Gophers Hockey – Page 37 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Big Ten Teams Did U No Favors

Posted on March 20, 2015March 20, 2015 by David Shama

Minnesotans who hate the Big Ten Conference for forming a hockey league a couple of years ago with six teams—including the Gophers—could see their collective blood pressures soar again this weekend.

The Gophers are on the spot today in the Big Ten Tournament in Detroit against Ohio State. A loss likely eliminates Minnesota from selection for the NCAA Tournament, a postseason party the Gophers have attended the last three years.

If the Gophers win today (3:30 p.m. CDT start, Big Ten Network) they advance to the Big Ten Tournament championship game on Saturday. Minnesota coach Don Lucia said earlier this week on his 1500 ESPN Radio Show his team has less than a 10 percent chance of being selected for the NCAA Tournament on Sunday if the Gophers lose to the Buckeyes. Minnesota won three of four games against OSU during the regular season.

The Big Ten Tournament title game on Saturday starts at 7 p.m. and will also be on BTN. The winner receives automatic entry into the NCAA Tournament.

But will the NCAA Selection Committee still call the Gophers’ name if Minnesota loses on Saturday? The Gophers won the regular season Big Ten championship with a 12-5-3 record but that doesn’t tell the whole story. The Gophers were once the No. 1 ranked team in college hockey, later fell out of the top 20 and now are No. 13 in the USCHO.com national poll. No other Big Ten team is even ranked in the top 20, an indication of the six-team hockey league’s lack of strength this year. And while the Gophers were the best in their league, the nonconference record was a not so impressive 9-7.

No doubt (cue the blood pressure tests) the overall weak performance of the Big Ten as a hockey league this season hurts. “When the whole league is down it affects all the teams trying to qualify for a playoff position,” said Lou Nanne, the former Gopher and passionate fan. “Whenever you’re in that situation you have very few teams make it PairWise (see below).”

The NCAA Tournament Selection Committee uses “mathematical and other criteria” to determine 10 of the 16 teams for the tourney, according to USCHO.com. Six other schools are automatic qualifiers as conference champions. USCHO.com explains on its website that the selection committee compares teams against each other and then puts them in order based on comparisons won. USCHO uses a process called PairWise rankings which it says ranks teams similar to what the selection committee does because of the same data. The PairWise rankings on USCHO.com indicate, as of now, the Gophers would be invited to the tourney if they lose on Saturday.

Fans grumble about missing the old days when the Gophers were members of the WCHA, a powerhouse hockey league with Minnesota rivals like North Dakota and UMD. North Dakota, Michigan Tech, Denver and UMD are programs that once were WCHA rivals of the Gophers and this week are ranked No. 1, 4, 5 and 8 in the USCHO national poll.

Big Ten decision makers concluded awhile ago the conference should have a hockey league and a lot of that decision was driven by the Big Ten Network’s need for programming. The Gophers have won the first two regular season championships in the new league, but that won’t be perfect consolation if they miss out on the NCAA Tournament.

Nanne said leagues have good and bad years. In the long run he isn’t concerned about Big Ten hockey competing with the country’s best leagues. What he is upset about, though, is this season’s Gopher TV schedule that had the team playing on so many different channels and days and times it became frustrating for him and other fans. “Anybody tells you this doesn’t hurt Minnesota hockey, they’re nuts,” he said.

What happens with the Gophers’ TV schedule is the Big Ten Network is the rightsholder and has first call on games. Then the ESPN family of networks including ESPN2, ESPN News and ESPNU can pick and choose. And Gophers games can also end up on Fox Sports North. Regardless of network, games aren’t just televised on traditional Friday and Saturday nights anymore. TV dictates that some games are on other days and aren’t always played in the evening. The good news was 31 of the team’s 36 games have been televised—the best coverage of a college hockey team in the country.

Nanne does worry about fan interest in the Gophers program. “I just want more teams (in the Big Ten),” he said. “I think we gotta get to eight teams somehow. I think that will drive more interest.”

For now, though, the Gophers are on a two-day, two opponents Big Ten schedule.

