Gophers Basketball – Page 75 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Richard Coffey Refutes Hate Rumor

Posted on April 21, 2019April 21, 2019 by David Shama

In a telephone interview with Sports Headliners, Richard Coffey was vehement concerning what he said are untrue rumors that his son Amir Coffey hates Golden Gophers head basketball coach Richard Pitino. Amir, a junior, is in the process of deciding whether he wants to skip his senior season at Minnesota and enter the NBA Draft.

“It’s amazing how people hear something and they just run with it,” Richard said about comments his son dislikes Pitino. “First of all, we don’t use the word hate in our family. We don’t hate anything, or anybody. That upsets me, when people use that word because there is so much hate in our country, and hatred only divides. I didn’t raise my kids to hate anyone, or to use that word. It upsets me when people read something or see something and then take it as truth.

“I live in Minnesota. I love the University of Minnesota. I love this state. If they want to know the truth about something, they should stop me and ask me—instead of taking the word of someone that has not spoken to me, has not spoken to my son, has not spoken to anybody in my family.”

Richard said if Amir decides by late May not to enter the 2019 NBA Draft, he will return to college basketball and guaranteed his son will play for the 2019-2020 Gophers. “So stop speculating on it,” Richard said.

In two of Amir’s three seasons Pitino’s Gophers have earned their way into the NCAA Tournament. They also won the NIT Tournament in New York in 2014. “Pitino is the coach of the University of Minnesota. We respect that,” Richard said. “Pitino has been here for six years and been to three postseasons. That’s a pretty good record.”

Amir Coffey photo courtesy of Minnesota Athletic Communications

Amir remains enrolled at Minnesota and is attending classes this spring. When not pursuing academics, he is training for a pro career that could begin after the June 20 NBA Draft. The Coffeys are being assisted in the fact-finding process about how NBA teams regard Amir by Excel Sports Management based in New York.

A select number of potential NBA draftees are invited to the NBA Combine where in mid-May in Chicago they are closely evaluated by representatives from the league’s 30 franchises. Those Combine invitations have yet to be sent out and Amir doesn’t know if his name will be on the invitation list. Under NBA and NCAA policy, underclassmen like Amir have until May 29 to retain their college eligibilities and play next season.

Amir, 6-foot-8 and about 205 pounds, was a third-team All-Big Ten selection last season and was at his best in March, often making key plays in important games. The Gophers’ leading scorer, he was among the league’s most versatile players both offensively and defensively. He played point guard and wing for Minnesota while averaging 16.6 points and starting every game.

Richard has a lot of basketball expertise, having been a four-year starter for the Gophers from 1986-1990, including being a terrific effort front court player and rebounder on two NCAA Tournament teams. He also played professionally including for the Minnesota Timberwolves. He said the training and evaluation his son is receiving now will make him an improved player in either the pros or with the Gophers.

“Oh, for sure it’s going to make him a better player,” Richard said. “He’s spending a lot of time working on his weaknesses, trying to get better at those things, trying to become a better basketball player. You (also) continue to work on your strengths to help them continue to be your strengths.”

The Gophers lose four seniors from this year’s tournament team, and the likelihood for a successful season in 2019-2020 could well be predicated on a Coffey return. “We haven’t really thought about that (Amir’s importance),” Richard said. “At this point we are in a process of trying to find out from professionals their opinion on Amir. When we get that information we are going to use it to make a sound, intelligent decision on whether Amir comes back to school, or whether Amir stays in the draft.”

Worth Noting

NBAdraft.net, in its April 18 mock draft, didn’t include Coffey among the players it projects being picked in either the first or second rounds. The website predicted Maryland center Bruno Fernando being the first Big Ten player drafted with the Timberwolves using their first round selection at No. 10 on him.

Bryant Pfeiffer, the Minnesota United’s chief revenue officer, said the club’s new Allianz Field can potentially be expanded to a seating capacity of 25,000. The United played its first match ever in the privately financed facility earlier this month before a standing room only crowd of 18,796.

There are no immediate plans to expand the stadium but the United has 5,000 people on a waiting list for season tickets, Pfeiffer told Sports Headliners. The club capped its season tickets at 14,500 this year to leave room for single game and group sales.

A career sports marketer, who lives in Minnesota but prefers to speak anonymously, predicts the Twin Cities will have another men’s Frozen Four in six to eight years, and men’s basketball Final Four in 10 to 12.

He doesn’t think the Super Bowl will return to Minneapolis for a long time, and it’s unlikely the college football national championship game will ever be played here. Those games are played in January and February when the Minneapolis winter weather makes it difficult and even impossible to stage the kind of auxiliary outside events promoters require and prefer.

