MinnesotaSportsScene.com

Practices will soon be underway for Minnesota Gophers football.

The second year for the program has to be better than the first, and that’s largely because there’s not much further down for the program to fall. Under coach Tim Brewster last year, the Gophs went 1-11, bottoming out so badly, even his own son decided to transfer out of the program.

(Not really… his son had other reasons to leave.)

But this season really ought to be better. Adam Weber has some experience at QB now, and if he falters, we have some great QBs recruited behind him who are more than anxious to take over the reigns.

Most importantly, this year’s squad as a full defense; last year, about half his starters never even made it to the first game due to being idiots off the field. When you don’t have a great defense, it doesn’t matter how many succesfful drives your QB leads your team on. You have to stop the other team because even if your score 70 points, you lose if your opponent scores 71.

That lesson learned and that problem corrected, it’ll be intriguing to see what coach Brewster can do this season with a year under his belt, a full defense, and more of the squad he’s coaching consisting of kids he recruited himself, and that’s worth all the Cat5e patch cables you can count.

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!

Despite a solid recruiting class in 2008, Tubby Smith still hasn’t obtained a signature point guard to run his Gophers offense. That is something he’s hoping to change with the recruiting class of 2009, and the auditions have begun. Instead of subscribing to California wine clubs over the summer, Smith is, among other activities, directing his own basketball camp at which one PG target is in attendance.

That recruit, DeShawn Dockery of Illinois, is a 5-11 prospect whose cousin, Shawn Dockery, is a guard at Duke. DeShawn may be headed to Worcester Prep School in Massachusetts for his senior season and is on Tubby’s short list as a true PG prospect.

Others include Milwaukee’s Johnnie Lacy and Chicago’s Chris Colvin.

Former Champlin Park, MN linebacker and Gophers freshman Sam Maresh, one of coach Tim Brewster’s top “gets” in the class of 2008, may never play a single down for the maroon and gold. Not because Maresh is transferring out or because of antics on or off the field, but sadly, due to health problems.

Maresh went for a routine physical and found out he has a serious heart condition; he is sceduled for open heart surgery on June 26. The medical conditions Maresh has been diagnosed with include, “a congenital heart defect, an aortic valve leak and an enlarged ventricle and aortic root,” according to an email released by Maresh’s parents to the media on Tuesday. Any one of these conditions would be serious enough on its own; together, they make the procedure later this month that much more urgent.

Maresh was never detected as a candidate for a heart condition because the young athlete kept himself in such good shape, he never felt ill effects from the condition. According to the email, Maresh’s parents are unsure if Sam will ever be able to play football again, a projection that likely won’t be able to be determined until some time after the surgery.

It’s tragic; some kids mess around with generic Phentermine, steriods and other garbage and never suffers ill effects or even catches a cold. Then, along comes a solid kid like Maresh, who never does any of that foolishness, who many top-notch schools recruited, and BAM!, something like this happens.

The prayers of MinnesotaSportsScene.com are with the Maresh family.

Former Timberwolves coach Flip Saunders has been fired by the Detroit Pistons. His crime? Only that he took the team to the Eastern Division championship series in all three of his seasons in Detroit. I guess that’s not good enough for some folks; it’s an NBA title or you’re gone.

Of course, with all the blinds on management’s eyes in Detroit, I suppose it’s hard to blame them; all they want to see is championship gold or nothing. Never mind that Flip’s teams have been among the top four every year in the last three years.

I wouldn’t worry too much about Saunder, though. He’ll be well-paid for the year left on his contract, and he’ll have his pick of NBA jobs once he’s ready to jump back into the fray.

There’s only one thing I wish the local sports press would shut up about, already: Stop wishing Tubby Smith would move away from Minnesota so that Flip can coach the Gophers.

I guarantee you, Tubby’s a better college coach than Flip will ever be, because Tubby’s been a college coach all his career! For the long-term good of the Gophs, now’s not the time to start pushing Tubby out the door. Personally, I hope he coaches the Gophs for at least the next decade, and retires at Minnesota.

