Jordan Murphy looks like a candidate to not only average double figures in rebounding but also to lead the Big Ten Conference in that category. The Gophers freshman forward from San Antonio had a season high 18 rebounds in 31 minutes in his last game and is averaging 8.7 rebounds during the nonconference schedule.
Murphy ranks second among Big Ten players in rebounding average. He could be the first Gopher to average double figures and lead the conference since Trevor Mbakwe in 2011. “He’s doing a lot of things that have nothing to do with coaching,” Gophers coach Richard Pitino said about Murphy.
Jordan Murphy
Murphy has particularly impressed with his offensive rebounding. He had 11 offensive rebounds among his 18 in the win last week over Chicago State. But Pitino wants improvement from Murphy with his defensive rebounding.
“I agree with him 100 percent that I could be a better defensive rebounder,” Murphy said. “I think that’s the difference between getting 20 rebounds and 18, just being a better defensive rebounder.”
The defensive numbers can improve, Murphy said, if he becomes more effective in blocking opponents from having superior rebounding position. And both his defensive and offensive rebound totals will almost certainly increase with more playing time. So far Murphy hasn’t been a starter and is averaging 22.4 minutes. That is the fifth highest average on the team and means he is playing only a little more than half of the 40 minutes per game.
Pitino is noncommittal about whether Murphy becomes a starter anytime soon. The coach seems to like having the 6-6, 230-pound Texan provide rebounds, points and energy off the bench. Murphy is averaging 10.3 points per game and while he might continue to be a nonstarter for awhile, he is likely to see his minutes increase closer to 30 per game and be on the floor when the Gophers try to close out opponents.
“I don’t really care about starting,” Murphy said. “I am not really here to just make demands and say I gotta start. It’s not me. I am just here to provide energy whenever I need to and just to do whatever coach asks me.”
Murphy is one of the team’s best players already. His instinctive offensive rebounding, characterized by a sense for finding the ball before others do, makes him a special first-year player. As a rebounder, he might prove to be one of the best in school history.
Murphy acknowledges “having a knack for getting the ball,” and credits his father Bernard with helping him develop. A few years ago his dad told him he had rebounding skills and should focus on becoming better at it. “He would actually take me to the park and start throwing up ‘bricks’ (bad shots), and I’d have to go catch them and put them back up,” Murphy said.
He admitted to being a “little” surprised by his early success with the Gophers. Asked if he could lead the Big Ten in rebounding, Murphy said he didn’t know and will have to work hard to have a chance at it.
The Gophers, 6-5, play their final nonconference game on Wednesday night at home against Milwaukee. Then comes the 18-game Big Ten schedule beginning with the opener at Ohio State on December 30. That will be another test for Murphy but so far he is off to a promising start to his college career.
It’s no secret the Vikings’ passing offense ranks near the bottom in the 32-team NFL. Even more to the point, improvement could well be the key to whether the team wins the NFC North.
Guard Mike Harris acknowledges expectations that the line must do its part to help quarterback Teddy Bridgewater have time to throw as the team prepares for Sunday’s home game with the Seahawks, and looks toward four more regular season games.
Mike Harris (photo courtesy of Minnesota Vikings.)
“We’re coming along (with pass protection),” Harris said. “We’re not perfect, where we want to be, but each week in practice we’ve been harping on working on stuff that we need to work on…like (defensive) stunts, picking up blitzes. The run game—I feel like that’s our strong ability—because we have big tough guys that like to move guys around.
“If we can have a good balance of run and pass, this team will be able to beat anybody. The team goes as far as we go. I know we have a lot of pressure on us.
“We (the line) didn’t do so well a couple of weeks ago against the Packers but I feel like we’ve grown from that and we ought to continue to play better.”
Bridgewater was sacked six times in a 30-13 loss to the Packers in Minneapolis last month. He has thrown only eight touchdown passes this season and while he sometimes holds on to the ball too long, pass protection is an issue for the division leading 8-3 Vikings who top the NFL in rushing yards.
This Sunday the Vikings’ offense faces a Seahawks defense that is among the NFL’s best against rushing and passing. The defensive unit includes formidable players such as end Michael Bennett and cornerback Richard Sherman. “Playmakers are at every position that we’re going to have matchups with, and (we need to) go out and execute,” Harris said.
The Seahawks aren’t bad on offense either, including quarterback Russell Wilson who threw five touchdown passes in a win over the Steelers last Sunday. His passer rating of 97.4 puts him near the top among NFC quarterbacks. His strong arm and mobility will test the Vikings defense.
Vikings defensive tackle Sharrif Floyd acknowledged the major challenge of keeping Wilson in the pocket. “Him and Aaron Rodgers (Packers) are the only two (quarterbacks) I can truly think of that can throw touchdowns from the 50-yard line on the run,” Floyd said.