Worth Noting

The WCHA Final Five tonight matches (first game) No. 2 seed Michigan Tech against No. 3 Bowling Green, followed by No. 1 seed Minnesota State playing No. 4 Ferris State at Xcel Energy Center. The tournament features three of the nation’s top 10 teams, according to both the USCHO. com and USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine polls, with No. 2 Minnesota State, No. 4 Michigan Tech and No. 9 Bowling Green. The fourth team competing for the Broadmoor Trophy and an automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament is Ferris State, a preseason top 10 team that is 7-1-1 in its last nine games.

Minnesota State, Michigan Tech and Bowling Green give the WCHA an NCAA-best (tied with Hockey East) three of the nation’s top 10 winning percentages . The Mavericks are tied for the best at .777 (27-7-3), the Huskies (tops nationally with 28 wins) are third at .763 (28-8-2) and the Falcons are seventh at .671 (23-10-5).

Also taking place locally is the men’s NCHC Frozen Faceoff at Target Center where No. 1 ranked North Dakota plays No. 18 St. Cloud State tonight followed by the No. 5 Denver against No. 6 Miami game. Those conference tournament games are scheduled to start at 4:08 and 7:38 p.m. Minneapolis time.

Tickets are sold out at Ridder Arena, official capacity 3,400, for the NCAA Women’s Frozen Four that starts today on the University of Minnesota campus. Despite the sellout status the first 100 students to show their college IDs at the Ridder Arena box office for both the semifinal session and championship game will receive complimentary tickets. Questions should be directed to the Gopher Sales & Service Department at 612-624-8080 (option 2).

Minnesota, the No. 1 tournament seed, plays No. 4 Wisconsin starting at 5 p.m. today. The Gophers, 32-3-4, are trying to win their third national title in four years. The other Frozen Four teams are Boston College and Harvard, No. 3 and 4 seeds. The national championship game is at Ridder on Sunday starting at 3 p.m.

The Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award honoring the best female college hockey player in the country will be announced tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. at the McNamara Alumni Center on the Minnesota campus. The Gophers Hannah Brandt, along with Alex Carpenter from Boston College and Marie-Philip Poulin of Boston University, are the three finalists.

Marlene Stollings achieved a personal best head coaching win total with the Gophers’ 23-9 record in her first season at Minnesota. In two previous head coaching assignments (two seasons at VCU and one at Winthrop) Stollings didn’t win more than 22 games in a season, nor did her teams qualify for the NCAA Tournament. Her Gophers are in the NCAA Tourney for the first time in six years. They are the No. 8 seed in the Oklahoma City Region and play No. 9 seed DePaul starting at 4 p.m. today in South Bend. Brittany Hrynko leads the Blue Demons with a 19.6 points-per-game average. The senior is a finalist for the Dawn Staley Award, given to the nation’s top guard.

Lynn Holleran, director of the McNamara Academic Center for student-athletes at the University of Minnesota, starts her new position later this month at Penn State as senior associate athletic director for administration. Holleran’s partner is former Gophers women’s basketball coach Pam Borton. The two were married last year.

Hamline’s Cinderella men’s hockey team hopes to keep “dancing” tomorrow when the Pipers (14-10-4) travel to UW-Stevens Point for an NCAA Tournament quarterfinal game starting at 7 p.m. The winner plays at Ridder Arena March 27 as part of the semifinals leading to the national title game on March 28 at the Gophers’ arena. This is only the second time in school history Hamline has advanced to the NCAA men’s hockey tourney and follows a 2-22-1 season last year.

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No Bonuses for Gophers Coach Pitino

Posted on March 13, 2015March 13, 2015 by David Shama

This season Gophers basketball coach Richard Pitino won’t earn any incentive bonuses tied to his team’s on-court performances. The coach’s contract with the University of Minnesota includes many potential bonuses including $25,000 for winning the Big Ten Conference Tournament, but the Gophers were eliminated from the tourney in Chicago last night. Minnesota defeated Rutgers on Wednesday but lost to Ohio State last evening.

