When Ryan Saunders glanced down his bench on Saturday, he saw a lot of faces that have only rejoined the Wolves recently.
Given the Wolves' personnel issues with five members of the rotation out for injury or personal reasons, those faces were going to get minutes.
Three of them — Jaylen Nowell, Kelan Martin and Keita Bates-Diop — were in Iowa recently. But the Wolves needed them Sunday. Of the three, Bates-Diop had the best night, scoring 22 points on 9-for-18 shooting in 37 minutes. Bates-Diop made the case that not only should he be on the Wolves roster, but he could contend for minutes in the rotation.