Author: David Shama

Timberwolves’ TV analyst Jim Petersen is a former McDonald’s All-American who played at St. Louis Park High School, later was a standout for the Gophers and played eight years in the NBA.  Petersen was asked recently if he’s disappointed in Wolves’ 20-year-old rookie Kevin Love, who is coming off the bench, playing an average of 23.6 minutes while averaging 8.3 points and six rebounds.

“No, because I know how hard his job is,” Petersen said. “I know he’s only 20 years old.  I didn’t expect him to have huge success right out of the box, although he’s impressed me in a lot of ways.

“He’s not been a disappointment.  I know how hard his task is to deal with grown men up here. He’s shown me a lot already. I think it’s just a matter of time before we say he’s our second best player, and there may be a time he may be our best player, but not yet.  I would still rather have Mike Miller and Kevin Love over O.J. Mayo even though Mayo is playing pretty well.”

Miller, 28, and Love came here on draft night, along with other players involved on both sides in a trade with Memphis.  Mayo has been taking a lot of shots while starting for Memphis.  He’s averaging 39.2 minutes and 20.6 points per game.

Petersen thinks Mayo may well become an NBA all-star game player but it’s too early to know whether he can achieve superstardom.  “He’s going to be an A player, it looks like,” Petersen said.

The Wolves host Phoenix tonight at Target Center and among the storylines for the Suns is that 36-year-old center Shaquille O’Neal is playing the fewest minutes per game of his career. Through games of last week he was playing 27.5 minutes per game while averaging 15.4 points and 8.6 rebounds.  Wolves’ 7-foot center Jason Collins likely will start the game guarding the powerful O’Neal, 7-1, 325.  Collins, who faced O’Neal when he was a rookie with New Jersey in 2002, told Sports Headliners he starts pushing O’Neal away from the basket when the big center’s team has the ball and “you can’t let him hit you first.”  Often the contact starts at the free throw line, sometimes at the three point line.

“I think the refs over the years have let you get away with more stuff against him because he is so big,” Collins said.  “…My going up against Shaq started my rookie year in the finals.  I was coming off the bench then.  It’s one of those things where you see how the game is going.  You just gotta be physical with him. … Like I said before, you can’t wait for him to hit you.”

Among the MIAC football award winners is league MVP Royce Winford, a two-way player from Augsburg.  On offense, the 6-2 receiver caught 75 passes for 944 yards and 12 touchdowns.  As a defensive back, he had three interceptions during conference play.

Concordia junior defensive tackle Travis Aufderheide received the 2008 Mike Stam Award as the league’s top interior lineman. Aufderheide had 4.5 sacks and 7 tackles for loss for a Cobber defense that led the MIAC in rush defense.

Carleton head coach Kurt Ramler is the MIAC Coach of the Year. Ramler, in his third season, coached the Knights to a 7-3 record, 5-3 in the MIAC.  Carleton had its first national ranking since 1992.  The Knights’ seven wins equaled the program’s second-highest win total over the last 50 seasons.

A vote of conference coaches determined award winners.

With the Vikings and Bears both at six wins and five losses, and the Packers five and five, the NFC North Division race is nearly parity perfect.  The Packers will play in New Orleans tonight and after that all three teams have five remaining games each to determine a division champion and receive a “ticket” to the playoffs.

Which team will be at the top of the division when the final games are played on December 28?  Three Vikings expressed different views to Sports Headliners.

Vikings kicker Ryan Longwell is in his 12^th NFL season, three here and nine before that with the Packers.  “Well, I think the thing you see every year I’ve been in the NFL–bar none–the thing you see come playoff time is the hottest team gets in and the hottest team advances,” Longwell said. “…There’s going to be a team out of the three of us that’s going to get hot and hopefully we are that team. …I think that’s the key to separate yourself from this pack in this division.”

So are any of the three contending teams on winning streaks now?  Well, not really.  The Bears, Vikings and Packers are all on one game winning streaks.

