Timberwolves coach Dwane Casey said 6-foot-7, 250- pound rookie Craig Smith is a “few years and pounds” away from being able to successfully guard small forwards. Although shorter, Smith has been guarding centers and power forwards.
The Gopher hockey team defeated Wisconsin in two low scoring games (2-1 and 3-1) back in November and the goals could be few this weekend in Madison, too. The Badgers are fourth in scoring defense in the WCHA allowing 2.27 points per game, the Gophers 1.91. The last seven games in Madison between the Gophers and Badgers have been decided by two goals or less.
Prep super star Kevin Love, from Oregon’s Lake Oswego High School, made a big impression here last weekend playing in the Gatorade Shootout at Target Center. Love, a 6- foot-10 center, who scored 41 points in his team’s win against Osseo, might be the nation’s best player and has committed to UCLA. His father Stan played in the NBA and his uncle Mike is one of the Beach Boys.
Iowa football fans here and elsewhere aren’t happy with the Hawkeyes late season collapse and 6-7 record including losses to Indiana and Northwestern. Part of the discontent focused on senior quarterback Drew Tate who stirred up Hawkeye fans with comments in the Des Moines Register before Iowa’s Alamo Bowl game with Texas. When asked about fan reactions, Tate described Iowa as a state where there is much less happening than in his native Texas. “That’s just the way the state is,” he said on DesMoinesRegister.com. “There’s nothing really going on there, no pro teams or anything like that. The big news in the media is how the corn stock is doing, or something like that.”
Was it budget constraints in the Star Tribune sports department that dictated not sending a reporter to cover the national championship game between Florida and Ohio State on Monday?