David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Gopher Lapses Bring End to Season

Posted on March 17, 2017March 17, 2017 by David Shama

Talk about avoiding foul trouble is the easy part. Doing it is often difficult. Just ask the Gophers who lost their NCAA Tournament opening game yesterday in Milwaukee, 81-72 to Middle Tennessee State.

Gophers center Reggie Lynch and power forward Jordan Murphyhave experienced foul problems in games this year. Earlier this week Murphy was asked about avoiding fouls and staying on the court, not heading to the bench because of concern regarding a third, fourth or fifth infraction. “I think me and Reggie both have to do a better job of just feeling out the refs and what they’re going to call, and how they’re going to let us play,” Murphy said Tuesday.

The Gophers, a No. 5 seed, trailed only by six points at halftime yesterday against the No. 12 seed Blue Raiders. About four minutes into the second half, Murphy, Lynch, and Eric Curry—a key backup at power forward and center—were all in foul trouble. Lynch, who sat out the final eight minutes of the first half because of two fouls, picked up his third within the first two minutes of the second half. The foul came on an unnecessary reach in, and was Lynch’s second misguided foul of the game.

After leading 37-31 at halftime, the Blue Raiders, with Lynch on the bench, raced to a 52-38 lead by 15:31 of the second half.

Lynch came into the game second among NCAA players in blocks. He sent a message in the opening minutes that he was going to be a force inside and the Gophers got off to a 7-0 lead. But after awhile Lynch was benched because of fouls and his replacement, Curry, got lost on defense and allowed easy layups.

Gophers coach Richard Pitino expressed disappointment with Lynch and the total defensive effort on his postgame radio show. “We didn’t have our defense the way it needed to be,” Pitino said on 1500 ESPN. “Reggie, we needed him in the game. He gets that third foul just inexplicably. So we ran out of gas, but we just were not guarding. … They’re a very good team. Give them credit.”

The Blue Raiders, a tourney bracket-buster favorite after opening game upsets the last two years against Michigan State and Minnesota, shot the ball impressively, surprised with their rebounding, and at times confounded the Gophers with a half court trap defense. The Blue Raiders also showed off a roster of players with length and multiple skills.

Former Gophers coach Jim Dutcher, who had picked Minnesota to win, was impressed with the Blue Raiders after the game. “They really execute in their half court offense,” Dutcher told Sports Headliners. “Once they got in rhythm, we couldn’t stop them.”

The foul trouble, Dutcher acknowledged, was a major factor in Minnesota’s loss. “When you take your shot blocker out, it makes a heck of a difference,” he said.

The fouls on Lynch, Murphy and Curry changed not only how the team performed, but how those three could play. Foul trouble impacts team assignments and substitutions. It changes aggressiveness, how players can guard and willingness to help teammates. Sometimes it impacts final game results, as was true yesterday.

It was a season of runs for the Gophers including both a five-game Big Ten losing streak and a stretch of eight league wins in a row. In the Big Ten tournament Minnesota got an opening win over Michigan State but a troubling defensive effort against Michigan resulted in an 84-77 loss.

Minnesota finishes with a 24-10 record and those numbers do shine compared with last year’s 8-23 total. With a rebound year and almost the entire roster of players returning next fall, Dutcher suggested that while yesterday’s loss “stings,” it needs to be kept in perspective.

Worth Noting

Pitino’s contract has multiple NCAA Tournament incentives. He earned $50,000 for having his team invited to the tourney and would have received $50,000 more if the Gophers qualified for the Sweet 16. A Final Four spot for the Gophers would pay him $50,000, with $100,000 rewarded for winning the national championship.

There is a small photo of Gophers guard Nate Mason on this week’s Sports Illustrated collage cover of various NCAA players—“March Madness ’17, Where’s Your Team?”

Tournament teams pore over scouting reports and game films of their opponents but there’s little preparation for specific referees and their styles of officiating. The officials aren’t known to teams until 30 minutes prior to tipoff.

