Timberwolves – Page 85 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

College Title Game Likely Coming Here

Posted on October 30, 2015October 30, 2015 by David Shama

An announcement regarding the site for the College Football Playoff Championship Game in 2020 is expected early next month. My prediction is Minneapolis and U.S. Bank Stadium will be the city and venue announced.

A site committee headed by CFP executive director Bill Hancock visited Minneapolis earlier this fall. The group left town impressed by a presentation similar to what Minnesota leaders used to convince Super Bowl and NCAA Final Four authorities to bring those events to U.S. Bank Stadium in 2018 and 2019.

Last spring governor Mark Dayton announced the formation of the Minnesota CFP Steering Committee comprised of representatives from the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority, Meet Minneapolis/Sports Minneapolis, the Vikings and the University of Minnesota. The CFP organization announced in late May bids had been received from the Bay Area (Santa Clara game site), Charlotte, Houston, Minnesota, New Orleans and San Antonio to host the 2020 game to be played on Monday, January 13.

The selection of a northern city to host the game would add diversity to the site locations. The inaugural game last January was played in Arlington, Texas. Glendale, Arizona will host the game next January and Tampa will be site for 2017. The CFP organization is expected to announce next month its choices of host cities for 2018, 2019 and 2020. Minnesota didn’t submit bids for 2018 or 2019.

The successful winter hosting of the 1992 Super Bowl in Minneapolis and the eagerness of NFL officials to return the game here in 2018 could certainly have played a part in easing any concerns about the weather by CFP authorities. This area offers a state-of-the-art domed venue in U.S. Bank Stadium and also covered practice facilities owned by the Gophers and Vikings. Positives also include Minneapolis’ reputation as an easy to reach travel destination, with varied local transportation including light rail, and a city offering facilities to host ancillary CFP events. The city’s famous skyway system allows visitors to walk around downtown without going outdoors.

Worth Noting

The Vikings and Gophers already have covered practice facilities, and seem targeted to have new ones by 2020 when the CFP Game will likely be played here. The Vikings appear headed toward developing a complex in Eagan that will include offices and practice facilities. The Gophers today will host a ceremonial groundbreaking event on the East Campus for the new Athletes Village that will include a new football practice facility.

During the time Jerry Kill was the Gophers head football coach the state’s high school football coaches have been among his vocal admirers. After Kill’s resignation on Wednesday the Minnesota Football Coaches Association distributed a tribute that said the coach gave “every minute of his time and every ounce of his energy” to not only his players and assistants, but also to the public including causes both large and small. “No request was denied, no cause too minor,” the statement said. “He was and is the ultimate giver. …From the very bottom of our collective hearts, THANK YOU, COACH.”

The are “still a limited number of tickets” available for the Gophers Halloween night game Saturday against Michigan, according to an athletic department spokesman. The game could be Minnesota’s fifth consecutive home sellout this season. The Wolverines, college football’s winningest program, are always a gate attraction but adding to the hype this season is the debut of glamour coach Jim Harbaugh who after a star career as Michigan’s quarterback developed winning teams at Stanford and with the NFL’s 49ers.

The Wolverines, who prior to Harbaugh’s arrival this year were struggling, are among the surprise teams in college football. Michigan, 5-2, has lost only to Pac-12 power Utah in an opening game and to Michigan State on a fluke fumble by the Wolverines punter.

When Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany was in Minneapolis earlier this month he was asked about Harbaugh’s impact on the conference. “He’s got a great track-record as a player and coach,” Delany answered. “Only halfway through the season but they’ve played awful well. The Michigan people are excited. A great conference needs great coaches, and needs great programs. I think that in football and in basketball we’re well positioned with some of the coach-teacher leaders that we have, and obviously Jim is off to a fabulous start.”

Because of the Kill resignation and being major underdogs, the Gophers will be a national story if they can win Saturday’s game. The Wolverines, who have shutout three opponents and lead Big Ten teams in six defensive categories, are likely to go into the game favored by a couple of touchdowns.

