Golden Gophers – Page 163 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Amir Coffey’s Future a Mystery

Posted on June 4, 2019June 4, 2019 by David Shama

A pro basketball source who didn’t want his name printed was asked about the chances of Amir Coffey being selected in the second round of the June 20 NBA Draft.

“Slim,” he replied.

Coffey announced last week he will forego his senior season of eligibility with the University of Minnesota to play pro basketball. It might be that Coffey’s next basketball team will be part of the NBA’s player development league, or playing professionally overseas.

The source, whose career experiences include college and pro basketball, is unsure if Coffey will receive a free agent offer from an NBA club and then an assignment to the G League. His thinking is that if Coffey has the option of choosing between the development league and overseas, it’s to his benefit to be in the United States where he will be more visible to NBA franchises.

Coffey, 6-foot-8 and about 205 pounds while in college, is a multi-positional player who was among the Big Ten’s best in March, but during three seasons with the Golden Gophers he didn’t show consistent outside shooting including three point scoring. “If you don’t shoot the three-pointer (well), it’s hard in today’s NBA,” the source said.

Coffey has been training for a couple of months for a pro career. He has received feedback from NBA evaluators who didn’t invite him to the prestigious NBA Draft Combine last month in Chicago involving 66 draft eligible prospects.

“I think he has a chance (of being drafted). He’s doing really well in the workouts,” Gopher coach Richard Pitino said last night at a U fan event. “Obviously, he is 6-8, he is skilled (and) so we’re rooting for him.”

Neither Coffey, nor Reid Travis, another Minnesota native, is predicted to be drafted in either the first or second round by Nbadraft.net. The Timberwolves are projected to select North Carolina small forward Nassir Little with their No. 11 selection.

Worth Noting

That website’s mock draft for next year has Duke’s Tre Jones projected as the No. 28 selection on the first round, but incoming Blue Devils teammate and fellow Minnesotan Matthew Hurt isn’t included among the first or second picks.

Hurt will be a freshman this fall while Jones returns to Duke for his sophomore season. Hurt’s absence in the mock draft didn’t surprise the pro basketball source mentioned above who believes the former Rochester John Marshall five-star recruit must fill out his 6-foot-9 frame (about 215 pounds) and become stronger.

Kevin Warren is a history maker. He became the NFL’s first African-American Chief Operating Officer with the Vikings, and today in a surprise announcement was introduced as the sixth commissioner of the Big Ten Conference.

Minnesota Wild goalie Alex Stalock and Canterbury Park race caller and KFAN radio personality Paul Allen are among the owners of the filly One Famous Ocean who will race in Canterbury’s $57,000 Gopher State Derby on June 8. She qualified for the Derby by running the third fastest time in late May quarter horse trials involving 34 three year olds.

Bud Grant’s annual garage sale starts at 5 p.m. on Wednesday and he guarantees that at age 92 this will be his last. He gave that promise and other details on WCCO Radio’s Sports Huddle show Sunday. The sale is at his Bloomington home, 8134 Oakmere Road, and is expected to continue into Thursday and Friday.

Former Gophers tight end turned professional singer Ben Utecht performs the best of Andy Williams October 11 and 12 at Chanhassen Dinner Theatres.

The Twins were No. 2 behind the Astros last week in ESPN.com’s power rankings of MLB clubs. What single move could take Minnesota to No. 1?

The signing of star closer and free agent Craig Kimbrel is perhaps the surest answer if he could approximate past performance after a spring of game inactivity. He won’t come cheap but his signing will give credence to the longstanding contention of Twins executives that the Pohlad family is willing to spend big money when the situation is right.

It’s a good guess the Twins will be announcing all tickets are sold for the three-game celebration of Joe Mauer’s career June 14-16, with standing room a likely bet for the June 15 game when his jersey is retired.

Trevor Larnach, the Twins’ first-round draft selection a year ago, is the Florida State League Offensive Player of the Week, according to an article yesterday by Sam Dykstra with Mlb.com. He was 10 for 20 with hits including two home runs, two doubles and seven hits during the period of May 27-June 2 playing for Class A Advanced Fort Myers.

Former Gophers Big Ten championship basketball coach Jim Dutcher was honored recently by Alpena (Michigan) Community College where he coached early in his career. Dutcher, who turned 86 in April, was named Alpena’s 2019 Fellow of the College.

WCCO Radio Sports Huddle show co-host Dave Mona, along with his wife Linda Mona, are promoting another Camden’s Concert and looking for on-site and online auction items. Among items already secured are tickets to the Vikings-Packers game at Lambeau Field September 15. Auction suggestions can be sent to l.mona@creativeenvironments.net. Country western singer and song writer Suzy Bogguss will entertain at the July 16 concert at the Hopkins Center for the Arts. Money raised from the concert helps research to find a cure for Cystic Fibrosis.

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Several Twins Deserve All-Star Look

Posted on May 28, 2019May 28, 2019 by David Shama

Enjoy a Tuesday notes column leading off with the Minnesota Twins, a club that seems certain to have multiple representatives in July’s MLB All-Star Game in Cleveland.

