David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Wolves Make Right Impression

Posted on March 5, 2012March 5, 2012 by David Shama

Impressions of the Timberwolves with 28 games remaining in the strike-shortened NBA season:

This is the most entertaining pack of Wolves since Kevin Garnett, Sam Cassell and Latrell Sprewell were trying to put food on the table to feed their families in 2003-2004. The 2012 Wolves, 19-19 so far after finishing 17-65 last year, are much improved with better personnel, team work and coaching.

You no longer have to risk being labeled the town idiot by predicting a playoff spot this spring. The Wolves have pulled even with the average teams in the NBA and with 16 teams allowed to qualify for the playoffs Minnesota is a contender.

The club report card gives the best grades to All-Star forward Kevin Love, rookie point guard Ricky Rubio and coach Rick Adelman. Love is so improved the last two seasons that the four-year player is included in any conversation about the league’s best power forwards. Point guard, it’s often argued, is the most important position in basketball. The Wolves finally have a special talent playing the position in Rubio, a flashy talent with extraordinary vision and passing skills. The NBA might be a players’ league but coaching still counts and first-year boss Adelman could be the best person ever directing the Wolves.

This team has an unexpected hero in center Nikola Pekovic. After averaging 5.5 points during his rookie year last season, Pekovic has won the starting center job in 2012 with smarts, hustle, timely points and rebounds. What he can’t do with his short arms and average height for a center (6-11) is become a defensive whiz in the lane.

Finding a shot-blocking, defensive center is what should be at the top of the front office’s to-do list. A guy who can take the Wolves from being an okay defensive team to a better one (while helping Love with the rebounding) is needed to push Minnesota toward the elite group of NBA teams.

This Wolves team will improve a lot too if a shooting guard-forward like Wes Johnson or Martell Webster can fulfill their potential as outside shooters. Johnson is only a second year player and youth is a huge part of the rationale why fans should be excited about this product. Love is 23, Rubio, 21, Pekovic, 26, Johnson, 24, and rookie forward Derrick Williams, 20.

Better days are here…and ahead.

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Worth Noting

Posted on March 5, 2012March 5, 2012 by David Shama

Condolences to the Fitzgerald family, including Larry Sr., Larry Jr., and Marcus, following the death of Sally Fitzgerald, their mother and grandmother. Services were held last Friday in Chicago.

The NBA’s compacted, strike-shortened season can be ridiculous as witnessed last week when the Wolves played on three consecutive nights—all road games. No wonder the Wolves, including Kevin Love who had a busy All-Star Weekend and was suffering from the flu during the week, looked sluggish at mid-week.

Gophers senior forward Trevor Mbakwe, injured and unable to play since November 27, was ceremoniously named the sixth man of the game on Saturday in Minnesota’s 81-69 win over Nebraska. The Williams Arena crowd responded with a standing ovation for Minnesota’s best player.

Paper work has been submitted to the NCAA requesting one final season of eligibility for Mbakwe since he was only able to play in seven games. It’s not known when the NCAA will respond and if Mbakwe will want to play next season for the Gophers, or pursue a professional career.

Sophomore guard Chip Armelin had a career high 20 points off the bench in Minnesota’s win, the last Big Ten regular season game prior to the start of Thursday’s conference tournament. He was given a rare second half start. Armelin has talked in the past about playing college football. It will be interesting in the coming months to see if he tries to play both football and basketball, or chooses one sport.

Coach Jerry Kill will provide C.O.R.E.S. members with a look at his Gophers football program on Thursday. Minnesota starts spring football practice on March 22. Ron Stolski, Brainerd High football coach and executive director of the Minnesota Football Coaches Association, will introduce Kill. C.O.R.E.S. members can still make reservations by contacting Jim Dotseth. C.O.R.E.S. is an acronym for coaches, officials, educators, reporters and sports fans.

Fox Sports North televises the first of five Twins spring training games starting tonight at 6 p.m. when Minnesota plays Boston.

Patrick Reusse, talking on 1500 ESPN last week, credited a caller with a different way to look at the public commitment for a new Vikings stadium: The team ownership is willing to spend $427 million on the proposed $975 million facility and will use it only 10 or 12 times per year. The state and city, investing a combined $548 million, gets a covered facility to use for more than 300 days per year for community sports and a variety of major events. Seems like a good return on investment.

License plate seen Saturday on the all-electric Nissan Leaf car: Ybuygas.

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Search Firm Identifies U A.D. Profile

Posted on March 2, 2012March 2, 2012 by David Shama

At a Monday meeting earlier this week a representative of Parker Executive Search described what the Atlanta-based company will look for in the next University of Minnesota athletic director.

The University search advisory and search committees were told that Parker will seek candidates who it believes can foster a program that successfully graduates student-athletes, wins championships, and operates within the rules and ethics of the school and NCAA.

The two committees will help generate candidates to fill the vacancy created by departing athletic director Joel Maturi, but much of the searching will be done by Parker. Grassroots searching will be aided by a series of listening meetings with University supporters that will be held on campus next week.

Parker will conduct a national search that ultimately will help generate a few finalists to be reviewed by the four-person search committee and one or more names are expected to be forwarded to school president Eric Kaler. The Parker firm—also retained in 2010 to identify head coaching candidates for Gophers football—has been involved with many searches for athletic directors across the country.

Those searches have typically—although not always—resulted in the hiring of a person with previous administrative experience in an athletic department, often athletic directors willing to become directors at other schools. Also, with a significant representation of University employees on the search advisory and search committees, it seems likely the next Gophers athletic director will have an academic-athletic background rather than a business or legal resume.

Non-traditional candidates can be attractive, though, if it’s the right person. Many will argue Paul Giel, who came to campus from WCCO Radio, was the best Gophers athletic director since World War II. Pat Richter, who once was an executive with Oscar Mayer, received a lot of praise for his work as Wisconsin’s athletic director in the 1990s. Like Giel and Richter, Pat Haden is another former college football hero, and he returned to his alma mater (USC) in 2010 to become athletic director, giving up a law career and broadcast duties to re-energize a sagging athletic department.

A smart search at Minnesota won’t deal in any stereotypes involving gender, race, age—or heaven forbid—a non-academic background.

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