Preps – Page 70 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Here’s a Primer for Tournament Picks

Posted on March 11, 2018March 11, 2018 by David Shama

Sunday’s column offers suggestions (serious and not) about how to fill out your NCAA Tournament Bracket…and news on a Minnesota club sport that could develop fast in state communities.

If you live on another planet and don’t know, today is Selection Sunday for the men’s NCAA basketball tournament. That means tonight and tomorrow there will be a lot of collective head-scratching as college basketball (and wagering) fans try to figure out who will advance through the tournament field and ultimately win next month’s NCAA championship.

You could pick teams the way certain Canterbury Park patrons wager on horses—by their colors. That method means selecting favorites based on likeable team names, mascots, or school colors. If that’s your thing, pick up the latest issue of Sports Illustrated to “help” with your bracket.

The magazine informs readers that the Wildcats of Arizona, Kentucky and Villanova are 6-3 in tourney championship games since 1985. However, tournament teams with dog names like the Gonzaga Bulldogs are 35-25 against cat teams since 1985.

Perhaps consider too that Sports Illustrated research says in the last 14 years only one team that did not have blue in its colors has won the NCAA title. The exception? Infamous coach Rick Pitino and his Louisville Cardinals. And, yes, now the NCAA has stripped Louisville of its 2013 title because of rules violations.

Maybe just use a favorite coin and flip heads or tails to fill out your bracket, but before turning to that method consider some advice from former Gopher head coach Jim Dutcher who is one of the smartest people I know.

Dutcher follows the college basketball season intently, partly because of his roots in the game including as an assistant coach at Michigan and then as the Gophers’ head man from 1975-1986. His son Brian Dutcher is head coach at San Diego State, a team that won the Mountain West Tournament championship last night and secured a spot in the NCAA Tournament.

Dutcher has seen “The Big Dance” grow into a unique part of Americana that captivates the public and enriches the NCAA. “People who don’t even follow basketball are in the (tourney bracket) office pool,” Dutcher said.

Part of the tournament charm is there are teams and conferences some fans have never heard of. This year’s field includes the likes of Bucknell from the Patriot League, Lipscomb of the Atlantic Sun, and Radford from the Big South.

Chasing Cinderella in a bracket can be fun, trying to see if mid-major teams can knock off the bluebloods of the tournament. “You’re always trying to pick the upsets,” Dutcher said.

But Dutcher cautions fans about falling too hard for Cinderella as you sort through the 68-team tournament field. There’s a reason teams like Virginia, Villanova and Xavier will be given high seeds on Selection Sunday. Those schools, along with other familiar names like Duke, Kansas, Michigan State and Purdue, possess a lot of the best college talent and coaching. “Generally, the No. 1 seeds end up there (in the finals),” Dutcher said

Dutcher acknowledges that historically tournament teams who are No. 12 seeds do have a track record of success in games against No. 5 seeds. Oddsmakers know this and point spreads will sometimes be narrow between five and 12 seeds. That could be the time to make a spoiler pick in your bracket.

Dutcher suggests researching teams playing at high levels right now. He mentioned Arizona and Kansas as two of the bluebloods who are closing fast, but his choice to emerge in San Antonio next month as national champion is Duke.

The Blue Devils? Sounds familiar, and that’s the idea when filling out your tourney bracket. Don’t venture too far away from the facts. Of course, reality also is that even students of bracketology are going to be wrong when trying to predict the outcome of all those games. “March Madness, right?” …

Hugh McCutcheon has developed women’s volleyball into a national power at the University of Minnesota, but he has wondered why there is no boys’ volleyball in the state’s high schools. Last summer he started talking about that with Walt Weaver, the legendary Minnesota girls’ volleyball coach.

Conversations between McCutcheon and Weaver resulted in a developing story. Others picked up the initiative and volunteered their time during the last several months, and the result has been over 400 boys from various high schools have registered to play club volleyball this spring.

“There’s always been a lot of interest…from boys to play,” McCutcheon said. “We have a club team at the U, and so we talked to those players and they’re like, ‘Hey, we would have loved it if we could have played in high school but we never had the chance.’ ”

McCutcheon is hopeful that “if we can show continued interest,” boys’ volleyball will not only expand to more participants and schools, but also be elevated from a club sport to the more fully funded and supported status of sports in the state like baseball, basketball, football, softball and girls’ volleyball. Boys’ high school volleyball is played in Iowa and Wisconsin.

McCutcheon said the North Country Region of USA Volleyball has helped to offset costs of the startup and make participation more affordable for participants.

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Kevin Love Impressive Role Model

Posted on March 8, 2018March 8, 2018 by David Shama

When Kevin Love played for the Timberwolves, I talked to him a couple of times and liked him. I also watched and admired his skills many times, but never have I appreciated him more than this week when he wrote openly and emotionally about mental health.

Love’s essay posted on the Playerstribune.com is a must-read for any thoughtful sports fan, including those who influence young athletes. Love details how he had a panic attack early this season that caused him to flee the court during a game. It was an experience unlike any the 29-year-old Cavs star had ever known, and it ultimately prompted enough self-examination to see a therapist for the first time in his life.