Twins starters Jose Berrios, Jake Odorizzi and Martin Perez have all won seven games, a total exceeded by only two pitchers in the American League, per stats from Baseball-reference.com. Odorizzi leads the AL in ERA at 2.16 ERA. Berrios was the team’s lone All-Star a year ago and that won’t hurt his chances of being on the AL team in 2019. Perez won only two games last season pitching for the Texas Rangers and is a Comeback Player of the Year candidate.

Minnesota shortstop Jorge Polanco and outfielder Eddie Rosario have compiled All-Star credentials this spring, too. Polanco’s .332 batting average is second best in the American League. He is tied for third in Wins About Replacement. Rosario leads the league in RBI with 45 and his 16 home runs are tied for second.

The Twins haven’t had more than three players in the All-Star Game since 1991 when Rick Aguilera, Scott Erickson, Jack Morris and Kirby Puckett represented Minnesota.

The Twins announced this morning that pitcher Michael Pineda is on the 10-day Injured List with right knee tendinitis. Pineda has started 11 games, with a 4-3 record and 5.34 ERA. To replace Pineda on the roster, the Twins selected the contract of left-handed pitcher Devin Smeltzer from Triple-A Rochester. Smeltzer made four starts for the Red Wings, going 0-1 with a 1.82 ERA. He was acquired last season as part of a trade with the Dodgers.

The Twins have three more games remaining in May and have won 19 games this month. The club record for wins in May is 21. The most Minnesota has won in any month since 2017 is 20 in August of that year.

Minnesota’s 36-17 record remains the best in MLB after last night’s 5-4 loss to Milwaukee.

As the Minnesota Vikings go through Organized Team Activities this spring it appears No. 1 draft choice Garrett Bradbury will be the center, although he is learning the guard positions, too. The presence of Bradbury is prompting the move of last year’s starting center, Pat Elflein, to left guard.

What was Elflein’s reaction on draft night to the Vikings selecting the talented Bradbury who played at North Carolina State? Excited, he said, to add another “great lineman” to the roster.

Elflein is taking a team first approach about moving to guard, a position he played in college at Ohio State. “I think we have really athletic offensive linemen all across the board, so however we can utilize that best is what we want to do,” he said.

Elflein likes what he has seen so far of Bradbury. “He’s smart. He’s learning the offense very quickly.”

Rookie tight end and No. 2 draft choice Irv Smith Jr. is impressed with the Vikings’ offense. “It’s going to be a scary (good) offense,” he said.

Vikings wide receiver Adam Thielen is a two-handicapper in golf. After his pro football career might he consider a run at pro golf? Probably not, he told Sports Headliners. “I wish I was good enough,” he said. “I love the game of golf and it would be really cool to be able to do something like that, but I am not even thinking about that right now.”

Football fans in Minnesota will like the 2019 Division II and III preseason national rankings by Street & Smith’s College Football magazine on newsstands now. Minnesota State is No. 3 and Minnesota-Duluth No. 11 in the D-II rankings. Three MIAC teams are in the D-III top 10 with No. 3 Saint John’s, No. 6 St. Thomas and No. 10 Bethel.

St. Thomas games will again be broadcast on WCCO Radio. Sources believe the school will continue to buy the air time for the broadcasts.

Deepest condolences to the family and friends of Mignette Najarian who passed away last week. The Najarians, including Mignette’s husband Dr. John Najarian of the University of Minnesota, have for decades been one of the great families in Minneapolis and Minnesota. They have inspired people through medicine, business and philanthropy.

The “Cinderella” Golden Gophers softball team, in the program’s first ever Women’s College World Series, are seeded No. 7 among eight teams and play No. 2 UCLA starting at 1:30 p.m. Thursday in a game to be televised by ESPN. Names to watch on the Bruins include pitcher Rachel Garcia with a 1.01 ERA, third lowest in the country, and Kelli Goodwin hitting .446, ninth best.

No. 1 seeded Oklahoma should be the crowd favorite with the May 30-June 5 tournament being played in Oklahoma City, located about 20 miles from the OU campus in Norman. The talented Sooners lead the nation’s D-I teams in batting average at .355 and also ERA at 1:06. The Gophers rank No. 7 in ERA at 1.63 but aren’t in the top 10 for batting average.

Season tickets are sold out for Gopher softball 2020 home games and the athletic department has started a waitlist.

The Gophers baseball team finished the year with a 29-27 overall record, the 36th time in 38 years that head coach John Anderson has led Minnesota to a winning record. Anderson’s 64th birthday was earlier this month and he has one year remaining on his contract. He should be given a contract extension to continue leading the program indefinitely.

Earlier this month on CBS an estimated 10,000 TV households in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market watched golf’s Nick Faldo, along with Minneapolis philanthropist Wayne Kostroski, announce the first-ever Taste Fore The Tour. The Tour’s first stop will be July 1 at Interlachen Country Club in Edina, and is part of a national charity culinary series created to raise awareness and donations for hunger relief causes. The Minnesota culinary event will precede the PGA’s 3M Open that starts July 4 in Blaine.

