Wild – Page 83 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Stumbling Gophers Try Madison Next

Posted on January 25, 2013January 25, 2013 by David Shama

Embarrassing.

There’s not a better word to describe the Gophers’ 55-48 loss to Northwestern on Wednesday night in Evanston. The Wildcats have minimal talent and are playing out the season minus their best player, Drew Crawford. The Gophers have the personnel to dominate the dwarfs of the Big Ten like Northwestern, and to defeat any team in the league.

Northwestern coach Bill Carmody saw his team behind 27-24 at halftime, but he saved a half-court zone trap for the game’s last 20 minutes. The Gophers have faced the same defense for years and often have been ineffective versus the scheme. In Evanston, the Minnesota coaches and players looked baffled again.

Attempting to start the offense, the guards spent precious seconds trying to pass out of double teams. When the Gophers were able to advance toward the basket by dribbling or passing, they found multiple defenders again and couldn’t create scoring opportunities.

More decisive passing and better positioning of players on the floor could have attacked the trap more effectively. Instead Minnesota not only scored just 21 second half points, but also created baskets for Northwestern with turnovers.

The Gophers had 15 turnovers in the game, just about their average of 14.7, highest in the Big Ten. In Madison tomorrow the Gophers will play a Badgers team with the lowest average, 9.1. And while Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan has a team that annually plays virtually mistake free basketball, the Gophers have been talking about eliminating turnovers since last fall.

The Gophers have lost three consecutive games, the first two to top 10 ranked Indiana and Michigan. The dream of chasing a Big Ten championship looks dead seven weeks before the season ends. Minnesota is 3-3 in conference games with likely losses ahead in road games at Wisconsin, Michigan State and Ohio State. The way the Gophers performed against Northwestern—making 33.3 percent of their field goal attempts and 41.2 percent of their free throws—they could lose to a bunch more teams, on the road and at home.

“Unimaginable” was a word Gophers coach Tubby Smith used to describe the three game slide to obscurity. Smith made that comment on his post-game 1500 ESPN radio show on Wednesday night and also expressed frustration that his team wasn’t “mentally tough.”

Last Sunday on WCCO Radio’s “Sports Huddle” he said the team (following the Indiana and Michigan losses) “should really be sitting here at 15-1.” Instead the Gophers are now 15-4 overall and will be plummeting in the A.P. national rankings from their No. 12 spot unless they defeat the Badgers.

Minnesota’s inability to beat the league’s best teams—and even the mediocre ones—is consistent with the Smith era. In five-plus seasons his record in regular season conference games is 41-55.

Last October Smith told Sports Headliners he has three potential NBA first round draft choices in guard Andre Hollins, center Trevor Mbakwe and forward Rodney Williams. But the Gophers are stumbling and a disgruntled fan made this prediction about how only one thing may change from Wednesday night to tomorrow:

“Look for a superstitious team to switch from gold uniforms to maroon.”

Worth Noting

TwinsFest at the Metrodome starts today and ends Sunday afternoon with announced attendance likely to be near 30,000.

With high fan interest and a unique venue to host the event, the annual attendance is the largest in MLB for fan festivals. Profits go to the Twins Community Fund, and this year’s contribution is likely to be $275,000 or more. Since the inception of TwinsFest in 1989 the Community Fund has received more than $4.2 million.

While players from other MLB teams are compensated for their time at similar fan festivals, Twins players are not. Expenses such as airfare are paid by the Twins.

More than 60 current and former Twins, including Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau, are expected to participate during the three day event. TwinsFest opens today at 4 p.m.

The delay to the start of the Wild’s season was frustrating but the team is likely to make fans happy in the coming months, according to a Sports Headliners hockey source who spoke on condition of anonymity. “They have much more depth than they have ever had,” he said. “This is (also) the most talented team in club history. …I don’t see any major weaknesses.”

The Wild, 2-1, play at Detroit tonight and then in St. Louis on Sunday. The source said if the Wild can start 10-2 or 10-3, the club could then play .500 hockey the remainder of the regular schedule and still qualify for the playoffs “where anything can happen.”

He credited general manager Chuck Fletcher with exceptional work in rebuilding the feeder system and already adding outstanding players like Mikael Granlund. “They’ve done a marvelous job,” he said.