College football authority Jerry Palm has the Gophers, 4-3, as one of 10 Big Ten teams who will play in a bowl game. Palm, writing this week for Cbssports.com, predicts Minnesota will play Air Force December 29 in the Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl in Fort Worth.

The Timberwolves opened their season Wednesday night with a comeback one point win in Los Angeles against a Lakers team that was 21-61 last season. “They’re still going to be really, really bad.” That’s a quote about the Lakers from an anonymous scout in the October 26 issue of Sports Illustrated.

In the magazine’s NBA preview issue the Lakers are predicted to finish 14th among 15 Western Conference teams. The Timberwolves, 16-66 last season, are forecast to finish 12th. The Cavs, whose key players include former Wolves star Kevin Love, are the choice to defeat the Thunder for the NBA title.

NBA.com surveyed the league’s general manager with questions about teams and players. The Wolves Andrew Wiggins, who was the Kia NBA Rookie of the Year last season, drew the most support as the player expected to have a breakout year. Among NBA rookies this season, the Wolves Karl-Anthony Towns is a runaway choice to be the best player in five years.

Basketball stat of the day: with a career record of 172-68 (.717 percent) Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan has the highest Big Ten winning percentage in conference history.

Among the newcomers to watch on the Gophers basketball team is 6-6 freshman forward Jordan Murphy from San Antonio. “He can jump with anybody (on the team),” teammate Charles Buggs told Sports Headliners. Murphy averaged 23.6 points and 10.5 rebounds as a high school senior.

Buggs, a 6-9 junior forward, wears size 17 shoes. Reggie Lynch, the 6-10 junior center who isn’t eligible this season after transferring from Illinois State, wears size 18 shoes, the biggest on the team, according to Buggs.

Buggs, who has increased his weight from 210 to 230 through training and by eating four to five meals per day, has a 3.0 GPA and is a sports management major. He spent part of the offseason working events at TCF Bank Stadium.

The Gophers play Minnesota Crookston in an exhibition game Sunday starting at 4 p.m. in Williams Arena. BTN Plus will televise the game.

After winning Tuesday night, the Wild is now 21-3-1 in its last 25 games against the Oilers. Tonight the Wild plays the Blackhawks at Xcel Energy Center. In the last 15 games between the two clubs eight have been decided by one goal and four were shootouts.

Two former Gophers hockey players, now coaches at Hamline, are about to start their seasons. Hamline men’s coach Cory Laylin, whose team last winter won the MIAC playoffs after a fifth place regular season, will send his Pipers into games tomorrow night and Sunday afternoon against Gustavus Adolphus and Saint Mary’s as part of the MIAC Men’s Hockey Showcase in Blaine. Natalie Darwitz starts her first season coaching the women’s team with games at Concordia (WI) tonight and tomorrow afternoon.

Comments Welcome

Flip Did It All in His Basketball Life

Posted on October 26, 2015October 26, 2015 by David Shama

Flip Saunders was probably the most unique basketball man in the history of this state. He was raised in Ohio but Minnesota was home. He died yesterday at age 60 in Minnesota and he wouldn’t have wanted to depart this earth from anywhere else.

I first saw Flip as a feisty teenager playing point guard for the Gophers in the 1970s. During the last few years I knew him as the basketball boss of the Timberwolves. Through the decades he played every role possible in big time basketball in Minnesota. At the end of his life he had an unprecedented list of simultaneous responsibilities as part owner, president and coach of the Wolves.

Flip Saunders (Photo courtesy of Timberwolves)

Flip played on some of the best Gophers teams ever, including the 24-3 group in 1977, his senior season. He had been a high school All-American in suburban Cleveland and came to the Gophers as coach Bill Musselman’s alter ego. Musselman was back alley tough and reveled in the basketball smarts and competitiveness of Flip, a small guy like his coach but just as willing to battle enemies of all sizes and skills.

