Chadrack Mpoyi is the kind of prospect that makes a coaching staff's job fun. He's a 6-foot-10, 240-pound center who arrived in the United States from Congo in the summer of 2024, picked up the game late and turned it into a college scholarship offer sheet in a hurry. Minnesota won out, landing him as the third commitment of its 2026 recruiting class.
Mpoyi played his high school ball at Crean Lutheran in California, where he was named CIF Player of the Year and Crestview League Most Valuable Player, leading the Saints to a league title and a CIF championship. That kind of production for a player still relatively new to the sport says a lot about his upside as he heads to the Big Ten.
Mpoyi has talked about how short his basketball résumé really is. "I started playing basketball only a couple of years ago, like five years ago," Mpoyi said. "I used to watch Hakeem Olajuwon, he was the top big man, so that's why I play like that." Modeling a post game after the Rockets legend is an ambitious blueprint, but it explains the traditional, back-to-the-basket style scouts have noted in his game.
Minnesota beat out a crowded field to land him. Mpoyi picked up offers from Utah, Cal, Stanford, BYU and Oregon State among others, with real interest from Arizona along the way. Head coach Niko Medved and assistant Chad Warner did much of the legwork, spending time watching him at UAA circuit games in July before he committed to the Gophers. Mpoyi is ranked 151st nationally in the Composite rankings.
Mpoyi said the pitch that won him over wasn't complicated. "The coaches were very honest with me, and they're in the Big Ten in a big conference," Mpoyi said. For a Gophers program looking to add size and upside up front, that honesty closed the deal on a center with a game still very much on the rise.