A spokesman for the Gophers athletic department said the University of Minnesota received and sold 450 tickets from the NCAA for South Region games in Milwaukee. Tickets are priced at $152 to $200, and they admit patrons to two rounds of basketball. The NCAA doesn’t offer student tickets for its men’s NCAA Tournament games.

Conference USA-based Middle Tennessee State isn’t exactly a University of Minnesota rival, but the two schools meet in football September 16 at TCF Bank Stadium. The first game ever between the programs was in 2010 in Murfreesboro, with the second meeting in 2014 at TCF Bank Stadium. Minnesota is 2-0 against the Blue Raiders.

The Winthrop team Butler defeated yesterday in a South Region game has a roster that includes brothers and Duluth natives Anders Broman and Bjorn Broman. Both are guards, with Bjorn usually a starter.

Dick Jonckowski, who retired this month after 31 seasons as the Gopher public address announcer at Williams Arena, is doing P.A. work this week for the girls’ state basketball tournament and will work the boys’ tourney next week.

Former Timberwolves basketball boss David Kahn is a potential candidate for the UNLV athletic director job, according to an online story last Tuesday by Mark Anderson with the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Eric Musselman, the son of former Wolves and Gophers head coach Bill Musselman, has re-invented himself as a college coach. Musselman coached in the NBA from 1998-2007 but now as head coach at Nevada had the Wolf Pack in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 10 years. Nevada lost its tourney opener last night to Iowa State.

Retiring linebacker Chad Greenway of the Vikings will help lead 10,000 volunteers working the February 4, 2018 Super Bowl in Minneapolis.

There will be 300 feet of security surrounding U.S. Bank Stadium for the game, with between 100,000 and 130,000 out of town visitors expected, according to a source helping with planning. Nicollet Mall will be a major site of pre-Super Bowl game attractions, with eight to 10 blocks of activities.

Byron Buxton is listed No. 10 among 10 MLB players who could have breakout seasons in 2017, according to a March 8 story by Fansided.com. The article said the Twins rushed Buxton to the big leagues but the athletic center fielder has the potential to hit 30 doubles, 10 triples, 20 home runs and steal 30 bases.

Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens will be among the more interesting and entertaining speakers at the Minnesota Football Coaches Association Clinic March 30-April 1. Teevens has been a guest on the “Late Show” with Stephen Colbert. Since modifying Dartmouth practices to reduce injuries, Teevens’ teams are 21-9 and shared the Ivy League championship in 2015.

Teevens will speak at the DoubleTree Hotel in St. Louis Park the night of March 30. More information is available about the clinic by clicking on the MFCA advertisement on this page and visiting the organization’s website.

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Look Out! My Best Golf Year Coming Up

Posted on March 15, 2017March 15, 2017 by David Shama

They say it’s healthy to laugh at yourself. My theory is that’s why God gave us golf.

For a long time I spent more hours on tennis courts than golf courses. When I started dating the woman who would become my wife, she got me interested in golf after a long reprieve from the sport.

Golf was something we enjoyed together, and Jeanne confesses she liked having a better score than I did. These days I usually have the lower score and at times I hear some salty language from her. “You use salty language, too,” my wife said the other day.

Okay, I do let loose with a “gosh darn it,” or something more dramatic. I occasionally get pissed while playing golf and if I wasn’t so cheap I probably would hurl a club into the woods, or (gasp) break an iron over my knee.

As I have “matured,” I spend more time laughing at myself than swearing at the game sometimes referred to as a “good walk spoiled.” Golf just gets the best of me and I’ve come to realize it. I have been trying to score in the upper 90’s since Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky were in the White House. I will probably still be trying to crack that target when Chelsea Clinton is announcing a run for president.

