Wild – Page 44 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Will Lynx Reach Out to Maya Moore?

Posted on March 11, 2020March 11, 2020 by David Shama

Enjoy a Wednesday notes column with newsmakers Maya Moore, Gabe Kalscheur, Kirk Cousins, Sid Hartman and others.

It might just be that the Minnesota Lynx are formulating a compensation offer to entice Maya Moore back to the roster. Moore, known as the greatest winner in the history of women’s basketball, took a sabbatical last season to focus on criminal justice reform and expectations are she will miss the upcoming 2020 season, too. But a new agreement between the WNBA and the players association may have the Lynx front office thinking about a new contract offer to their missing superstar.

In January an eight-year Collective Bargaining Agreement was announced that raises pay 53 percent. Average WNBA salaries will reach six figures for the first time, with salaries for top players tripling and stars able to potentially earn more than $500,000.

In Moore’s first WNBA years of 2011 and 2012 she reportedly earned about $45,000 with the Lynx. Spotrac.com lists her most recent salary with Minnesota at $117,000. With the new CBA agreement players can earn a maximum salary of $215,000 but with other approved WNBA benefits the total can potentially exceed $500,000.

Moore turns 31 in June and while no one doubts her dedication to helping others, she may view the increased compensation as tempting and consider a return to the court with her playing days beginning to dwindle. Another factor perhaps influencing Moore’s thinking about a return to Minnesota is that a judge overturned the conviction Monday of a Missouri man whose case she has been championing.

Moore, who helped the Lynx win four WNBA titles, has been a major contributor to championship NCAA and Olympic teams. The Lynx begin the regular season May 15 at Chicago.

Gulp! This marketplace feasts on Vikings news and the next 12 months will have fans “gorging.” NFL free agency starts next week and the salary cap challenged Vikings will make additions and subtractions to their roster (including prominent names). The NFL Draft in April will be must-see TV viewing for the Purple faithful with most fans hoping the team’s No. 25 selection in the first round will be for a cornerback or offensive lineman. Also in the months ahead will be the drama surrounding GM Rick Spielman and coach Mike Zimmer, both operating on one-year contracts.

Quarterback Kirk Cousins’ contract ends after next season and media speculation this week has him potentially ending up with the 49ers in 2021. If so, might Teddy Bridgewater return to Purple land? Now with the Saints, Bridgewater becomes a free agent later this month and could sign a one-year deal with a new club.

University of Minnesota men’s basketball had a 16-game average of 10,232 announced attendance for home games this season. That is the lowest since the program had an average of 8,395 during the 1970-1971 season.

The Gophers, playing their seventh season under head coach Richard Pitino, had one sellout at Williams Arena, with an announced attendance of 14,625 against Iowa.

Nebraska coach Fred Hoiberg talking about the deep Big Ten with many quality teams and the conference tournament that starts tonight with the Minnesota-Northwestern game: “Be as good a tournament as there is.”

Minnesota defeated the Wildcats twice during the regular season, 77-68 in Minneapolis and 83-57 in Evanston.

Gophers sophomore guard Gabe Kalscheur, known for his three-point shooting, has expanded his offensive style late in the season by driving more to the basket, and has scored 40 points in his last two games. “Nobody works harder than Gabe,” said Pitino.

Sid Hartman’s 100th birthday is Sunday, March 15 and his longtime radio home, WCCO, will be celebrating with programming from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. that day.

The Meet Mikko Koivu event scheduled for yesterday at Fan HQ’s Ridgedale Center store was postponed to a later date because of NHL policy regarding the Coronavirus. No date has been announced yet for an appearance by the Minnesota Wild veteran.

No. 2 nationally ranked Minnesota State and No. 12 Bemidji host WCHA playoff games starting Friday. Both Minnesota programs are 2020 Frozen Four contenders for the NCAA title. They host Michigan Tech and Bowling Green (Ohio) respectively this weekend.

Bowling Green is coached by Ty Eigner, brother of St. Thomas Academy boys’ hockey coach Trent Eigner. Before going to Bemidji the Falcons were scheduled yesterday to practice at the Academy and today at Braemar Arena.

There might not be a more frequent supporter of various Gopher sports than retired U athletic director Joel Maturi who attends as many events as possible.

Look for NCAA wrestling attendance records to be broken when the NCAA Championships are held at US Bank Stadium March 19-21.

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Timberwolves Owner Sets Tone for 2021

Posted on March 6, 2020March 6, 2020 by David Shama

The Timberwolves, with a 19-42 record, haven’t met the early season expectations of owner Glen Taylor who believed his team would make the 2020 playoffs as one of the NBA’s lower seeds. Instead, they have endured a 13-game losing streak this winter and won just four of their last 24 games.

Ryan Saunders, 33, had never been an NBA or college head coach prior to being named Tom Thibodeau’s replacement to lead the Wolves in January of 2019. He was interim head coach before being named permanently to the position in May of last year. His career record is 36-67 and Minnesota will finish the season in April with one of the NBA’s most dismal totals of wins and losses.

