Gophers Hockey – Page 17 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Gopher Road Woes Mark Pitino Era

Posted on January 11, 2021 by David Shama

Coach Richard Pitino’s Golden Gophers basketball team lost 86-71 at Iowa yesterday and has dropped six consecutive Big Ten regular season road games dating back to last season. Pitino, now in his eighth season as Minnesota’s coach, has been unable to find success on the road in conference games except for the 2016-2017 season when the Gophers were 5-4.

Pitino’s career record in Big Ten regular season road games is 14-55, a 20 percent winning percentage. Most years the Gophers have won only a couple games away from Minneapolis and that goes a long way toward explaining the season-ending conference finishes of Pitino teams. In seven full seasons he has a fourth place finish in the conference standings (2017), with the next best results two years (2014 and 2019) when the Gophers placed seventh.

Big Ten title contenders win on the road, as history shows. When the Gophers won conference championships in 1982 and 1997, they lost two away games each season. Despite highly competitive road competition in the Big Ten last year, Wisconsin managed a 5-4 record on the way to a share of the conference title.

The Gophers are 10-4 overall and 3-4 in Big Ten games. Their four losses (all on the road) against Illinois, Iowa, Michigan and Wisconsin have been double-digit defeats. Minnesota has been way behind in road games and often because of poor defense and undisciplined offense. The Gophers have also been unable to match the energy of opponents on the road.

Pitino gave his team higher marks for its effort yesterday against Iowa than the other three road losses. “I thought this game was totally different than the other three losses. I thought we did a great job fighting back. We just took some bad shots down the stretch and weren’t able to get stops.”

Iowa quickly increased a 39-37 halftime lead to double digits for most of the second half but the Gophers were down by five points with about five minutes to play. Then Minnesota didn’t show enough patience on offense, rushed shots and got three-point happy. After the game Minnesota forward Brandon Johnson acknowledged the Gophers can “fall in love” with three-point shots at the expense of running an efficient offense. “It’s something we gotta fix as a group for sure,” he said.

In less than a month the Gophers have played seven consecutive conference games against nationally ranked opponents, including home wins against Michigan State, Ohio State and Iowa. Pitino said on his KFAN postgame radio show yesterday the stretch has been a grind. “We wore these guys down. That schedule was as hard a schedule as you’re going to see. …”

The Gophers will take three days off to rest before preparing for Michigan at home Saturday. This is one of Pitino’s more talented teams and has been ranked among the top programs in the country but the road failures have been glaring. Even the team’s most talented players have struggled away from home including preseason All-Big Ten guard Marcus Carr, and center Liam Robbins who was out played in the last two games by national player of the year candidates Hunter Dickinson of Michigan and Luka Garza from Iowa.

“Obviously you got an undefeated (10-0) Michigan coming up, but these guys (the Gophers) got better,” Pitino said on the postgame show. “We need a little break and get back to work.”

Worth Noting

Minnesota native Brian Dutcher, the San Diego State coach who has a special opt out in his contract that would allow him to coach the Gophers if the job opened, has won 13 consecutive regular season road games dating back to 2019.

Scott Ellison, the personable Gophers senior associate athletics director in charge of facilities and capital projects, retires at the end of this week after more than 32 years at the U. Ellison has worked on about $600 million in capital projects including the construction of TCF Bank Stadium and the Athletes Village. Long time assistant Jeff Seifriz will succeed Ellison.

Gophers’ offensive coordinator Mike Sanford Jr. might have been a candidate for the head coaching job at Boise State filled last week with the hiring of Andy Avalos. If Sanford, who has Boise State ties as a former Bronco OC, had been hired that may have opened the door for the return of long time P.J. Fleck OC coordinator Kirk Ciarrocca. He left Minnesota after the 2019 season for Penn State but was dismissed last week.

Sanford’s offense had its struggles last season, showing inconsistency and veteran quarterback Tanner Morgan regressing. Sanford came to Minnesota after career moves that included only two years as head coach at Western Kentucky before he was fired, and serving as offensive coordinator at Utah State in 2019 where quarterback Jordan Love went from 32 touchdown passes and six interceptions in 2018 to 20 TD throws and 17 interceptions.