After Flip’s college career he had an NBA tryout with his hometown Cavs. If guts and determination were all that was required, the 5-11 Saunders would have been All-NBA 10 years in a row. Flip had averaged 32 points per game in high school and started 101 of 103 possible games for the Gophers but he soon realized his future was on the sidelines and not on the court.

Flip started his coaching career at Golden Valley Lutheran where his record of 92-13 included 56 straight wins at home. In 1981 he became a Gophers assistant to head coach Jim Dutcher for whom he had played his final two seasons. He stayed five seasons with the Gophers, helping them to the 1982 Big Ten championship. Then it was two more years of assistant coaching at Tulsa.

After Tulsa he went into the CBA, pro basketball’s minor league and NBA feeder system. His achievements, though, were big time. In seven seasons his teams won two league championships, he was twice named Coach of the Year, and he had a record number of players promoted to the NBA.

By 1995 Flip had proven he was as much a grinder hell-bent for success as a coach as he was as a player. Kevin McHale, the Wolves basketball boss and former teammate with the Gophers, hired Flip to work in the front office but soon switched him to the sidelines as head coach.

It’s no coincidence that the mostly forlorn franchise known as the Timberwolves has experienced its greatest successes under Flip’s direction. In the late 1990s the Wolves looked poised to become one of the league’s elite led by Kevin Garnett, Tom Gugliotta and Steph Marbury. But only Garnett stuck around and the Wolves regrouped early in the new Millennium led by KG, Sam Cassell and Latrell Sprewell. They were on the edge of an NBA title in 2004 when an injury to Cassell derailed plans for a championship parade down Hennepin Avenue.

Any list of the franchise’s 26 years of mistakes has to include the decision to fire Saunders as coach early in the 2004-2005 season. That was a blow to the gut for Flip but by now anyone who knew him realized he would march on to more coaching experiences. There was success in Detroit where his Pistons were annual contenders to win the Eastern Conference. Then there was a stop in Washington D.C. as Wizards coach before he was let go.

Flip was almost 57 when the Wizards said he was out in early 2012, but he was hardly through writing his basketball story. He became a special assistant to the Celtics, worked for ESPN analyzing the NBA and plotted a return to coaching.

That return might have been to his alma mater in 2013. Flip was looking for a job and the Gophers had an opening. He would have been a sensational fit, and not just as a coach but as a recruiter and promoter of the program. He had told me years before that if he ever got back into college coaching he would revive the Harlem Globetrotters-like pregame ball handling show he had been part of at Minnesota under Musselman. The show was a knockout and amped fans to near craziness by game time.

In 2013 Flip interviewed for the Gophers job with athletic director Norwood Teague and his basketball administrator Mike Ellis. The interview went no where including a disagreement over Flip’s authority to hire a staff. I was told Flip was willing to take the job at a modest salary and willing to donate $500,000 toward the cost of a new practice facility. The same source also said Flip did want bonus compensation based on the box office success of his team.

Teague should have given Flip just about anything he asked for. That’s how big time deals are made. Go ask Michigan how they were able to bring Jim Harbaugh back to the Big House. Do a little homework on how the Blue Devils keep “Coach K” at Duke. Teague was a flop as Minnesota’s AD and the half-hearted effort to land Flip is one of the now departed administrator’s failures.

Glen Taylor (Photo courtesy of Timberwolves)

Soon after the Gophers’ opportunity fell through in 2013 Flip was rehired by the Wolves, this time as the basketball authority in charge of personnel and other decisions. He negotiated a part ownership of the Wolves with lead owner Glen Taylor who also gave Flip the coaching job in 2014 when Rick Adelman retired.

Flip not only knew how to coach, he was a savvy talent evaluator. In the last couple of years he undid some of the damage left by overmatched general manager David Kahn. His acquisition of young players Andrew Wiggins, Karl-Anthony-Towns and Zach LaVine has put hope back into spirits of the fan base. The Wolves are no longer the laughingstock of the league and have the foundation to build a playoff team.

