Media – Page 16 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Wolves & Denver Looks Like Mismatch

Posted on April 17, 2023April 17, 2023 by David Shama

There was a significant discrepancy in talent, scrap and performance between the Nuggets and Timberwolves last night. It’s just one game in a potential seven game series, but based on what happened in Denver late Sunday night and the season long reputation of the two teams it appears this playoff matchup could end soon.

Denver, the No. 1 seed in the NBA Western Conference, encountered little resistance from No. 8 seed Minnesota in winning 109-80. The Nuggets, led by two-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic, finished with a regular season record of 53-29. The Wolves, who prompt a lot of head scratching to figure out their team MVP, were 42-40.

The Wolves look like a team that has regressed from a year ago when they opened the playoffs by defeating a solid Grizzlies team in Memphis after finishing the regular season with a 46-36 record. The 2023 team looks dysfunctional too much of the time including in last night’s game that saw the Wolves out scored 32-14 in the third quarter after trailing 55-44 at halftime.

Even at the intermission the Wolves were drawing criticism from TNT analyst Charles Barkley. Targeting the Wolves’ Twin Towers of 7-foot Karl-Anthony Towns and 7-1 Rudy Gobert, Barkley said “Minnesota’s biggest problem” is the combo isn’t effective enough on offense to justify playing them together.

Gobert, acquired in a controversial trade last summer with the Jazz, scored eight points, while Towns, picking up some late points in the meaningless fourth quarter, had 11. And it wasn’t just scoring where the Wolves’ bigs were lacking. In plus-minus stats that measure a player’s contribution on the floor, Gobert was a team-high -28 while Towns was -11.

The Wolves used 13 players last night and Wendell Moore Jr., who played for two minutes, was the only individual with a plus rating (two).

Denver coach Mike Malone wanted his team to be more aggressive and disciplined than the Wolves for the playoff opener. Combine those elements with better talent, the result is what happened last night.

Worth Noting

Because of national TV scheduling the game had an absurd start time of 10:51 p.m. Eastern, 9:51 Central. The next game is Wednesday (also in Denver) with a scheduled tipoff at about 9 p.m. Central.

Walker Kessler, among five players and multiple draft choices the Timberwolves gave up in the trade to obtain Gobert, is one of three finalists for NBA Rookie of the Year. The 7-foot Jazz center averaged 9.2 points and 8.4 rebounds in his first professional season.

Only three other NBA players bettered Kessler’s 2.3 blocks per game. The other finalists for Rookie of the Year are Paolo Banchero of the Magic and Jalen Williams of the Thunder.

Former Wolves star Jimmy Butler, now with the Heat, is a finalist, along with De’Aaron Fox of the Kings and DeMar DeRozan of the Bulls, for NBA Clutch Player of the Year.

The Wild-Stars playoff series opens tonight in Dallas with possibly seven games needed to decide the winner. The two teams played a combined 55 overtime games during the regular season. Both franchises have recent histories of scoring droughts in the playoffs. The Wild hasn’t advanced out of the first round since 2015.

The Wild was 7-2-3 when star scorer Kirill Kaprizov was injured and unable to play late in the season. Minnesota had balanced scoring during that stretch and must continue that with forwards Matt Boldy, Ryan Hartman and Mats Zuccarello needed to step up on the playoffs.

The Stars franchise, known as the Minnesota North Stars until relocating to Dallas in 1993, might never have moved if the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission had funded a major renovation of Met Center in the late 1980s.

The Frozen Four championship game April 8 on ESPN 2 between the Gophers and Quinnipiac averaged 808,000 viewers, a 100 percent increase over the 2022 title game, per Front Office Sports.

St. Paul native Bill Robertson, commissioner of the USHL, said there were 80 alums of his league playing in the Frozen Four that also included Boston University and Michigan. Twenty-three of those players were from the state of Michigan and 22 from Minnesota.

Since 2017 the Twins are 4-18 at Yankee Stadium in regular season games. That record includes wins Thursday and Friday that ended up giving Minnesota a series split over the weekend.

Minnesota’s Sonny Gray, 2-0 with a gaudy 0.53 ERA, will start Tuesday night in Boston when the Twins open a three-game series against the Red Sox. The Twins’ starting staff, all of whom were acquired from other teams, has been leading MLB in multiple statistical categories including ERA and batting average against.

