Next week might be the last finals week where U of M students can light up before that big test.

Last week, the University of Minnesota Senate approved a resolution that would ban smoking campus-wide. The only thing needed for the ban to become policy is the signature of University President Eric Kaler, and he has already signaled his support.

FROM JANUARY: Smoking is slowly becoming illegal in Minnesota

With the state cigarette tax likely set to increase this legislative session, perhaps University of Minnesota smokers should get around to taking an independent study course in cig rolling.

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New head coach Richard Pitino is bringing Young (pictured) from FIU with him.

Move over, Jerome Simpson and your six pounds of ganja. That's nothing compared to the stash new University of Minnesota assistant men's basketball coach Kimani Young was busted with back in the late '90s.

SEE ALSO: The new Green Giant looks like he just took a bong rip [PHOTO]

Young, a former college basketball star at UTEP in the mid-1990s, was convicted in 1999 of possessing an impossible-to-fathom 96 pounds of marijuana. He served a year in federal prison.

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New U of M coach Rich Pitino (right) joined his dad and visited Louisville player Kevin Ware in the hospital last weekend after Ware broke his leg in horrifying fashion during a game.

The coaching biography of new University of Minnesota men's basketball coach Rich Pitino contained a falsehood at each of his last four jobs, according to Patrick Reusse.

SEE ALSO: U of M to spend money on study investigating whether it spends too much money

Reusse, who isn't a fan of the Pitino hiring and has written that he would've preferred Flip Saunders, reports that Pitino, knowingly or not, repeatedly embellished his experience at the College of Charleston, where he briefly worked in 2005.

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Alvin Ellis was the Gophers' top basketball prospect, but now he's headed to greener and more stable pastures.

-- Update at bottom of post --

The Gophers are rumored to have interest in hiring Florida International coach (and son of Rick Pitino) Richard Pitino as their next head basketball coach. Of course, athletic director Norwood Teague's previous interest in Shaka Smart, Fred Hoiberg, Flip Saunders, and Brad Stevens has gone unrequited (Norwood finally got his coach -- see update at bottom).

SEE ALSO: Sid Hartman blasts Gophers AD Norwood Teague over Tubby Smith firing

But as Norwood's search continues deep into its second week, the basketball program today paid its first tangible price for the delay, as top recruit Alvin Ellis asked for and received his release from a letter of intent he signed to play for Tubby and the Gophers.

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Photo courtesy Mary Weiss.

The U of M has previously denied request for an outside probe, citing previous investigations.

A petition asking Gov. Mark Dayton to order an independent investigation into the 2004 suicide of a patient enrolled in a University of Minnesota clinical drug trial has picked up more than 1,700 signatures over the past three weeks.

Among them: three former editors of The New England Journal of Medicine. Dozens of academics have also signed, along with a former editor of the British Medical Journal and Susan Reverby, a professor at Wellesley College who uncovered the U.S.-led syphilis experiments in Guatemala.

SEE ALSO:
'Corrective Action' issued to former U of M employee
U of M Board of Regents won't reopen the case

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Eight years after being fired by the Timberwolves, Flip reportedly has the inside track on the U of M job.

-- Original post published Friday afternoon; update at bottom --

Sure, you have to take everything "The Common Man" Dan Cole says during his KFAN show with a grain of salt, but his sources when it comes to University of Minnesota men's basketball have been solid.

SEE ALSO: DFL Rep. Gene Pelowski: Tubby Smith's $2.5 million buyout is "obscene"

For instance, last week Cole reported that even if Tubby Smith led the Gophers to the Sweet 16, his job was in jeopardy. Sure enough, even though at least one Twin Cities sports media figure thought Tubby had done enough to keep his job, he was fired Monday, the day after his team lost a round-of-32 game against Florida and three days after Smith led the Gophers to their first NCAA tournament victory in 16 years (and those victories didn't end up officially counting thanks to Jan Gangelhoff-gate).

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Image by Tatiana Craine

Think you're a better coach than Tubby? Here's your opportunity to prove it!

At the news conference where he discussed his decision to fire Tubby Smith, University of Minnesota Athletics Director Norwood Teague said he wouldn't be relying on a search team to find Smith's replacement. The implication was that he had a plan and didn't need outside help with the job search.

SEE ALSO: Sid Hartman blasts Gophers AD Norwood Teague over Tubby Smith firing

Well, if a new job posting on the U of M's website can be believed, Teague's plan could involve sifting through hundreds if not thousands of applications.

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Rep. Gene Pelowski

Smith's $2.5 million buyout comes amid the U's request for as much as $250 million in additional funding from the Legislature.

Rep. Gene Pelowski, D-Winona, is chair of the House Higher Education Finance and Policy Committee, so it's not like he's just another voice in the wilderness when it comes to the University of Minnesota.

SEE ALSO: Rush Limbaugh decries University of Minnesota's female orgasm event

And at a time when the U of M is under fire for overspending, Pelowski thinks the $2.5 million buyout given to Tubby Smith is "obscene."

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Sid is skeptical that Teague will be able to attract a top coach to the U of M.

Tubby Smith has had no stronger supporter in the Twin Cities news media than the venerable Sid Hartman.

SEE ALSO:
-- Tubby Smith's camp "furious" after coach first learns of U of M firing from news reports
-- Sid Hartman interviews Tyus Jones with recorder that might've been Fred Flinstone's [PHOTO]

The day Smith was fired, Hartman wrote a column titled "Firing Tubby Smith would be a big mistake." He expanded on that theme hours later during the news conference where Norwood Teague discussed Tubby's termination.

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Reporters and U of M Regents knew of Smith's firing before he did.

An interesting subplot of yesterday's Tubby-gets-fired story pertains to how Smith first heard he was out as coach.

THE BACKSTORY: Tubby Smith fired; new U of M basketball coach already in place?

About an hour after news of Tubby's termination broke, reports circulated that Smith still hadn't been notified of his firing by the university. From the standpoint of U of M athletics department administration, that, of course, doesn't seem like a very professional way to handle the ouster of a respected, high-profile employee.

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