This season was going to be Flip’s next step in the resurrection of the Wolves. He had big plans and likely would have been interested in eventually expanding his share of team ownership. He reached out awhile ago to big money guys like Dr. Bill McGuire about possible ownership if Taylor went through with plans to sell.

Flip was always ready to do what was needed, whether it was Xs and Os, college scouting, NBA trades, pitching potential owners, or marketing his team to the fans and media with public appearances and news gatherings. He was a basketball icon who did it all while earning tens of millions of dollars.

Now the tributes to the man who died at the height of his influence are coming from all over the map. Ironically one came from Marbury who played only a couple of seasons for Flip before bolting out of town and blowing up a potential Wolves championship. Yesterday the former point guard wrote this on Instagram about his ex-mentor:

“I thank you for giving me my foundation in how to play the professional way. I thank you for giving me unconditional love as if I were your son when I was so young. …What an impact you’ve had on so many humans on earth.”

Flip worked his way up from the bottom. Played so many roles. Touched so many lives. He won’t just be missed. He won’t be replaced.

Comments Welcome

U Legend Predicts Big Ten Football Title

Posted on October 21, 2015October 21, 2015 by David Shama

Bobby Bell predicts the football Gophers will win a Big Ten championship in the next couple of years. “I believe in what they’re doing,” Bell told Sports Headliners.

Bell was a two-time All-American tackle for Minnesota in 1961-1962. He won the 1962 Outland Trophy as the nation’s most outstanding lineman. Gophers football historians place him at or near the top of any list of the program’s greatest players.

Although he lives in the Kansas City area, Bell was in town last weekend for the Gophers game on Saturday, and to watch the Chiefs, his former NFL team, take on the Vikings. He was asked if Minnesota can win the Big Ten in the next five years?

“Oh, yeah,” Bell answered. “I would say in another year or two. …”

Bell not only believes in head coach Jerry Kill but also bases his optimism about the program’s future on the support for athletics by University of Minnesota president Eric Kaler. Another reason Bell is upbeat about the Gophers is the commitment to build new football facilities that will help with recruiting.

When Bell watches Minnesota he sees a roster that is only a few key players away from being “trouble” for the rest of the Big Ten. More talent and the coaching of Kill and staff will deliver a title, he believes.

Bell was a great athlete who also played basketball for the Gophers. In college he was 6-4 and about 225 pounds, and he could play multiple positions. He competed during an era when freshmen weren’t eligible for varsity competition and during his first fall at Minnesota he played quarterback on the frosh team.

Coach Murray Warmath switched the Shelby, North Carolina native to tackle because highly recruited Sandy Stephens was a year ahead of Bell in eligibility and was establishing himself at quarterback. If Stephens, who was a 1961 All-American, hadn’t been at Minnesota, could Bell have been an All-American quarterback?

“Yeah, I think so,” Bell answered. “I played every position. I told them, wherever you need me, I’ll play. If you can coach (the position), I can play it, so they switched me from quarterback to offensive tackle, defensive end, center. I could have played them all. I did the same things in the pros, too. Played anywhere.”

Bell was the important player during the last dominant era of Minnesota football. From 1960-1962 the Gophers won Big Ten and national championships. They played in two Rose Bowls, winning the 1962 game 21-3 against UCLA. In a three year stretch the team’s record was 22 wins, 6 losses and 1 tie. Minnesota only lost four conference games from 1960-1962.

The 1962 team lost the Big Ten title in the last game of the season when an official made a controversial call on Bell for roughing the Wisconsin passer. The penalty helped set up the winning fourth quarter touchdown for the Badgers in the 14-9 game played in Madison. Bell, his teammates and Warmath never got over that game they felt was taken away from them.

Later that fall Bell met John F. Kennedy who had seen the game. It didn’t take the president long to tell Bell he thought the Gophers got “a raw deal.”

All these years later that’s small consolation for a Big Ten title lost. No doubt Bell looks forward to his prediction about Kill’s first conference title coming true.