The Gophers had a disappointing season after winning last year’s NIT championship and returning four starters. Expectations in 2015 were for an NCAA Tournament invitation and winning record in the Big Ten. Instead the Gophers finished 6-12 in regular season league games and won’t be considered for an NCAA invite with their 18-15 overall record. Pitino’s contract guarantees him a $50,000 bonus for a winning record in the Big Ten and the same amount if the Gophers are regular season conference champs.

There are no bonuses for postseason tournaments other than the NCAA tourney. Pitino can earn $50,000 for getting his team into the NCAA tourney, $50,000 for making the Sweet 16, $50,000 for the Final Four, and $100,000 for winning the national championship.

Contract incentives also include $25,000 for being honored as Big Ten Coach of the Year and $50,000 for National Coach of the Year.

Pitino didn’t earn any of the above mentioned bonuses this year or last. Pitino’s 2013-2014 team, his first at Minnesota, finished with an 8-10 record in the Big Ten. That group was considered an overachieving team that won seven of its last eight games including five straight to win the NIT title.

This season’s team, led by five seniors, has lost six of the last eight games. Among gloomy experiences were road and away losses to Penn State, and a home loss to Northwestern—two of the Big Ten’s historically worst programs.

The Gophers lost eight conference games by six points or less. Pitino has said the team hasn’t been lucky at times and he is correct, but the Gophers’ defensive failures have been a cause of misfortune. Minnesota hasn’t been able to correct its season long weakness in defending three point shooting, has been in ineffective at making key defensive stops, and sometimes been overmatched in defensive rebounding.

With the seniors leaving the program, the Gophers’ starting lineup, and certainly the roster, is somewhat of a mystery for next season. Pitino has scholarships to work with this spring and one source close to the program predicted at least two new players will be added, perhaps a small and power forward.

Pitino, 32, was hired by athletic director Norwood Teague in the spring of 2013. The contract he and University representatives signed in May of that year stated a base salary of $500,000 per year and supplemental compensation (for media, fundraising, community involvement and more) of $700,000. Annual salary increases are subject to evaluation by the University.

Worth Noting

Gophers leading scorer Andre Hollins made five of nine field goal attempts in the first half of last Sunday’s final regular season game against Penn State, then went 0-5 for in the second half. In Wednesday night’s opening Big Ten Tournament win over Rutgers he was 0-5 from the floor, and then last evening made four of 14 field goal attempts. That’s a four of 24 shooting slump for the senior guard who has been one of Minnesota’s best players for four years.

Despite a career low batting average of .277 last season, Joe Mauer still compares favorably with other hitters past and present. Among active players, Mauer’s .319 lifetime average is second only to Albert Pujols at .320. For career batting averages since 1950 among major leaguers, Mauer ranks seventh. His on-base percentage of .402 is third among today’s players, trailing Joey Votto at .427 and Miguel Cabrera, .411.

Ervin Santana, the right-handed veteran pitcher who the Twins signed as a free agent last December, could be the staff ace and is capable of being dominant. Twelve times during his 10 season MLB career he has produced double-digit strikeouts in a game. In seven starts for the Braves last season from July 18-August 18 he had a six-game win streak, going 6-0 with a 2.98 ERA.

Coach Don Lucia’s Gophers hockey team plays its last two regular season games tonight and Saturday evening at Mariucci Arena with second place Minnesota one point behind first place Michigan State in the Big Ten standings. The Gophers are defending conference champions, and in 2012 and 2013 Minnesota won WCHA regular season titles.

This weekend’s series will be the final two games at Mariucci Arena for six seniors. Seth Ambroz, Travis Boyd, Christian Isackson, Ben Marshall, Kyle Rau and Sam Warning comprise one of the most successful classes in program history with three straight regular season conference titles (a Gophers men’s record) and two trips to the NCAA Frozen Four. A second consecutive Big Ten title would make the senior class the only group at Minnesota to win regular season titles in each of four years together. Their record is 101-42-15 (.687), including 60-13-7 (.812) at Mariucci Arena.

