NCAA – Page 144 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Rooting Hard for Bucky in Final Four

Posted on April 3, 2015April 3, 2015 by David Shama

Warning: Read this column with scrutiny. Pay close attention to what I am saying.

I understand the DNA about the Gophers-Badgers Border Rivalry. I am a card-carrying Golden Gophers guy and it’s sweet when Minnesota beats Wisconsin in any sport. The wins can make for a scrapbook weekend–and the losses destroy Saturday and Sunday.

I hate the Gophers football record against the Badgers, losing 11 consecutive games. I am jealous that Wisconsin has one of the Big Ten’s greatest basketball coaches ever, while the Gophers struggle. “Pride on Ice” is an appropriate slogan at Mariucci Arena but Bucky Badger has won one more NCAA men’s hockey national championship than Goldy Gopher. I don’t like that, but I do like Minnesota winning the Big Ten hockey title this past winter while the Badgers finished last in the conference standings.

I got pumped up when the Gophers women’s hockey team defeated the Badgers in the semifinals of the NCAA championship last month at Ridder Arena. And if Bucky is counting, in the last 18 games between the two programs the Gophers are 16-0-2.

I know Badgers fans can be really obnoxious about their successes in football and basketball. The targets of their juvenile behaviors are often Gophers fans. I have driven down the streets of Madison and been taunted because some idiots spotted the Minnesota license plates on my car.

But guess what? I have been cheering hard for the Badgers basketball team in the NCAA Tournament. Tomorrow night against Kentucky I will be yelling support for coach Bo Ryan and his players as if they were family.

Maybe some Gophers fans will be wearing “Better Dead than Red” sweatshirts and screaming their heads off for the Wildcats, but not me. First off, I am a Big Ten loyalist and that point should weigh in on any Gopher fan when he or she sits down to watch the Final Four. The Badgers and Michigan State are both Big Ten teams and their successes reflect on the conference’s image.

The Big Ten football brand was subpar for years but got a big lift when Ohio State won the national championship earlier this year. It was the first time a Big Ten team had won a national football title since 2002 and only the third championship in the last 25 years. The Buckeyes’ win over Oregon brought glory to the Big Ten and eased some pain associated with the conference’s awful postseason record for the last 15 years.

Having Bucky and Sparty in the Final Four says the Big Ten is a premier college basketball league. That’s a benefit for every program in the conference including the Gophers. Recruits know when they come play for a Big Ten school they’re going to compete against some of the best players in the country.

Success by the conference on the biggest stages in football and basketball is important for reasons beyond recruiting. Winning generates ticket sales, sponsorships, advertising, merchandising, suite purchases, TV and radio ratings, and more benefits including attracting top coaches.

But here’s the other reason why I am all on board about the Badgers tomorrow: they play basketball the way I want to see the game played—five players sacrificing for the team, executing assignments and minimizing mistakes.

Anyone who understands basketball can delight in Wisconsin’s unselfishness. The team’s ball movement probes the defense for an open shot. Players move without the ball and set screens for one another, creating high percentage opportunities to drive or shoot. Ryan’s players aren’t about who scores baskets but whether the Badgers put points on the scoreboard.

Yes, other teams move the ball and sets screens, but few clubs execute like the Badgers at both ends of the floor. Watch the precision with which they run their offense. Turn your eyes away from the ball sometimes and see how good the Badgers are at blocking out other players in rebounding situations on offense and defense.

Watch how the Badgers switch on defense and help defend potential open shots and drives to the basket. Yeah, the Badgers flop to draw charging fouls but they hardly have a patent on that. They just execute (there’s that word again) the “Hollywood” stuff better than most teams.

Ryan is a phenomenal teacher and coach. His mantra is this: Don’t beat ourselves. Mistakes, including turnovers and foul trouble, are kept to a minimum. A team might defeat the Badgers but it’s not usually going to be because Wisconsin gave the opponent easy baskets or sent them to the free-throw line time and time again.

