Golden Gophers – Page 232 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

‘Chemistry Lesson’ Pays off Big for U

Posted on March 3, 2017March 3, 2017 by David Shama

There are multiple ways to explain the dramatic turnaround in the Gophers basketball program. Talented newcomers, and skilled and improved returnees. Better leadership from the coaches and players. Even a lucky bounce of the ball, or a fortunate call from a referee help explain how the Gophers have gone from a 2-16 Big Ten record last year to 11-6 going into Sunday’s regular season finale at Wisconsin.

But take all of the above and it leads back to the offseason when Minnesota coach Richard Pitino, his assistants and players collectively decided things had to change. Not only was the team’s overall record of 8-23 unacceptable, but there were off-court issues too. Call it culture, chemistry or whatever, but change was needed.

Pitino arranged for a lengthy list of speakers to talk with players about non-basketball subjects including sex education, how to handle the pressures of being student-athletes, and job skills to make them hirable after college. Players were also involved with community service work. Pitino said his guys wanted to change the image of Gophers basketball and become a better program on and off the court.

Former Gophers head coach Jim Dutcher acknowledged the results while talking with Sports Headliners. “The Gopher basketball (program) was featured on the front page and not the sports page. They changed that now. It’s a much closer unit. You can tell they’re having more fun playing the game.”

Spencer Tollackson, a former Gopher and now the radio analyst on games, praised the changes he has seen. “I think the team has matured a lot on and off the court,” he told Sports Headliners. “Coach has talked about some of the incidents that happened last year. They owned up to them and learned from them.”

Pitino looked back after last night’s win over Nebraska and reflected on the situation following the 2015-2016 season. “There’s a lot of players who would (have chosen to) transfer. Nate didn’t. Murph didn’t. Dupree didn’t. Bakary. All those guys believed that we were going to be better. They all took ownership.

“People (on the outside) were running for the hills with us, and I don’t blame them. But everybody sat there and we all said, listen this is on us to fix, and we’re not going to sit back and say everything is fine. We took ownership of our program and our guys deserve a lot of credit for that.”

Junior guard Nate Mason is the team’s leading scorer and seems headed toward All-Big Ten recognition. Sophomore forward Jordan Murphy has produced double-doubles in points and rebounds in six of the last seven games. Sophomore guard Dupree McBrayer willingly accepted a change from starter to valuable reserve off the bench. Junior center Bakary Konate has been another contributor off the bench. Those players have been joined by three starting newcomers this season. Junior transfer center Reggie Lynch leads the Big Ten in blocks, senior transfer guard Akeem Springs is a three point specialist and locker room leader, and freshman forward Amir Coffey excels in all kinds of ways offensively and defensively.

“They really like playing with each other,” Pitino said. “They’re committed to getting better. I keep telling them that I’ve been lucky to be around some pretty good March runs in my life—and it just ends. It all goes away, so just enjoy the journey. They’ve been really good about this. I think their mentality, more than anything, has really, really been a positive.”

The Gophers have won eight consecutive games and are a lock to make the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2013. Their winning record in Big Ten games is a first since 2005. The program has ramped up its image and won a lot of fans back.

What a difference a year makes.

Worth Noting

Early fan and media speculation has the Twins’ win total somewhere in the 70s after reaching just 59 last season. One fan placed a Las Vegas 150/1 wager on the Twins winning the World Series. He doesn’t believe it will happen but likes the odds.

The Twins’ regular season opener is April 3 against the Royals in Minneapolis and AccuWeather.com forecasts a daytime high of 54 degrees with morning flurries and “then a shower.” The game will be one of 150 televised by Fox Sports North during the regular season. Dick Bremer will be in his 34th season providing play-by-play, with various former Twins providing game analysis including Bert Blyleven and newcomers Torii Hunter (debuts April 16) and LaTroy Hawkins (May 21).

Max Kepler (photo courtesy of Minnesota Twins).

This could be the Twins’ opening day lineup: pitcher Ervin Santana; catcher Jason Castro; first base Joe Mauer; second base Brian Dozier; shortstop Jorge Polanco; third base Miguel Sano; outfielders Byron Buxton, Max Kepler and Eddie Rosario; DH ByungHo Park.

A year from now changes might include Jose Berrios as the starting pitcher, Nick Gordon moving in at shortstop with Polanco going to third base and Sano replacing Mauer at first. Mitch Garver could be a possibility to become the regular catcher.

