RICHARD PITINO – Page 7 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Dalvin Cook Joins Elite NFL Runners

Posted on November 9, 2020November 9, 2020 by David Shama

A newsy Monday notes column covering the Vikings, Gophers, Twins, Wild and more:

Dalvin Cook totaled a career-high 252 scrimmage yards (206 rushing, 46 receiving) and two rushing touchdowns in the Vikings’ 34-20 win against the Detroit Lions Sunday. He is now the third player in NFL history to have at least 225 scrimmage yards and two touchdowns in consecutive games, joining Jim Brown (1963) and Deuce McAllister (2003). Cook had 226 scrimmage yards and four touchdowns (three rushing, one receiving) a week ago Sunday against the Green Bay Packers.

Dalvin Cook (photo courtesy of Minnesota Vikings)

Cook has 12 rushing touchdowns this season, tied for the fourth-most by a player in his first seven games of a season in NFL history. All-time leaders are Brown (14 rushing touchdowns in 1958) and Emmitt Smith (13 in 1995) and Priest Holmes (13 in 2004).

The Gophers’ Mohamed Ibrahim is the Big Ten’s Offensive Player of the Week, the conference announced this morning. He rushed for more than 200 yards and four touchdowns for the second consecutive week in Minnesota’s win Saturday over Illinois. He tied his career high with 224 rushing yards, adding 31 yards receiving and 27 yards on kick returns to set a career high with 282 all-purpose yards. He is the second Gopher ever to have two consecutive 200-yard rushing games and the first since Terry Jackson II in 2002.

Gophers coach P.J. Fleck remembered when the junior running back was on the scout team early in his college career and “never complained” about his status. “He’s earned everything he’s got,” Fleck said.

Trey Potts, Ibrahim’s back-up, was carted off the field Saturday with an apparent ankle or foot injury. Fleck speculated Potts is “day-to-day” for Friday night’s game with Iowa.

Assistant coach Joe Rossi missed the Illinois game because of COVID-19 and Fleck offered no timeline on Rossi’s return, although he did say the defensive coordinator is “doing well.”

What an interesting Big Ten football season so far. Wisconsin, the preseason favorite to win the West Division, has only played one game because of COVID. Minnesota, another popular pick to emerge as the division champ, is off to a 1-2 start, while Northwestern, 1-8 in league games last season, is 3-0 and could win the West. In the East Division nobody saw a 0-3 start for Penn State or 3-0 beginning for Indiana, a program historically among the worst in the nation.

Because he is 40 years old, Minnesota Twins DH Nelson Cruz didn’t make MLB.com’s list from today of the top 25 free agents this offseason based on analytics for future production. No Twins made the list but three former Minnesota players did, second baseman Jonathan Schoop at No. 17, relief pitcher Liam Hendriks, No. 19, and outfielder Robbie Grossman, 24.

MLB.com on Saturday listed the “perfect” free agent fits for all 30 major league teams and tagged the Twins with New York Mets starter Marcus Strommen. He is a potential No. 2 or 3 talent but MLB.com speculates the Mets could extend an $18.9 million qualifying offer. Twins free agent starting pitcher Jake Odorizzi is projected as the right fit with the Boston Red Sox.

Organizer Patrick Klinger reports the Capital Club will hear from Golden Gophers men’s basketball coach Richard Pitino tomorrow (Tuesday) via zoom. Klinger, the former Twins executive who now runs a St. Paul-based marketing company, uses this signature quote in his emails from English essayist and moralist Samuel Johnson:

“The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.”

Pitino will be upbeat tomorrow talking about transfer guard Both Gach. Pitino announced today the Austin, Minnesota native, who played his first two seasons at Utah, has been given immediate eligibility by the NCAA. Gach joined Pitino’s program this summer after playing two seasons at the University of Utah. An almost certain starter for the Gophers this fall, Gach will have two years of eligibility at Minnesota.

A media panel selected a 10-member preseason All-Big Ten team announced today that includes Pitino’s junior point guard, Marcus Carr. He was an All-Big Ten third team selection last season, after having a school record 207 assists.