Fans are responding enthusiastically to the team, particularly because of adding star performers Zach Parise and Ryan Suter. Last Saturday’s season opener set a TV ratings record for a Wild game on FOX Sports North.

The Wild could sell a lot of season tickets for 2013-2014, although reaching the club’s record high of over 16,000 established several years ago will be a challenge.

St. Thomas men’s basketball coach Johnny Tauer teaches psychology classes so it’s not surprising he can see both aspects of the Tommies’ reputation. The Tommies entered this week ranked No. 1 in the country by D3hoops.com and are 84-9 in their last 93 MIAC games.

Those numbers can command the attention of opponents, even giving the Tommies an edge before the game starts. “Teams can think these guys (the Tommies) are really good,” Tauer said. “The flip side is we get everybody’s best shot.”

Tauer’s recollection is the other team “rushed the court” in celebrations after each of those nine St. Thomas losses. And that includes Monday night’s loss at Concordia, 54-52.

St. Thomas won on Wednesday night, though, defeating St. Mary’s 87-46 while building this season’s record to 17-1 overall and 12-1 in the MIAC. Tomorrow Hamline plays at St. Thomas.

Two years ago the Tommies won the Division III national title when Tauer was an assistant coach. The club featured a senior group, just like the 2013 Tommies. “That team played its best basketball at the end of the year, winning six straight and the national tournament,” Tauer said.

He likes the depth on this year’s team. Asked about a closer to finish out games, the coach said, “We really have eight or nine guys I would be comfortable with taking the shot.”

Gophers’ freshman Adam Wilcox (16-2-4 record) leads the WCHA in wins at 16, winning percentage at .818 and goals against average, 1.72 per game. He’s unbeaten in the last 10 games. The No. 1 ranked Gophers play Minnesota State at home tonight and in Mankato tomorrow night. The two teams split an earlier series this season.

Wild draft choice Erik Haula leads the Gophers in points with 29. Another Wild prospect, Louis Nanne, has 13 goals and 14 assists in 32 games playing for Penticton in Canada.

Golden Valley-based Buffalo Wild Wings has a partnership with the NCAA to be the “Official Hangout of March Madness,” according to a Wednesday email from Cynopsis: Sports.

Happy birthday to KSTP TV’s Darren Doogie Wolfson who was 33 on Sunday.

Comments Welcome

Just No Forgetting Ex-Stars Owner

Posted on January 21, 2013January 23, 2013 by David Shama

I was sitting in a Caribbean restaurant last Wednesday morning eating pancakes when I caught a partial glimpse of the TV screen. Something about the former owner of the NHL San Jose Sharks.

Even before learning the full details approximately 30 minutes later, I was sure one of the Gund brothers had died.

George Gund III, 75, died of cancer in Palm Springs, California last week. The news revived my memories of working for the Gunds in the 1980s.

The two brothers owned the NHL North Stars and operated Met Center. I was involved with marketing both entities, and mostly became acquainted with the Gunds through my boss, the late Frank Jirik.

Frank loved to tell stories including many jokes you couldn’t use in today’s sensitive office environment. A favorite tale was Frank’s story about George’s unpredictable behavior. The way I recall it, George was traveling in Europe with his wife and friends. The group was at an airport waiting for the plane to depart.

“George wanders off, sees a travel poster and takes a flight to that destination without telling anybody where he’s going,” Frank told me.

Several days later word reached George’s family and others as to his whereabouts.

If you didn’t guess by now, George was a character and free spirit. He had bushy eyebrows thick enough to hide the safe deposit box key where his inheritance might have been secured. He also mumbled, and when Frank impersonated George it was high comedy.

George and his brother Gordon grew up in Cleveland where their father, George Gund II, was a wealthy businessman. George II might have been interested to see how George III enjoyed his inheritance. His son loved to travel, collect art, and play hockey, chasing the puck even into his 40’s or maybe 50’s. He was also a well-known philanthropist and long time supporter of the San Francisco Film Society.

An online story in last Tuesday’s Cleveland Plain Dealer by Pat Galbincea recalled that George once suited up as a goalie for a North Stars practice and liked to show off a picture of himself in uniform. The same article referred to the Gund brothers owning the NBA’s Cleveland Cavs for many years and how George enjoyed dropping Cuban cigar ashes on the scorebook of the team’s radio play-by-play guy, Joe Tait.