The Seahawks played in the last two Super Bowls and despite a 6-5 record now certainly aren’t a team to sleep on. Seattle has dealt with injuries while playing some of the NFL’s best teams and losing three games by a total of 10 points.
Harris is a West Coast guy and has known of Seahawks coach PeteCarroll back when he was coaching USC to powerhouse seasons. He expects Carroll will have the playoff-worried Seahawks ready on Sunday. “Just a players’ coach,” Harris said. “I feel like guys just want to go out and play hard for him because he has a winning history. …”
Worth Noting
With expected temps well above freezing today, the Vikings plan to practice outdoors at Winter Park. The forecast for Sunday in Minneapolis calls for similar temperatures with perhaps a high of 42.
Stefon Diggs, the Vikings rookie wide receiver from the University of Maryland who leads the team in receptions with 40, was asked if there’s a major difference between Big Ten defensive backs versus those in the NFL: “Yeah, it’s a big difference. As far as the NFL, everybody is pretty much good.”
Vikings center John Sullivan, who has missed the entire season because of a problematic back including surgery, said this week he isn’t in pain and expects to be on the field in 2016. Sullivan comes to Winter Park for rehab but watches all the games, home and away, on television at his residence where he and his wife have a four-month old baby, the couple’s first child.
Jerry Kill
That was former Gophers football coach Jerry Kill and wife Rebecca having dinner at Murray’s Restaurant earlier this week with WCCO Radio friends Sid Hartman, Dave Lee (with wife Julie), and Mike Max.
With the signing of Korean slugger Byung Ho Park, the Twins have yet another player on the 40-man roster who has experience playing first base. Joe Mauer apparently will be given most of the time at first next season with Park as the team’s likely designated hitter. But others on the roster also have experience at first including TrevorPlouffe, the team’s regular third baseman, and Miguel Sano (an infielder headed to the outfield), and Kennys Vargas, Max Kepler and Adam Walker.
Vargas impressed in 2014 with his hitting but not last year when he fell off from .274 to .240—with home runs and RBI declining from 9 and 38, to 5 and 17. He looks like a player who perhaps isn’t in the Twins future, partially because he doesn’t fit well in the field except first base. A switch hitter, Vargas might complement the right-handed hitting Park as a DH. Kepler and Walker are likely to play in the outfield in the minors next year.
The 5-2 Gophers basketball team earned its most impressive win of the season on Monday night against Clemson, and plays South Dakota tomorrow at Williams Arena. Expectations this season are minimal for Minnesota but the Gophers could be a surprise team if they continue to score like they did in the 89-83 victory over Clemson.
Freshman forward Jordan Murphy led all scorers with 24 points and had a team high 10 rebounds. The 6-6, 230-pound Jordan once scored 44 points for Brennan High School in San Antonio.
Former Gophers coach Jim Dutcher praised Murphy’s advanced fundamentals for a freshman. “He’s got a good basketball I.Q.,” Dutcher told Sports Headliners.
College basketball has new rules to speed up play, but deliberate fouling in the closing minutes can still be agonizing to watch. ESPN2 viewers saw Illinois State drag out the end of its game against Kentucky on Monday night when it took about 10 minutes to use up almost two minutes on the game clock. The Gophers-Clemson game was joined in progress on ESPN2 because of the slow finish with Illinois State and Kentucky.
Don Lucia’s Gophers hockey team hopes to have continued outstanding performances from sophomore forward LeonBristedt tonight and tomorrow evening against Ohio State at Mariucci Arena. Bristedt has at least a point in seven of the last eight games and leads the team with 12 points (seven goals, five assists) in 11 games this season. His seven goals have already surpassed his freshman total of five in 35 games last season.
Bristedt, from Sweden, is one of only four non-North Americans ever to play for the Gophers, a program whose rosters have been dominated by Minnesotans. The others are Bristedt’s Swedish teammate RobinHoglund, and NHLers Erik Haula (Finland) and Thomas Vanek (Austria).
The Vikings, 7-2 and leading the NFC North, appear to have their best team since 2009 and can provide more evidence about that by defeating the Packers on Sunday at TCF Bank Stadium. Green Bay, the elite team in the division for years, is 9-1-1 against the Vikings since 2010 and is 4-0-1 in the last five games of the series.
It was 2012 when the Vikings last defeated the Packers in Minneapolis. Minnesota hasn’t won in Green Bay since 2009 when ex-Packers quarterback Brett Favre led the Vikings to a 38-26 victory. That team, with a 12-4 regular season record, won the NFC North and almost advanced to the Super Bowl.
