MinnesotaSportsScene.com

Whether on the benches at the arena, or from the comfort of satellite TV and home theater seating, the second season of Tubby Smith-coached Minnesota Golden Gophers basketball looked outstanding this weekend as Minnesota won three straight games to start out 3-0 on the season and take home top honors at the NABC Classic.

Colton Iverson and Ralph Sampson III have lived up to their top billing so far, as Iverson came out of the gates rumbling with nine blocks in the first game alone. It was Lawrence Westbrook who took home top honors from the four-team tourney as he collected 48 points in three games over the three days of the tournament.

It means pretty much nothing, except that maybe Minnesota is playing more of its regular season starters for more minutes during the exhibition season. But for those trivia lovers out there, the Timberwolves did improve to 5-1 on the preseason, winning Sunday night 111-107 over the Denver Nuggets.

Rarely does pre-season success suggest anything for the regular season. Still, the Wolves have been down for so long now, any sign of hope is a positive thing for Randy Wittman’s crew. The line on Minnesota’s big stars was as follows:

Ryan Gomes scored 20 points on 8-for-14 shooting from the field for the Timberwolves (5-1). Mike Miller had 17 points, Al Jefferson added 15, Craig Smith 13 and Randy Foye 12. Foye also had 15 assists.

If the team can manage to play like this, they should be able to get off to a decent start on the season. But that’s a big if, considering Nuggets coach George Karl held back so many starters that former Timberwolf reserve Anthony Carter led the Nuggets in scoring.

Like I said, bet your wireless router on this little nugget: preseason success means nothing in basketball.

Former Marquette and current Miami Dade Community College power forward Trevor Mbakwe may not wait until spring to announce his intentions. Smith offered Mbakwe a scholarship back in September and the St. Paul native had an official campus visit during “Tubby’s Tip-Off” this past weekend.

The Gophers are clearly the front-runner on Mbakwe’s list, but Miami remains a contender. He is the last Top 100 power forward the Gophers have a shot with for 2009, though, since Andrew Fitzgerald just gave his commit to Oklahoma.

Call it a glitch in Mac memory, but while there are still lower-rated big men on Tubby’s radar, it’s clear that he now has his sights set firmly on Mbakwe; and the St. Paul native would indeed make a great addition to a 2009 recruiting class that so far has rounded out quite well.

With a recruiting class that already includes Royce White, Rodney Williams Jr. and Justin Cobbs. With Mbakwe added to the mix, Smith would be assured of once again having one of the top recruiting classes in the Big 10, as well as one of the top 25 recruiting classes in the nation.

Timberwolves rookie forward Kevin Love has a lot of learning to do, and if coach Randy Wittman has his way, it will be defense that Love, and the rest of the team, learn first. In year two of the post-Garnett era, Wittman is again preaching defense to a team still looking to find an identity the way real estate lovers are looking for Outer Banks rentals.

Part of the identity issue was solved last season when Al Jefferson, the cornerstone of the trade that sent Garnett to Boston, asserted himself as the team’s top big man, posting better numbers than Garnett most of the season, despite being on a losing team while Garnett rode the Celtics to his first NBA Title.

Love will be part of the mix this year, but whether he plays starter minutes alongside Jefferson or comes in off the bench alongside Jason Collins remains to be seen.

Well, Tubby Smith can now relax and not worry so much about that term life insurance quote rate; he’s pulled off what previous coach Dan Monson never managed during his tender and that’s getting the top two Minnesota recruits in the state to stay at home and play for the Gophers.

Rodney Williams Jr. finally gave Minnesota and Coach Tubby his oral commitment recently, joining his lifelong pal Royce White in the maroon and gold as part of the 2009 recruiting class. Williams Jr. and White are both Top 50 recruits according to most scouting services, and while White is clearly the better of the two, having them both is a huge recruiting coup by Tubby and his staff.

Williams and White are joined in the 2009 recruiting class by California pure point guard Justin Cobbs, and with Williams on board, Coach Smith may lay low on his 2009 recruiting class until spring, when most of his top power forward targets are expected to make their decisions. One possible target is Trevor Mbakwe, currently attending Miami Dade Community College; he’s a big man that could certainly help the Gophers, especially if they start losing some of Tubby’s recruits to early NBA Draft entries. That is a risk with current freshmen recruits in the class of 2008, like Colton Iverson, Paul Carter and Ralph Sampson III.

Even before the Gophers add a power forward, though, the commits from this trio should be enough to get Tubby a top-20 recruiting class ranking once again.

Tragedy struck close to home for Gophers men’s basketball coach Tubby Smith on Sunday; his nephew, William Smith, 19, a Becker College student in Scotland, MD, was stabbed once in the chest following a fight at an off-campus apartment. He died shortly thereafter.

“We lost a special young man last night,” Tubby Smith said in a statement released by Minnesota. “The grieving process will take some time for my brother and his family, but I know that they appreciate and will need all the support.”