Craig Curry, the former Gophers quarterback who rushed and passed for over 2,000 yards in 1971, was the subject of a February 23 Miami Herald front page story as part of Black History month coverage by the newspaper. In the 1960s the country, including south Florida, was wrestling with desegregation. Curry transferred from an all-black high school to all-white Coral Gables High where he became the quarterback of a state and national championship team, according to the Herald. In the story a teammate referred to Curry as “our Jackie Robinson.” Blacks often weren’t given opportunities to play quarterback on any level of football in the 1960s, but the Gophers had a reputation for fairness under coach Murray Warmath.

Duke head coach David Cutcliffe has been added to the roster of speakers for the Minnesota Football Coaches Association Clinic March 30-April 1. Cutcliffe replaces Pitt’s Pat Narduzzi, and joins such prominent names as Minnesota’s P.J. Fleck, North Dakota State’s Chris Klieman and San Diego State’s Jeff Horton. More information is available by clicking on the MFCA advertisement on this page and visiting the organization’s website.

The MFCA holds its Hall of Fame Banquet the night of April 1 at the DoubleTree Hotel in St. Louis Park. High School Division inductees are Brad Anderson, Wayzata; Richard Risbrudt, Hillcrest Lutheran; Mike Scanlan, Cretin-Derham Hall; Curtis Strand, McLeod West; and Rick Sutton, Eagan. Larry Knutson, from KQWB Radio in Breckenridge, will be inducted in the Citation Division.

Coach Tom Thibodeau, who for years has been highly publicized for his defensive instruction, is apparently making an impression on the Timberwolves in his first season as head coach. The Wolves have held opponents under 90 points in four of the last seven games. Minnesota is 9-0 when limiting the opposition to under 90 points.

Third-year Wolves forward Andrew Wiggins has scored 20 or more points in a club record 19 consecutive games. Second-year center Karl-Anthony Towns has done that in 16 straight games.

The Wolves, with a 25-36 record, are in contention to earn their way into the playoffs for the first time since 2004. They play at San Antonio tomorrow night against a Spurs team with a 46-13 record, the second best in the NBA.

Jim Robinson, the new chair of the Mr. Basketball Committee from St. Paul, has been with the group for about 10 years. He is a former Big Ten Conference basketball referee and is an evaluator of Minnesota high school basketball officials. The announcement of the 2017 Mr. Basketball winner will be made after the boys’ state tournament.

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Lucia Anticipates New Contract Talks

Posted on March 1, 2017March 1, 2017 by David Shama

Veteran Gopher hockey coach Don Lucia told Sports Headliners yesterday he wants to talk with athletic director Mark Coyle about a contract extension after the season. “We’ll have a conversation this spring and see where things are at,” Lucia said.

Coyle became athletic director last spring when Lucia had only a year left on his contract. A two-year extension was signed last fall taking Lucia through the 2018-2019 season. Lucia said the two men agreed last year further contract discussions will happen after this season.

Lucia doesn’t want a situation where he will be coaching next season with just one year to go on his deal—prompting speculation about job security and being a deterrent to recruiting. “Mark, I think, will be very fair,” Lucia said. “We’ll just wait until the year ends and sit down and see where we’re all at.”

New athletic directors are sometimes known for wanting to hire their own coaches, and Tracy Claeys received that message when the first-year Gophers football coach was dismissed last January despite a 9-4 record. Lucia referred to any similarity between him and Claeys as “apples and oranges.”

“I think I have a pretty long track record that speaks for itself,” Lucia said.

Lucia, 58, is the longest-tenured Gophers hockey coach ever. He has coached Minnesota teams for 18 seasons, including consecutive national championships in 2002 and 2003. He wants to continue indefinitely coaching the Gophers.

“I still have energy,” he said. “I don’t look at (it as) is it three (more) years? Five years? One year? I don’t know. I don’t look at it that way as much as you just try to do everything you can to have the best year you possibly can. As long as you love what you do, you want to continue to do it.”

After not qualifying for the NCAA Tournament last year for the first time in five years, Minnesota is playing like a national power again. The Gophers are 21-9-2 overall and ranked No. 5 nationally in the latest USCHO.com poll. Lucia’s team is 12-4 in Big Ten games and alone in first place. The Gophers could be headed to their fourth consecutive conference championship.