The Gopher men’s hockey team program is the favorite to win the Big Ten Conference in 2020-21, per a poll of league coaches who also designated four Minnesota players with preseason honors. It was announced this morning Minnesota led the poll ahead of Michigan, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Michigan State, and Penn State.

Minnesota junior forward Sammy Walker is a member of the preseason All-Big Ten first team. Senior forward Brannon McManus and sophomore defenseman Jackson LaCombe are on the second team. Sophomore forward Ben Meyers received honorable mention.

Defending WCHA regular-season champion Minnesota State is the unanimous favorite to repeat as champions, earning all 10 first-place votes in the league’s media poll announced today. The Mavericks are followed by Bemidji State, Bowling Green , Northern Michigan, Michigan Tech, Lake Superior State , Alaska, Ferris State, Alaska Anchorage and Alabama Huntsville. Minnesota State junior goaltender Dryden McKay is the media poll choice as WCHA Preseason Player of the Year.

Nobody is saying Marco Rossi is the next Mikko Koivu yet, but the Minnesota Wild need to develop an extraordinary center and it could be the 19-year-old Rossi. The team’s 2020 first round draft choice might make the Minnesota roster in his first season.

The NHL hasn’t announced when the season will begin but don’t count on spectators being allowed, at least early on.

“The Rundown,” Jeff Crilley’s daily newsletter, reports in today’s issue that early analysis by Pfizer says more than 90 percent of volunteers given the company’s vaccine didn’t develop COVID-19.

Comments Welcome

ESPN GameDay Odds Heavy for Gophers

Posted on October 12, 2020October 12, 2020 by David Shama

Next Sunday ESPN could announce its prestigious college football GameDay show will originate in Minneapolis on Saturday, October 24 for the Minnesota-Michigan game at TCF Bank Stadium. Sources report the game is under consideration by ESPN.

The odds of Minnesota hosting the show went up when ESPN announced yesterday its crew will be in Tuscaloosa for the Alabama-Georgia game this Saturday. The Alabama game at Tennessee October 24 looks like less competition for the Gophers now that the Volunteers lost to Georgia last weekend—and ESPN will not feature Alabama two weeks in succession.

October 23-24 is the opening weekend for Big Ten football and the conference’s prestige and large TV following will weigh positively on the ESPN decision. The Nebraska-Ohio State game in Columbus October 24 is no longer a rival for the Gophers hosting ESPN because Fox announced its kickoff show will be at Ohio Stadium that day.

A long-shot under consideration for October 24 could be the Cincinnati-SMU game in Dallas. In the latest AP national poll the Bearcats are ranked No. 8 and the Mustangs No. 17. But Minnesota and Michigan are also ranked, with the Gophers at No. 24 and Wolverines at No. 19, and an important American Athletic Conference game doesn’t have the same glitter as a Big Ten offering. On the Big Ten’s opening weekend, this is the conference’s only matchup of top 25 teams.

That’s a compelling factor and so, too, is the historic rivalry between the two programs. Michigan and Minnesota have been playing for possession of the Little Brown Jug since 1909. Considered the most famous of college football rivalry trophies, the Little Brown Jug is a made-for-TV optic with a fascinating storyline. The Gophers haven’t taken possession of the Jug in Minneapolis since 1977, adding extra meaning to the October 24 game.

Right now it looks like the Minnesota-Michigan matchup could be the biggest of the day not only in the Big Ten but across the country. This morning came the announcement the game will land on national TV with ABC offering a prime time 6:30 p.m. kickoff. The game has major ratings appeal starting with the Minneapolis-St. Paul and Detroit TV markets that are among the largest in the country. Expect big ratings numbers in Minnesota and Michigan, and the game will pull solid ratings throughout the nation—particularly in the Midwest.

The three-hour GameDay show, that dates back to 1993, has both the time and interest to take multiple angles on stories. It seems likely that if show producers come here they will report on how the Gophers have confronted the social justice issue since the tragic death of George Floyd. Minnesota coach P.J. Fleck has been outspoken about the need to listen, understand and discuss things since Floyd’s death earlier this year.

