Golden Gophers – Page 231 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Gopher Lapses Bring End to Season

Posted on March 17, 2017March 17, 2017 by David Shama

Talk about avoiding foul trouble is the easy part. Doing it is often difficult. Just ask the Gophers who lost their NCAA Tournament opening game yesterday in Milwaukee, 81-72 to Middle Tennessee State.

Gophers center Reggie Lynch and power forward Jordan Murphyhave experienced foul problems in games this year. Earlier this week Murphy was asked about avoiding fouls and staying on the court, not heading to the bench because of concern regarding a third, fourth or fifth infraction. “I think me and Reggie both have to do a better job of just feeling out the refs and what they’re going to call, and how they’re going to let us play,” Murphy said Tuesday.

The Gophers, a No. 5 seed, trailed only by six points at halftime yesterday against the No. 12 seed Blue Raiders. About four minutes into the second half, Murphy, Lynch, and Eric Curry—a key backup at power forward and center—were all in foul trouble. Lynch, who sat out the final eight minutes of the first half because of two fouls, picked up his third within the first two minutes of the second half. The foul came on an unnecessary reach in, and was Lynch’s second misguided foul of the game.

After leading 37-31 at halftime, the Blue Raiders, with Lynch on the bench, raced to a 52-38 lead by 15:31 of the second half.

Lynch came into the game second among NCAA players in blocks. He sent a message in the opening minutes that he was going to be a force inside and the Gophers got off to a 7-0 lead. But after awhile Lynch was benched because of fouls and his replacement, Curry, got lost on defense and allowed easy layups.

Gophers coach Richard Pitino expressed disappointment with Lynch and the total defensive effort on his postgame radio show. “We didn’t have our defense the way it needed to be,” Pitino said on 1500 ESPN. “Reggie, we needed him in the game. He gets that third foul just inexplicably. So we ran out of gas, but we just were not guarding. … They’re a very good team. Give them credit.”

The Blue Raiders, a tourney bracket-buster favorite after opening game upsets the last two years against Michigan State and Minnesota, shot the ball impressively, surprised with their rebounding, and at times confounded the Gophers with a half court trap defense. The Blue Raiders also showed off a roster of players with length and multiple skills.

Former Gophers coach Jim Dutcher, who had picked Minnesota to win, was impressed with the Blue Raiders after the game. “They really execute in their half court offense,” Dutcher told Sports Headliners. “Once they got in rhythm, we couldn’t stop them.”

The foul trouble, Dutcher acknowledged, was a major factor in Minnesota’s loss. “When you take your shot blocker out, it makes a heck of a difference,” he said.

The fouls on Lynch, Murphy and Curry changed not only how the team performed, but how those three could play. Foul trouble impacts team assignments and substitutions. It changes aggressiveness, how players can guard and willingness to help teammates. Sometimes it impacts final game results, as was true yesterday.

It was a season of runs for the Gophers including both a five-game Big Ten losing streak and a stretch of eight league wins in a row. In the Big Ten tournament Minnesota got an opening win over Michigan State but a troubling defensive effort against Michigan resulted in an 84-77 loss.

Minnesota finishes with a 24-10 record and those numbers do shine compared with last year’s 8-23 total. With a rebound year and almost the entire roster of players returning next fall, Dutcher suggested that while yesterday’s loss “stings,” it needs to be kept in perspective.

Worth Noting

Pitino’s contract has multiple NCAA Tournament incentives. He earned $50,000 for having his team invited to the tourney and would have received $50,000 more if the Gophers qualified for the Sweet 16. A Final Four spot for the Gophers would pay him $50,000, with $100,000 rewarded for winning the national championship.

There is a small photo of Gophers guard Nate Mason on this week’s Sports Illustrated collage cover of various NCAA players—“March Madness ’17, Where’s Your Team?”

Tournament teams pore over scouting reports and game films of their opponents but there’s little preparation for specific referees and their styles of officiating. The officials aren’t known to teams until 30 minutes prior to tipoff.

A spokesman for the Gophers athletic department said the University of Minnesota received and sold 450 tickets from the NCAA for South Region games in Milwaukee. Tickets are priced at $152 to $200, and they admit patrons to two rounds of basketball. The NCAA doesn’t offer student tickets for its men’s NCAA Tournament games.