Happy 90^th Birthday today to former Gophers’ head basketball coach Jim Dutcher. Articulate and sharp as ever, Dutcher has always been a great family man and travelled to Houston this spring to watch son Brian’s San Diego State men’s team finish second in the Final Four.

Joe Salem, who was the Gophers’ head football coach when Jim Dutcher’s 1982 team won the Big Ten title, will be 85 on May 1. He told Sports Headliners via email his health is “okay,” but wife Sue has dementia and is in memory care in Sioux Falls. He spends much of his time following football and literally has a family coaching tree.

Sons Tim (a former Gopher quarterback) and Brad coach tight ends at Pittsburgh and Memphis State respectively. Both programs won their most recent bowl games. Brad’s son Eli is a reserve quarterback at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois and the team won the Division III national championship Stagg Bowl last year. Jeremiah is a freshman quarterback at Eastern Michigan, 2022 winners of the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl.

“The family was 4-0 in bowl games last fall,” Joe Salem wrote. “Not bad.”

Son Wade sells motivational programs to school athletic teams while son Brent, a former college football coach, is an insurance executive in the Twin Cities.

The Capital Club’s next breakfast program at Mendakota Country Club is April 27. Charles Adams III, head coach of the North Community High School Polars football team and a recently retired Minneapolis police officer, will help lead an “important conversation about life, death, humanity and how sports can bring people and communities together,” according to an email from club organizer Patrick Klinger. Former Gopher football star Darrell Thompson, president of the Bolder Options mentoring program, will be the program moderator. More information about the Capital Club is available from Klinger, patrick@agilemarketingco.com

Comments Welcome

Hockey Guru Lauds U, Praises Warroad

Posted on March 7, 2023March 15, 2023 by David Shama

It’s a special week in the State of Hockey with the boys’ state tournament starting Wednesday and the Golden Gophers playing Saturday night in what could be a playoff run to the national championship.

Hockey icon Lou Nanne, 81, talked to Sports Headliners about the preps and Gophers on Monday. He began doing TV color commentary in the state tourney 59 years ago and will be behind a microphone for both Class AA semifinal games Friday and the championship game Saturday.

“I think Warroad could be the best team in the state,” Nanne said. “I think they should win single A and Minnetonka is the favorite in double A. But it’s going to be close. There’s a lot of good teams.”

Warroad’s opening game is Wednesday night against St. Cloud Cathedral, a team the Warriors beat 4-0 last fall. Warroad also owns wins over Class A state tourney rivals Mahtomedi and Orono. The Warriors defeated Wayzata, 3-2, a Class AA team that almost made the state tournament.

“…Everybody tells me they’ve got a phenomenal team,” Nanne said. “You look at their schedule. They beat double A teams as easily as they beat (other) teams.”

Nanne, who spends part of his winters in Florida, was captain of the 1962-1963 Gophers and his heart is in Dinkytown. The No. 1 nationally ranked Gophers, 25-8-1 overall and 19-4-1 in Big Ten games, play Michigan State, 18-17-2 and 10-12-2, at 8 p.m. Saturday night in 3M Arena at Mariucci.

The Gophers are the No. 1 seed in the Big Ten Tournament, Michigan State is No. 5. Minnesota is a favorite not only to win the conference tourney but to go all the way to Tampa and come home with the national championship in the Frozen Four April 6 and 8.

To say Nanne is excited about the Gophers might be understating things. “Yes, I am very hopeful they not only make the Final Four but win it. It’s in Tampa, which I love, so I can just drive over to it. It’s a fabulous team. That first line is the best line…I’ve ever seen…at the U.”

Minnesota has a line for the ages in freshmen Logan Cooley and Jimmy Snuggerud, and sophomore Matthew Knies. Enjoy their playmaking while you can because all three could be gone to the pros next season.

The Gophers won the regular season conference championship for the sixth time in 10 years. In the standings they totaled 19 points better than second place Michigan.

Minnesota’s last national title was in 2002. Is this the best Gopher team since then? “Yeah, I think it is,” Nanne said. “This is a terrific team.”

No team wins championships, including a postseason run of success, without outstanding goal keeping. Senior Justen Close, who came to the Gophers from the Canadian Juniors, is one of the best goalies in the country.