“Behind the Game,” the Twin Cities cable TV show with co-hosts Patrick Klinger and Bill Robertson, has a current interview with longtime Pioneer Press sports columnist Charley Walters. The former Edison High School athlete had a brief career with the Minnesota Twins and it was 50 years ago this month he made his Major League debut.

Condolences to family and friends of Bill Ferril who passed away last week. Bill, formerly of Wayzata, was a successful businessman and dedicated booster of Gophers basketball.

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Play-by-Play Voices Last Forever

Posted on April 18, 2019April 18, 2019 by David Shama

I attended a breakfast club gathering a couple of weeks ago to hear guest speaker Jim Nantz. The voice of CBS sports, in town for the Minneapolis Final Four, charmed his audience at the Minneapolis Club, just like he has done for decades providing play-by-play of America’s more important basketball, football and golf events.

And I am reminded how favorite broadcasters become part of our lives. At least the great ones do, and we revel in their calls of games that even become lasting moments and sounds in American culture (Russ Hodges: “The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!”)

I wasn’t old enough in 1951 to hear Hodges as he described Bobby Thomson’s home run that beat the Dodgers in their famous playoff game, but there are many words and phrases I have witnessed and heard from well-known sports broadcasters. Here are a couple that are memorable for me:

“And we’ll see you tomorrow night,” said Jack Buck after Kirby Puckett’s heroics lifted the Twins to a Game Six 1991 World Series win over the Braves.

“Hide the women and children,” said Keith Jackson when a herd of college football players were stampeding and throwing their girth around on a fall Saturday afternoon.

The first play-by-play voice earning my affection was Chick Hearn. Minneapolis businessman Bob Short moved the Lakers from Minnesota to Los Angeles after the 1959-60 season, and Hearn became the broadcast voice of the NBA team. When the Lakers were in the playoffs in the early 1960s Short arranged to have games televised back to Minneapolis, and that was my introduction to the exciting voice and words of Hearn.

“(Elgin) Baylor yo-yoing the ball at the top of the key,” Hearn might have said. “He fakes the defender into the popcorn machine and shoots from 23 feet.”

To an impressionable youth who loved the Lakers of Baylor and Jerry West, these weren’t clichés. Instead, Hearn’s words were inspiring descriptions of heroes and a great team lost when the Lakers moved west. I even wrote a long letter to Hearn gushing over his Lakers broadcasts, but never received a reply back. Maybe my correspondence ended up in the popcorn machine.

Hearn was part of a “Mount Rushmore” group of play-by-play guys who blessed the airwaves of southern California in the last century. Hearn with the Lakers, Ralph Lawler with the Clippers, Dick Enberg with the Angels and Vin Scully with the Dodgers.

What a hall of fame foursome!

Scully is a personal favorite and perhaps America’s all-time favorite play-by-play man. He had a 67-year run doing Dodgers games, dating back to the franchise playing in Brooklyn before moving to L.A. He also worked the national scene for awhile doing golf and NFL games. It was the velvety voiced Scully who called the Joe Montana to Dwight Clark touchdown that gave the 49ers a famous NFC playoff win in 1982.

I can’t let a roll call of national names go by without writing about Bob Costas. Great voice, smart, prepared and honest. With some guys you know there’s going to be a lot of bull, but not with Costas. He entertains but doesn’t forget he is a journalist. Besides that, he has carried a Mickey Mantle baseball card in his wallet for years. That alone scores points with me.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote that Kevin Harlan is the best play-by-play guy to ever work in this town for any of the pro teams or the Golden Gophers. He was the original radio voice of the Timberwolves and now has been on the national scene for years calling NBA and NFL games. From the beginning I liked his voice, intelligence, passion and cockiness (without being obnoxious).

Turns out Harlan and broadcast partner Tom Hanneman were practical jokers off the air, per Bill Robertson. “If you went on a (Timberwolves) road trip, your luggage could be missing for awhile,” said Robertson who was the team’s media relations man back in the 1990s.

My preference for Harlan drew comments from a couple of friends after I published my opinion. Somebody asked about Ray Scott, and another person brought up Ray Christensen. Let’s take them one at a time, while getting sidetracked by Halsey Hall.

Anyone who brings up Scottie has my immediate respect. I have never cared for guys full of themselves who can talk from sunrise until dusk. Scott was “Mr. Brevity” and he understood that doing play-by-play on TV wasn’t the same as on radio where more words are needed to describe what’s happening.