Bemidji State, Bowling Green, Lake Superior State, Minnesota State, Michigan Tech and Northern Michigan are teams participating in this weekend’s opening round of the WCHA men’s hockey playoffs. Rosters include many Minnesotans such as Bemidji State freshman Michael Bitzer (Moorhead High School) who leads WCHA goalies in save percentage (.932) and is tied for second in goals against average (1.76). Bitzer was honored yesterday as the WCHA Rookie of the Year. Bowling Green junior goalie Tommy Burke (Academy of Holy Angels) is seventh in both save percentage (.919) and goals against average (2.19).

Minnesota State forward C.J. Franklin (Forest Lake) is second among freshmen scorers with 24 points. Senior teammate Zach Palmquist (South St. Paul) is second in scoring among WCHA defensemen with 26 points.

Former Gophers basketball assistant coach Dan Kosmoski has his St. Olaf men’s team (23-5) in the Division III Sweet 16 with a game tonight against Marietta in Rock Island, Illinois. The Oles have won a school record number of games for one season and can play Saturday against either Augustana or Mount Union if they win tonight. A Saturday win sends the Oles to the Division III Final Four.

Automated telephone calls were made to the public this week urging recipients to contact state legislators regarding a bill to reverse Minnesota State High School League transgender policy. League officials voted in December for transgender athletes to play on the school teams best aligned with their gender identity.

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Pitino: Bo Ryan ‘Teaches You a Lot’

Posted on March 6, 2015March 6, 2015 by David Shama

Gophers basketball notes following last night’s 76-63 loss to Wisconsin which used the win to clinch the Big Ten championship:

Minnesota never recovered from a slow first half start, trailing the Badgers 17-6 with about eight minutes gone in the game. The Badgers mostly cruised with a double-digit lead during the game.

“We let them score too easily,” said Gophers senior guard Andre Hollins. “They set the tone (early). We got down big. When you get down big on a team like Wisconsin, it’s hard to come back.”

The Badgers are 15-2 in league play and coach Bo Ryan has now won four Big Ten titles at Wisconsin in 14 seasons. He teaches his players fundamentals like few coaches ever have and part of the success is minimizing mistakes. In last night’s game the Badgers committed only 11 fouls and nine turnovers.

“He teaches you a lot as a coach about not fouling and not turning it over,” Gophers second year coach Richard Pitino said after the game. “It’s almost like their program is built on that. Don’t turn it over. Don’t foul. …

“They make use of it every single possession and they make you pay when you make a mistake. They really do. We turned them over nine times. He may make them walk back to Madison because of that. I thought we lost to a great team.”

The Gophers, 6-11 in the Big Ten, have their last regular season conference game on Sunday at noon against Penn State at Williams Arena. Minnesota’s Big Ten record has been a disappointment for a team that closed last season by winning the NIT and returned most of the key players.

But Pitino was upbeat last night. “I don’t think the year is weighing on anybody. I think we lost to one of the best teams in the country. We hate losing but we’ll be ready to roll on Sunday.”

Sunday’s game will be the last scheduled game at Williams Arena for several seniors including center Elliott Eliason who for much of his career has either been a starter or among the first players off the bench for the Gophers. Eliason, though, hasn’t played a minute in the last two games and just two minutes in the game before that. The Chadron, Nebraska native’s parents came to town for last night’s game and will attend the Penn State game, too.

Among the sports celebrities at the game was golf authority Andy North, the avid Badger fan who sees Wisconsin play about 30 times per year. “Bo and I have been friends for 40 years,” North told Sports Headliners.

The two men play golf together. North, who twice won the U.S. Open, said the coach is “very competitive” in attitude on the course and has a 16 or 17 handicap. North has blocked out his schedule so that if the Badgers qualify for the Final Four in Indianapolis he can attend.

Vikings general manager Rick Spielman, just back from a meeting with Adrian Peterson in Houston, was at Williams Arena with club colleagues.