In a telephone interview with Sports Headliners yesterday, Taylor was asked about Saunders’ future. “I think he will be back (next season) for sure,” Taylor said.

Gersson Rosas, the president of basketball operations, shook up the roster in February and added eight new players. Taylor believes the revised personnel will be a better fit for Saunders’ coaching style that includes a fast offensive pace and emphasis on three-point shots. The owner wants to see how the team looks next season after Saunders and his coaching staff have a summer and a training camp to prepare players.

“I think next year our expectations will be higher,” Taylor said. “We will expect results that are significantly better than what we’ve gotten his year. But I think we have to give him (Saunders) that chance.”

The coaching staff has new assistants this season and Taylor empathizes with them and Saunders because of all the work they invest with minimal results in wins and losses. “…But I haven’t seen them pout or I haven’t seen them be negative, or do any of those things,” Taylor said. “They always say good things about the players. They say they’re really proud of what they’re doing. They’ve said they like all the new guys that we’ve brought (in).”

The Wolves won three straight games to open the season last fall. Minnesota was 7-4 after the first 11 games but losing set in partially because star center Karl-Anthony Towns was absent. He has missed the last eight games with a wrist injury and earlier in the season was out with a knee injury. He has been available for only 35 of the team’s 61 games, while averaging a career-best 26.5 points and 10.8 rebounds.

There is speculation Towns is not committed to the Wolves organization, despite signing a five-year contract extension last September. He has been mentioned this winter in NBA trade rumors.

Taylor insists Towns is on board for the long term. Taylor said, “We talk about that. He just says, ‘You’re doing everything that I could ask for to enhance my ability to perform well, and therefore I want to stay with this team.’ ”

Towns and Taylor converse frequently. The owner said they have a relationship that dates back to the Wolves making Towns the No. 1 overall NBA draft choice in 2015. Taylor is friendly with not only Towns, but his family. Also, Taylor said Towns likes playing for Saunders, and is enthused about the revised roster that includes his friend D’Angelo Russell who joined the team in February. “He (Towns) wants to get out there (on court) really bad,” Taylor said.

Worth Noting

Forbes.com lists the 2020 value of the Timberwolves franchise at $1.375 billion, ranking No. 28 among 30 clubs. Taylor bought the franchise in 1994 for $88 million but is not pursuing someone to buy him out. His observation over the years is NBA franchises sell for more than their Forbes valuation.

Would he give up the club for $2 billion? “Yeah, I’ll take it,” he said with amusement.

Taylor has several limited partners in his ownership group and said a few might want to sell. He has accepted inquiries since January 1 from “some parties” interested in replacing existing investors.

Brian Dutcher, the Bloomington, Minnesota native who is coaching the San Diego State Aztecs to a 29-1 record, was the subject of a USA Today major feature yesterday.

Hockey authority Kevin Gorg believes the Wild’s Kevin Fiala can become a 40 to 50 goal per season scorer. The 23-year-old forward is having a late winter breakout performance including four goals last week. “He’s been amazing,” Gorg told Sports Headliners.

For 58 seasons Ron Stolski coached football in Minnesota, teaching his players about the game he loves and lessons in life. Stolski, who coached 45 years at Brainerd High School, leaves a prep football legacy in the state and will be honored at a retirement celebration April 4 at Cragun’s Legacy Clubhouse in Brainerd.

Also a longtime leader of the Minnesota Football Coaches Association, the 80-year-old Stolski has been a force in the campaign to make high school football in the state the best experience it can be for players and coaches. Whether it’s clinics, the All-Star Game, the Mr. Football Award or raising funds for cancer research, the Minneapolis native has been involved with varied impactful projects.

I have known Stolski for decades and I am grateful for his words of encouragement through the years. He will be remembered as one of the state’s longest tenured and winningest coaches with 389 career victories, but even more so for how he inspired and related to thousands of Minnesotans.

Rob Hunegs, owner of Twin Cities Sports Cards in Golden Valley, emailed that Yordan Alvarez (Astros), Bo Bichette (Blue Jays) and Gavin Lux (Dodgers) are hot rookies in the new Topps Series 1. Players from past decades are also in the series.

Dave Mona, the WCCO Radio “Sports Huddle” host, has been playing golf for more than 50 years and he shot the best round of his life recently, recording a 79 at the Westin Kierland Golf Club in Scottsdale.

Gophers fans have asked about featuring tight ends more in the team’s passing game. Coach P.J. Fleck said on last Sunday’s “Sports Huddle” the 2020 team has the tight end depth and talent to command more of the gameday playbook.

Phil Esten, St. Thomas athletic director, speaks to the Minnesota Breakfast group March 13 in Naples, Florida. Started 56 years ago by prominent Minnesotans vacationing in SW Florida, the group meets regularly during the winter and hears from Minnesota newsmakers in sports and other fields. Twins executives Dave St. Peter and Derek Falvey spoke February 21.