Morgan, a redshirt junior, was being mentioned a year ago as a future late first round or second round NFL Draft choice but for now that looks unlikely and he is expected to return as the Gopher starter in 2021.

If the Vikings were going to part ways with head coach Mike Zimmer it almost certainly would have happened by now. Pioneer Press columnist Charley Walters wrote this on Sunday: “But next year is clearly make or break for the 64-year-old grump.”

Local connection: 1983 Waseca High School grad Mike Larson was the advance scout for Tommy Lasorda’s 2000 U.S. Olympic baseball team. Lasorda, who died last week, managed that team to a surprise gold medal and was the long time colorful manager of the Dodgers.

Doug Mientkiewicz, the former Twin, played on the 2000 Olympic team and credited the experience with giving him confidence. John Manuel, now a Twins scout and once editor-in-chief of Baseball America, wrote about that American team who many observers thought would lose out to Cuba.

Versatile calendar: the men’s Gopher hockey team, now 11-1-0 after splitting a weekend series with the Badgers, has played games every day of the week because of TV programming.

John Drum, the newly named general manager of U.S. Bank Stadium, is the latest “Behind the Game” guest with co-hosts Patrick Klinger and Bill Robertson. Drum, who talks on the show about the post-pandemic future for the stadium, worked with Robertson in the mid-1990s as part of the Angels organization in Anaheim. The program is available for viewing on the “Behind the Game” YouTube Channel and via cable access throughout the state.

Hoping for the best of transitions for Susan Wilkinson who has moved into a Bloomington long-term care facility. Susan is the terrific wife of Mike Wilkinson, author of the Murray Warmath biography, The Autumn Warrior.

Rob Hunegs, the popular owner of Twin Cites Sports Cards in Golden Valley, is home after a 12-day battle with COVID-19 in the hospital.

Thoughts of friends are with former Gophers football player Joe Pung who was diagnosed in 2019 with stage 3 melanoma and is undergoing treatment at the Mayo Clinic.

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Nanne Pumped to See Wild Rookie

Posted on January 6, 2021January 6, 2021 by David Shama

The Wild started training camp this week and the team opens its NHL season next week, debuting prize rookie Kirill Kaprizov. Minnesota hockey legend Lou Nanne, 79, is excited to watch the native of Novokuznetsk, Russia who is known for his offensive efficiency including game-winning goals.

“I can’t wait to see him,” Nanne told Sports Headliners. “I am like everybody else, wildly anticipating what he can do. I enjoyed watching him in the World Juniors…but now he’s in the NHL and we can see what he can do.”

What does the former Gopher, North Star defenseman and team president like about the 5-9, 195-pound forward? “Everything. The way he skates. The presence he’s got on the ice. The way he can shoot the puck. The way he can score goals. Stability on his skates—he’s built like a little fire truck…and he’s got magnificent hands.”

It appears based on past performance the Wild will struggle with goal scoring and Nanne emphasizes the importance of goaltending if Minnesota is to become a playoff team in 2021. “You don’t make the playoffs without goaltending if you’re not going to score a lot of goals, and I don’t see the Wild being a great goal scoring team. They’ll score enough to win (sometimes) but they don’t have an excess of scoring.

“They should be improved with Kaprizov coming because he can score goals, and (Kevin) Fiala coming into his own. So those two (Fiala led the team in points last season) give you some hope for a consistent scoring team. But they have to play tight defensively and they definitely have to have good goaltending.”

A playoff prediction for Minnesota? “Well, they’re going to have to battle to make a playoff position because they’re in a division where you’ve got Colorado, Vegas and St. Louis which are three teams that should be in the playoffs,” Nanne said.

Nanne, who thinks the Stanley Cup finalists could be Colorado and Tampa Bay, is one of six players on the 1960s WCHA All-Decade team announced Monday. The former Gopher All-American defenseman was named one of the WCHA’s 50 greatest players in 2002.

Nanne is looking forward to his 57th year of providing TV commentary for the boys state hockey tournament. Speculation is the tournament could be played in April, the latest dates in memory. It’s unknown, too, whether the boys basketball tournament will still follow the hockey tourney.