Ryan’s record in 14 seasons at Wisconsin is 356 wins, 124 losses—a .742 winning percentage. His teams have won six Big Ten titles, played in three Elite Eight games and two Final Fours. Not bad for a place like Wisconsin that historically has known decades of mediocre college basketball.

This year’s team is built like Ryan’s past clubs with a roster of mostly Midwest talent and an emphasis on Wisconsin players. Three of the starters are from Wisconsin, with one each from Illinois and Ohio. Among the top nine players, four are from Wisconsin, three from Ohio and two from Illinois.

College Player of the Year candidate Frank Kaminsky is from Illinois and in his first two years at Wisconsin the 7-foot center had minimal production including his sophomore season averaging 4.2 points and 1.8 rebounds per game. But Ryan saw a player with potential and developed Kaminsky into a mobile offensive beast who as a senior can drill three point shots and dribble past opponents perhaps better than any 7-footer in Big Ten basketball history.

Badgers starters from the state of Wisconsin are forward Sam Dekker and guards Josh Gasser and Bronson Koenig. Dekker and Koenig were highly recruited players who showed loyalty to their home state Badgers. While one prize prep after another skips town on the Gophers year after year, U fans can only watch in envy as Ryan bats a high percentage with the guys he wants from Dairyland.

Minnesota and Wisconsin are similar states in culture, history, population and demographics. Both have built higher education systems around their land-grant universities. If the state of Minnesota has a twin, it surely is our border neighbor to the east.

So If the Badgers can compete on the highest levels in football and basketball, then why can’t the Gophers?

You know why. It takes the right leadership to win at schools like Wisconsin and Minnesota. The Gophers have found their Barry Alvarez in football coach Jerry Kill but Minnesota is searching for a turnaround in basketball.

Just for tomorrow night (and hopefully Monday evening) I say: Go Bucky!

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2010 Final Four Inspired Tyus Jones

Posted on March 25, 2015March 25, 2015 by David Shama

Tyus Jones and his Duke teammates will try to win the South Region of the NCAA Tournament this weekend and advance to the Final Four in Indianapolis. It will be fitting if the Blue Devils freshman point guard from Apple Valley High School returns to Indy where several years ago as an eighth grader he was inspired by the Final Four.

Al Nuness, the former Gophers basketball captain, took Tyus and his grade school age brother Tre to Indianapolis in 2010 when Duke won the national championship in a field that included Butler, Michigan State and West Virginia. As a Jostens executive, Nuness had to be in Indianapolis for the Final Four, so he drove his young cousins, the Jones boys, to see college basketball played on its biggest stage.

The weekend had a lasting impact. “I think that (experience) solidified what he (Tyus) wanted to do,” Nuness told Sports Headliners. “He sat there as a student of the game. They both did (Tyus and Tre). We went to practices and they wouldn’t leave.”

At the time it was Tre—this winter a freshman starting point guard for Apple Valley—who was a big Duke fan. Tyus? He was all in for Michigan State. Ironically, the Spartans could be part of the Final Four field when the teams start playing on April 4 in Indianapolis.

Nuness won’t travel to Houston for this Friday night’s South Region Sweet 16 game between Duke and Utah, but if the Blue Devils win that game and the regional title on Sunday, he will head for Indy to see Tyus play. Nuness, though, knows March Madness is unpredictable and is concerned about Duke’s lack of depth behind star freshman center Jahlil Okafor. “He goes down, they got nothing,” Nuness said.

The NCAA Tournament’s one-and-done format seems like the best of places for Tyus who in both high school and college has shown exceptional poise and ability to make clutch plays when needed. “That’s a gift and there are few that have that kind of gift,” Nuness said. “His gift is the game slows down for him. He sees the game at a different pace than the normal person sees the game. He’s not exceptionally quick. He’s not exceptionally fast, but he’s on point with decisions and passes.”