Conference USA-based Middle Tennessee State isn’t exactly a University of Minnesota rival, but the two schools meet in football September 16 at TCF Bank Stadium. The first game ever between the programs was in 2010 in Murfreesboro, with the second meeting in 2014 at TCF Bank Stadium. Minnesota is 2-0 against the Blue Raiders.

The Winthrop team Butler defeated yesterday in a South Region game has a roster that includes brothers and Duluth natives Anders Broman and Bjorn Broman. Both are guards, with Bjorn usually a starter.

Dick Jonckowski, who retired this month after 31 seasons as the Gopher public address announcer at Williams Arena, is doing P.A. work this week for the girls’ state basketball tournament and will work the boys’ tourney next week.

Former Timberwolves basketball boss David Kahn is a potential candidate for the UNLV athletic director job, according to an online story last Tuesday by Mark Anderson with the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Eric Musselman, the son of former Wolves and Gophers head coach Bill Musselman, has re-invented himself as a college coach. Musselman coached in the NBA from 1998-2007 but now as head coach at Nevada had the Wolf Pack in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 10 years. Nevada lost its tourney opener last night to Iowa State.

Retiring linebacker Chad Greenway of the Vikings will help lead 10,000 volunteers working the February 4, 2018 Super Bowl in Minneapolis.

There will be 300 feet of security surrounding U.S. Bank Stadium for the game, with between 100,000 and 130,000 out of town visitors expected, according to a source helping with planning. Nicollet Mall will be a major site of pre-Super Bowl game attractions, with eight to 10 blocks of activities.

Byron Buxton is listed No. 10 among 10 MLB players who could have breakout seasons in 2017, according to a March 8 story by Fansided.com. The article said the Twins rushed Buxton to the big leagues but the athletic center fielder has the potential to hit 30 doubles, 10 triples, 20 home runs and steal 30 bases.

Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens will be among the more interesting and entertaining speakers at the Minnesota Football Coaches Association Clinic March 30-April 1. Teevens has been a guest on the “Late Show” with Stephen Colbert. Since modifying Dartmouth practices to reduce injuries, Teevens’ teams are 21-9 and shared the Ivy League championship in 2015.

Teevens will speak at the DoubleTree Hotel in St. Louis Park the night of March 30. More information is available about the clinic by clicking on the MFCA advertisement on this page and visiting the organization’s website.

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Opponent Gets Hype, But Gophers to Win

Posted on March 13, 2017March 13, 2017 by David Shama

Jim Dutcher disagrees with those who think the Gophers, a No. 5 seed, are going to lose their opening NCAA Tournament game on Thursday to No. 12 seed Middle Tennessee State.

The Blue Raiders are an upset fave after being a No. 15 seed last year and taking down No. 2 seed Michigan State. Charles Barkley, talking on the CBS TV tournament selection show yesterday, said the Raider upset was “no fluke” and argued that the 2017 Conference USA champions, with a 30-4 overall record, should be seeded higher. Seth Davis, also part of the CBS analysis crew, had bad news for Gophers fans: “The Blue Raiders are going to win this game.”

Dutcher, the former Gophers coach who led Minnesota to the 1982 Big Ten title, isn’t buying Davis’ prediction. “I look for the Gophers to win the game,” Dutcher said.

Dutcher is optimistic because he says the facts show Minnesota is better than the Blue Raiders, and what MTSU did last year needs to be put in perspective. The Gophers, 24-9 overall, played a much more difficult schedule than the Blue Raiders, a team that hardly played a “whose who of college basketball.” MTSU’s signature win was over Vanderbilt, a team the Gophers also defeated, and Minnesota counted impressive wins over Big Ten champion Purdue and four other league teams who earned their way into the NCAA tournament. Minnesota’s strength of schedule is No. 42 while the Blue Raiders’ is No. 120, according to Teamrankings.com.

Yes, the Raiders had a Cinderella tournament win against Michigan State but Dutcher remembered that was followed by a 25 point loss to Syracuse. “They’re a 12th seed (this year) for a reason,” he said.

Dutcher called MTSU a “bracket-busting darling” to some tourney followers, but he points out the Blue Raiders got that Michigan State win when there were no expectations. Some of the basketball world is looking for an encore performance against the Gophers. MTSU had bad losses, including to Georgia State and UTEP, but odds-makers figure the Minnesota game is about a toss-up. Dutcher concedes the Blue Raiders are a “good team” but just doesn’t expect history to repeat. “They’re not going to sneak up on anybody (this year),” he said.