“He was one unique individual,” Tait said in the story.

George spent time in his adopted hometown of San Francisco. He was also enamored with Squaw Valley, California. Frank and I talked about encouraging either George or Gordon to buy a home in Minneapolis and establish more identity in this community. Never happened, and while Gordon was somewhat of a regular around the Met, I just don’t think Minnesota was very often on George’s world travel itinerary.

In the late 1980’s the North Stars were struggling at the box office. Bad hockey produced bad results on and off the ice. The dress suit season ticket holders crowd from the franchise’s early days had been replaced by single game buyers who often relieved themselves on the sidewalks outside the building.

Frank and I had built our reputations filling the Met Center for concerts, family shows and other events including a Lakers NBA exhibition game. “If there’s one empty seat (for any event) it’s one too many,” I told Frank.

He loved to hear that and shared the statement with Gordon, a capable businessman who was blind because of retinitis pigmentosa. Gordon, who once was featured on TV’s “60 Minutes,” was a pleasant guy who watched the bottom line of his businesses.

Our management team made money for him on the non-hockey events, but we disliked not being profitable with the North Stars. We tried to convince the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission to invest over $10 million in the renovation of Met Center, adding suites and remodeling concourses. After negotiations failed, George and Gordon sold the team to Norm Green and other investors in 1990.

George and Gordon weren’t done with hockey, though. They bought an expansion team for San Jose that began play in the NHL in 1991. The club was and still is the city’s only major league sports franchise. George was popular in San Jose and is fondly remembered among Bay Area residents more than 10 years after selling the Sharks.

Frank moved to San Jose in the early 1990s to continue working for the Gunds. I talked to Frank about joining him in California, but never did.

In the 1990s the Sharks were a new team in a new NHL market with a new arena—a classic “honeymoon” situation. The building was packed for concerts like Pavarotti and Sharks games. Frank might have thought about my mantra, “If there’s one empty seat, it’s one too many.”

If he mentioned it to George and Gordon, I’m sure they were pleased.

Comments Welcome

U Scheduling Keeps Evolving

Posted on October 17, 2012October 17, 2012 by David Shama

Norwood Teague knows the decision to pursue opponents from non-major conferences for future Gophers football schedules is drawing negative feedback but Minnesota’s athletic director tried to explain the decision yesterday.

The Gophers announced this week they are cancelling future games against North Carolina. Now the Gophers don’t have any opponents from the ACC, Big East, Big 12, SEC or Pac-12 on their nonconference schedules for 2013-2016. Many fans and media see the schedules as unattractive, and lessening the value of tickets while setting the on-field competitive bar too low for the Gophers.

Media questioned the wisdom of a soft schedule at Teague’s news conference yesterday. In addition to perception, getting out of the North Carolina games will reportedly cost the Gophers $800,000, although that cost will presumably be at least partially offset by an additional home game. “We feel strongly that in order to build a program in the Big Ten at this level that your kids (players) gotta have confidence, and you don’t want to take on a BCS opponent in your first two to three years out of conference,” Teague said. “We decided to move on (from North Carolina).

“I appreciate the facts and I appreciate the feedback (from fans). I’ve gotten some pretty hotly contested emails and some phone calls, and I understand that.

“We haven’t exactly won at the highest levels of football in the last 45 years. We’re gonna have to make tough decisions. That’s the way it works.”

Gophers coach Jerry Kill, now in his second season at Minnesota and trying to revive a program that hasn’t won a Big Ten title since 1967, believes in a nonconference schedule built around winnable games. Teague arrived last summer as the Gophers athletic director and Kill’s been lobbying his philosophy for awhile now. The result is the Gophers will be playing home games in the coming years against teams like Eastern Illinois, Western Illinois, Indiana State, Kent State and South Dakota State.

Kill’s scheduling philosophy is the same as Bill Snyder, the Kansas State coach who years ago inherited perhaps the worst major college football program in the country and made it a national power. For many seasons Snyder scheduled some of the softest “cupcakes” in America, using the approach as part of his formula to build a program.

The “cupcake” philosophy says your program cannot only pile up wins and team confidence, but probably will minimize injuries and provide more playing time to second and third stringers. Valuable starters log fewer minutes and don’t have so many nasty collisions playing against inferior athletes, and replacements build up experience while adding to team depth.

