Prep basketball expert Ken Lien is picking Henry Sibley to win the Class 4A state tournament title this week.  State tournament games in all four classes start today (Wednesday) with the championships on Saturday.  Lien, who tracks high school basketball as chair of the Mr. Basketball selection committee, is predicting Saint Thomas will be the Class 3A champ, with Saint Bernard’s School winning the Class 2A title, and Cass Lake-Bena taking the Class 1A championship.

Among the intriguing players to watch is Robbinsdale Cooper’s Rodney Williams.  The 6-foot-5 junior forward can jump with or better than NBA players, according to Lien.  Cooper is competing in the 4A tourney.

He also likes two other Division I prospects in the tournaments, senior guards Anthony Tucker of Minnetonka and Jordan Taylor of Benilde-St. Margaret’s.  “Tucker is a fine passer and shooter,” Lien said.  “Taylor is your ultimate point guard who is a great defender and is a fine offensive player as well.”

Tucker will play at Iowa next season, while Taylor is headed to Wisconsin.  Minnetonka is Class 4A while Benilde-St. Margaret’s is in the Class 3A tourney.

Tucker and Taylor, Sports Headliners has learned, are two of the five finalists for the Mr. Basketball award.  The three others are Princeton center Jared Berggren, Cretin-Derham Hall guard Michael Floyd and Ellsworth guard Cody Schilling. The winner will be announced on Sunday, April 27 at the awards banquet at the Minneapolis Marriott West.

Bob McDonald’s Chisholm team is in the Class 1A tournament.  He’s been coaching at Chisholm for over 40 years.  His son, Mike, is coaching the Cambridge-Isanti team that is competing in the Class 4A tournament.

Another of McDonald’s sons, Joel, coaches the Hibbing team that lost in the sectional finals of Class 3A to Grand Rapids.  Bob’s grandson, guard Bryce Tesdahl, plays for Crosby-Ironton competing in the Class 2A tournament.   “Best passer in the state tourney,” Lien said.

Some state tournament games will be played at Mariucci Arena, the first basketball games ever at the University of Minnesota’s hockey facility.  Williams Arena isn’t available so Mariucci will host games along with the main tournament site, Target Center.

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Dan Barreiro is moving to another station, but just on Saturdays.  The popular Monday-Friday talk show host will stay with his KFAN (1130 AM) 4 to 7 p.m. slot but he will have a new 10 a.m. to noon Saturday show on KTLK (100.3 FM) starting on April 12.  The move is all-in-the-family since KFAN and KTLK are two of six Clear Channel-owned radio stations in this market.

KTLK started about two years ago and is trying to build its audience.  The presence of Barreiro on KTLK is expected to improve Saturday ratings that are among the lowest in town.

The former Star Tribune sports columnist was No. 1 among all local radio talk show hosts in the 25-54 demographic in the most recent ratings, according to Steve Versnick, KTLK program director.  “He’s done extremely well at KFAN and continues to knock it out of the park,” Versnick said.

He also said weekend programming represents “29 percent of our ratings.”  That meant “upper management” wants to place “talented people” on the air to build audience on the relatively new FM talk station.  Versnick said the station’s goal is to be the place that the Twin Cities comes to talk about whatever is topical.

There’s a lot of talk show competition here including from public radio.  “This is a very tough talk market,” Versnick said.

Barreiro mixes news topics in with sports talk on his Monday-Friday show.  Versnick said Barreiro’s new show will also have news and sports content.

He describes Barreiro as a “great talent,” and said the long time KFAN host is skilled at news and sports analysis.  Barreiro also has the ability to connect with the audience, to build rapport and trust with his analysis and storytelling skills, Versnick said.

On KTLK Barreiro replaces real estate and home improvement shows that will move to other weekend time slots.  He will no longer do his KFAN Sunday morning show.

 

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A lot of fans and media, including Sports Headliners, doubted the Twins and Joe Nathan could reach a contract agreement to keep him with the team beyond this season.  The Twins, to their credit, came up with an agreement acceptable to Nathan who wanted to stay here.  He has talked in the past about how he likes the city and values how the Twins have managed his career.

Nathan, 33, agreed to a $47 million contract extension earlier this week that keeps him with the Twins through 2011 with a club option for 2012.  Nathan’s 160 saves over the last four seasons are tied with Mariano Rivera of the Yankees for the most in the American League.  In addition, he became the first pitcher in club history to record 36-or-more saves in four consecutive seasons.

Fargo native Chris Coste has a new book about his 11 year struggle to make the major leagues, “The 33-Year-Old Rookie.”  Coste, a catcher, made his major league debut with Philadelphia in May of 2006 and hit .328 for the season.  Last spring he was injured and played in the minors before joining the Phillies in May, hitting .279 for the season.  Better news this year as Coste, now 35, will head north from spring training to play for the Phillies from the start of the season.

Gene Sperling, the former Gopher tennis player and captain under coach Jerry Noyce, is written about in the latest issue of Time magazine.  A short article reports on Sperling’s economic advisory work for Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Noyce will be inducted into the Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s Collegiate Tennis Hall of Fame on May 21 in Tulsa.  He coached the Gophers for 15 seasons, winning three Big Ten Conference championships and in 1986 was the ITA’s National Coach of the Year.  Congratulations to one of Minnesota’s great coaches.

R&B star J. Holiday will perform in a concert following the Timberwolves-Memphis game at Target Center on Sunday, April 6.  Holiday, who established himself on the national music scene last year, will also sing the Star Spangled Banner prior to the game.  Last year Holiday’s hit single, “Bed,” reached No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts. His debut album, “Back of My Lac,” has gone Gold in U.S. sales in excess of 500,000 copies and his follow-up single, “Suffocate,” has climbed to No. 18 on the Billboard Hot 100. Holiday has performed on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. The concert is free to fans in attendance for the game.

The Vikings announced the signings yesterday of restricted free agent linebacker Heath Farwell, 26, and free agent cornerback Benny Sapp, 27, who played the past four seasons for the Kansas City Chiefs. Farwell led the Vikings with a career-high 32 special teams tackles in 2007, which ties for third in franchise single-season history. He set a team record with seven special teams tackles against the New York Giants last season and has 70 special teams tackles in 39 career games.

Sapp played in 56 games with six starts during his four years with the Chiefs and had 30 tackles, an interception, a fumble recovery, and a forced fumble in 2007. He recorded a career-high 45 tackles and 2.5 sacks for Kansas City in 2005.

Concordia senior forward Melanie Hageman and Gustavus senior guard Jess Vadnais have been named to the 2008 State Farm coaches’ honorable mention All-America basketball team for NCAA Division III. The team is voted upon by Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) member coaches.  Hageman was named to the MIAC all-conference first team for the third straight season after averaging 16.9 points and 7.4 rebounds per game. She has earned D3hoops.com All-West Region second team honors the past two seasons and this year was named to the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-American team.

Vadnais is a three-time All-MIAC selection and a 2007 Kodak/WBCA All-American pick. She led the league in scoring for the second consecutive season (19.1 points per game), and was third in the league in steals (61) and free-throw percentage (122-142; 85.9 percent). Vadnais is one of 10 finalists for the Jostens Division III Player of the Year award given to the player that best exemplifies the Division III philosophy of basketball skill, academics, and community service.

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