Tournament games are typically close in score, with the margin of victory often 10 points or less. Dutcher believes Minnesota will win by six or seven points. “I would be amazed if they don’t beat Middle Tennessee State,” he said.

The NCAA selection committee couldn’t have been kinder to the Gophers, sending them to Milwaukee for Thursday’s South Region game and giving them a surprising No. 5 seeding. Milwaukee is the nearest site to Dinkytown of any tournament host city in the country. A six hour drive from Minneapolis to Milwaukee will maximize the turnout of Gophers fans for Thursday’s game like no place else would have.

Other than Purdue, who received a No. 4 seed in the Midwest Region, the Gophers have the highest seeding among the seven Big Ten teams invited to the tournament. That’s a two hands head scratcher to Wisconsin followers who saw the Badgers beat the Gophers twice and finish higher in the Big Ten final standings. Former Badger All-American Frank Kaminsky took to Twitter last night to blast the selection committee not giving more value to Wisconsin’s second place regular season conference finish and runner-up placement in Sunday’s Big Ten Tournament. Kaminsky tweeted: “AND MINNESOTA GETS A 5 SEED?? HAHAHAHA….”

“If I was sitting in Madison, I would say we really got hosed with an eighth seed,” Dutcher said. “An eight was way too low for them.”

The tourney selection committee, though, must have looked long and hard at Wisconsin’s RPI of 36. Minnesota’s position on the Ncaa.com/rankings is No. 20.

Part of the seeding story for Big Ten teams is not only who you play in the first game, but also in the second and beyond. If the Gophers beat the Blue Raiders, they likely will play a good but certainly beatable 23-8 Butler team from the Big East. Butler is a No. 4 seed.

If the Badgers can win (no certainty) their opener against No. 9 seed Virginia Tech, they can expect to play No. 1 overall tournament seed Villanova. Purdue is likely to play Iowa State in a second tournament game, and the Cyclones are among the hottest teams in the country and just won the Big 12 Tournament. If they advance after opening games, Northwestern will likely play No. 1 West Region seed Gonzaga; Michigan State will probably meet up with No. 1 Midwest Region seed Kansas; Michigan could have to face that region’s No. 2 seed in Louisville; and Maryland may have to take on Florida State, a No. 3 seed in the East Region.

“On paper the Gophers got a very favorable seeding with not only who they play, but where they play,” Dutcher said.

Dutcher is optimistic about the Gophers but there is a limit. He doesn’t see them in the finals next month. He predicts the Final Four teams will be Arizona, Louisville, UCLA and Villanova. The national champion, he said, will be UCLA.

“I saw a game where they beat (basketball blueblood) Kentucky in Lexington and dominated the game,” Dutcher said. “I thought, ‘Holy cripe.’ To beat Kentucky is a handful anyplace. In Lexington is near impossible.”

Barkley’s Final Four teams are Arizona, Louisville, North Carolina and Villanova. He predicts Arizona, a Pac-12 team like UCLA, will win the national title.

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Twins Season Opener Near Sellout

Posted on March 7, 2017March 7, 2017 by David Shama

A notes column starting with a conversation last weekend with Twins president Dave St. Peter.

St. Peter said about 5,000 tickets remain for the Twins’ home opener on Monday, April 3 against the Royals. The game will almost certainly sell out, but of concern to St. Peter is how the club will draw in many of its other 81 home dates. The Twins drew less than 2 million fans last season, the lowest total since moving into Target Field in 2010.

The team won just 59 games last year, but St. Peter praised the loyalty of Twins fans and predicted the season ticket total will only be down 1,000 or so in 2017. “We’re going to come in at about 12,000 season tickets,” he said.

The baseball world believes the Twins underperformed last season. Writer Ben Reiter predicted in the March 6 issue of Sports Illustrated that the team has too much young talent “to continue to be this bad.” He analyzed all 30 MLB teams and counted the Twins among clubs expected to trend upward this year.

St. Peter said new Twins baseball bosses Derek Falvey and Thad Levine believe “the core” of the team didn’t play up to its potential last season. Falvey’s title is executive vice president and chief baseball officer, while Levine is senior vice president and general manager. The two have impressive backgrounds but St. Peter cautioned, “They’re not miracle workers.”

