College

Emo-tion

Filed under: College

This is a pretty cool SI article about Memphis's incredibly high-scoring Dribble-Drive Motion offense, as it's known, which is based on the radical notions that players should be more than just automatons and that basketball should be fun to play. The article is pretty good, for Sports Illustrated (not too much about what John Calipari's Mom taught him about commitment or whatever, more about basketball) and the discussion of the offense is really interesting if you like that kind of stuff. Calipari seems pretty slimy and Pitino-esque to me, but I'm intrigued by the notion of him voluntary relinquishing power to his players. This is the money quote:

In fact, Calipari says he now does far more coaching in practice than during games, when he used to bark out play calls nearly every trip down the court. "The biggest strength of this offense," Walberg says, "is I feel we're teaching kids how to play basketball instead of how to run plays."

How to play basketball, huh? Imagine that!

Posted by Benjamin Polk at February 18, 2008 11:15 PM | Comments (0)

 

Your next Gopher football coach: Jeff Severns Guntzel

Filed under: College

Have you heard about the booster trying to bribe the University of Washington to fire Ty Willingham? He offered $100,000 to the university if they'd fire the former Stanford coach (and another 100 large if Athletic Director Todd Turner, who later resigned anyway, was shown the door).

Gophers coach Tim Brewster has had only one year, and is regarded as a top recruiter. He's obtained dozens of commitments, many from highly-rated players. But, upon hearing this revelation, he has to go.

He has to make way for our own Jeff Severns Guntzel.

The implications of this booster's zeal have thus far been ignored. Most everyone is focusing on the hubris of Ed Hansen, the millionaire who is trying to bully his alma mater. This misses the point: this is the ultimate shakedown opportunity.

Despite Brewster's acknowledged coaching skills, he finished a disastrous one-win season. This looked bad.

But are people going to pay to have him fired? No.

In this time of minimal funding for state colleges and universities, more robust revenue streams are necessary. Public higher education needs our help. The only answer is to hire a coach so ill-versed in the spread option, the cover two defense and linebacker gap coverage that aggrieved alumni will pony up with the quickness.

Enter Jeff Severns Guntzel, a bright and affable fellow with intellectual interests that range from Middle East policy to rock n' roll drumming. A gentleman. A raconteur. A man whose worldly pursuits are many and varied.

A person who, when I asked, "who among you knows the least about college football"? shot up his hand like a rocket.

Think about it. This Hansen guy's willing to kick down hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations just to get Ty Willingham out of there -- and Willingham's actually a quality football coach. So why doesn't U of M hire the worst possible coach, someone who couldn't know or care less about college sports, someone whose flummoxed appearance on the sidelines would have fat-pocketed donors reaching for their checkbooks with every fumbled snap?

If the alumni weren't screaming for mercy during the first game, they would be after the initial press conference. "Just do it for funding of public higher education!" I'd implore Guntzel, and he'd put on the furrowed brow look of a man in over his head. Before long, the U of M would be rolling like Mitt Romney.

Naturally, any money raised would probably just go to help Tubby raze the Barn. Let's just keep that between us until Coach Severns Guntzel is installed, shall we?

Posted by Jeff Shaw at January 10, 2008 3:39 PM | Comments (0)

 

College hoops: Always Be Closing

Filed under: College

Enjoy college basketball? Can't get enough of Benjamin Polk's Gopher posts? Me too, and me either. Aside from handcuffing Benjamin to Tubby Smith and forcing him to type a post a day on an iPhone with his off-hand, though, we're probably on a once-a-week schedule from him for the foreseeable.

For national college hoops perspective, though, I recommend my friend Jonah Keri's new column, "College Basketball Closer," that runs more or less daily at Deadspin. You may have seen Jonah's work on ESPN.com or at assorted other outlets, and he always turns out quality. Don't tell anyone I said so, but college basketball is actually his favorite sport. For your non-Gopher roundball needs, it gets the City Pages seal of approval to feed your hoops fix.

Unless you want to donate us an iPhone and send Benjamin Polk lots of fan mail. Though I support those plans, too.

Posted by Jeff Shaw at January 3, 2008 11:29 AM | Comments (0)

 

Adopt-a-Duck Sooner Ummm ...

Filed under: College

Love college football? Want to forget that the Gophers have a team? Looking to root for a feel-good team as the national championship picture takes shape?

Well, me too. After this past weekend, anyway.

I was prepared to offer you my alma mater, the University of Oregon by-God Ducks. I even had a post half-ready with the reasons, including Oregon's slow, steady climb from obscurity, the team's jarring uniform transitions which will always keep you guessing, and the inherent awesomeness of having a duck as the mascot -- a fighting duck that is not afraid to whup a cougar. I mean, who roots against a duck? Even hunters don't.