“Starr…Dowler…touchdown!” That was the efficient style Scott used to describe a Green Bay Packers touchdown pass from quarterback Bart Starr to wide receiver Boyd Dowler long ago.

Scott was part of the Twins broadcast crew in the 1960s and worked with perhaps the most loveable radio-TV character in the history of this state, Halsey Hall. He was a color commentator on Twins games and although he didn’t do play-by-play it’s impossible to leave him out of this column. He was just too entertaining to not write about today.

Halsey was a Minneapolis newspaper man for decades and it’s said his desk drawer might have contained a month’s old sandwich. He hated air travel because he thought it was risky. The standing joke was he would approach the airline counter and say, “Give me two chances to Chicago.”

Halsey’s passions included baseball, adult beverages and onions. He liked to carry a flask in his coat pocket, fearing that during his travels he might encounter a place where alcohol was prohibited. Recollection is he enjoyed onions so much he chomped on a whole one like most of us would attack an apple.

Halsey was a peerless storyteller including baseball tales. He was so entertaining in the 1960s and 1970s I used to welcome rain delays during Twins games. To fill air time until play resumed, Halsey told stories and they were marvelous.

Part of the joy in listening to Halsey was his infectious laugh. He often roared with laughter early on and throughout the telling of his tales. His own amusement and chuckling could get the tears rolling down your cheeks as you joined in.

I have heard or read more than a few Halsey stories over the years but a new one was offered recently by Robertson, who grew up in St. Paul and has spent much of his adult life in Minnesota. Halsey and another iconic Twins broadcast voice, Herb Carneal, were on the air years ago when they noticed Minneapolis Tribune writer Tom Briere had a problem. Somehow the Twins beat writer had caught his necktie in his typewriter.

As Briere kept punching keys trying to solve his dilemma, Carneal watched with amusement and Halsey roared with laughter. “Halsey was hysterical for about a minute and a half,” said Robertson who has listened to the segment on a Twins commemorative cassette.

Not that Halsey couldn’t stir up his own incident. One time Halsey was smoking a cigar in the press box and flicking his ashes. The ashes ignited paper on the floor, setting off a small fire. Halsey’s sport coat, hanging on a chair, caught fire. Twins catcher Jerry Zimmerman later quipped, “Halsey Hall is quite a guy. He can turn an ordinary sport coat into a blazer in nothing flat.’”

Ray Christensen? There will never be anyone like him to generations of Gophers fans. He did U play-by-play football for 50 years, and basketball almost as long. A private and proud man, he liked working the basketball games without a broadcast partner. Perhaps the reason was he thought basketball games moved too fast to interject another voice into the reporting.

Ray had an authoritative voice that greeted listeners with, “This is Ray Christensen.” The opening words to his broadcasts commanded attention and were almost imposing but certainly not threatening. You thought maybe the Lord himself helped him perfect his familiar welcome to listeners.

Ray was sometimes partial toward the Gophers when seeing the action on the field or the court with a maroon and gold bias (just the way most fans like their local broadcasters). But he didn’t over dramatize things and become whiny. He was too intelligent and classy to ever let his work spiral into embarrassment. Yet you could hear the passion in his voice, and his affection for the Gophers.

Ray was a kind man and I never recall him saying a bad word about anyone on or off the air. He remembered the names of so many people including those he didn’t see very often. Always treating others, including his broadcast audience, with respect.

Ray passed away in 2017. Jim Nantz would have liked and admired him.

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Did U Miss on Coach Eric Musselman?

Posted on April 9, 2019April 9, 2019 by David Shama

Sunday was an interesting day for Golden Gophers basketball fans who scrutinize the program. Minnesota athletic director Mark Coyle squelched speculation he might move on from head coach Richard Pitino, and instead awarded him a contract extension. Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek hired Eric Musselman as the Razorbacks basketball coach and ended any conjecture Musselman could be headed to Minneapolis as Pitino’s replacement.

This writer was told by a former college coach that Musselman expressed interest in the Minnesota job last year. There has also been a recent rumor Musselman reached out to Coyle indicating he was more interested in coming to Minnesota than leaving his job as Nevada head coach to take over at Arkansas.

Musselman was born in Ohio but moved to Minnesota when he was in grade school. That happened when his father Bill Musselman became head coach of the Gophers prior to the 1971-72 season. Bill was just 30 years old when he took over a Minnesota program locked in mediocrity and fan apathy. Musselman, though, created a renaissance of interest and passion for Gophers basketball seldom seen before or since at Williams Arena.

