Joe Mauer has been making news with his left knee problem but his grandfather told Sports Headliners the Twins catcher is headed for an exceptional season even by Mauer standards.

“I know he’s going to have a big year,” Jake Mauer said.  “He’s bigger, he’s stronger.  I think he’s looking forward more (to the season) this year than he did last year because of the goals he’s set.  He wants to be the batting crown champion again.  He wants to be the Most Valuable Player again.”

Mauer is a three-time American League batting champion and won the AL MVP award in 2009.  At 27, he’s likely approaching his best years.

This week, perhaps today, Jake expects Joe to catch for the first time in a 2011 spring training game.  “He’s snapping at the bit, boy,” Jake said.

Joe had off-season knee surgery and has since experienced soreness, but most recently has been okay, according to his grandfather who is wintering in southwest Florida.  Jake said his grandson has stopped taking the synthetic lubricant Supartz for the soreness.

If Mauer irritates the knee he will take more of the substance.  “He may hurt it running, he may hurt it sliding or something,” Jake said.

His grandfather said talk that Joe has been working out at first base are “not true.”

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The NCAA basketball tournament features parity but Kansas is a popular choice among expert sources to win the national championship.

Former Gophers coach Jim Dutcher likes the Jayhawks as do CBS TV analysts Greg Anthony, Charles Barkley and Seth Davis. “They’re well coached, they’re well drilled, they don’t beat themselves,” Dutcher said about Kansas, 32-2.

Dutcher told Sports Headliners “if there’s a team in the Big Ten” with a chance to win the national title it’s No. 1 tournament seed Ohio State, but he said the Buckeyes’ close wins this winter over mediocre Northwestern indicate that an opponent able to run a slowdown offense can upset them.  Dutcher said that deliberate style gives the Buckeyes “fits.”

Asked to name a potential tournament Cinderella story, Dutcher talked about San Diego State, a 32-2 team and No. 2 West Region seed whose coaching staff includes his son Brian, a University of Minnesota graduate. Jim Dutcher said that while the Aztecs have a high seed and been ranked among the nation’s top 10 teams, there are college basketball observers who doubt the quality of teams from the Mountain West Conference.

The Aztecs’ reputation is not only questioned, but they have never won an NCAA tournament game.  “They’re kind of in the Butler category of a year ago,” Dutcher said.

Butler, from the low profile Horizon League, made it all the way to the national championship game as the 2010 Cinderella before losing to Duke.

San Diego State opens tomorrow against Northern Colorado, 21-10 and a No. 15 seed.  Dutcher told his son by telephone on Sunday that “you’ve got to overcome poor coaching and get them (the Aztecs) to Anaheim.”  Then Dutcher would travel from Minneapolis to see the Aztecs during the second weekend of the tournament.

Anaheim might be the site of a San Diego State versus Connecticut game as part of the tournament’s West Region.  Dutcher predicted the No. 3 seeded Huskies could be upset, though, by Missouri on Saturday of this week if both teams win opening games tomorrow.  He likes Missouri, a No. 11 seed, to possibly upset No. 6 Cincinnati tomorrow.

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Former Canterbury Park executive John Harty is the new vice president of marketing for Ellis Park Race Course in Henderson, Kentucky.

The Twins’ second spring training game on FOX Sports North is next Monday against Pittsburgh beginning at 12:05 p.m. Minneapolis time.

There are 140 Division I teams out of 346 playing in post-season college basketball tournaments, including 68 in the NCAA field, plus 72 more in three lesser tournaments, the NIT, CBI and CIT.

With some lower quality teams being automatic qualifiers for the NCAA tournament after winning their conference tournaments, there are annually at least a few teams who don’t belong in the NCAA field, but former Gophers coach Jim Dutcher said the NCAA is “never about the best 68 teams in country.”

New Gophers coach Jerry Kill will allow the public to watch spring football practices.  March practices at the Gibson-Nagurski Complex will be on March 24 and 25 starting at 2:15 p.m., March 26 at 3:15 p.m., and March 29 and 31 at 2:30 p.m.

Recent Timberwolves acquisition Anthony Randolph, 6-11, 225, has impressive length, arm span and athleticism.  He’s mostly played center for the Wolves so far but could be a power forward and perhaps even small forward.

Wolves coach Kurt Rambis said don’t count on the 21-year-old Randolph gaining a lot of weight in the future to become a bigger center. “If you’re expecting him to put on 50 pounds of muscle that rarely happens,” Rambis said.

Rambis was not muscular as an NBA player either.  He said that while the Wolves want their players to be as “big, strong as possible,” the objective, too, is not to have  extra weight hamper their quickness and ability to run.

Former Gopher Kris Humphries has at least 15 rebounds and scored 11 points or more in each of his last three games for New Jersey, all wins by the Nets.

Hillary Boyce was second overall and Sarah Fleming third last weekend when the St. Olaf women’s Nordic ski team finished first among seven teams at the United States Collegiate Skiing and Snowboarding Association Championships.  St. Olaf was second in the Nordic men’s competition.

Registration for the 18th annual William A. Irvin 5K opens tomorrow. To register, runners should visit www.GrandmasMarathon.com.  The 3.1-mile run begins at 6 p.m. on June 17 in Duluth and is the first of three major running events during Grandma’s Marathon weekend.  Registration remains open for the 35th annual Grandma’s Marathon on June 18, while the entry process for the 21st annual Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon is closed.

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