GameDay came to Minneapolis for the first time ever in 2019 for the Minnesota-Wisconsin game. Fleck coveted the opportunity to host the show and by all accounts it was a successful partnership between ESPN and the University of Minnesota. Not only does hosting the show add to fan interest in the state, but it also is a valued recruiting tool for Minnesota’s national recruiting.

Worth Noting

In some scheduling alterations, the Big Ten announced today the Gophers will play three Friday games—October 30 at Maryland, and host Iowa and Purdue November 13 and 20 respectively. Those games had been scheduled for Saturdays.

Minnesota Vikings coach Mike Zimmer meets with the media via Zoom at 4:30 p.m. today. The last time the Vikings started a season 1-4 was in 2011 under Leslie Frazier and they went on to a 3-13 finish.

Minnesota native and former Olympic middle distance runner Carrie Tollefson is the latest guest on “Behind the Game,” with co-hosts Patrick Klinger and Bill Robertson. Growing up in small town Dawson, she became one of the state’s great success stories among female athletes. The show is available for viewing on YouTube and on Twin Cities cable TV channels.

If preps Kenny Pohto and Treyton Thompson keep their verbal commitments to join the 2021 Gophers freshman class it looks like they will be part of a roster with six players 6-foot-9 or taller a year from now. Pohto, from Sweden by way of Sunrise Christian Academy in Kansas, and Thompson, a native of Alexandria, Minnesota could join present bigs Sam Freeman, Isaiah Ihnen, Martice Mitchell and Liam Robbins.

That kind of height and wing span presents multiple potential advantages for the coaching staff including use of zone defenses where Minnesota bigs would be difficult to shoot over and could clog passing lanes.

As for the coming 2020-2021 season, coach Richard Pitino’s team won’t find much love from media prognosticators who see Minnesota finishing far down in the Big Ten standings. Frustrating for Gophers fans, too, is that border rivals Iowa and Wisconsin are projected at the top of the league and receiving high national rankings.

Wisconsin, as usual carrying a roster with Minnesota natives, has an All-American favorite in forward Nate Reuvers from Lakeville North.

The Lakers have now won 17 world championships, including five in Minneapolis, and are tied with the Boston Celtics for most ever. The Minneapolis Lakers won championships in 1949, 1950, 1952, 1953 and 1955 before moving to Los Angeles for the 1960-61 season.

Comments Welcome

Dutcher Contract Targets Gopher Job

Posted on September 23, 2020September 23, 2020 by David Shama

Minnesota native Brian Dutcher has negotiated a revised contract to continue coaching the San Diego State men’s basketball team. The deal includes a near $7 million buyout if he departed for another school, but it has one exception: the University of Minnesota job.

The San Diego Union-Tribune offered details of the new contract earlier this month and reported the buyout to take the Minnesota job is $1 million. The $6.95 million opt out amount, the newspaper said, drops in succeeding years and will be expensive for either the Aztecs to fire Dutcher, or for another school to hire him—except if that program is the Gophers.

Dutcher, 60, is an alum of Bloomington Jefferson and the University of Minnesota. His dad Jim Dutcher, now in his late 80s, coached Minnesota to the Big Ten title in 1982. Brian is close to his father who every season travels to San Diego to watch the Aztecs. Brian comes back to Minneapolis each summer with his family and sees not only his dad but two sisters.

“I guess he’s putting it out there that Minnesota would be a pretty good place for him to go if the job opened up,” said Robbie Hummel, Big Ten Network and ESPN college basketball authority.

Hummel, the former Purdue star and Minnesota Timberwolves reserve, acknowledged the opt out clause for Minnesota is unusual. “I’ve never heard of a coach being able to negotiate a deal like that,” Hummel told Sports Headliners yesterday. “That’s sure interesting because if that were to happen it would be encouraging for Gopher fans because he did a heck of a job last year.

“But I do believe Minnesota has a really good coach right now in Richard Pitino—given the hands he’s been dealt, whether it’s injuries, suspensions. He’s put together some good teams in the league. …I think Minnesota’s got something pretty good right now.”

In the Union-Tribune story San Diego State AD John David Wicker said the Aztecs job is a better one than Minnesota but he understands the pull to go home for family reasons if a vacancy were to occur. Brian Dutcher also spoke on the record and said,
“It’s my school. Where I went and was able to be part of that basketball program with my dad. But it’s still a buyout. It’s not like it’s free.”

