time for me to step aside and return to being a proud alum."

Why now? Why with a talented, young nucleus that promises to improve with age? It's a question that will go unanswered until Whalen addresses the situation publicly. In the meantime, a national search for Whalen's replacement is underway.