Worth Noting

Peterson’s contract for 2015 reportedly calls for him to earn $12,750,000 but that puts him pretty far down the list of the NFL’s top paid players. The highest earners in the league are no longer running backs. There’s no question rushing is less important in the NFL than it once was. The last team to lead the league in rushing and win the Super bowl was the 1985 Bears, according to Tuesday’s Mike & Mike show on ESPN.

Ryan Galindo is the new head football coach at Washburn. Galindo, a Washburn alum, has been the offensive coordinator for the Millers. He succeeds Giovan Jenkins as head coach. Jenkins started this week as a volunteer coach at Minnesota.

Jeff Jones, the Gophers running back who didn’t qualify academically last season to play as a freshman after graduating from Washburn High School, continues to excel in the classroom at Minnesota and may soon have consecutive semesters with GPA’s over 3.0.

Jones, the Gophers’ only Rivals.com four-star player in the recruiting class of 2014, could perhaps play next fall as both a running back and slot receiver. With exceptional burst, he might be used in the slot and run the jet sweep similar to how Wisconsin’s Melvin Gordon made his early reputation for the Badgers.

Playing in the slot as a potential receiver, Jones has the hands to effectively catch the ball. Jones, 6-0, 198, has added strength since joining the program last summer and will be among the team’s most intriguing prospects to watch during spring practice.

Ex-Gophers safety Cedric Thompson was one of the defenders making Minnesota’s secondary among the best in the Big Ten last year. Although Thompson has used up his eligibility, he remains optimistic about the secondary including because of redshirt sophomore (next season) Daletavious McGhee who he believes can become a “great” player. McGhee, 6-1, 208, saw limited time in nine games last season.

Former Gophers wide receiver Derrick Engel said he’s fully recovered from the ACL injury he sustained in late 2013. Engel worked out at the Gophers Pro Day this week and hopes to be selected in the NFL Draft. If not, the Canadian Football League could be an alternative.

Engel’s brother Sean, a 6-5 receiver who will be a senior at Chaska High School next season, has drawn interest from the Gophers. Sean made an unofficial visit to Boise State last month and the Broncos are expected to continue following him.

The Gophers, Iowa, North Dakota State and Wisconsin have offered football scholarships to North High athlete Tyler Johnson, according to Rivals.com. A quarterback for the Polars, Johnson projects as a defensive back in college. Johnson, likely the best senior football player in the City Conference next fall, is also a shooting guard on the North basketball team.

Former Gopher Ra’Shede Hageman learned a lot about being a professional player in his rookie year of 2014 with the Falcons. His defensive line physical skills have been compared to the Lions Ndamukong Suh who drew a suspension last year for stepping on Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers. Would Hageman do something similar?

Hageman laughed and answered, “No. That’s a great question.”

The Gophers men’s hockey team was the No. 1 team in national polls last fall but later dropped out of the top 20. Minnesota, though, has won six of its last eight games and is ranked No. 15 in two national polls.

Lou Nanne, the former Gophers and North Stars player, has observed the team’s improvement and despite earlier disappointment with Minnesota playing below its talent level he remains optimistic about the postseason. “If they’re playing up to their ability, I expect they could win the national championship,” he told Sports Headliners.

Nanne sees the Gophers playing smarter, with more intensity and cohesiveness now. Although Adam Wilcox has experienced some inconsistency, the junior from South St. Paul remains one of college hockey’s best goalies. “I have no problem him being my goaltender in big games,” Nanne said. “If I gotta win a game in college, I’ll be happy to go with Wilcox day in and day out.”

Nanne will have knee replacement surgery next week. This week he is completing his 51st season of providing TV analysis for the state boys hockey tournament.

Jordan Leopold, the Robbinsdale Armstrong High School alum, became the 21st Minnesota native to play for the Wild when acquired in a trade this week with the Blue Jackets. Leopold played on the Gophers 2002 national title team and won the Hobey Baker Award the same year.

Every college recruiter and pro sports executive responsible for attracting free agent talent to this city should read Atlantic Magazine’s “The Miracle of Minneapolis” story. The February article by Derek Thompson says, “No other place mixes affordability, opportunity, and wealth so well.”

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