Lucia likes this season’s team including senior forward Justin Kloos who isn’t big physically at 5-9 but has come up with six game winning goals. Kloos is one of the team’s three candidates for the Hobey Baker Award honoring college hockey’s best player. The others are senior defenseman Jake Bischoff and sophomore forward Tyler Sheehy.

“He’s an example of a player that because he is a little bit smaller, he didn’t get drafted, but yet he is an elite college player,” Lucia said. “Sometimes guys like Justin Kloos are far more valuable than a guy who gets drafted because he is bigger, but may go (on to) have a bigger impact at the pro level than the college level.”

Although the Gophers have shown the ability to come from behind in games, Lucia has a “magic number” in mind when he talks about the importance goalie Eric Schierhorn will play in determining how deep Minnesota’s NCAA Tournament run may go. “When he gives up two (goals), we’ve yet to lose a game, so that’s kind of the magic number for us,” Lucia said. “We gotta be able to count on him at the end.”

The Gophers have two weekends ahead of regular season conference games. The Big Ten Tournament will then be the weekend of March 16-18 in Detroit. Lucia doesn’t want to focus on NCAA Tournament hopes for multiple reasons including the fact parity in college hockey can interrupt plans.

“If the season ended today, three of the four teams that were in the Frozen Four wouldn’t be in the NCAA Tournament this year that played last year including the two teams that played for a national title,” Lucia said. “That’s how difficult it is in college hockey today versus 10 or 15 years ago.”

Lucia is referring to Notre Dame, Qunnipiac and Yale missing out, but defending national champ North Dakota qualifying.

For all the success Lucia has experienced coaching, he also likes to talk about the academic work of his players. All the players on his roster either have their degrees or are making progress toward graduation. Lucia believes that in the last 10 years only one player who was with the Gophers for four years didn’t earn a degree.

“That’s what it’s all about,” Lucia said. “We’re all judged on wins and losses. We get that, but I think as a coach you want to make sure that when the kids come to your program and play for you they leave with their degree. When it’s all said and done that’s gonna be the most important thing that they can do in their four years.”

Worth Noting

Richard Pitino’s Gophers, winners of seven consecutive Big Ten games, play their final home game tomorrow night and tickets are available. The Gophers have two sellouts this season, January 21 against Wisconsin and last Saturday versus Penn State.

For probably the first time ever, the Gopher men’s basketball postseason banquet will be held on the Williams Arena floor. Coaches, players, fans and others associated with the program will sit at tables on the floor of the historic arena Monday night March 27. The public is welcome, with more information available at the program’s booster club website, Goldendunkers.com.

The Minnesota Football Coaches Association is offering a Youth Coaches Clinic March 31 and April 1 at the DoubleTree Hotel in St. Louis Park. The clinic will offer various sessions including ideas for building a youth football program, practice planning, defensive drills and developing young quarterbacks. There will also be an opportunity for attendees to hear from new Gophers head football coach P.J. Fleck. More information is available by clicking on the MFCA advertisement on this page and visiting the organization’s website.

Mike Condo, a starting defensive back on the Gophers 1967 Big Ten championship football team, passed away a few months ago. A Pennsylvania native, Condo was an aggressive player and three year letter winner from 1965-1967. “Pound for pound as tough as they were,” said former teammate Jim Carter.

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U RPI Keeps Tourney Target Alive

Posted on February 9, 2017February 9, 2017 by David Shama

It’s been a productive several days for the Gophers basketball team including last night’s double overtime win over Iowa at Williams Arena.

Minnesota had lost five consecutive Big Ten games and had an overall record of 15-7 and league record of 3-6 going into last Saturday’s game at Illinois. It was near panic time for the Gophers to change their momentum in the next three games.

Done—almost. The Gophers defeated Illinois by nine points, won a thriller over Iowa, 101-89, and now pack their gym gear for Saturday’s game at Rutgers, 13-12 overall and 2-10 in the Big Ten.

Minnesota went into last night’s game ranked No. 25 nationally in the NCAA.com Ratings Percentage Index (RPI)—rankings that have much to do with determining who moves on to postseason tournaments. The Gophers have some quality wins, and the opportunity to earn more with seven Big Ten games remaining on the schedule, plus a chance to maintain or even improve a top 25 RPI ranking that for awhile now has had NCAA Tournament predictors keeping Minnesota in the mix. Hard to say what the final results will be but a possibility could be wins over Rutgers, Indiana, Penn State and Nebraska, and losses to Michigan, Maryland and Wisconsin. Such a path would result in a 9-9 Big Ten record, 21-10 overall.