I even had a cute and eerie video ready to include:

Naturally, my hubris was punished. The Ducks not only fell on the road at Arizona, dooming their national championship hopes, but Heisman hopeful Dennis Dixon tore his ACL -- perhaps karmic retribution for my Top 10 Worst ACL Injuries post.

Then it got worse.

As it happens, one of my closest friends is a fan of the Oklahoma Sooners, another of the teams fighting for shot at the national title. We had talked about -- should our teams meet in the final BCS game -- going out together. Disappointed I was in the Ducks' loss, I figured hey, at least I can just write a post endorsing my buddy's team.

Yeah. You guessed it. Quarterback hurt. Team upset, chances of a national title dashed.

Now, I am reduced to rooting for whatever scenario will utterly dismantle the credibility of the Bowl Championship Series system, allowing a much-needed playoff system to emerge from the wreckage. Also, I'm searching for a team to back in the absence of any local favorite, alma mater, or even friend's team to support. Feel free to leave suggestions in the comments.

In the meantime, here is the moral of the story: I am a jinx. For a small fee, I am willing to become a fan of your favorite team's most hated rival. If my track record is reliable, it will be money well spent.

Posted by Jeff Shaw at November 19, 2007 3:57 PM | Comments (1)

 

Can you smell the roses?

Filed under: College

Normally I wouldn't waste my time reading about the putrid Gopher football team. They've gone from being a boring, marginally competent Big Ten also-ran to a squad that deserves to be relegated to the Pop Warner league. That game against Miami (Ohio) University a couple of weeks ago has to rank among the most incompetent displays in the history of organized sports. Listening to it on the radio I thought Dave Lee was going to hang himself before the final whistle.

But I noticed this headline the other day in the Pi Press--"Criticism Comes Early for Brewster"--and couldn't help myself. Who would have the temerity to criticize the great leader of "Gopher Nation"? The man who will lead the Gophers back to Rose Bowl glory? Unfortunately, the answer is no one. The piece does not quote a single source saying a single critical word about the first year coach.

So let me be the first: The only team that Tim Brewster is qualified to lead is the cheerleading squad.

Posted by Paul Demko at September 24, 2007 4:36 PM | Comments (6)

 

In Defense of Pam Borton

Filed under: Gophers , Gophers , Gophers , Gophers

I don't know Pam Borton and I never played ball for her. All I know is what I saw and what I wrote in City Pages two years ago; a scenario of a tough coach and a tough player who found each other and who wanted the same thing:

"Last March 22, at Maples Pavilion in Stanford, California, the Gophers were down 28-27 at the half to Tulane in the opening game of the NCAA tournament. Uncharacteristically, [Lindsay] Whalen was held scoreless throughout the first half. As the teams came out for warm-ups before the second half, Whalen sidled up next to Borton, with whom she shares a certain steely purposefulness. The two women stood watching the other players, not talking to each other, for a minute. Two. Maybe three.

"All that silence left an observer wondering about what might have transpired between the pair at halftime, about how they get along, and about how Whalen has dealt with having had three coaches in three years--Borton, Littlejohn, and Brenda Oldfield, who left the Gophers for Maryland after the breakout season of 2001-2002. The answer, in part, came as the horn sounded for the second half. Without a word, a blank-faced Whalen wind-milled her arm and spanked Borton hard on the butt. Borton barely reacted. Neither said a word. Borton picked up her clipboard, Whalen roared at her teammates in the huddle, then went out and hit two three-pointers to open the half. She finished with 18 points, and the Gophers blew out Tulane, 68-48."

Jamie Broback was a freshman the next year. I saw her at practice and at games, and the distinct impression was of a talented, moon-faced farm girl who was in over her head. I had hoped she'd adjust to the rigors of Big 10 basketball, and she did for a while, but the obvious answer now is that she wasn't cut out for it. She wanted to be a kid. It looked to me like she was tired of basketball, and all the pressure.

Borton is class act. Rumor has it she has information about at least one of her former players that would cast this recent brouhaha in a different light, but she was recently quoted as saying, "this is not going to get ugly."

I coached my ten-year-old son in basketball this year. Near the end, I yelled at them, saying, "You guys are pathetic. You don't even play defense. You're PATHETIC." Some of them laughed at me, some got pissed and played defense. None of the parents complained.

Some of the Gophers' former players' parents have been quoted as saying their little girls didn't get enough playing time or that Borton called them "selfish."

I wonder what Whalen would have to say about that?