Worth Noting

It will be an interesting trio of games just ahead for Gopher center Liam Robbins who is emerging as one of college basketball’s best at his position. Tonight Minnesota plays Michigan, with freshman center standout Hunter Dickinson, and again on January 16. In between those dates (Sunday) is Iowa center Luka Garza, the favorite for college player of the year honors.

When the Gophers upset Iowa last month in a 102-95 home overtime win, Garza had the better stats with 32 points and 17 rebounds but Minnesota’s junior center, who transferred from Drake last year, was also effective with totals of 18 and five. Minnesota, 10-2, and Michigan, 9-0, play for the first time this season in Ann Arbor and the Wolverines are led in scoring by Dickinson at 16.9 points per game.

Robbins, who needs to avoid early foul trouble in his upcoming tests, is averaging 14.2 points per game and coming on strong as of late. His last three games include the first double-double of his Gopher career, scoring 27 points and grabbing 14 rebounds in Minnesota’s win over Ohio State Sunday.

Robbins’ value to the Gophers includes defense where the presence of the 7-foot Iowa native is a deterrent to potential scorers. He leads the Big Ten in blocked shots averaging 2.8 per game.

Former Gophers basketball public address announcer Dick Jonckowski has been diagnosed with stage 3 non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. The popular emcee and comic has been told the cancer is “not very aggressive.” He will have a series of eight rounds of chemo treatments. Several years ago he beat stage 4 non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.

Ex-Gopher guard Andre Hollins is doing graduate work at the Carlson School of Management and serving as a graduate manager on the men’s basketball team.

The St. Thomas football program, headed to Division I status next fall, is looking for three nonconference games to balance out its Pioneer Football League schedule.

It’s not known whether WCCO Radio, the longtime broadcast home of Tommies football, will be airing games next fall.

Historic numbers: The Gopher hockey program, celebrating 100 seasons, boasts a 10-0 team for the first time in more than 80 years.

The CBSsports.com 2021 NFL Mock Draft out Tuesday has the Vikings using the No. 14 pick in the first round to select edge rusher Gregory Rousseau from the University of Miami. Marshall, Minnesota native Trey Lance, the quarterback from NDSU, is predicted to go at No. 8 to the Panthers. Gophers wide receiver Rashod Bateman isn’t included among the 32 mock picks in the first round.

If Gary Kubiak decides to leave the Vikings as offensive coordinator, that’s one fewer father-son connection on the team. Clint Kubiak is quarterbacks coach, while head coach Mike Zimmer’s son Adam Zimmer is co-defensive coordinator with Andre Patterson, whose son AC Patterson is an offensive quality control coach.

Former Vikings head coach Jerry Burns, who has spent part of his retirement years in Jamaica, will be 94 January 27.

It was 60 years ago last week that the Golden Gophers football team played in its first Rose Bowl, losing 17-7 to Washington. The Gophers returned to the Rose Bowl in January of 1962 and defeated UCLA, 21-3.

Anonymous basketball authority talking about the Timberwolves who are 2-5 and have lost five consecutive mostly one-sided games: “They’re hard to watch.”

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Dalvin Cook Joins Elite NFL Runners

Posted on November 9, 2020November 9, 2020 by David Shama

A newsy Monday notes column covering the Vikings, Gophers, Twins, Wild and more:

Dalvin Cook totaled a career-high 252 scrimmage yards (206 rushing, 46 receiving) and two rushing touchdowns in the Vikings’ 34-20 win against the Detroit Lions Sunday. He is now the third player in NFL history to have at least 225 scrimmage yards and two touchdowns in consecutive games, joining Jim Brown (1963) and Deuce McAllister (2003). Cook had 226 scrimmage yards and four touchdowns (three rushing, one receiving) a week ago Sunday against the Green Bay Packers.

Dalvin Cook (photo courtesy of Minnesota Vikings)

Cook has 12 rushing touchdowns this season, tied for the fourth-most by a player in his first seven games of a season in NFL history. All-time leaders are Brown (14 rushing touchdowns in 1958) and Emmitt Smith (13 in 1995) and Priest Holmes (13 in 2004).

The Gophers’ Mohamed Ibrahim is the Big Ten’s Offensive Player of the Week, the conference announced this morning. He rushed for more than 200 yards and four touchdowns for the second consecutive week in Minnesota’s win Saturday over Illinois. He tied his career high with 224 rushing yards, adding 31 yards receiving and 27 yards on kick returns to set a career high with 282 all-purpose yards. He is the second Gopher ever to have two consecutive 200-yard rushing games and the first since Terry Jackson II in 2002.