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National Football Magazine: U ‘Dangerous’

Posted on May 23, 2019May 23, 2019 by David Shama

When it comes to offseason college football predictions, some things never seem to change like forecasts Alabama and Clemson will play for the national championship, or Ohio State will again wear the Big Ten crown. But there is variable and contrary chatter during the winter and spring including about the Golden Gophers program.

In early January Sporting News placed Minnesota No. 25 in a (how could you be earlier?) rankings of America’s best college teams for 2019. This week a few web searches of more recent top 25 national rankings produced no such good news for Gophers fans.

Sporting News’ post-spring practice listing of April 29 had Nebraska No. 25, Northwestern 24th and Wisconsin 21st but didn’t include the Gophers in the rankings. Pro Football Focus and Athlon came out with top 25 rankings Tuesday, but again Goldy was absent.

My research did discover a “nugget” that will please Gopher optimists. Athlon’s college football magazine, now on newsstands, includes an article by algorithm specialist Bill Connelly. He includes Minnesota among six national “Teams on the Rise” after deciphering data such as efficiency, explosiveness, field position, finishing drives and turnovers. He references the Gophers’ lack of consistency last season (Minnesota played in only two of 13 games decided by a touchdown or less) but concludes his write-up with these words: “This team will be dangerous.”

Read most anybody who offers a detailed preview on the Gophers, including Connelly, and be prepared to hear about inconsistency, including at the quarterback position last season. The Gophers played two freshmen there last year, Zack Annexstad and Tanner Morgan. Athlon includes Minnesota in a two-page spread titled “QB Battles” and predicts Annexstad will win the job because he is “the better pure passer.”

Both Athlon and Street & Smith’s college football magazines forecast the Gophers will finish fifth in the Big Ten’s seven-team West Division—perhaps the most unpredictable division in the country. The two publications say Nebraska will win what is expected to be a close race to play for the Big Ten championship against Ohio State from the East Division.

Street & Smith’s predicts Purdue will finish second in the West, while Athlon has the Boilermakers sixth behind Minnesota. S&M sees Iowa finishing sixth, while Athlon projects the Hawkeyes placing second in the Big Ten. (More evidence of how crystal balling varies and changes during the offseason.)

The Gophers, after an awful early season Big Ten performance, closed fast in 2018 by impressively winning two of their final three league games. Then they soundly defeated (34-10) a capable Georgia Tech team in the Quick Lane Bowl to finish 7-6 overall, 3-6 in conference games.

Among the most inexperienced teams in the country last year, the Gophers are loaded with key returnees on both offense and defense. There is also more talent to work with than Minnesota coaches have been accustomed to having. The quality of the finish last season is countered, though, by the poor performance earlier in the season, and the contrasting results have forced college football authorities to be a bit inconsistent and cautious in their outlooks about the Gophers.

Both magazines have Minnesota senior wide receiver Tyler Johnson on their regionally produced covers. S&M tabs JD Spielman, the Eden Prairie alum, former lacrosse player, and speedy receiver and returner for Nebraska, as the Big Ten’s best athlete. Athlon includes the Gophers’ Carter Coughlin, another Eden Prairie alum, on the line of its third-team All-American defense.

Worth Noting

Golden Gophers coach P.J. Fleck likes to recruit players with ties to the program like Coughlin whose dad and grandfather played for Minnesota. Maybe he will take a look at Gracen Bell, a tight end at Lee’s Summit North in Lee’s Summit, Missouri. He is the grandson of legendary Gophers lineman Bobby Bell, a two-time All-American and perhaps the greatest player in University of Minnesota history.

Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins and Texans defensive end J.J. Watt are drawing praise this month for commencement speeches at their alma maters, Michigan State and Wisconsin respectively.

If new Timberwolves president of basketball operations Gersson Rosas wants the inside word on Ricky Rubio, he can probably get it from Jazz boss Dennis Lindsey. Rosas and Lindsey worked together with the Rockets before being hired to work for the Wolves and Jazz respectively.

Rubio is a free agent who the Wolves traded to the Jazz in 2017 and it seems possible he could end up back in Minneapolis. His name is being conjectured with multiple NBA destinations, and the Wolves might like to replace the point guard he was traded for, Jeff Teague.

It doesn’t hurt the fan popularity of the successful Gophers softball team that 10 of the 14 players on the roster are Minnesota natives. Among the Minnesotans is pitcher Sydney Smith, who joined the Gophers after transferring from LSU, Minnesota’s opponent starting Friday at 4 p.m. in Minneapolis for a NCAA Super Regional matchup. Smith, who while pitching at Maple Grove High School was 54-1, figures to offer some insights to her coaches about the Tigers who will be in a town for the best of three series.

All-session chair backs for the Super Regional at Sage Cowles Stadium are priced at $40, with bench seating at $35 and $30. Standing room is also $30. ESPN2 televises Friday’s game.

Ex-Pioneer Press sportswriter Gregg Wong and former Washburn High School three-sports star Gerry Clark play in the Tzatskees band Saturday night June 1 at the Eagles Club in southeast Minneapolis.

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