Vikings offensive tackle Marcus Johnson has only been in the league since 2005 but has seen enough to know about attrition.  Asked what will determine the division champion, Johnson said: “I would say health.  Guys being able to stay in there and sustain. …Being that it’s getting late in the year and guys are worn out and beat up and everything.  So I think the healthier team has the best chance.”

Wide receiver Robert Ferguson, a former Packer like Longwell and eight year NFL veteran, speculates that the running game will be the determining factor.  “First of all, I’ve experienced this on numerous occasions with the NFC North,” he said.  “Seems like every other year is this type of situation with the NFC North.

“The teams are fairly level, fairly equal so I think it’s going to be the team that can run the ball in the bad weather and prevent the turnovers.  So the team that will be left standing will be the team that has their running game going.  It will always come down to that running game in November and December. …”

Ferguson didn’t reference the remaining schedules of the division contending teams but if his theory is correct then the Vikings should have an advantage.  The Purple’s remaining road games, at Detroit and Arizona, will both be played in domed stadiums, just like the Metrodome.

The Bears and Packers, though, will be mostly outdoors, possibly playing in freezing or sloppy winter weather. The Bears have three outdoor home games, plus trips to Minneapolis and Houston. The Packers also have three outdoor home games remaining, plus trips to Chicago and Jacksonville.

Hard to say which team has the easiest remaining schedule.  All three teams play two more NFC North games but the Packers and Vikings have one of those games against the winless Lions.

The Packers might have the best combination of talent and coaching to repeat as champions.  They’ve got plenty of experience, too, competing in the late season elements at legendary Lambeau Field, too.

There is a comforting thought if the Vikings are in the playoffs and exposed to a wintry field.  Ferguson thinks Adrian Peterson, the NFL’s leading rusher, is special on a bad surface, too.  “We call him All Day but he’s All Weather Guy,” Ferguson said.  “It doesn’t matter if it’s raining, snowing or whatever.  I think his speed does not falter at all.  That’s one of his strengths.  He’s All Terrain Guy.  It doesn’t matter with him.”

Gopher athletic director Joel Maturi told Sports Headliners there is “long range” interest in scheduling a nonconference basketball game against a national power in the Metrodome, or possibly at Target Center or Xcel Energy Center.  Such a game could make sense if coach Tubby Smith’s Gophers become a top 20 program and national TV is interested in telecasting.

Maturi said that playing the game off campus, instead of in Williams Arena, creates more of a neutral court site and is more appealing to an opponent.  The Metrodome can easily be configured for 40,000 basketball seats, or more, offering a huge revenue generating event for the Gophers.

“I think Tubby would go for those kinds of things,” Maturi said.  “There’s no question.  If you look at Tubby’s competition at Kentucky (when he coached there), it was always one of the toughest schedules in the country.

“He played everybody…so Tubby’s not afraid of these teams.  Nor am I as an athletic director. …”

The Gophers are playing a Charmin-soft nonconference schedule this year.  Part of the reason is to give a young team time to develop.  Another reason is major conference basketball schools usually prefer to load up both their records and revenues by playing mostly at home for nonconference games.

Maturi said it’s a challenge for the Gophers and other schools to schedule opponents.  Typically basketball schedules aren’t set for the next season until spring or summer.

The Gophers, who so far this season have played St. Cloud State, Northern State, Concordia-St. Paul, Bowling Green and Northern State at home, and Colorado State on the road, have Eastern Washington at Williams Arena on Wednesday night.  The best home opponent on the nonconference schedule is Virginia, a game on December 2 that is part of the Big Ten-ACC Challenge.

The Gophers play national power Louisville in a neutral site nonconference game on December 20 at the Arizona Cardinals’ football stadium in Glendale.  The game is part of a doubleheader called the Stadium Shootout with the other game between Arizona State and Brigham Young.  The games will be televised on Fox Sports Net.