MinnesotaSportsScene.com

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.

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.)

While Smith is restricted by the NCAA from offering his recruits even so much as a mattress topper for their thin and uncomfortable dorm beds, one of the things he can offer recruits is a chance to play for him; Smith is one of the top coaches in college basketball today, easily among the Top 10 active coaches today.

When Smith first took the Gophers job, he immediately went on a charm offensive, meeting with nearly every single Minnesota high school boys hoops coach to establish good relations and attempt to keep the cream of the Minnesota crop of basketball talent at him, rather than migrating to other Big 10 rivals or other national powerhouses. If successful, that’ll help.

The only criticism of Smith so far might be how well he recruits nationally; despite vowing to keep Minnesota talent in Minnesota, Smith’s first recruiting class has no Minnesota boys in it. While this might be tolerated for a year or two, if the trend continues, Smith may eventually face some critical comments here in Minnesota - instant coaching legend or not.

While most coaches would take a month off after getting bounced from the first round of the NIT tournament next week, Minnesota’s Tubby Smith is not most coaches; he still has a tender or two left for next fall if he cares to use them, and beyond that, Smith is likely already at work formulating his recruiting plan for his Class of 2009.

Certainly, this Gophers team will improve next fall whether Smith adds more kids or not for next season; already, his recruiting class is arguably between first and third in the Big Ten, and a Top 20 class - some say higher - nationally. But Smith isn’t likely to stop looking for ways to improve the Gophers, and one can be assured that he wants to improve on this recruiting mark in 2009 and beyond.

Avoiding kids with black marks against them, like criminal records or backgrounds that include drug rehabilitation, Smith’s Gophers team will hopefully be less likely to make bad decisions that embarrass the team and the school, not to mention Tubby himself.

Two teams are still in the midst of March Madness - Wisconsin and Michigan State - who feature Minnesota players. Michigan State boasts on its roster former Braham, Minn., phenom, Isaiah Dahlman, while Wisconsin features Jon Leuer and Kevin Gullickson. If Minnesota had had Tubby Smith as coach two seasons ago, all three would likely be Gophers today, and Minnesota, rather than bowing out of the NIT tourney in the first round, would be in the Sweet 16 themselves.

Probably.

While a lot of funny t-shirts could be made of all the top recruits lost by former coach Dan Monson, one thing is certain: with Tubby at the helm, those days are sure to be at an end now.

Today was the first time I’ve had a chance to see a Minnesota Gophers game inside Williams Arena. It’s a great atmosphere and Coach Tubby Smith had the kids playing well against Penn State. I came away with a few impressions. You can’t really get without being there in person.

First is that Lawrence McKenzie is far too streaky and out of control as a player. Perhaps it was just how he played today, against Penn State, but it certainly is something that comes across when you can see the kid in action.

Second is that freshman point guard Al Nolan is the real deal, a true point guard in the sense that he’s a pass first, set up other guys style of player with great speed and solid defensive skills. The rest of the Gophers simply play better when Nolan’s on the floor. That means that not everything next season has to ride on Devoe Joseph’s passing abilities, and perhaps with both him and Nolan on the floor, Joseph can think of scoring as well as passing.

Third is that they desperately need to rethink the restroom situation at Williams Arena. When sitting in the upper deck, men have to walk all the way to the ground floor to find a restroom; women have TWO restrooms on the second floor, but men have none. That’s just not good planning. The least they could have done for this inconvenience is to offer up some Gamefly coupons, but no such luck. Oh well.

Whether someone gave them a bunch of sugar energy pills to rile them up, or the team just decided to play better, the Minnesota Gophers banished a decent Iowa team on Saturday, helping Tubby Smith’s team to a 15-7 overall record, including a 5-5 mark in the Big 10. With eight games left, the Gophers would need to go 5-3 the rest of the way to reach the magic number of 20 victories and maintain a winning record in the Big 10 schedule. If they can do that, the Gophers have a chance to make the NCAA tournament in Tubby Smith’s first season at the helm of the program.

Yet the road ahead won’t be easy. The team next faces Illinois, who they have yet to face this season, at Williams Arena. They then travel to Wisconsin, who they lost to 63-47 at Williams Arena, so an upset is not likely. At best, the Gophers will be 1-1 after those two games.

A two-game home stand follows that, with the Gophers facing Michigan and Penn State. The Gophers won by 12 on the road at Michigan and won by three over Penn State on the road earlier this season, so let’s be optimistic and say they win both of those. Now they’re 3-1 the rest of the way.

Where it could all fall apart is in the last four games. They face Purdue on the road, a team they haven’t seen yet this season. This it’s Ohio State at William Arena, but the Gophers lost on the road to the Buckeyes by 16 points earlier this year. The team then finishes our with Indiana on the road - a team they couldn’t beat at home, and a rematch with Illinois in Champaign.

The Gophers will likely need two of those games, and it doesn’t look good; if they fall to the last four opponents, their best record would be 18-12, but with four losses at the end; even if they get hot in the conference tournament, unless they win the automatic bid by taking the tournament, it could still be long odds for the Gophers to make it to the NCAAs this season; at best, with a finish like that, they might earn an NIT bid.