Actually, when it comes to jock-quotes, Whalen is as garden-variety as they come; she's a show-don't-tell artist who prefaces everything with, "Obviously...," so she likely wouldn't have much to say about the situation, other than that Borton's tough, demanding, and likes basketball played the right way: With rhythm and five-as-one.

Like I said, I don't know Pam Borton, or why the team tanked this year. All I know is that I'd love to have my son or daughter play basketball for her, and if they ever came crying to me (hello, Kris Humphries' father) about playing time or how "abrasive" the coach is, I'd tell them to shut up and pass the ball and play defense and get their degree.

Posted by Jim Walsh at April 9, 2006 8:19 AM | Comments (12)

 

March Madness: High School Edition

Filed under: Prep , Prep , Prep , Prep , Prep , Prep , Prep

Last week, Kevin Garnett "scolded" (Star Tribune) some of his teammates for laughing after another loss.

It was difficult to not think about Garnett and the moribund style of basketball the NBA plays while watching two terrific high school basketball games Wednesday night. The gym in Maple Grove was packed with parents and students, all of whom had a stake in the outcome: win or go home. Gophers coach Dan Monson sat on the bleachers in the corner, eating popcorn and salivating over the raw and tough city kids before him (salivating, that is, if he's got an iota of coaching acumen left in him).

Greg Boone was there, too. Boone played for Minneapolis Central in the glory days of Minneapolis basketball, and is now an avid youth-sports organizer. He once told me that people often tell him that the '75-'76 Central team featuring Boone, William Henry, Greg Maddox, Duane Nelson, and Andre Griffin was the greatest high school basketball team they've ever seen. They once beat Edison, 100-25.

Central was undefeated in 1976. I was there the night when sharp-shooting roly-poly point guard Johnny Hunter and the North Polars beat them in the regionals in front of 7,000 at the old Met Center. The next day's banner headline in the sports page of the Minneapolis Tribune screamed: North Shocks Central.

That's how it was. Two classes: A and AA, winners and losers, and not everybody got a trophy or a certificate. And it now occurs to me that Griffin introduced me to Minnesota's version of racism. His senior year, Griffin and Marshall-U's Rodney Hargest engaged in a ferocious scoring duel, and Minneapolis basketball lovers followed it with all the zeal that college hoopsheads have followed this season's duel between Duke's J.J. Reddick and Gonzaga's Adam Morrison.

Hargest dropped 52 one night; the next day in a matinee at Washburn, I watched Griffin drop 53 on dead-eye shooter Tim Wahl and a very good Southwest squad.

Griffin was the best high school basketball player in the state, along with two other black players, Hargest and De La Salle's Mark James, and Wahl. But when it came to the Mr. Basketball awards at the end of the year, the powers that be gave it to some white out-state sled named Peterson. After the banquet, I watched Griffin walk through the parking lot with his runner-up trophy, unfastening his tie and looking beyond dejected.

Last night, my old baseball coach Pat Widell called me up to go to the game. I've written about my love for high school ball before, and I'm always amazed at how refreshing it is. I saw old friends and met their kids. "Is it as intense as you remember it?," said the wife of the brother of my first girlfriend, laughing at me and Pat as we rode a ref for not calling a foul after one of our lads got mugged by three players late in the game. We weren't even the loudest fans in the gym, and amazingly, nobody got thrown out for heckling or rooting.

Game report: The Minneapolis De La Salle Islanders celebrated what would have been the 45th birthday of Kirby Puckett and the birth of my niece, Sara Ann "Puck" Woll, with a thrilling double-overtime victory over their arch rivals, the Benilde-St. Margaret's Red Knights. Kids hit the floor for balls, made dramatic shots, and played hellacious defense. When a river rat named Joe Scott hit an eight-foot jumper to win it at the buzzer, one of the Benilde kids crumpled to the floor and started crying. The De kids went wild, and in the post-game hand-shaking line, consoled the devastated Red Knights.

Somewhere across town, a bunch of millionaire professional basketball players were laughing after yet another loss, and a broken-down millionaire quarterback demanded, and got, traded. Somewhere else, the Minneapolis De La Salle Islanders girls' team was getting ready to play in their first state tournament.

Admission: $6

Hot dog: $2

Pop, candy, popcorn: $1

We stuck around and watched the first half of Minneapolis Patrick Henry against Orono. Henry is the class of the state, and the Orono kids were the most frightened white people I've seen in ages, but they were big and well-coached and they gave it their all. Henry won by 25, and plays De Friday night in the regional final.