In macho America, boys and men have forever been taught to bury damaging feelings including guilt and shame. Love writes that during his life he never wanted to show emotional weakness but he knew something was very wrong that night last year when he panicked and experienced shortness of breath.

Love has been seeing a therapist and he’s targeted some personal issues including one he shares in detail. He writes about his grandmother Carol who lived with the family when he was growing up. Carol was still alive during part of the time he played for the Wolves and she had planned to visit him in Minneapolis at Thanksgiving one year. The trip was cancelled, though, because Carol was hospitalized and shortly thereafter she died unexpectedly. In therapy Love came to realize how he had not adequately grieved about his grandma’s death.

In and out of athletics this is a mixed up world with a lot of confused and troubled minds. Love writes this warning in his article: “Everyone is going through something that we can’t see.”

It’s true and so many people, whether involved with sports or other parts of society, need help. Troubled with burdens real and imagined, they frequently don’t receive help. (See the latest news on opiate use, or school shootings). There are no easy answers but there is always someone out there—family, friend or stranger—willing to give support and encourage a person to seek assistance.

Love, a former NBA All-Star and contributor to the Cleveland Cavs 2016 league champions, has long been known as one of basketball’s better passing front court players. This week he might have made his biggest “assist.”

Worth Noting

Credit Minnesota Wild general manager Chuck Fletcher in making one of his best moves signing center Eric Staal to a three-year free agent contract in June of 2016. Staal, 33, is tied for fourth among NHL players in goal scoring with 36, and is a valued leader on a team with a need in that department.

Staal has been exceptional at the right time, producing 21 points last month while helping the Wild to a 9-2-2 record. He’s a catalyst for a team that sometimes prompts doubt about qualifying for the playoffs.

Now it looks like the Wild will make the playoffs (at times the team falters when the schedule gets busy and the ages of players shows). How far they go in the postseason appears tied to—no surprise—whether goalie Devan Dubnyk is hot.

While the Wild seem likely for the playoffs, the Timberwolves can be labeled iffy. The club was on track to make the postseason for the first time since 2004 before Jimmy Butler went down with a knee injury sidelining him indefinitely. He is the team’s best defender and fourth quarter big shot and big play specialist. This is a less capable and confident team without the 28-year-old Butler, who may deserve a place among the top 10 players in the NBA and is in his first season with the Wolves.

In the competitive Western Conference race for eight playoff spots, the Wolves will probably have to earn a surprise win or two in this immediate schedule stretch that starts with games against the Celtics and Warriors tonight and Sunday at home. There are only 16 Wolves games left in the season. If the season ended today, the Wolves would have one of the eight Western Conference playoff spots but the competition to be part of the field is intense.

The Wild is averaging 19,006 fans per game at home—seventh best in the 31-team NHL, according to Espn.com. The Timberwolves, according to the website, average 16,811—ranking No. 22 in the 30-team NBA.

I once argued with Lou Nanne about whether this was a better pro basketball or hockey town. Guess which position Nanne took? What I know is the Wolves set an NBA single season attendance record in the franchise’s first year of 1989-90 and despite a mostly poor product this century have been pretty successful at the box office. Decades ago the basketball Golden Gophers led the Big Ten and even the nation in attendance.

Former Gopher Natalie Darwitz, now coaching at Hamline, has the Piper women’s hockey team in the NCAA Division III Tournament for the first time ever. Hamline has a 20-4-3 record including a 4-1 win over the Gusties in the MIAC Playoff Championship game last Saturday at Gustavus. The Pipers will play their opening NCAA game Saturday against the winner of Friday’s Gustavus and Wisconsin-Eau Claire game.

Two of the five finalists for the 2018 state Mr. Basketball Award will be Gopher freshmen next fall but it’s difficult to think Apple Valley’s Tre Jones won’t win the honor. Jones, a McDonald’s All-American, is the best all-around Minnesota prep guard I’ve ever seen.

Other nominees are guards Owen King from Caledonia and Calvin Wishart of Delano, and future Gophers Gabe Kalscheur from DeLaSalle and Daniel Oturu of Cretin-Derham Hall. As a center or power forward, Oturu seems likely to emerge as Minnesota’s best rim protector on next season’s team. Kalscheur gives the Gophers a big guard off the bench playing behind senior Dupree McBrayer.

It’s surprising there is still no announcement identifying who the Gophers will play in next December’s nonconference game at U.S. Bank Stadium. The game (date not known) will be an operations rehearsal for the 2019 Final Four in Minneapolis.

Will the December date include not only the Gophers, but a second men’s game?

A ticket lottery for the 2019 Final Four opened this week and continues through May 31. The tournament dates are April 6 and 8, with tickets priced at $210 per sessions (a steal compared with the Minneapolis Super Bowl pricing). More at Gophersports.com, or Finalfourminneapolis.com.

