Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor was asked if he’s considered naming the team Minneapolis because of the city’s financial commitment to Target Center. He replied that franchise support is from various areas and Minnesota is “appropriate.”
Wolves forward Kevin Love said in the mid-January issue of Sporting News Magazine that his worst habit is “biting my fingernails—but I recently quit.”
The University of Minnesota athletic department sent a mailing to men’s basketball season ticket holders announcing the annual team banquet will start with a 6 p.m. social followed by dinner on March 7 in the DQ Room at TCF Bank Stadium.
New Oakland football coach Hue Jackson was a quarterback on the University of the Pacific team that beat the 1986 Gophers in the Metrodome.
Mr. Basketball chair Ken Lien announced 20 names as finalists for the 2011 award: Thomas Schalk, Apple Valley; Marquel Curtis, Armstrong; Marcus Alipate, Bloomington Jefferson; Ross Travis, Chaska; Jake White, Chaska; Ben Figini, Chisago Lakes; Zach Lofton, Columbia Heights; Raijon Kelly, Cretin-Derham Hall; Jonah Travis, DeLaSalle; Joe Coleman, Hopkins; Marvin Singleton, Hopkins; Alex Richter, Lakeville South; Seth Hinrichs, MACCRAY; Kyle Noreen, Minnesota Transitions; Cole Olstad, Plainview-Elgin-Millville; Lucas Brown, Roseville; Roosevelt Scott, St. Paul Johnson; Estan Tyler, St. Paul Johnson; Shelby Moats, Waconia; Eric Robertson, Wayzata.
None of the last five winners of the Miss Minnesota Basketball award have become Gophers. Cassie Rochel, the 2010 winner, is playing at Wisconsin and averaging 0.6 points per game.
Badgers men’s coach Bo Ryan has based part of his success on recruiting Minnesotans including his two best players on this year’s team, center Jon Leuer and point guard Jordan Taylor. Ryan entered this season, his 10th, with a winning percentage in Big Ten Conference games of .713, the best in league history. Ryan’s teams have lost only 11 home games, including six conference games, since he started coaching the Badgers in 2001.
VERSUS had its most watched NHL All-Star game in the network’s history on January 30, averaging nearly 1.5 million viewers, a 36 percent increase over the 2009 game, according to a league news release. The telecast peaked at nearly two million viewers, more than double the viewership for the 2007 game on VERSUS (691,000). VERSUS had the No. 1-rated cable network programming in the time period among men 18-34 and was No. 2 among men 18-49 and men 25-54. VERSUS was the No. 1 rated cable network programming in several cities, including Boston, Chicago, Detroit and Philadelphia.
Steve Bellis, former coach at St. Catherine University, is the new Concordia-St. Paul women’s soccer coach. He has over 15 years of soccer coaching experience and is a native of England.