The packed building rocked with music and cheering 30 minutes before game time. Fans clapped and roared their approval to the pregame Harlem Globetrotters style warm-up routine Musselman created for his players. When the games started, screaming fans were ready to blow the roof off the arena, cheering for some of the best talent the Gophers have ever had.

Overnight Musselman turned Minnesota into a national power and won the 1972 Big Ten championship. Eventually Musselman ran afoul of the NCAA and left Minnesota to coach in the pros, but his impact in Dinkytown and across the state was undeniable after creating so much more interest in not only the Gophers but the sport of basketball on any level.

As a youngster Eric witnessed his father’s success, obsession to win, and driving himself to exhaustion. His dad’s imprint led him down a basketball trail as a player and then a coach including in Minneapolis. Bill was the first head coach of the 1989 NBA expansion Minnesota Timberwolves, and Eric became an assistant for his dad after beeing the youngest head coach at age 23 in Continental Basketball Association history.

Eric was later head coach of the NBA’s Sacramento Kings and Golden State Warriors. As a basketball junkie and vagabond he’s travelled to a lot of places as both an assistant and head coach in the pros and college, but you can see why Minnesota could feel like home, and why that speculation of being interested in the Gophers job might well be true.

Minnesota has become a talent-rich area for high school basketball players and potential college recruits. A Gophers coach who could keep a high percentage of the best players home each year would be well positioned to compete for Big Ten championships a lot of the time. During the last four years Musselman has demonstrated he can recruit and win at a much more difficult place to win (Nevada) than Minnesota.

Five years ago Musselman was trying to jump-start his career while serving as an assistant coach in college basketball at LSU. In March of 2015 he then took over at Nevada where the program had been struggling. In four seasons with the Wolf Pack Musselman’s teams compiled records of 24-14, 28-7, 29-8 and 29-5, per Wikipedia. His teams won three consecutive Mountain West Conference titles, set a home attendance record, and advanced to three consecutive NCAA Tournaments including a Sweet 16 appearance a year ago. Going into last season the Wolf Pack drew mention as a top 10 team nationally.

Now 54 years old, Musselman may have made his last coaching stop in taking the Arkansas job. He lands in Fayetteville, instead of Minneapolis, in a less attractive place and in a less desirable job. If he had been hired by Minnesota he would have brought an impressive coaching resume including a know-how to win, and possibly a pregame warm-up show to put life back into an arena that often is lifeless and filled with thousands of empty seats. He could have rekindled memories for older fans and made new fans out of people of all ages.

Those empty seats (the Gophers sold out one home game in 2018-19) may well have played a role in Coyle sticking with Pitino, his six-year Minnesota head coach. The Gophers are dealing with budget issues and mandated cuts in the Athletic Department. Asking Pitino to leave would have cost the department millions of dollars.

Coyle, hired as athletic director in 2016, has shown patience with and been supportive of the basketball program. Pitino’s regular season Big Ten record is 40 wins, 70 losses. Only once (2017) have his teams won more than half of their conference games. Two years ago Minnesota, coming off a 2-16 conference season in 2016, went 11-7 in league games and Pitino was named 2017 Big Ten Coach of Year.

This past season the Gophers were 9-11 in Big Ten games. They rallied late winning five of their last eight games including victories in the Big Ten Tournament and NCAA Tournament. Wins over Purdue (twice) and Louisville were particularly impressive but critics believe the program is stuck in mediocrity.

Pitino went into last season on a short list of college coaches on the “hot seat,” per national media. The Gophers, though, exceeded the expectations of some media and fans, including by earning their way into the NCAA Tournament for just the second time in the Pitino era.

The roster for next season is in flux. The team’s best player, junior forward Amir Coffey, is testing the NBA’s interest in him and he might forego his last season of college eligibility. Guard Isaiah Washington, the former state of New York Mr. Basketball, left the program earlier this spring. Two starters, forward Jordan Murphy and guard Dupree McBrayer, and two key reserves, guard Brock Stoll and center Matz Stockman, won’t return because all four are seniors. With multiple scholarships for next season available but only two commits so far, the coaching staff is in pursuit of players to provide immediate help.

Ironically, Musselman might have been hired by the Gophers in 2013 instead of Pitino. Then athletic director Norwood Teague had been turned down by multiple coaches when he decided to offer the job to the 30-year-old Pitino whose only head coaching experience was one year at a place on the fringes of Division 1 college basketball—Florida International. More than one source will tell you that next on Teague’s candidate list might have been Musselman who at that time was an assistant at Arizona State.

If so, the Musselman to Minnesota possibility struck out in 2013, and again on Sunday. Two strikes and you’re out. Ball game over.

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