Then, perhaps, Flip can have the job. In the meantime, Flip should continue coaching in the NBA. Unless the Wolves rehire him, he’ll be able to go through another couple NBA jobs and still be available 10 years down the line, when Tubby retires from college basketball after taking the Gophers to at least seven Sweet 16s, four Final Fours, and at least one NCAA championship.

Tubby Smith’s University of Minnesota Gophers men’s basketball team still ranks high following a spring signing period in which no additional talent was added. Maintaining a high ranking while other Big 10 and top national schools added players is a testimony to the quality of the five recruits Smith put together last fall.

HoopScoopOnline ranks the Gophers the highest, at 13 nationally and second in the Big 10. Rivals.com ranks the Gophs 23 nationally and third in the Big 10. Scout.com ranks Minnesota at 26 nationally and third in the Big 10. That’s not much slippage, especially considering the job Tom Crean has done at Indiana, recruiting top talent in the spring period, including Verdell Jones III, the talented pure point guard who narrowed his choices down the Minnesota, Indiana or Kentucky before settling on the Hoosiers due to the greatest opportunity for starting minutes.

A late rumor, however, is that Smith may exercise one more 2008 scholarship after all, rather than saving it for the class of 2009. No, he’s not going after Kentucky transfers PG Derrick Jasper or seven foot center Mike Williams - even though both might make nice additions. Instead, rumor has it Jones is eye-balling California SG Malik Story. At 6-5, Story is a solid shooter, boasts an NBA-archetype body, knows how to play defense and possesses a solid basketball IQ.

However, Story has been all over the place, playing at three different high schools in Virginia and California over his high school career, and word is he has some off-the-court and academic concerns. Still, Story is a big enough talent that Smith might be willing to take a chance on him, rather than reserving an extra scholarship for the Class of 09.

Whether the Gophers add Story to the Class of 08 or not, though, it appears that next year’s team will be a much more talented group, ready to shake everyone’s home theater sconces with some impressive play; and considering the Gophers were already close to being a 20-win team under Coach Smith with the leftovers from Coach Monson’s worst-ever Gophers team, it appears the Gophers might just be ready for the Big Dance next season, if not quite stocked yet for a run at the Big 10 championship.

Gophers 2009 basketball recruit Royce White just proved to be a better “get” than coach Tubby Smith may have thought when he landed White’s verbal commit last month. According to the latest Rivals.com poll of the top 150 prospects in the 2009 class, White moved up several notches to 18 overall.

White’s pal, Rodney Williams, Jr., also move up in the poll, to the 28 spot. Williams is considered a strong Gophers target, especially since he is White’s summer league teammate in the Howard Pulley tourney. Glen Rice Jr. and Daniel Miller, two kids from Georgia, have also been offered scholarships by the Gophers. Rice is another Top 100 prospect and could provide some insurance at guard if Williams doesn’t sign with Minnesota. Miller’s not Top 100, but has good numbers and is said to have impressed Tubby Smith, who knows a thing or two.

Georgia has been a strong target state, recruiting-wise, for coach Smith, who landed 2008 post player Ralph Sampson III from the Peach State. Must be offering them Kohler faucets in their dorm rooms or something! (Not really… I just like Kohler faucets.)

New Gophers recruit Royce White, himself ranked 32 in the nation by Rivals.com, commited to Tubby Smith’s Gophers recruiting class of 2009 a couple weeks ago, and is convinced that he can be a big factor in getting lifelong friend and fellow Top 100 recruit, Rodney Williams Jr., to also select the Gophers. Williams is ranked 43 overall by Rivals.com.

While many folks were wowed by Tubby’s Fab Five recruiting class for 2008, if he can add Williams along with White to his 2009 recruiting class, Minnesota could easily see the 2009 class surpass Tubby’s 2008 recruiting class. Although coach Smith’s 2008 class ranks no lower than Top 15 nationally, and is ranked Top 10 by some services, none of his recruits rank higher than 100 individually.