Worth Noting

The Gophers basketball team will have a free scrimmage open to the public on Sunday at Williams Arena. The scrimmage begins at 4 p.m. with doors opening at 3:30 p.m. After the scrimmage players and coaches will sign autographs in the concourse. Minnesota’s opening game, an exhibition against Minnesota Crookston, is on November 1 at Williams Arena.

Wolves rookie Karl-Anthony Towns and 21-year veteran Kevin Garnett are on one of the regional covers of Sports Illustrated’s NBA preview. The magazine has printed four covers and the issue with Towns and Garnett is for sale on newsstands starting today.

The Timberwolves played the Bucks last night in Madison and will see the same team in a final preseason game Friday evening in Minneapolis. The Bucks roster includes former Robbinsdale Cooper star Rashad Vaughn who has been among the rookie scoring leaders in the NBA, frequently totaling double figures.

The coaching staff includes ex-Cretin-Derham Hall and St. Thomas player Sean Sweeney. He has worked his way up in the coaching profession, having started with assistant positions at Anoka-Ramsey Community College and the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.

“It’s really kind of a cool story,” said Steve Fritz, who coached Sweeney at St. Thomas from 2001-2006. “He was our point guard. You could tell he was a student of the game.”

Sweeney was director of basketball operations at the University of Evansville and video coordinator at Northern Iowa before joining the NBA’s Nets in December of 2011 as the team’s assistant video coordinator. He was named a Bucks assistant to head coach Jason Kidd in 2014 and is known for his defensive knowledge. “He certainly lives the game,” said Fritz.

Fritz, 66, is in his 25th year as the St. Thomas athletic director. He retired as men’s basketball coach in 2011.

Dan O’Brien, Gophers senior associate athletic director, said his teenage son Casey had a successful surgery for cancer recently. In November the plan is for chemotherapy and then to be cancer free.

Todd Richards, the former Wild head coach now leading the Blue Jackets, has the only winless team in the NHL. The 0-7 Blue Jackets have given up a league high 34 goals, and play the Wild tomorrow night at Xcel Energy Center. Richards, a Crystal, Minnesota native, coached the Wild from 2009-2011.

The Wild have 12 players on the 23-man roster who are 25 or younger. That nucleus will be a key to sustaining playoff success on an annual basis. The youngest player is 21-year-old defenseman Matt Dumba, while the oldest is 37-year-old goalie Niklas Backstrom, who the Wild no doubt would like to swap in the right trade.

It’s a disappointing end to the season for Eagan High School alum Zach Zenner who made the Lions roster as an undrafted rookie free agent. Zenner suffered cracked ribs and a collapsed lung in the first half of Sunday’s Lions win over the Bears. He had been playing on special teams and as a reserve running back, gaining 60 yards on 17 carries.

The 3-2 Vikings, who play the 1-5 Lions in Detroit on Sunday, won the first game between the two teams, 26-16. The Vikings are 70-36-2 all-time against the Lions, including 31-22-1 in Detroit.

Any transplanted Minnesota sports fans now living in the Phoenix area have to be looking forward to an odd scheduling stretch in December. The Vikings play the Cardinals in suburban Glendale on December 10, the Wild have a game in Glendale against the Coyotes December 11, and then the Timberwolves are hosted by the Suns December 13 in Phoenix.

Twins fans can take encouragement from the Royals who are in the playoffs and trying to make the World Series for a second consecutive season. From 2003 through 2012 the Royals lost 90-plus games eight times, according to Wikipedia. Three of those seasons they lost over 100 games. The Royals rebuilt their roster and farm system through the draft—like the Twins are doing after 90-plus loss seasons from 2011-2014. This year the Twins improved to 83-79.

Although an official announcement granting Minnesota a Major League Soccer franchise is expected soon, it’s not known yet what the first year of operation will be. Minnesota and one other market are expected to be awarded a franchise.

Among the interesting facts about the MLS is the upper range of team payrolls is about $19 million. The most successful teams in the standings right now have payrolls of about $4 million.

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