This time of year I am always optimistic about improving my game. “My best golf season is just ahead,” I say to myself again and again. To start the hoped-for improvement, I read a tattered card that has all the wisdom I’ve gathered about how to play the game. Handwritten notes with stuff like shoulder and hip turns, following through with every club, and imagining where I want the ball to land. I might even have something pretty drastic on that card like promising the Lord I will go to church every Sunday if He could help me par the last three holes on the back nine.

All this preseason optimism and planning sounds good until I hit a few shots at the driving range, or play that first round of the season. I notice at the range a lot of strangers are friendly and try to engage me in conversation. I suspect seeing my swing makes them feel better about their own games. Kind of an odd way to be of service to others, I guess.

People tell me to keep my head down when swinging. I finally have caught on as to why they give me that advice. With my head down, I can’t see them laughing.

My swing is somewhere between Charles Barkley’s grotesque mechanics and your average adult hacker who takes up the sport at 40 years old. Get the picture? I know it’s not a pretty one.

I can put a few good holes together now and then. Conditions, though, have to be right. It has to be hot outside but not suffocating. There has to be brilliant sunshine but no wind. God, no wind! And I need certain playing partners.

I can’t be playing with someone who crowds you on the tee box, or tells you the ball you just hit into the swamp was from a pretty good swing. Playing golf with my sons gives me the optimal opportunity to have a decent score.

My explanation is they make me more relaxed, and because we seldom play together my mood is jubilant. I am in kind of a different zone when in their company, and it reminds me somewhat of an experience I had years ago playing tennis. For about 15 minutes I was making serves and ground strokes that were light years better than my usual game. I was hitting the tennis ball so well John McEnroe would cower in a corner before taking the court against me.

Although I mostly struggle on the golf course, my math is accurate when I keep score. This is not true for all golfers when they record their scores hole by hole. Some players, for instance, can’t count beyond three or four. If appropriate, I can count much higher.

A friend of mine once played in a televised pro-am tournament. He totaled 11 shots on one of the holes, is how I remember this story. A few days later my hacker friend encountered a neighbor who mentioned he watched the tournament on TV and saw the struggles. My friend replied he had “nine blows” on his Titanic hole. “No, you had 11,” the neighbor corrected.

Through the years I have been tempted to improve my score “through creative means.” There was, for example, the Father’s Day card that suggested “new golf rules.” Courtesy of Tomato Cards and my son Bill, it suggested that:

“Every drive is a practice drive until you get one you like.”

“Chipping on the green will be replaced by an underhand toss.”

“If in a trap, your sand wedge may now be replaced by your sand shovel.”

Those “strategies” are tempting to a guy who watches golfers that have recorded more eagles over the years than I have pars. But I will stay on the straight and narrow. After all, 2017 is going to be my best year on the links.

Wink, wink.

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Opponent Gets Hype, But Gophers to Win

Posted on March 13, 2017March 13, 2017 by David Shama

Jim Dutcher disagrees with those who think the Gophers, a No. 5 seed, are going to lose their opening NCAA Tournament game on Thursday to No. 12 seed Middle Tennessee State.

The Blue Raiders are an upset fave after being a No. 15 seed last year and taking down No. 2 seed Michigan State. Charles Barkley, talking on the CBS TV tournament selection show yesterday, said the Raider upset was “no fluke” and argued that the 2017 Conference USA champions, with a 30-4 overall record, should be seeded higher. Seth Davis, also part of the CBS analysis crew, had bad news for Gophers fans: “The Blue Raiders are going to win this game.”

Dutcher, the former Gophers coach who led Minnesota to the 1982 Big Ten title, isn’t buying Davis’ prediction. “I look for the Gophers to win the game,” Dutcher said.

Dutcher is optimistic because he says the facts show Minnesota is better than the Blue Raiders, and what MTSU did last year needs to be put in perspective. The Gophers, 24-9 overall, played a much more difficult schedule than the Blue Raiders, a team that hardly played a “whose who of college basketball.” MTSU’s signature win was over Vanderbilt, a team the Gophers also defeated, and Minnesota counted impressive wins over Big Ten champion Purdue and four other league teams who earned their way into the NCAA tournament. Minnesota’s strength of schedule is No. 42 while the Blue Raiders’ is No. 120, according to Teamrankings.com.