The ultimate goal is to turn the Gophers into one of the more successful programs in the Big Ten. But Gophers followers know Glen Mason had the same scheduling approach as Kill and Snyder. However, things didn’t work out for Mason who was fired in January of 2007. He had a nonconference record of 29-5 and coached Minnesota to eight bowl games, but his Big Ten record was 32-48. During the Mason era from 1997-2006, the Gophers finished fourth three times but otherwise never placed among the top five teams in the conference.

Mason’s successor, Tim Brewster, had a different approach. He talked about playing a couple of major conference teams during the nonconference schedule each year, including one big name school like Texas. Brewster didn’t win enough to stick around but said his approach would help recruiting and sell lots of tickets.

Teague is a smart administrator and he will watch how scheduling develops in all the high profile sports at Minnesota. After the news conference he told Sports Headliners he wants to be supportive of his coaches but there are limits.

“I will manage it (scheduling) when I think we’re out of bounds on going too far one way or the other,” Teague said. “It’s a tough thing for an AD to manage but I will do the best I can.”

Teague is open to considering more challenging nonconference football opponents further into the future. “We’ll keep working at it,” he said. “I‘ve only been here for three months.”

Worth Noting

Kill said yesterday injured quarterback MarQueis Gray’s availability for Saturday’s game against Wisconsin is in doubt. He also said it’s a “question” whether several others will play including receivers Isaac Fruechete, Marcus Jones and Devin Crawford–Tufts, and also offensive tackle Ed Olson and defensive tackle Roland Johnson. Offensive lineman Foster Bush is “out” for the game while Kill hopes safety Derrick Wells can play.

Kill, who had a seizure reoccurrence on Saturday, looked fit yesterday but he won’t be able to drive a car for awhile because of state motor vehicle law. Dan O’Brien, director of football operations, does much of Kill’s driving anyway.

Perhaps the two most famous living Minnesotans who have experienced seizures are Kill and music superstar Prince.

It wouldn’t be surprising to see new Gophers athletic director Norwood Teague soon add a high profile woman to the re-organized athletic department.

The Wild are sending another communication to season ticket holders this week to RSVP for free admission to the November 18 American Hockey League game at Xcel Energy Center between Houston and Rockford. Houston’s roster includes highly anticipated center prospect Mikael Granlund and Minnesotans Jarod Palmer and Chad Rau. Former Gopher Nick Leddy plays for Rockford and has two assists in two regular season games.

Look for the Gophers to provide playing time to junior Michael Shibrowski and freshman Adam Wilcox early in the season, according to comments made by coach Don Lucia on WCCO radio’s “Sports Huddle” on Sunday. The two goalies each started a game last week when Minnesota earned two wins over Michigan State. The Gophers have their first road series this week, playing at Michigan Tech Friday and Saturday.

Mark this date down for perhaps the best prep boys’ basketball game in December: Tuesday, December 18, Hopkins at Apple Valley.

Pitcher Aroldis Chapman and outfielder Yoenis Cespedes have made headlines for the Reds and Athletics after defecting from Cuba but no one should expect the flood gates to open for baseball Cubans to emigrate to the United States. Cuban born former Twins outfielder Tony Oliva said it’s not easy to leave Cuba but he recalled that “back in the 1950s and 60s Cuba was the No. 1 (foreign) place” where major league baseball players came from.

Oliva, who tries to visit Cuba annually and see relatives, predicted one day the extensive baseball talent in the country could make Cuba a top three provider of talent amomg Latin American nations along with the Dominican Republic and Venezuela.

Oliva played in the minors with Jim Rantz, a former Twins pitcher and longtime farm system executive who announced his retirement on Monday. “He’s so nice it’s unbelievable,” Oliva said. “He’s the same way today he was 50 years ago. Sometimes things change, but he’s the same.”

Former Timberwolves center Darko Milicic is on the Celtics pre-season roster. His uniform number is No. 99. Not a common number but the same as worn by NBA Hall of Famer and former Minneapolis Lakers center George Mikan.

Wolves coach Rick Adelman purchased 500 upper level tickets to give away to fans for tonight’s WNBA Finals game at Target Center between the Lynx and Fever.

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