“He’s been a great addition to the team,” Nanne said. “He might be even somewhat of a surprise. I don’t know if they knew he was going to play that well.”

Coach Bob Motzko, who took over the program for the 2019-2020 season, was an assistant on Minnesota’s national championship teams in 2002 and 2001. He’s worked hard to build a special team and had to do it in the midst of losing his son Mack in a car accident in 2021.

“Well, he’s done a marvelous job from the first day he’s gone in there, and that’s why I am really hopeful he gets rewarded with an NCAA championship this year,” Nanne said.

Part of the Motzko years have included playing before large numbers of empty seats at home games. But no more as the Gophers have been wildly cheered on by sellout crowds.

“Oh, that’s the best,” Nanne said. “I am just so happy to see that. I am glad the people are realizing what a great product they have over there. It’s just tremendous to see the support, and the student section, the excitement they generate in that building, I think it’s fantastic.”

There are, of course, no guarantees the fans go home happy Saturday night. Minnesota had a bye last weekend and hasn’t played since a week ago last Saturday.

“The biggest problem I worry about is whenever you have a bye, you’re not as sharp coming out of the bye,” Nanne said. “You’re sitting out for a couple weeks and so that’s the thing that concerns me.”

Worth Noting

Nanne was an All-American for the Gophers, an Olympian, and player and executive for the NHL North Stars. He is a member of more than a half dozen halls of fame including induction last week into the Star Tribune Minnesota Sports Hall of Fame.

The St. Thomas basketball team is more than impressive for a program in only its second season of Division I competition. The Tommies advanced to the Summit League tournament title game where they lost last night 70-65 to Oral Roberts in Sioux Falls. The Tommies were 19-14 overall, 9-9 in conference games. Their season is over because the NCAA is making them wait three more years to be eligible for postseason play as part of the agreement the school made to jump from Division III to I.

Minnesota plays a Nebraska team Wednesday night in the Big Ten Tournament that includes Keisei Tominaga, referred to as the “Japanese Steph Curry.” Tominaga wears No. 30 like Curry and is an electric shooter like his hero. The Huskers’ second leading scorer at 12.5 points per game, the 6-foot-2 Tominaga has remaining college eligibility for next season but could play professionally in his native Japan.

The Gophers are heavy with front court returnees and it wouldn’t be surprising if 7-foot Minnesota native Treyton Thompson enters the transfer portal. He averages 11 minutes per game and some games doesn’t play at all.

Best guess is Sonny Gray, 8-5 with a 3.08 ERA a year ago, will be the Twins’ opening day pitcher against the Royals in Kansas City March 30.

Pablo Lopez, who the Twins acquired in the offseason from the Marlins, could be a solid bet, too. His ability to throw strikes is impressive. The son of two doctors, Lopez will pitch for his native Venezuela in the World Baseball Classic that starts tomorrow.

MLB.com singled out Twins shortstop Brooks Lee yesterday as one of 30 prospects among major league teams “who have turned heads this spring.” Less than a year ago he was playing for Cal Poly but he has made an impressive transition to pro baseball after the Twins chose him No. 8 overall in the 2022 amateur draft.

The Athletic’s NBA power rankings out yesterday have the Timberwolves at No. 13 after previously being No. 17. Ex-Wolves coach and deal maker Tom Thibodeau has the Knicks at No. 6 in the ranking of the league’s 30 teams.

Happy birthday to Minnetonka girls’ basketball coach Brian Cosgriff.

Comments Welcome

U Takes New Approach with Coaches

Posted on March 5, 2023March 5, 2023 by David Shama

At the University of Minnesota Hugh McCutcheon is a couple of months into a position that few schools in the country have in place. McCutcheon, the acclaimed former Golden Gophers volleyball coach, has the title of assistant athletics director/sport development coach.

In locker room translation that means he is a coaching guru who coaches the coaches from the athletic department’s 22 sports programs. He is available to consult with them on how they can be better at what they do. No other Big Ten Conference program has such a resource, but that might change soon in a world of competitive athletics where everyone is looking for an edge in performance.

Then again, how many schools have a Hugh McCutcheon? His wisdom has long been admired among inside the department by his coaching peers. Externally, he has been a TED speaker, consultant to the Minnesota Twins and book author.

McCutcheon provides how-to coaching advice in his 2022 book Championship Behaviors A Model for Competitive Excellence in Sports. The book’s purpose is to help coaches and athletes “achieve significant outcomes in sports.”

