Trevor Mbakwe on teammate Blake Hoffarber whose clutch shooting almost rallied the Gophers to a win against Penn State yesterday: “He’s a fighter. He’s a warrior.”
There’s been talk the Big Ten Conference will use a nine game league football schedule in 2015 but the change will not take place until 2017 because of nonconference commitments. Until then the 12 member schools will each continue with eight conference games and four nonconference.
The move to the unbalanced schedule will mean some teams each year have five conference road games while others have four. That’s no different than the Pac-10 did last year. The change to additional Big Ten games will be welcomed by fans who more often than not receive increased value in watching league games rather than nonconference.
During a couple of seasons in the near future, Big Ten schedules are expected to include not one, but two byes for each conference team. That will be a conference first in modern Big Ten history.
Former Gophers basketball coach Dan Monson’s Long Beach State team won the Big West Conference with a 14-2 regular season record.
If the Twins’ starting rotation doesn’t perform as an effective group, there’s no blaming youth. Among the six most likely pitchers to become the five regular starters, no one is younger than 26. Carl Pavano is 35, Scott Baker and Nick Blackburn are both 29, Brian Duensing, 28, Francisco Liriano, 27, and Kevin Slowey, 26.
John Gordon said on Friday’s Twins radio broadcast that new middle infielder Tsuyoshi Nishioka apologized in the dugout during the game to Slowey for an error. Gordon’s broadcast partner Dan Gladden noted that such unexpected courtesy is common for Japanese players.
The Twins played Tampa Bay in games on Friday and Saturday, winning both games. Gordon reported that the Rays’ roster is minus “18 players” from last season.