Nuness’ memories of the trip to Indianapolis in 2010 included his surprise about the many college coaches that knew of Tyus. He and the boys were at a shopping mall when a Michigan State assistant coach told Tyus the Spartans wouldn’t worry about winning if they had a guard like him.

“I said, ‘These guys all know you’?” Nuness recalled.

Back then Tyus was attracting attention as an outstanding AAU player and eventually became a McDonald’s prep All-American at Apple Valley High School. And in Indy that year he and Tre got noticed for their shooting skills. At a convention where Nuness had business there was a shooting contest that attracted participants including college-age kids. Tyus won the contest and Tre finished second.

For first place Tyus won uniforms for his Apple Valley team. “It was an unbelievable trip for those guys (Tyus and Tre),” Nuness said.

It was pretty memorable for Nuness, too, who ended up securing the national championship ring order from Duke for Jostens. Nuness and Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski knew each other as high school players in the Chicago area. When Krzyzewski learned Jostens wanted him to buy rings from the Minnesota-based company, he had a message for Nuness: come see him at Duke.

Nuness did exactly that and it didn’t take long for the legendary Blue Devils coach to good-naturedly go after him. The two men had played together on an all-star team in the 1960s. “You never passed the ball at all,” Krzyzewski said.

Nuness laughed in recalling the accusation and, of course, denied it. But there’s no denying he would love to join Tyus, Coach K and the rest of the Blue Devils in Indianapolis next week.

Worth Noting

Kevin Garnett played his first game this season for the Timberwolves on February 25 in a Target Center win over the Wizards. Since then Garnett has been in and out of the lineup to rest his 38-year-old body and bothersome knee. His last game was March 7. The Wolves record since February 27 is 3-11 and it’s evident Garnett’s presence on the roster hasn’t changed the losing ways of the Wolves who are 16-54 for the season which ends on April 15.

The Vikings have the No. 11 first round pick in the 2015 NFL Draft to be held in Chicago April 30-May 2. Fans can hope the Vikings are fortunate enough to find a player who develops like a couple of the more famous all-time No. 11 selections. That list includes NFL Texans defensive end J.J. Watt and Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.

The Gophers football team, off from spring practices since March 12, resumed workouts yesterday. The Gophers practice tomorrow starting at 4:15 p.m. and Saturday at 9:50 a.m. Both sessions are at the Gibson-Nagurski Football Complex and open to the public.

Last weekend’s WCHA Final Five attendance at the Xcel Energy Center was up 34.8 percent from the previous year when the two-day tournament was held in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Total attendance was 15,048 compared with 11,162 in 2014. Minnesota State won the WCHA Final Five and is in the NCAA Tournament’s 16-team field with fellow league member Michigan Tech.

Brad Frost, who Sunday coached the Gophers women’s hockey team to a third national championship in four years, has made a career of coaching women. The Bethel graduate and native of Ontario started his career as an assistant girls hockey coach at Eagan High School from 1996-1999. Then he was a men’s assistant coach at his alma mater from 1999-2000 before becoming a Gophers women’s assistant in 2001 and taking over as interim head coach in 2007.

When athletic director Joel Maturi was looking to permanently fill the head hockey coaching position he worked diligently at searching for candidates of both genders. At the search’s end in 2008 he decided the best candidate was a person already on staff, Frost. “His success speaks for itself,” Maturi told Sports Headliners this week.

Maturi said Frost relates effectively to his players and can “push the envelope” when needed. He has the respect of the young women who are on the team. Frost is likeable too and relates well with others including media and boosters. “His humility comes through,” Maturi said. “He’s not a big ego guy.”

Women’s teams in town have achieved championship success including Frost’s Gophers and the two-time WNBA champion Minnesota Lynx. The Gophers swimming and diving team recently won a fourth straight Big Ten championship. Former Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak offered this Facebook post earlier in the week:

Be it hockey or basketball/
Or even swimmin/
When Minnesotans want a title/
We turn to the women

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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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