Results as referenced above will keep the team’s RPI in good shape and should deliver an invitation to the NCAA Tournament. If so, it will be a first for Minnesota coach Richard Pitino who is in his fourth season with the Gophers and was 2-16 in the Big Ten last year.

After the season ends the Gophers may look back on the Iowa win as a key to their success–close call that it was. Minnesota was ahead 56-43 with 11:52 remaining in the second half. About three minutes later three consecutive turnovers against Iowa’s half-court trapping defense had triggered a 57-56 Hawkeyes’ lead.

Fatigue, though, hit the Hawkeyes as they tried to finish off the Gophers. Iowa freshman Jordan Bohannon couldn’t keep up with Gophers junior guard Nate Mason in the second overtime. Mason got key baskets as Minnesota outscored the Hawkeyes 17-5.

It was an emotional night for the Gophers and their fans. Pitino doesn’t like to do it, but he was waving his arms late in the game to engage the crowd. The student section saved its infamous “We Hate Iowa!” yell for second half dramatics, and at times Williams Arena rocked like its famous days a decade or two ago.

After the game Mason was asked if this win—important even if the Gophers were playing Rutgers—was at least a little more satisfying coming against border rival Iowa. “Yeah, for sure,” he answered.

Worth Noting

Iowa coach Fran McCaffrey has two sons, Connor and Patrick, playing for Iowa City West High School. That team plays at Cretin Derham-Hall and against Gophers recruit Daniel Orturu Saturday, February 18.

There is talk of an appreciation roast for Dick Jonckowski in the spring to be sponsored by the Minute Men. Jonckowski, the Shakopee-based speaker and emcee, is in his final season as public address announcer for Gophers basketball but will continue with U baseball games. He will be recognized by the Gophers at halftime of the Michigan basketball game February 19.

Ray Christensen, who died a couple of days ago at age 92, was known to sports fans as the radio voice of Gophers football and basketball for decades but he had varied interests including classical music. He preferred to work without a partner on basketball broadcasts and announced those games alone. He was a humble gentleman in an industry known for egos.

Better than Ground Hog Day to prompt optimism about spring arriving soon is that the Twins first exhibition game is two weeks from tomorrow in Fort Myers against the Rays. Pitchers and catchers report to spring training February 14, with the full squad coming in February 18.

Tallest player on the 40-man roster is 6-7 Michael Tonkin and the heaviest is 6-5, 290-pound Kennys Vargas. The oldest Twin is 35-year-old Ervin Santana, born December 12, 1982, while the youngest is 21-year-old Fernando Romero who was born December 24, 1995.

The Twins have announced another Hall of Fame class without Halsey Hall being included. His storytelling and baseball knowledge delighted Twins radio and TV audiences in the early years of the franchise. An obstacle is many Twins Hall of Fame voters aren’t familiar with Hall who died almost 40 years ago but is deserving of enshrinement. Fans who want to see Hall honored can send an email to Twins@twinsbaseball.com

Timberwolves second-year center Karl-Anthony Towns, who has the potential to be the best player in franchise history, has double-doubles in 31 of his last 34 games. Andrew Wiggins, the Wolves third-year forward and another potential superstar, has scored 20-plus points in 11 consecutive games.

The Minnesota Wild, with the best record in the Western Conference, has become a popular mid-season pick to win the 2017 Stanley Cup but that is a lot different outlook than before the season. For example, a June 18 article on Bleacherreport.com had the Wild’s odds of winning the cup at 30/1.

Coach John Anderson’s Minnesota baseball team begins its season February 17-19 at UC Irvine, then opens the home schedule February 24-26 against Seattle in the first- ever Gopher games in U.S. Bank Stadium. Tickets are on sale via Ticketmaster and at the stadium for 13 Gopher games to be played in the new facility through March 12.

Janesville-Waldorf-Pemberton High School in southern Minnesota soon breaks ground on a major upgrade to its football and softball facilities, and will be adding a new track. The project will include synthetic field turf for the football and softball fields, plus lights, scoreboard and concession upgrades. JWP has an enrollment of 199 in grades 9-12 and might be the smallest school in the state to install field turf.

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