The Packers haven’t scored less than 23 points against the Vikings since the 2006 season. Green Bay is struggling right now, though, and managed just 16 points last Sunday in a loss to the now 2-7 Lions. The Packers, 6-3, have lost three straight games, and the Vikings haven’t allowed an opponent to score more than 23 points all season.
Sunday starts an unusual week for the Packers who will fall two games behind in the loss column to the division-leading Vikings if they can’t win at TCF Bank Stadium. On Thursday night next week the Packers meet the Bears in a Thanksgiving game in Green Bay.
Vikings players probably won’t say anything provocative about the Packers this week but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a special feeling at Winter Park. Coach Mike Zimmer has given the players black T-shirts with these words on the back: “Beat Green Bay.”
Vikings defensive tackle Linval Joseph told Sports Headliners he’s excited about Sunday’s game. “I can’t wait to play against the Packers. They’re a very good team. You can’t sleep on the Green Bay Packers. Not at all.”
Mike Wallace (Photo courtesy of Minnesota Vikings.)
Vikings wide receiver Mike Wallace said he’s isn’t paying attention to his team’s winning streak or Green Bay’s losing skid. “It’s not about when we’re catching them. It’s about one day, one week, one game. It’s not really about them. It’s about us and trying to build toward something we’re trying to get to (division title, playoffs).”
Worth Noting
Vikings wide receiver Charles Johnson after being asked what he thinks of Packers All-Pro quarterback Aaron Rodgers: “That man can do it.”
Bleachereport.com’s Monday NFL power rankings listed the Vikings fourth and Packers ninth among the NFL’s 32 teams. The top three ranked teams are the Patriots, Bengals and Panthers.
Former Vikings defensive lineman Bob Lurtsema said 29 current members of the team, including Adrian Peterson and HarrisonSmith, attended the “Bowl with the Vikings” event last week in Oakdale to benefit the Vikings Children’s Fund.
60 Minutes devoted a segment to football’s concussion issue last Sunday night with reporter Steve Kroft warning this is the sport’s biggest crisis in more than 100 years when there was talk of banning football. The segment focused on the NFL and concussion research.
No Big Ten football team with a 5-7 record has ever been invited to a bowl game. The Gophers, with a 4-6 record, have two remaining regular season games and could finish 5-7. With 80 teams needed for 40 bowl games, 5-7 teams may have to fill some of the vacancies if there aren’t enough qualifying schools with .500 or better records.
True Thompson, the son of Gophers all-time leading rusher DarrellThompson, is a senior wide receiver at Robbinsdale Armstrong High School. Among the football schools he has heard from are Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin—all of whom have raised the possibility of him being a preferred walk-on with their programs. (Preferred walk-ons, although they aren’t scholarship players, generally are assured of roster spots their first year on the team.)
St. Thomas and Saint John’s could be headed for a rematch in the Division III football playoffs. The 10-0 Tommies host La Verne in an opening playoff game on Saturday while the 9-1 Johnnies have Dubuque at home. If both MIAC schools win, they will play each other on November 28 at St. Thomas.
St. Thomas defeated Saint John’s 35-14 during the regular season. That was the closest score in a St. Thomas game this season. It might not be exaggerating to say the Tommies could finish high up in the Division II Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference that includes UMD and Minnesota State.
The Gophers basketball team has only neutral court and home games on its entire nonconference schedule that began earlier this month. Minnesota plays Thursday morning against Temple in the Puerto Rico Tip-Off tournament. Then the Gophers have four home nonconference games before facing Oklahoma State in Sioux Falls on December 12. Two home games follow to finish the nonconference schedule before playing Ohio State in Columbus on December 30 in Minnesota’s first Big Ten game.
Dick Jonckowski
Dick Jonckowski, who is in his 30th season as the Gophers basketball public address announcer, is now cancer-free after being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2014.
The Wild play the Bruins in Boston tomorrow night where Minnesota’s all-time record is 7-1-0. Devan Dubynk, the Wild’s regular goalie since last winter, is 0-4-0 lifetime against the Bruins with a 5.56 goals-against average.
Former Gophers football player and ex-pro wrestler Jim Brunzell admired Nick Bockwinkel who passed away at age 80 late last week. “Not only was Nick the consummate professional in the ring, but a wonderful, classy gentleman whose friendship and charisma will be missed by all,” Brunzell wrote via e-mail.
Bockwinkel had a long wrestling career that included being the American Wrestling Association’s champion. Brunzell considered Bockwinkel a great wrestler and praised him for his “psychology, precision and timing in the ring.”
Bridget Hennen, Bethany Lutheran College’s lone senior, is one of seven soccer players from the school selected by the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference for all-league recognition. Hennen is a midfielder from Apple Valley and St. Croix Lutheran High School who over her four-year career started every match for Bethany, was selected All-UMAC each season and was a two-year team captain.
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