An autopsy was scheduled for today (Monday) and the results have not yet been announced; the murder weapon was recovered at the scene and no arrests have been made yet, though Maryland police are believed to be hard at work on the case.

This is never the kind of news that’s fun to report; our prayers go to all of the Smith family during their tragic loss. Hopefully this blog can soon return to it’s usual sports frivolity and occasional wacky off-topic references to things like sweet potato pie.

California point guard Justin Cobbs committed to the Minnesota Gophers on Sunday, delivering coach Tubby Smith the first pure point guard of his stint in Minnesota. Cobbs is considered a three-star prospect by most experts, but has been highly recruited and made his decision while visiting the campus at the same time as another prime Gophers target, Rodney Williams Jr., a forward who ranks Top 50 nationally but hasn’t announced his decision yet.

Cobbs joins a 2009 recruiting class that already includes a Top 20 talent, Royce White, who committed last spring to the Gophers. If Tubby can land Williams Jr. and add a decent big man, he’ll be well on his way to having one of the top recruiting classes nationally, and maybe the top class in the Big 10, for a second year in a row, which would be a Gophers feat worth its weight in unlocked cell phones.

Canadian guard Devoe Joseph, a young athlete just now leaving the pimple cream crowd, was cleared by the NCAA to enter the University of Minnesota and be eligible to play D1 basketball for Tubby Smith’s Gophers last week. While Smith put together a Top 15 recruiting class and all of them are important, it is Joseph who might make the difference between another 20-win season and NIT appearance, or a 20-plus-win season and an NCAA bid.

“Talking to Devoe, he’s going to be starting,” Smith told TwinCities.com. “But that’s the attitude I love about him. He’s got the kind of mentality.”

With sophomore guard Al Nolan Jr. at point and Joseph as the two-guard, Minnesota may now have a back-court that can enable its sizable front court to match up well and create more victories than the team achieve prior to Tubby Smith’s arrival.

Rodney Williams Jr., who Tubby Smith’s Minnesota Gophers are in hot pursuit of for the 2009 recruiting class, has five other schools he’s interested in who are currently pursuing him, according to recent online reports. That list includes Kansas, Connecticut, Memphis, Miami (FL) and Santa Clara.

Williams Jr., who is a longtime pal of Gophers commit Royce White, is expected to keep Minnesota high on his list, but competition for his services could be tough with Kansas, UConn and Miami (FL) in the mix. The Robbinsdale Cooper shooting guard is a Top 40 recruit on most national lists, and if paired with White, could vault the Gophers recruiting class near the top nationally for 2009, coach Smith’s second class since taking over the Gophers program in the spring of 2007.

Both of Smith’s classes are thus far also good character recruits so far, which hadn’t always been the case for recent Gophers regimes. No academic issues so far, no off-the-court shenanigans. The men’s team is now nearly as sedate as the women’s team, whose biggest issue is keeping around a handy supply of Progesterone.

When he came to Minnesota last year, Gophers men’s basketball coach Tubby Smith made a large, noisy splash in the Big 10 pool, putting together an outstanding draft class in his first season on the job.

This season, Tubby’s just as hard at work, but operating a bit more silently. Coaching a Big 10 program is sometimes like sales manager jobs; sometimes you need to be loud to get results, and sometimes your approach needs some stealth to it.

With a couple key commits already, one of them a solid gold Top 40 recruit, Tubby Smith could very well put together an even better recruiting class this season than he did last season. This time, though, he’d just not doing it with trumpets blaring.

As long as he’s this effective, I don’t really care one way or another. Go, Tubby!

Minnesota alumni and hero Kevin Garnett will have to play a game six to bring home his first NBA championship to his new team, the Boston Celtics. Kobe Bryant, who the Celtics had shut down most of the series, scored 25 points, and Lamar Odom 20 points, in game five to create a 103-98, five-point road upset to keep the series alive on Sunday.

So now it is back to Boston, where the Celtics will enjoy a home-court advantage for Game Six and have the chance to win the NBA Title in front of a home crowd. The Celtics laid it out to attempt to close down the series, however, and only a CAT5e might be able to detect where things went wrong.

Paul Pierce led all scorers with 38 points, Ray Allen had 16, and Garnett scored 13 points along with 14 rebounds, but got into foul trouble against the Lakers’ Pau Gasol, limiting his effectiveness. Still, with the chance to end the series and win in front of their home crowd, Celtics fans must be excited at the prospect of a Game Six.

Well, the game ended and Garnett and company did the unlikely; they erased an 18-point half-time deficit and came back against the odds, on the road in Los Angeles, to win Game 4 and return to Boston up 3-1 against the Lakers, winning by a final margin of 97-91.

Believe me, if Boston wins the next game and takes home the trophy in five games, there will be plenty of small business opportunitites in celebrating the Celtics’ return to glory. From a Minnesota perspective, it’s the second-best possible news for the former home state of Kevin Garnett.

The best-possible news, of course, would be if he’d been doing all this as a Timberwolf.