NCAA – Page 139 – 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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College Basketball in Need of Changes

Posted on March 18, 2015March 18, 2015 by David Shama

It will sound like heresy, bringing up the subject during March Madness. Fans wait all year for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament that started this week with a 68-team field and ends with the Final Four determining a champion next month in Indy. But timeout!

College basketball isn’t as exciting as it should be, and the games are too damn long. The action has slowed down through the years as college basketball has evolved from fast-paced to tortoise speed. TV commercials are so frequent the games can seem secondary to peddling products. Coaches squash the flow of play and excitement by calling numerous timeouts—sometimes almost back-to-back.

The college game’s image took a hit in the March 9 issue of Sports Illustrated. Seth Davis authored an article headlined “Foul Play” and it begins like this: “College basketball is facing a crisis. The combination of physical play and a plodding pace has created a game that stinks to watch.”

Davis offers a chalkboard full of statistics to make his case including references to team scoring and points per possession being in decline across the country. Physical defense and lack of rules enforcement by referees slows the game down, just like deliberate offenses favored by coaches who prefer their teams use nearly all of the 35-second shot clock. The mantra is: “take as many seconds as needed to get the shot we want, and we’ll do it while denying our opponent possession of the basketball and also running time off the game clock.”

A slower pace is an advantage for an inferior team but better (more talented) teams also play deliberately. Coaches are by nature control freaks and they will try to maneuver for any advantage the rules allow—or are unclear about. When coaches find their teams trailing late in games, they instruct players to deliberately foul to stop the clock and thereby they turn the last couple minutes into an even slower pace.

Coaches are allowed five timeouts per game and combined with the eight mandatory TV breaks for commercials—along with the deliberate playing style favored by many teams—the college game has slowed down to a pace that annoys those who watched the sport decades ago when there was more scoring and the teams raced up and down the court for minutes at a time with no stops in play. Basketball is a beautiful game that when played at its best, has 10 players flowing back and forth without unceasing interruptions.

When Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan was in town earlier this month to play the Gophers he brought up the length of games. Just like decades ago college games consist of two 20 minute periods but the actual duration of those games, including timeouts and halftime, is much longer than ever before. Ryan asked reporters if they knew what the percentage of actual activity is by the players in a typical game. Someone guessed 35 percent. “It’s about a third,” answered Ryan who had directed research to determine the figure.

For fans that means the majority of two hours is spent watching and listening to commercials, TV replays of game highlights or controversial plays, commentators analyzing the game, bands playing, cheerleaders cheering and teams huddling around coaches.

What to do? Cut back the number of TV breaks for commercials during the game from eight to six (the pregame, halftime and postgame are loaded with advertising too). Explain to network and Madison Avenue executives that a faster-paced game on the court means better TV ratings and more eyeballs on commercials. Have fewer commercials but charge advertisers more money to keep total revenues at today’s levels.

Coaches don’t need and shouldn’t be given five timeouts each. Reduce the timeouts to a total of three for each coach per game, and make two of them 30 second timeouts and the other 60 seconds. Remember coaches also have all those TV timeouts, plus 15 minutes during halftimes to make adjustments.

The college shot clock needs to be changed from 35 seconds to 30, perhaps even 24 like the NBA. It’s a no-brainer because a shorter shot clock means more possessions and increasing possessions boosts scoring.

Other changes that will help are widening the lane from 12 feet to 14 feet, and moving the three-point line back by a couple feet from the existing 20 feet, 9 inches. Both changes will create more space for players to maneuver and score by reducing the crowding on the court (it’s easier to play defense in a smaller area).

Rules makers should also instruct game officials to strictly limit physical play. Critics may scoff about implementation but years ago the NBA went through a period when basketball thugs were controlling the outcome of games with their mauling play. The NBA cracked down on the rules and mandated enforcement by the referees, and the word finesse could again be used to describe plays in the pro league.

Yeah, the college game is popular and no more so than during March Madness when you might even find a little tournament wagering in the local church basement. But there are also a lot of college games where attendance and TV eyeballs aren’t all that impressive. The overall environment of the game is often a big YAWN and that’s the point: College basketball needs a fix and could be so much better.

Worth Noting

Attention Gophers basketball fans: Raise hands if you noticed Minnesota wasn’t invited to the NIT but the state of Iowa has three teams in the NCAA Tournament—Iowa, Iowa State and Northern Iowa. Also in the Big Dance are neighbors North Dakota State and Wisconsin. South Dakota State is in the NIT.

Sports Illustrated writer and CBS college basketball analyst Seth Davis made a surprise prediction by including Northern Iowa, a No. 5 seed from the East Region, in his Final Four picks along with Arizona, Duke and Kentucky. UNI starters include 6-6 forward Marvin Singleton from Minneapolis and Hopkins High School. He has started all 33 games for UNI his senior season, averaging five points per game.