I'm coaching my ten-year-old son Henry in basketball at Pearl Park again this year. A few weeks ago, I had to talk to him about shooting too much. He plays just like me: never met a shot he doesn't like. I had to come with the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do thing and tell him that guys don't like to play with ball hogs ("bucks" in my day), that basketball is best when you pass; when you move the ball and move without the ball, when the five acts as one. He was so pissed off at me. He was embarrassed. We had words.

Our next game was against one of his best friends', Jonathan's, team, whose coach I play pick-up ball with on Sunday mornings. It was a great game. Everybody in the packed gym was into it, the game went into overtime, and my son hit a three-pointer to win it. At the end of the game, our guys went nuts, and Henry came over to the bench and gave me a quick hug.

I'm bringing him and as many of his teammates as can make it to see the Henry-De game Friday night. I want them to get psyched for our all-day tournament at Pearl on Saturday. I want them to see basketball played by people who love the game and play it the right way, but don't get paid for it. I want them to see cool older guys caring passionately about the game, so much so that some of them get their hearts broken. I want them to know that getting your heart broken is part of life, but that if you're lucky, you might live long enough to hang around the perimeter and put up a few threes.

Posted by Jim Walsh at March 15, 2006 10:53 AM | Comments (13)

 

The Inaugural "Buck the Idiot" Tip Sheet

Filed under: College

For well over a decade now, I've made a habit of perusing the point spreads of college and pro football games and circling what I consider to be the "no-brainer" picks. And pretty much every year I get hammered, guessing wrong on what I imagine to be anywhere from 60 to 80 percent of the games.

So why not put this stupidity to good use? The guys in Vegas obviously count on casual fans like me--those armed with only the "outside" information of the daily sports page and sporadic time on the couch clicking through games--to be lulled into sucker bets. Rather than wasting your time on expensive shills who "guarantee the Monday night game as our lock of the year!" why not just check out who I honestly think will cover the spread, and wager your money the other way?

My grand plan is to pick ten college and five pro games for the next few weeks, including my most confident "lock" in both pro and college. Let's see if I can prove to you that I don't know what I'm talking about.

Here we go:

MINNESOTA minus 2 and a half over Penn State: Glen Mason's ground game is simply too overwhelming to lose to a mid-tier Big 10 team, even on the road.

AUBURN minus 14 and a half over South Carolina: Steve Spurrier gets his ass handed to him again.

MIAMI minus 21 over South Florida: SF's upset of Louisville last week gives the 'Canes incentive for a high-profile rout to get them back in the major bowl picture.

MICHIGAN STATE minus 5 and a half over Michigan: This ain't your Bo Schembechler Wolverines, or even your typical Lloyd Carr team. Plus MSU always plays the big games tough.

IOWA STATE plus 3 and a half over Nebraska: I saw half of ISU's win over Iowa a couple weeks back, and it feels like the Cyclones have a little more charm, and spine, than in previous years.

PURDUE minus 3 over Notre Dame: Joe Tiller is a better coach than Charlie Weis. And the Boilermakers have better players than the Irish.

USC minus 16 over Arizona State: Why would anyone believe the Trojans aren't at least 20 points better than any other team in the country until somebody proves differently?

VANDERBILT minus 15 over Middle Tennessee: Even when Vandy perennially sucked (meaning every year but this one), they still won games like this. Now they're a fine football team headed for a bowl game.

WEST VIRGINIA plus 10 over Virginia Tech: This is a nasty geographical rivalry pitting two undefeated teams, and the one at home is a ten-point dog?

My college lock of the week:
CONNECTICUT minus 11 over Army: Army is horrible, absolutely horrible. Remember what I just said about USC? Reverse it for Army.

On to the pros...

ATLANTA minus 6 over Minnesota: Even if the Vikes didn't have five defensive players hurt, plus Burleson out, the O line and linebackers are a mess. The Falcons' D will sack or provoke a fumble or pick from Daunte Culpepper at least ten times total.

CINCINNATI minus 10 over Houston: The Bengals are giddy, the Texans in total disarray, having just dumped their offensive coordinator.

OAKLAND minus 3 over Dallas: Is there a more overrated coach in football today than Bill Parcells?

TAMPA BAY minus 6 and a half over Detroit: The Bucs' quick, ferocious defensive line versus perpetually harried Joey Harrington. At home.

Finally, my pro lock:

NEW ENGLAND minus 5 and a half over San Diego: I know Rodney Harrison is out. I know they just came off a bruising, emotional win against Pittsburgh. But can somebody explain to me why the Pats aren't at least a touchdown better than the Chargers at home?

Posted by Britt Robson at October 1, 2005 7:30 AM | Comments (0)