Author: David Shama

The Timberwolves will learn two important things about Rashad McCants in the next 18 months.  First, will he fully recovery from the career threatening microfracture surgery on his right knee.  Second, can he emerge as a potentially star player? 

Assistant coach Randy Wittman told Sports Headliners on Sunday that McCants has had no “set backs” in his recovery.  “Hopefully here within a week he can get on the floor and do everything with the team, and then you really have a better understanding of how long it’s going to take him to get ready (to play in games),” Wittman said. 

Once McCants is practicing the projection is he will be playing limited minutes in games within a couple of weeks.  McCants, 22, looks like the player, along with rookie guard Randy Foye, who can dramatically increase the Timberwolves’ talent level and perhaps push the team toward the top in the Western Conference. 

In his rookie season last year McCants closed fast, scoring almost 15 points per game and becoming a starter in the last 12 games.  The 6-foot-4 guard showed his advertised athleticism driving to the basket with ease and shooting outside from near and far. He made a franchise record 37.2% of his three point shots.     

Wittman, who coached in Orlando last year, is looking forward to coaching McCants. “He’s got talents that this team is missing in terms of he can stretch the floor but he can also create something going to the basket,” Wittman said. “Very good basketball IQ.  You can’t have too many of those.” 

Although McCants may play small forward and big guard, a future lineup of Foye playing point guard and McCants at big guard is intriguing.  “With Randy at the one and he (McCants) at the two, it’s a pretty good combination of two guys that can handle the ball and play inside and out,” Wittman said.  “With either one of them, they give us a little bit more options or matchups, and making the other coach think ‘how are we going to guard these guys?’” 

McCants, who also can play small forward, will find himself competing for playing time with similar sized players including Ricky Davis, Marko Jaric and Trenton Hassell.  Wittman acknowledged “that’s a good question” as to where McCants’ minutes will come from but first the Wolves want to ease him back on the court.  Later, in March or April, Wittman said “guys will have to step up and show the coach they are worthy of minutes.”

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? 

Talk among knowledgeable sources about the Gopher basketball job is that Flip Saunders is the No. 1 choice.  “The job is Flip’s to turn down or accept,” a source said.   

Saunders, Bob Knight and Rick Majerus continue to be the top names drawing speculation about the position that opened up when Dan Monson departed following the Clemson game on November 29.  Publicly none of the three has indicated he’s pursuing the job but sources say Saunders, Knight and Majerus could be interested. 

Saunders reportedly makes about $5 million per year to coach the Detroit Pistons.  Doubters ask why Saunders would walk away from so much money while coaching at the highest level of basketball to accept the Gopher job.  But Saunders has made a lot of money already during his 12 year NBA coaching career and earning perhaps $2 million as Gopher coach ain’t bad.   

Saunders is a former Gopher player and assistant coach, has two children attending the University (he could coach son Ryan, a senior on next year’s team), still has a home here, and could give up the intense travel and egocentric players of the NBA to come home to be a college coach.  Don’t discount the possibility, too, that Saunders might enjoy taking over some of the basketball interest in this town from the Timberwolves who encouraged him to leave Minneapolis when they fired him. 

A source said Saunders was approached about the Gopher job in 1999 before the University hired Monson.  Saunders turned down the opportunity to remain as the Timberwolves coach but reportedly said that in the future he might be interested in college coaching. 

Opinion is only Saunders or Knight could sell out Williams Arena for all games next season, generating much needed revenue for the always budget challenged University Athletic Department.  The feel good story of the charismatic Saunders coming home, or college coaching bad boy Knight taking over the Gophers will juice University athletics like nothing else since Lou Holtz dazzled Minnesotans with his one-liners and coaching resume upon arrival here in 1984. 

Does Knight have influential upper Midwest friends who are promoting his candidacy for the Gopher job?  Sources say some successful Minnesotans are pushing Knight’s name.  Through his many years as Indiana and Texas Tech coach Knight has enjoyed making friends in this area while attending speaking engagements and hunting and fishing.  Since being ousted as Indiana coach in 2000, there has been speculation Knight is interested in returning to the Big Ten Conference. Knight’s reputation for controversy, though, makes it unlikely he will draw support from the politically correct University administration and perhaps the Big Ten office. 

Has Majerus already expressed strong interest in the Gopher job?  The former Utah coach who took the Utes to the final four has been out of coaching since 2004.  The guess from afar has been that at 58 years old and a history of heart trouble the portly Majerus is more interested in having his name linked to job openings than interviewing for them, but don’t be so sure this time.  If Majerus becomes the coach, you get a side show watching the big guy navigate the steps to and from the raised Williams Arena court.