Iowa State coach Fred Hoiberg, the former Timberwolves player and executive, ranks with the best in-game college basketball strategists. His attacking, fast-paced offense will find and go after weaker defensive players. Hoiberg, 42, will have a second heart operation this summer. His pro playing career ended abruptly at age 33 after undergoing open-heart surgery to repair an aneurysm in his aortic root.

Steve and Dorothy Erban’s Stillwater-based Creative Charters has availability for fans to travel via motorcoach to South Bend, Indiana and watch the Gophers women’s basketball team play in the NCAA Tournament. Minnesota faces DePaul starting at 4 p.m. on Friday. The Gophers, in the tourney for the first time in six years, are the No. 8 seed in the Oklahoma City Region while DePaul is No. 9. The deadline to sign up with Creative Charters is noon today. More at Creativecharter.com.

Erban said this time of year he is usually sold out for his Kentucky Derby trip but four spots are still open. The trip will be April 27-May 3.

Last Friday’s Wall Street Journal included a feature story on Jim Harbaugh, proclaiming “the Michigan coach’s energy has made him the game’s foremost celebrity.” Writer John Bacon wrote that Harbaugh’s father Jack used to tell his kids “to attack every day with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind.” Bacon noted that with his players on spring break earlier this month, Harbaugh “popped up” as the first base coach for the A’s during a spring training game. Michigan hired Harbaugh as its coach in January.

Gophers football coach Jerry Kill, talking on last Sunday’s WCCO Radio Sports Huddle program, said true freshman offensive lineman Tyler Moore from Galena Park, Texas shows a spirited attitude during spring practices. He compared the freshman’s demeanor to Cameron Botticelli and Zac Epping, two players no longer with the program but who displayed exceptional fervor when competing. Moore enrolled at Minnesota this winter.

Another new player who has Kill’s attention in practice is 6-5, 273-pound Montana University transfer Noah Scarver. A redshirt freshman tight end for the Gophers who will be eligible to play next season, Scarver attended Washburn High School before starting his college career.

“He’s always been a good football player,” said Giovan Jenkins who coached him at Washburn. “I’ve known for a long time that he could play at this level (Big Ten Conference) but he did get bigger. He’s about 30 pounds heavier from when he graduated high school (2013) and it’s all muscle.”

Jenkins, now a volunteer coach for the Gophers, said Scarver needs to improve his blocking but is a “technician” at running routes and has “pretty good hands.” The blocking “will come as he continues to learn,” Jenkins said.

Derrin Lamker from Osseo High School will be the head football coach for the North and Brian Vossen from Lakeville North will lead the South in the June 27 MFCA Tackle Cancer All-Star Game in St. Cloud. The Minnesota Football Coaches Association’s game showcases many of the state’s best graduating seniors and raises funds for the Randy Shaver Cancer Research and Community Fund.

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Coach Jerry Kill Fundraising in Arizona

Posted on March 16, 2015March 16, 2015 by David Shama

Gophers football coach Jerry Kill is in Arizona fundraising for the Athletic Department and the master facilities plan to raise $150 million. Kill is in the Phoenix area with his wife Rebecca, athletic director Norwood Teague and other department leaders. The athletics facilities fundraising effort is being assisted by longtime Gophers booster and Minnesota native Dick Ames, who has a ranch in the Phoenix area.

Kill is popular with Gophers donors and has become the face of the department since taking over as coach for the 2011 season. He is adamant about having a new football complex that will include much improved practice facilities—a key piece to the master plan that will include other buildings and resources benefitting various sports at the University of Minnesota.

The department hopes to break ground on facilities this year but won’t do so in piecemeal fashion. That means the football facility won’t begin as a single endeavor. Fundraising for the master facilities plan has reached $70 million but $120 million is needed to break ground—meaning 80 percent of the $150 million is in place. That $150 million figure will eventually be replaced with an additional $40 million, raising the total to be privately fundraised to $190 million. The $150 million will fund an initial phase of assessed needs such as new football and basketball practice facilities, and an academic and nutrition “Excellence Center” benefitting all Gophers athletes.

Kill’s impact on fundraising can’t be understated. He had a close relationship with the late Dave Larson, the former Cargill executive and member of the University of Minnesota Board of Regents. Larson’s widow Janis told Sports Headliners awhile ago she is making a $15 million donation toward the new football complex. She said the facility will be named the David and Janis Larson Football Performance Center.

The Gophers’ practice facilities, including for football where there is an “arms race” among schools to have state-of-the-art buildings and amenities, are among the most outdated in the Big Ten Conference. Gophers associate head football coach Tracy Claeys acknowledged that high school recruits select colleges based on multiple factors including winning reputations and relationships, but modern facilities make a difference, too.