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Brian Dutcher Underpaid in San Diego

Posted on March 1, 2020March 1, 2020 by David Shama

If offered, Bloomington native Brian Dutcher almost certainly would have accepted the University of Minnesota men’s basketball coaching job in the past. Minnesota has hired three head coaches during the 21 years that Dutcher has been in San Diego, including 18 as an assistant for the San Diego State Aztecs and the last three as head coach for the west coast power.

If the Gophers’ job were to open this month, it’s unknown whether Dutcher will be interested despite earning a reportedly modest salary of $855,424. That amount is not even the most in the Mountain West Conference and about one-third of what Minnesota coach Richard Pitino is paid. Pitino has a seven-year 47-79 Big Ten regular season record.

Dutcher, son of former Gopher Big Ten championship coach Jim Dutcher, has his Aztecs at 28-1 this winter. The Aztecs, ranked among the nation’s elite teams, were the only undefeated major college team in late February before losing their first game.

Other schools are certain to come calling on Brian Dutcher after the season, but even if Minnesota has an opening it could well be that Gopher athletic director Mark Coyle doesn’t make him a target. Dutcher is not only an outstanding coach and recruiter but a high character individual. He also has a minimal contract buyout of a reported $950,000. However, Dutcher turns 61 years old in October, and Coyle could favor a young hire like he did when abruptly firing head football coach Tracy Claeys and replacing him with 36-year-old P.J. Fleck in 2017.

The Aztecs are expected to soon offer Dutcher a considerable salary bump, although there are budgetary restraints on a school like San Diego State that doesn’t receive rich revenues from its football program, nor its conference. He and his family have learned to love San Diego after living there for more than two decades. Whether Dutcher wants to coach five or ten more years, he might well want to stay in San Diego, even though it will never be a job that can pay like the lucrative athletic departments in the Big Ten and elsewhere.

Of course it is speculation now where Dutcher will be two months ahead, and whether the U will even have an offer for him. But a Dutcher homecoming to Minnesota and a program where his dad once coached, surrounded by his father and two sisters who live in the Twin Cities, would be a special story line. The one certainty now is the window is closing fast on the possibility of another Dutcher ever coaching the Gophers.

Worth Noting

This Florida visitor was recently impressed with the customer service at Hammond Stadium in Fort Myers where the Twins play their spring training games. Friendly and helpful workers abound from the security gates to the press box.

Twins first base coach Tommy Watkins, 39, is a lifer with the organization, having spent 22 seasons with Minnesota as a player, coach and minor league manager.

TV viewing choices Sunday afternoon include: Twins and Rays on Fox Sports North, or NFL Network coverage of defensive backs (presumably including the Gophers’ Antoine Winfield Jr.) from the NFL Scouting Combine. Draft expert Mel Kiper predicted last month the Vikings will use their first round selection at No. 25 to select Winfield.

Returning as Twins official scorers at Target Field for a sixth consecutive season will be Stew Thornley, Kyle Traynor and Gregg Wong.

The name of Babe Ruth hangs over baseball like no other legend. In 2019 his game-worn jersey from 1928-1930 sold for $5.64 million, breaking the previous record for sports memorabilia of his 1920 jersey that sold for $4.4 million in 2012, according to an email last month from sales@collectiblexchange.com.

The Star Tribune’s Sid Hartman, who turns 100 March 15, will become one of about 80,000 centenarians in the United States.

Michigan State’s overreach this winter to hire Mel Tucker as its football coach could be leverage for more proven coaches like Minnesota’s P.J. Fleck when compensation discussions surface late next fall. Tucker, with one season of head coaching experience during which his record at Colorado was 5-7, will reportedly be paid $5.5 million and much more than predecessor Mark Dantonio, who ranks with the greatest coaches in MSU history. Fleck, who in three years has turned the Gophers into a nationally ranked program, makes $4.6 million.

The Gophers begin spring football practices this week with a session open to the public starting at 4:30 p.m. Friday, March 8 at the Athletes Village.

Wyoming head coach Craig Bohl, who built North Dakota State into a FCS power, will be a featured speaker at the Minnesota Football Clinic March 26-28. The annual clinic, known as among the best in the nation, is a partnership between the Minnesota Football Coaches Association and the Golden Gophers. The MFCA is offering coaches a registration discount through today (March 1) via the organization’s website.

The Hobey Baker Award, started here in 1981 with organizers Chuck Bard and John Justice from the old Decathlon Club in Bloomington, is celebrating its 40th year to honor America’s best college hockey player. Fan voting is available at hobeybaker.com/vote.

The Capital Club will hear from former Minnesota North Star and now Minnesota Wild executive Mike Modano this Tuesday at 317 Washington in St. Paul—the same building that houses the corporate offices of the local NHL franchise. More information about the club is available from Patrick Klinger, patrickklinger@klingercompany.com.

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