Falvey and Levine are in the process of learning all they can about the Twins franchise including everyone from players to coaches to support personnel like trainers. Their focus is on long-term success, and part of that is figuring out what St. Peter termed “competitive advantages” the Twins can put in place. The opinion here is such advantages might include teaching and assessment techniques, and superior advance scouting of opponents.

Falvey and Levine haven’t rushed to make headline moves within the organization, or force trades. St. Peter confirmed second baseman Brian Dozier, who hit a career high 42 home runs last season, prompted a “fair amount of dialogue” during the offseason regarding a possible trade. The Twins president said there was a lot of interest but nothing offered had enough value to support parting with the club’s best player.

It’s still difficult to accept the death of Kirby Puckett. The Hall of Famer and one of the franchise’s most popular players ever died 11 years ago yesterday at age 45 after suffering a stroke. …

Chad Greenway’s press conference announcement today of his retirement after 11 NFL seasons probably didn’t catch anyone by surprise. In an interview with Sports Headliners almost two years ago, the former Pro Bowl linebacker acknowledged 2015 might be his last season because of his aging body. “… You give everything to the game and it’s going to take bits and pieces of you, but you can’t let it take too much,” Greenway said.

In the interview Greenway said his post-football focus will be on wife Jennifer and their children. “Live for your family,” Greenway said. “Live for your kids as a dad. Be a great husband. Just take it one day at a time.”

Greenway, who grew up near a small town in South Dakota and played nine-man football, considered an NFL career “near impossible” as a teenager. Three times during his career teammates voted him Defensive MVP. …

Tonight at the Xcel Energy Center former Wild head coach Mike Yeo faces his old team for the first time as boss of the St. Louis Blues. Yeo took over from Ken Hitchcock as Blues head coach on February 1. The Wild is 2-1-1 against the Blues so far this season with the most recent game a 5-1 win in St. Paul. Yeo coached the Wild for parts of five seasons from 2011-2016 and had a record of 173-132-44. …

Big Ten leading scorer Tyler Sheehy of the hockey Gophers has been named the Big Ten Second Star of the Week following a four point performance last weekend in Ann Arbor against the Wolverines. …

The Gophers basketball program has never won the Big Ten Tournament that starts tomorrow in Washington D.C., but is a dark horse favorite this year. Minnesota begins tournament play on Friday and because of a double bye will only have to win three games (instead of four or five) to emerge as the conference champion.

Minnesota played a poor second half on Sunday in its regular season finale and loss to Wisconsin but won nine more Big Ten games than a year ago. All the Gophers top eight players have remaining eligibility except for guard Akeem Springs. Minnesota will soon be mentioned among the preseason favorites for the 2018 Big Ten title.

Incoming freshman guard Isaiah Washington will only add to the hype about the Gophers. New York’s No. 1 point guard with his flashy style has drawn national attention. His arrival and the success of the 2016-2017 team might result in a season ticket increase of 2,500 or more during the coming months, pushing the total over 10,000 and setting up a potential streak of consecutive Big Ten sellouts at Williams Arena. This season the Gophers only sold out two games at home.

Gophers sophomore guard Ahmad Gilbert averaged 17.6 points and 11 per game as a high school senior in Philadelphia but his success has been limited at Minnesota. He didn’t get on the court in 15 of Minnesota’s 18 conference games and played a total of six minutes. Close observers of the program wonder if he will transfer to another school. …

The Gophers’ football team holds its first spring practices today and Thursday but no sessions are open to the public until late March and early April. The public is invited to watch three of new head coach P.J. Fleck’s spring sessions: March 28 and April 4—starting at 4:45 p.m. at the Gibson-Nagurski Football Complex—and April 15 beginning at noon in TCF Bank Stadium for the annual spring game. …

The “Breakfast with Leroy” group will remember and pay tribute to Leroy Hardeman this Saturday on the 10th year of his passing. Hardeman was an extraordinary athlete and his accomplishments included induction into the Minnesota Softball Hall of Fame. The group will gather for breakfast and tributes starting at 9 a.m. at the Bloomington Knights of Columbus, 1114 American Blvd West. The public is invited, with more information available by contacting Pat Rickert at 612-861-3981.

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