The Twins home opener is four weeks from today, April 5 against the Mariners. The weather forecast is for a high of 52 with a “little afternoon rain,” according to Accuweather.com.

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“Crown Jewels” among U Walk-ons

Posted on January 30, 2018January 30, 2018 by David Shama

A Wednesday notes column with the focus on football:

Don’t expect the Golden Gophers to add any scholarship football players to their recruiting class of 2018 when the second of two National Signing Dates occurs February 7. Coach P.J. Fleck has no remaining scholarships but next week expect Minnesota to announce the names of “seven to nine” preferred walk-ons, according to Ryan Burns, the college football recruiting authority and publisher of GopherIllustrated.com.

Burns told Sports Headliners the “crown jewels” of that group will be Zack Annexstad and Max Janes. Annexstad, a Mankato, Minnesota native, was outstanding last fall as a pro-style quarterback at IMG Academy in Florida. Burns said Janes, a tight end and linebacker from Mounds View, turned down four Division I offers to become a Gopher. While preferred walk-ons don’t receive scholarships, they put themselves in position to earn assistance by future performances.

It was thought the state’s Mr. Football as chosen by the Minnesota Football Coaches Association in December might agree to a walk-on offer from Fleck but Burns believes Eden Prairie linebacker Antonio Montero is accepting a scholarship to either Rice or San Diego State. Montero recently visited both schools.

Eden Prairie quarterback Cole Kramer, who will be a senior next fall and helped lead the Eagles to the 2017 6A state title, has verbally committed to Minnesota as a scholarship player for the class of 2019. Fleck has stressed the importance of having legacy players in his program, and Kramer is the grandson of former Gopher football MVP Tom Moe who also became athletic director at Minnesota.

Owatonna running back Jason Williamson has also verbally committed to Minnesota’s class of 2019. Burns said Iowa had interest in Williamson and Michigan State was following Kramer.

Fleck and his staff will headline the annual MFCA Clinic April 5-7 at the DoubleTree Park Place in St. Louis Park. South Dakota coach Bob Nielsen will be among the speakers.

Former Gopher football captain Jim Carter said his friend Mike Sherels, the ex-University of Minnesota assistant coach under Jerry Kill and Tracy Claeys, has received an offer to join the Wake Forest staff as linebackers coach, and that Wisconsin also has interest in Sherels. Jay Sawvel, who worked with Sherels at Minnesota, is the defensive coordinator at Wake Forest. Popular with players and others associated with the Gophers, Sherels was a successful coach and recruiter who worked the states of Minnesota and Florida during his time at Minnesota.

Word is each player on the two Super Bowl teams can acquire about 15 tickets for Sunday’s game at U.S. Bank Stadium but only two are free. The other tickets must be purchased at face value, with a guesstimate the cost is over $2,000 per ticket.

Winning players in the game receive $112,000 each, losers $56,000.

A downtown parking spot near U.S. Bank Stadium that cost $40 during the Vikings season will go for $120 on Sunday.

Dave Mona believes the Super Bowl will likely return to Minneapolis after this year’s game but it will be at least 20 years. Northern sites for the big game are rare and that works against a U.S. Bank Stadium encore.

Mona, who helped establish a top public relations agency and for decades has talked sports on WCCO Radio, was involved with efforts for the 1992 Super Bowl at the Metrodome. Next Sunday he will be the press box announcer for the game between the Eagles and Patriots. Mona has the same assignment for Vikings games.

Vikings public address announcer Alan Roach, who has also worked previous Super Bowls, will be the P.A. man for the game Sunday. Roach grew up as Kelly Burnham and lived in Slayton and Brainerd Minnesota.

The 1992 Super Bowl was the first time the NFL offered the now popular fan experience headlined this year as “Get Inside the Game.” The interactive attraction is at the Minneapolis Convention Center through Saturday as part of Super Bowl activities, charging $35 for adults and $25 for children 12 and under. Fans can experience NFL games via virtual reality technology, run a 40-yard dash against NFL players on a giant LED screen, obtain autographs from NFL players and learn football skills at clinics.

Taste of the NFL, another high profile annual Super Bowl event, also originated here in 1992. Often referred to as the “party with a purpose,” the event has raised millions of dollars to fight hunger in the United States. Minneapolis restaurateur and philanthropist Wayne Kostroski founded the event and still leads it.

Eric Curry, the well-known college basketball referee from Minneapolis, has left his executive position at Sun Country Airlines. He officiated last night’s Wisconsin-Nebraska game in Madison.

The Gophers’ Hugh McCutcheon, a former Big Ten and American Volleyball Coaches Association Coach of the Year, speaks to the CORES lunch group March 8 at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Bloomington, 1114 American Blvd. More information is available by contacting Jim Dotseth, dotsethj@comcast.net. CORES is an acronym for coaches, officials, reporters, educators and sports fans.

Condolences to the family and friends of Twin Cities native Les Layton who died earlier this month. His career included newspaper, public relations and insurance work. Newspaper employers included the Pioneer Press and Sun publications.

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