Gophers coach P.J. Fleck remembered when the junior running back was on the scout team early in his college career and “never complained” about his status. “He’s earned everything he’s got,” Fleck said.

Trey Potts, Ibrahim’s back-up, was carted off the field Saturday with an apparent ankle or foot injury. Fleck speculated Potts is “day-to-day” for Friday night’s game with Iowa.

Assistant coach Joe Rossi missed the Illinois game because of COVID-19 and Fleck offered no timeline on Rossi’s return, although he did say the defensive coordinator is “doing well.”

What an interesting Big Ten football season so far. Wisconsin, the preseason favorite to win the West Division, has only played one game because of COVID. Minnesota, another popular pick to emerge as the division champ, is off to a 1-2 start, while Northwestern, 1-8 in league games last season, is 3-0 and could win the West. In the East Division nobody saw a 0-3 start for Penn State or 3-0 beginning for Indiana, a program historically among the worst in the nation.

Because he is 40 years old, Minnesota Twins DH Nelson Cruz didn’t make MLB.com’s list from today of the top 25 free agents this offseason based on analytics for future production. No Twins made the list but three former Minnesota players did, second baseman Jonathan Schoop at No. 17, relief pitcher Liam Hendriks, No. 19, and outfielder Robbie Grossman, 24.

MLB.com on Saturday listed the “perfect” free agent fits for all 30 major league teams and tagged the Twins with New York Mets starter Marcus Strommen. He is a potential No. 2 or 3 talent but MLB.com speculates the Mets could extend an $18.9 million qualifying offer. Twins free agent starting pitcher Jake Odorizzi is projected as the right fit with the Boston Red Sox.

Organizer Patrick Klinger reports the Capital Club will hear from Golden Gophers men’s basketball coach Richard Pitino tomorrow (Tuesday) via zoom. Klinger, the former Twins executive who now runs a St. Paul-based marketing company, uses this signature quote in his emails from English essayist and moralist Samuel Johnson:

“The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.”

Pitino will be upbeat tomorrow talking about transfer guard Both Gach. Pitino announced today the Austin, Minnesota native, who played his first two seasons at Utah, has been given immediate eligibility by the NCAA. Gach joined Pitino’s program this summer after playing two seasons at the University of Utah. An almost certain starter for the Gophers this fall, Gach will have two years of eligibility at Minnesota.

A media panel selected a 10-member preseason All-Big Ten team announced today that includes Pitino’s junior point guard, Marcus Carr. He was an All-Big Ten third team selection last season, after having a school record 207 assists.

The Gopher men’s hockey team program is the favorite to win the Big Ten Conference in 2020-21, per a poll of league coaches who also designated four Minnesota players with preseason honors. It was announced this morning Minnesota led the poll ahead of Michigan, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Michigan State, and Penn State.

Minnesota junior forward Sammy Walker is a member of the preseason All-Big Ten first team. Senior forward Brannon McManus and sophomore defenseman Jackson LaCombe are on the second team. Sophomore forward Ben Meyers received honorable mention.

Defending WCHA regular-season champion Minnesota State is the unanimous favorite to repeat as champions, earning all 10 first-place votes in the league’s media poll announced today. The Mavericks are followed by Bemidji State, Bowling Green , Northern Michigan, Michigan Tech, Lake Superior State , Alaska, Ferris State, Alaska Anchorage and Alabama Huntsville. Minnesota State junior goaltender Dryden McKay is the media poll choice as WCHA Preseason Player of the Year.

Nobody is saying Marco Rossi is the next Mikko Koivu yet, but the Minnesota Wild need to develop an extraordinary center and it could be the 19-year-old Rossi. The team’s 2020 first round draft choice might make the Minnesota roster in his first season.

The NHL hasn’t announced when the season will begin but don’t count on spectators being allowed, at least early on.

“The Rundown,” Jeff Crilley’s daily newsletter, reports in today’s issue that early analysis by Pfizer says more than 90 percent of volunteers given the company’s vaccine didn’t develop COVID-19.

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