Yes, the Raiders had a Cinderella tournament win against Michigan State but Dutcher remembered that was followed by a 25 point loss to Syracuse. “They’re a 12th seed (this year) for a reason,” he said.

Dutcher called MTSU a “bracket-busting darling” to some tourney followers, but he points out the Blue Raiders got that Michigan State win when there were no expectations. Some of the basketball world is looking for an encore performance against the Gophers. MTSU had bad losses, including to Georgia State and UTEP, but odds-makers figure the Minnesota game is about a toss-up. Dutcher concedes the Blue Raiders are a “good team” but just doesn’t expect history to repeat. “They’re not going to sneak up on anybody (this year),” he said.

Tournament games are typically close in score, with the margin of victory often 10 points or less. Dutcher believes Minnesota will win by six or seven points. “I would be amazed if they don’t beat Middle Tennessee State,” he said.

The NCAA selection committee couldn’t have been kinder to the Gophers, sending them to Milwaukee for Thursday’s South Region game and giving them a surprising No. 5 seeding. Milwaukee is the nearest site to Dinkytown of any tournament host city in the country. A six hour drive from Minneapolis to Milwaukee will maximize the turnout of Gophers fans for Thursday’s game like no place else would have.

Other than Purdue, who received a No. 4 seed in the Midwest Region, the Gophers have the highest seeding among the seven Big Ten teams invited to the tournament. That’s a two hands head scratcher to Wisconsin followers who saw the Badgers beat the Gophers twice and finish higher in the Big Ten final standings. Former Badger All-American Frank Kaminsky took to Twitter last night to blast the selection committee not giving more value to Wisconsin’s second place regular season conference finish and runner-up placement in Sunday’s Big Ten Tournament. Kaminsky tweeted: “AND MINNESOTA GETS A 5 SEED?? HAHAHAHA….”

“If I was sitting in Madison, I would say we really got hosed with an eighth seed,” Dutcher said. “An eight was way too low for them.”

The tourney selection committee, though, must have looked long and hard at Wisconsin’s RPI of 36. Minnesota’s position on the Ncaa.com/rankings is No. 20.

Part of the seeding story for Big Ten teams is not only who you play in the first game, but also in the second and beyond. If the Gophers beat the Blue Raiders, they likely will play a good but certainly beatable 23-8 Butler team from the Big East. Butler is a No. 4 seed.

If the Badgers can win (no certainty) their opener against No. 9 seed Virginia Tech, they can expect to play No. 1 overall tournament seed Villanova. Purdue is likely to play Iowa State in a second tournament game, and the Cyclones are among the hottest teams in the country and just won the Big 12 Tournament. If they advance after opening games, Northwestern will likely play No. 1 West Region seed Gonzaga; Michigan State will probably meet up with No. 1 Midwest Region seed Kansas; Michigan could have to face that region’s No. 2 seed in Louisville; and Maryland may have to take on Florida State, a No. 3 seed in the East Region.

“On paper the Gophers got a very favorable seeding with not only who they play, but where they play,” Dutcher said.

Dutcher is optimistic about the Gophers but there is a limit. He doesn’t see them in the finals next month. He predicts the Final Four teams will be Arizona, Louisville, UCLA and Villanova. The national champion, he said, will be UCLA.

“I saw a game where they beat (basketball blueblood) Kentucky in Lexington and dominated the game,” Dutcher said. “I thought, ‘Holy cripe.’ To beat Kentucky is a handful anyplace. In Lexington is near impossible.”

Barkley’s Final Four teams are Arizona, Louisville, North Carolina and Villanova. He predicts Arizona, a Pac-12 team like UCLA, will win the national title.

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