“It has a huge impact of being able to get more selective in recruiting at this level,” Claeys said. “We don’t look at it as an expense; we look at it as an investment. Right now the popularity of the sport of football is (that) it’s making a lot of money.”

Worth Noting

Claeys said true freshman linebacker Julian Huff from Bolingbrook, Illinois has impressed him during spring practices. Huff enrolled in school earlier this year. “That kid loves football,” Claeys said. “He’ll get after it. I’ve been really pleased with him. He’s got a lot to learn, but the one thing is you don’t have to tell him is to go sic’em.”

The Gophers had one of the best defensive secondaries in the Big Ten last season and despite losing seniors Cedric Thompson and Derrick Wells, junior defensive back Antonio Johnson thinks he will be part of another outstanding unit because Minnesota has “some of the best guys in the country.” Among the talented defensive backs is junior Eric Murray, a physical and tight coverage cornerback. Johnson and Murray were freshmen roommates. Johnson was amused while recalling Murray’s TV viewing preferences. “He likes…Japanese cartoons like Pokémon and stuff like that. I just think that’s kind of weird. You wouldn’t expect that from him.”

Jim Dutcher, who coached the Gophers in the 1980s and remains a passionate student of college basketball, is (like everyone else) predicting 34-0 Kentucky to win the NCAA title. “You have to shoot the lights out to beat Kentucky,” he told Sports Headliners. “I am not going to bet against them going 40-0.”

Dutcher’s other Final Four teams are Iowa State, Michigan State and Wisconsin. MSU is only the No. 7 seed in the East Region and Dutcher admitted his Big Ten bias shows through in favoring the Spartans. But he likes how the Spartans are playing at season’s end and isn’t that impressed with the region’s higher seeds.

Duke is the No. 1 seed in the South Region but Dutcher likes Iowa State, a No. 3 seed coached by former Timbewolves player and executive Fred Hoiberg. He likes Iowa State’s depth, three-point shooting and comeback style. “Duke can have those (scoring) droughts,” Dutcher said.

The WCHA Final Five this Friday and Saturday could have an economic impact on downtown St. Paul of $1.4 million, according to Visit Saint Paul—the city’s convention and visitors bureau. Matchups at Xcel Energy Center on Friday are (first game) No. 2 seed Michigan Tech against No. 3 Bowling Green, followed by No. 1 seed Minnesota State playing No. 4 Ferris State. The championship game is Saturday night. The WCHA has two of the four top ranked teams in college hockey with No. 2 ranked Minnesota State and No. 4 Michigan Tech.

New WCHA commissioner Bill Robertson is using his sports marketing background to promote the tournament and increase league revenues from sponsorships and ticket sales. There will be a Mall of America celebration event in the Rotunda from 5 to 7 p.m. on Thursday that will include school bands, interactive hockey games and the Broadmoor (championship) Trophy. The games will be televised on Fox Sports North with play-by-play announcer Doug McLeod and analyst Kevin Gorg. A ticket package for the Final Five offers all three games and costs $69. Single session tickets are $35 each.

The WCHA plans to meet with Arizona State representatives in April regarding the Sun Devils possibly joining the league. ASU is also talking to the Big Ten and NCHC. ASU is playing several WCHA schools next season in non-conference play.

“They would be an excellent addition to our conference and we would love to have them join the WCHA,” Robertson said. “They could help us in many areas, with the thought of other southwest and west coast schools (eventually) joining our league. It would be wonderful, but we’re just starting down the road with Arizona State University.”

The Twins have optioned left-handed pitchers Logan Darnell and Jeff Wheeler, and right-handed pitcher Lester Oliveros, to Triple-A Rochester, and outfielder Max Kepler, and infielders Jorge Polanco and Miguel Sano, to Double-A Chattanooga. They have reassigned 10 players to minor league camp: left-handed pitchers Ryan O’Rourke and Taylor Rogers; right-handed pitchers Jose Berrios, Tyler Duffey and Adrian Salcedo; catchers Mitch Garver and Stuart Turner; infielders Argenis Diaz and Heiker Meneses, and outfielder Byron Buxton. As of this morning the Twins had 45 players in spring training camp: 21 pitchers, six catchers, 10 infielders and eight outfielders.

The 2015 Mr. Basketball Award winner will be announced tonight on WCCO Radio at 5:30 p.m. Candidates are: Sacar Anim, DeLaSalle; Bjorn Broman, Lakeview Christian Academy; J.T. Gibson, Champlin Park; Jarvis Johnson, DeLaSalle; Marshawn Wilson, Hill-Murray. The award goes annually to a high school senior.

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