Dutcher’s team was 30-2 and ranked No. 6 in the nation before COVID put an end to the 2019-2020 college basketball season. His team appeared poised for a deep tournament run. USA Today named him college coach of the year. His three-year record as Aztecs head coach is 73-26 (.737 winning percentage).

Pitino, 38, starts his eighth season at Minnesota this fall. Two of his teams have qualified for the NCAA Tournament. His first Gopher team won the 2014 NIT. His overall record is 127-108 and 48-82 in Big Ten games. Only once has his Gopher team won more Big Ten games than it lost.

Critics have suggested for awhile that Minnesota AD Mark Coyle should make a change. With the possibility of program interest declining and ticket sales slumping even more, rumors had Pitino being dismissed last March and bought out of his contract, but issues caused by the pandemic, including financial hardship at the U, may have been why a change didn’t happen.

The Gopher job could also open up if Pitino decided to take over another program. During Pitino’s tenure at Minnesota his name has been linked to other major college positions.

If Coyle did make a change some time in the next few years, you can be sure the ability of the head coach to recruit will be top of the list. Dutcher has recruiting ties in talent-rich California and helped bring the great Kawhi Leonard to San Diego State when he was an assistant coach. While an assistant at Michigan, Dutcher was instrumental in the recruiting of the famous “Fab Five” freshmen class.

Hummel doesn’t believe Pitino is spending time thinking about Dutcher’s contract. “You just gotta worry about yourself. …I don’t think he’s worried at all about Brian Dutcher’s contract.”

Worth Noting

Is it possible ex-Gophers center Daniel Oturu has fallen in NBA mock draft projections because scouts are concerned about his history of injuries with both shoulders? NBAdraft.net, for example, once ranked the Woodbury native as a top 10 choice in the 2020 draft but now projects him as the last player to be chosen in the first round, going at No. 30 to the Boston Celtics.

All-Big Ten junior Gophers point guard Marcus Carr, who withdrew his name for the draft this summer, needs to improve his shooting to draw more serious interest from NBA teams. He made .393 percent of his field goals last season (.361 on three-pointers).

Liam Robbins, the Drake transfer who will replace Oturu, is drawing interest from Gophers fans and he should including for his shot blocking. Last season Robbins ranked No. 4 nationally with a 2.91 blocks per game average. Oturu ranked No. 21 averaging 2.45.

Various media reports last week had Rick Pitino, father of Gophers basketball coach Richard Pitino, watching the U.S. Open from his nearby house at Winged Foot Golf Club. Pitino is also a member of the historic club in suburban New York City.

Here is another indictment of the Vikings’ ineffective offensive line that has contributed to two quarterback sacks and a 0-2 record: Tight ends Kyle Rudolph and Irv Smith Jr. have to focus on blocking to help the interior crew, rather than receiving (they have two catches each).

Look for the Vikings to avoid their first 0-3 start since 2013 with a win at U.S. Bank Stadium against a mediocre 2-0 Tennessee Titans team. It will be a miracle if Titans kicker Stephen Gostkowski beats the Vikings with a field goal after booting the game winner twice in the last two minutes of Tennessee’s opening games.

In the latest S.I.com NFL power rankings the Vikings, a preseason favorite to win the NFC North Division, are at No. 23 among 32 teams.

Front Office Sports reports FOX is willing to spend $2 billion to maintain its rights to Sunday NFL games that include exposure in the nation’s three largest TV markets, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. The present deal cost $1.08 billion.

Twins closer Taylor Rogers earned the save last night in Minnesota’s 5-4 win over the Detroit Tigers that pulled the team within a half game of the Chicago White Sox in the AL Central Division race, but he gave up a run and is struggling this season with a 4.34 ERA (last season 2.61).

Minnesota is 10-1 in September Target Field games and a MLB-best 22-5 playing at home this season.

Bloomington-located Total Sports Enterprises is promoting an October 2 private signing of Joe Mauer items.

Former University of Minnesota president Eric Kaler turns 64 today.

1 comment