Coach Pam Borton, finishing up her 11th season at Minnesota, saw more than a 58-47 opening round Big Ten Tournament loss to Ohio State last night. The defeat almost for certain left Minnesota, with an overall 18-13 record, out of the women’s NCAA Tournament field to be announced later this month.
The Gophers haven’t been to the tournament since 2009. Borton’s Big Ten regular season records the last four seasons are 6-12, 4-12, 6-10 and 7-9 in 2013. Those results are in contrast to her early years at Minnesota when the Gophers had winning conference records, made two Sweet 16 appearances and one Final Four.
Along with a fall off in wins has also come a decline in home attendance. A program that once drew over 9,000 fans in Williams Arena for some games regularly announces crowds now of 2,500 to 5,000 and averaged 3,405 this season.
That means lost revenue for the athletic department, and among women’s sports Gophers basketball rates high among potential revenue generators. And there’s plenty of potential to make Gophers basketball — the state’s only Division I women’s program — much more significant financially.
New administrators in the athletic department have basketball expertise. They should be interested in improvement on the court and at the box office. Athletic director Norwood Teague built part of his reputation as AD at VCU on the hiring of men’s basketball coach Shaka Smart who made the Rams a national brand. Senior associate athletic director Mike Ellis is a former basketball coach and founder of the Villa 7 consortium that brings outstanding women’s and men’s assistant basketball coaches together with athletic directors for networking and career development.
Teague’s most recent hire is Beth Goetz who previously worked at Butler where men’s coach Brad Stevens praised her work in the school’s athletic department. Stevens and Smart are considered two of the best young coaches in the country. As a senior associate athletic director at Minnesota, Goetz’s responsibilities include overseeing women’s basketball.
Borton’s 2013 starters all have remaining eligibility. The group includes sophomore guard Rachel Banham, an All-Big Ten player who averaged 21 points per game and has been described as “the next Lindsay Whalen.” Another returnee is junior forward Micaella Riche who averaged 7.7 rebounds per game. And Borton has 6-5 Swedish center Amanda Zuhi ready to play for the first time next fall.
Next fall those players will create expectations for better results than either they or Borton have known in recent seasons.
Worth Noting
The Gophers’ hockey team probably played its worst game of the season in a 2-0 home loss to Denver last Friday night. The team’s radio play-by-play voice, Wally Shaver, told Sports Headliners the performance was criticized by the coaching staff, and then Minnesota had an impressive win over Denver on Saturday night and now looks to be in “playoff mode.”
The Gophers, all year ranked among the best teams in college hockey, finish their WCHA regular season schedule at Bemidji State tonight and tomorrow night. The second place Gophers could win the league title this weekend, although they are two points behind St. Cloud State in the standings. Shaver said he wouldn’t be surprised if Minnesota (14-7-5 WCHA record) wins both games against the Beavers (5-14-7).
Some might consider a second place finish a disappointment for the talented Gophers but not Shaver who said Minnesota is reaching for success in the NCAA Tournament and playing for a national title.
Defenseman Jonas Brodin is the youngest player on the Wild and although he’s only played in 19 games, he’s turning heads with his skills including skating. The 19-year-old Swede and other Wild newcomers including forwards Mikael Granlund and Jason Zucker were praised in a February 21 blog by David Staples writing for the Edmonton Journal. “This is a talented, aggressive, and skilled group of players and there’s enough of them to one day transform the Wild franchise.”
The list of college possibilities for Tyus Jones is at seven, according to his dad Rob Jones. The schools are: Baylor, Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan State, Minnesota and Ohio State. The Apple Valley junior point guard is among the most highly recruited players in the country but his dad said no date for announcing a college choice has been determined.
Apple Valley is on everyone’s short list of favorites to win the Class 4A state title later this month. “I think any kid who plays high school basketball wants to reach the pinnacle,” Rob said. “God willing this wil be the year.”
The St. Thomas men’s basketball team is 15-0 at home this season and 40-3 since Schoenecker Arena opened three seasons ago. St. Thomas is 27-1 after defeating Aurora (Illinois) 91-62 in an opening Division III NCAA Tournament game last week. The Tommies play 21-6 Wheaton (Illinois) at home beginning at 7 p.m. tomorrow night.
Tommies coach John Tauer said Wheaton is a perennial Division III top 20 program and is a physical team that likely will start players “bigger than us at four positions.”
Junior forward Zach Riedeman was among the Tommies standouts in a game last Saturday where all 15 players got on the floor. Reidner led UST with 16 points and six assists. The former Forest Lake Area High School career scoring leader has 13 assists in his last two games.
“Zach has been playing great for us,” Tauer said. “He’s become far more than a scorer.”
Despite winning by 29 points last week, Tauer let his players know they were far from perfect. He said UST’s 16 turnovers were “horrendous for us.” While he was pleased with a field goal percentage of 56 percent, he wasn’t so happy with the Tommies making 54 percent of their free throws.
Former Gophers athletic director Joel Maturi leaves for China next week where he will talk about varsity sports at two Chinese universities. Jim Turman, University of Minnesota recreational sports director, will also be speaking at the Chinese universities.
Ted Mondale, executive director of the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority, speaks next Thursday at the C.O.R.E.S. luncheon in Bloomington. He will provide an update on the new Vikings stadium. Anyone interested in more information can contact Jim Dotseth, dotsethj@comcast.net. C.O.R.E.S. is an acronym for coaches, officials, reporters, educators and sports fans.