Those words and the following ones are in the introduction: “…Where significant means to strive for an outcome that will require work and change. Something beyond their current abilities.”

The book, which is also helpful to parents of athletes, speaks to the art and science of sports. Readers are presented with research, principles and methods that have resulted in efficient and desired outcomes while recognizing success is certainly not always measured by the scoreboard.

“We won’t always have five-star talent, but we can often make up the difference by being five-star teachers, learners, and competitors,” McCutcheon has said.

There are no shortcuts to change. Coaches and athletes must work via a path that makes sense physically, mechanically, and psychologically. McCutcheon’s book offers guidance and can also assist parents in judging whether they’re making a worthwhile investment (in time and money) in their child’s sports development. All concerned are encouraged to remember this: championships (whatever your definition) require championship behaviors.

McCutcheon, 53, is a cerebral guy, a deep thinker, but the opposite of a know-it-all. He is modest, approachable and emphasizes how important it is to listen to others. That’s job one at the U when he meets with coaching peers in his new role that has him working four-days per week. “Full-time, part-time,” McCutcheon said.

McCutcheon holds a group meeting at the U once a month with coaches, along with individual sessions where he can be a sounding board and help their development.

He walked away after last season from a nationally renowned women’s volleyball program that he built. He ended an 11-year career that was highlighted by two Big Ten titles and three trips to the NCAA Final Four.

Why?

Because he was being pulled in so many different directions, a “1,000 cuts,” he said. Part of his departure was driven by a desire to spend more time with family. During an interview with Sports Headliners he was attentive but concerned about time and tending to his sick son Andrew.

McCutcheon’s character and values are so apparent to anyone who meets him. Minnesota athletic director Mark Coyle knows the New Zealand native better than many others. Last year Coyle asked McCutcheon to tell him about his book. The two leaders spent a couple of hours in discussion and that provided Coyle with further insights about coaching and McCutcheon, and laid groundwork to an announcement last October that Minnesota’s volleyball coach would soon have a newly created role in the athletic department starting in January.

“His guidance and proven leadership will benefit all of our coaches as we continue to work to provide a holistic and world-class experience for our student-athletes,” Coyle said in a statement last October. “Hugh has had success at the Olympic and collegiate level coaching both men and women, and I know he will be able to provide additional value to our program.”

McCutcheon’s Olympic resume includes coaching the U.S. men to the 2008 Gold Medal. In four years with the U.S. Men’s National Team his record was 107-33. He also had a run with the U.S. Women’s National team and between both men’s and women’s programs compiled a record of 213-72.

Those achievements, and his many others, don’t come without planning and work. “I always set goals,” McCutcheon said referencing daily and longer-term tasks. He identifies what is to be accomplished and the tasks needed to achieve the goals.

As a college student, McCutcheon left Canterbury University in New Zealand to continue his education at Brigham Young in Provo, Utah. He played volleyball for the Cougars from 1991-1993. He earned his bachelor’s degree in physical education there, then played professional volleyball in Finland and Japan before returning to BYU to receive an MBA.

McCutcheon has been a lot of places and had many experiences, and along the way he has learned coaching is a powerful platform. But it’s often relatively easy to gain entry to coach in youth sports and sometimes even on the college and professional levels. Many who carry the title of coach are far from prepared in knowledge of their sport and how to relate most effectively with athletes.

“You might have someone who was a good player who is now asked to coach,” McCutcheon said. “It’s like taking someone who was a good shopper at Target and making them a manager at the store.”

Trouble awaits those who aren’t open enough to learn and change. A coach who is unqualified won’t be successful in developing trust with his team. And trust is one of McCutcheon’s pillars for success. Ideally, athletes must learn to trust themselves, their teammates and coaches.

Coaches need to be aware of who they are and what they’re doing because they can harm others, McCutcheon said. Athletes need to be coached in three areas: physical, emotional and social which includes being a good teammate who tries to make others better. Unfortunately, many coaches have neither degrees or backgrounds in coaching.

Respect between athletes and coaches can start with an honest approach. Despite McCutcheon’s inspiring resume prior to becoming Gopher volleyball coach, he told his first team, “I know I have to earn your respect.”

Just the introduction you would expect from this extraordinary teacher.

1 comment