But if they can go 3-1 in the next four, and take two of the last four, the Gophers would be in good shape at 20-10. Anything less and too much is left in the hands of the NCAA Selection Committee

Basketball coaching legend Tubby Smith recruited over the summer like a man possessed and landed one of the best Gophers recruiting classes for his mens’ basketball team, possibly in Gophers history. However, Smith had a longstanding reputation to fall back on; no matter where he coaches, his name is nearly a brand name for quality coaching, just like Nike is a brand name for athletic footwear.

Gophers football coach Tim Brewster, not to be outdone, has worked tirelessly recruiting for the U as well, but with fewer advantages. First, Brewster’s a first-time head coach, not a living legend or a brand name coach. Second, in his first season as Gophers coach, his team posted a miserable 1-11 record. Nevertheless, Brewster proved hard work, enthusiasm and never taking no for an answer can produce results; depending on who’s doing the ranking, Brewster’s first recruiting class is a beaut.

Rivals.com ranks Brewster’s recruiting class for next fall as 16th in the nation and third in the Big Ten, while Scout.com ranks the Gophers class 24th nationally and fourth in the conference. Either way, it’s probably the best recruiting class any Gophers coach has put together since 1984, when Lou Holtz put together a great recruiting class following a 1-10 season.

The fact that the Gophers are set to debut in a brand-new on-campus football stadium in the fall of 2009 played a factor, I’m sure; recruiting top-notch football classes is about a lot more than handing out customized cheap pens. So a tip of the hat to Tim Brewster; with a lot fewer assets to work with and a much larger recruiting class to fill, Brewster has shown he can recruit right along with the best of ‘em… including Coach Smith of the basketball Gophers.

Gophers center Spencer Tollackson stands 6′9″ and 260 pounds, and before Wednesday’s game, the burly senior had never had a perfect game; that’s no longer true. Against the Wildcats, it was Tollackson who went wild, shooting a perfect seven of seven from the floor and five of five from the charity stripe.

It was Tollackson who led the way against Northwestern as the Gophers offered Tubby Smith win number 401 of his career as part of the 92-72 victory. Minnesota now stands 14-7 overall, 4-5 in the Big 10, and they’ll need to finish a little better than .500 the rest of the way to secure a spot in post-season play. While the Williams Arena crowd was sparse for the midweek match-up, if the place had been packed, one would have needed Bose headphones to keep the roar to a manageable level.

The Minnesota Gophers suffered another Big 10 road loss to a classy, talented, experienced Ohio State team under coach Tubby Smith this weekend, 76-60, but there are five reasons why such humbling defeats will become rarer for the Gophers and coach Smith next season.

They are: Colton Iverson, Ralph Sampson III, Paul Carter, Devron Bostick, and Devoe Joseph. Those five recruits would likely beat the Gophers current starting five more often than not, and when playing in unison with those older, more experience Gophers players, will make the team far more formidable next season.

Sure, this season’s Gophers squad is a big improvement over the team that seemed more interested in plus size lingerie than in winning last season under Dan Monson and an interim head coach, but they have some growing to do.

How about twin towers Iverson and Sampson as the starting point for that growth spurt?

Although it looked for a while like a possible third loss in four games, it turns out Tubby Smith’s Gophers had a nice cat bed all made up for the Penn State Nittany Lions to fall asleep in during the second half. The Gophers, now 12-3 overall and 2-1 in Big 10 action, won a comeback victory, 76-73, after trailing by 16 points with only 13 minutes left in the game.

Blake Hoffarber led the Gophers with 19 points on six of 11 shooting, including five of eight from three-point land, and the Gophers as a team held Penn State to 15 points the rest of the way while scoring 34 themselves to produce the comeback win.

After the game, senior center Spencer Tollackson spoke to the press and said, “It wasn’t good enough to come out of here with a two-point loss or a one-point loss or an overtime loss. We wanted to win the game. Like Coach says all the time, ‘There’s no such thing as moral victories.’”

The victory handed coach Tubby Smith his 399th career win; he’ll attempt to reach his 400th win against Indiana on Thursday, at Williams Arena.

First-year starter and redshirt freshman Adam Weber, who started every game for the Minnesota Gophers last year, will be in for a lot of competition next fall to retain his starting job. There will be so many top athletes vying for the position it could cause Weber to need some progesterone or something, for all the bloating.

In addition to Weber, the team already has the coach’s son, Clint Brewster, who will by vying for the position, but top-notch recruiting Tim Brewster isn’t settled yet. Also on the roster next fall is junior college transfer-recruit David Pittman. This recruiting season, he has already signed two blue-chip prospects, both of whom may be better than either Weber or Clint B.

QB John Nance of Cretin-Derham Hall is on board the the Gophers, and made a high school career tossing the ball to Notre Dame-bound Michael Floyd.

Joining Nance as an incoming freshman, and likely to be redshirted just because of the logjam at the QB position, is Indianapolis prep QB MarQuis Gray, who announced his Gophers-bound intent during the U.S. Army All-American game in San Antonio, TX. According to Rivals.com, Gray is a confirmed four-star recruit.

With all the talent at QB, the only real question for the Gophers is who these hurlers will be tossing the pigskin to, and whether coach Brewster has recruited enough defense to stop their Big 10 opponents once and a while and thus make all that offensive firepower mean something.