With Royce already in the bag for 2009 and Williams a strong prospect to join him, the 2009 class would easily boast two Top 50 recruits, making it an even stronger recruiting class with those two players alone. The biggest risk with White and Williams are the academic concerns they pose; White seems to have dealt with his issues, but Williams needs a strong senior year academically to secure his academic eligibility for the Gophers.

Here’s hoping the pair will overcome the academic challenges and secure their future in the maroon and gold, rather than the alternative, which could be hawking the best acne treatment in commercials, or something like that, which certainly isn’t a goal anyone wants to see them reduced to.

As we all know by now, heavily recruiting pure PG Verdell Jones III last Monday chose playing time over playing for one of the most prestigious coaches in all of college basketball, when he selected Indiana and Tom Crean over Minnesota and Tubby Smith.

The loss of Jones is by no means a tragedy for Smith, who will simply move the scholarship he’d reserved for Jones to his recruiting class of 2009. After all, his class of 2008 is already in the Top 10 of the nation in most polls, and with five recruits already signed, it’s not as great a loss as it might have been were it not for the presence of the five recruits Tubby already had nailed down.

The Gophers recruit class of 2009 is already off to a top-notch start when Smith signed Royce White, a Top 100 prospect, who gave his early verbal commit a couple weeks ago. Adding an extra available scholarship to the pool of players who will come in with White could help Smith secure yet another Top 10 recruting class, which would make a 2009 recruit a best buy compared to adding a sixth or seventh player coming in at the same time as Tubby’s Fab Five class next fall.

Minnesota Gophers football coach Tim Brewster is already looking ahead to 2009; not that this season doesn’t matter - it does, a lot - but he’s already secured an oral commit out of Houston Cypress Ridge RB Hasan Lipscomb, who Rivals.com rates as a four-star prospect and one of the top 250 juniors in the nation.

While he may live where cell phone repeater aren’t needed in the Houston area, Lipscomb comes from an area like that; he moved from New Orleans to Texas following Hurricane Katrina.

Rushing for 1600 last season as a junior, Lipscomb may be the first back to commit to the Gophers under Brewster that has the potential to make Gophers fans reminisce a bit less about the glory days of Lawrence Maroney and Marion Barber III sharing the same maroon-and-gold uniforms for a couple seasons.

We’ll know early Monday evening, just in time for the local news, whether Verdell Jones III will be a Gopher or a Hoosier next year. The true point guard who has been heavily pursued by coach Tubby Smith is scheduled to make his announcement at 5 PM on Monday at Jupiter’s Pizzeria in Champaign, IL.

While Jones prepares to leave behind high school and all its inconveniences like acne treatments and girls who would rather date college guys, it appears playing time may be a factor in Jones’ decision. He spent time during his second visit last April how he’d fit into a rotation at guard that already included Al Nolan Jr., Blake Hoffarber, Lawrence Westbrook and fellow 2008-09 recruit Devoe Joseph.

While Jones is a true, pass-first point guard and therefore would be a key part of that mix, if he ends up selecting Indiana instead, it will be only because of playing time, as Jones clearly wouldn’t mind playing for a coaching legend like Smith.

It won’t tax the Dell memory of regular readers of this blog to recall that Minnesota Gophers basketball head coach Tubby Smith is in hot pursuit of Champaign, Ill., point guard Verdell Jones, who is also being courted by Indiana, Arizona and Kentucky.

Well, even though Indiana might be the school most likely to give Jones immediate starting minutes, rumor has it that Tubby’s rep may land the Gophers yet another top recruit, bringing his class of 2008-09 to a bumper crop of six players. Already ranked as a Top 15 recruiting class nationally, the addition of Jones would push Smith’s first recruiting class for Minnesota solidly into Top 10 status, perhaps as high as Top 5.

Technically, the Gophers have a seventh scholarship available that would have gone to California recrtuit Krys Faber, but when he chose DePaul over Minnesota, word is Smith decided to save that scholarship for his recruiting class of 2009-10. The first recruit he signed for that class is Top 100 prospect Royce White, a Minnesota native.