MinnesotaSportsScene.com

Even though this weekend was a bye week for the football Gophers, Minnesota debuted in the BCS Top 25 poll for the first time this season, and the first time since 2005. While the Tim Brewster-coached Gophers are ranked near the bottom of that poll, at number 24, it is still a huge achievement for a team that no one - including MinnsotaSportsScene.com - expected much out of this year.

Color us humbled. Still, despite the team’s current 6-1 record (2-1 in the Big 10), there’s still a long and difficult schedule ahead for the maroon and gold, and to achieve a top bowl bid, they can’t drop more than one game the rest of the way. If they do, I wouldn’t bet my MBT shoes on a January bowl appearance.

The remaining schedule for the Gophers is somewhat favorable. There are only two road games left, including Purdue and Wisconsin. The team also faces home games against Northwestern, Michigan and Iowa.

The team ought to be able to win three of the last five, given their performances so far this season. That would put Minnesota at 9-3, which would ensure a good bowl, but probably not a January bowl. If the Gophers can manage four wins, a January bowl would not be out of the question, but that would mean beating either Wisconsin on the road, or Michigan at home - tall order.

Minnesota Gophers receiver Eric Decker is making maroon-and-gold fans forget all about the one that got away, Cretin Durham Hall grad Michael Floyd, now with Notre Dame. That’s because Decker currently leads all Division I receivers with 696 receiving yards through six games; he’s also third in the nation in catches, with 50.

By comparison, Floyd has only 21 catches for 333 yards over five games.

So forget all those Fenphedra-popping wannabes; Decker is the real thing for the Gophers and is a big part of elevating the team from a one-win train wreck last season to a 5-1 phenom this season.

While the Big 10 schedule is sure to take its toll on the Gophers and add a few more losses, one more win will make the Gophers technically bowl-eligible, and two more wins in the Big 10 will seal the Gophers for a post-season bowl bid.

Considering where the team was last season, anything beyond seven wins is gravy!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Minnesota Gophers legendary coach Tubby Smith lost out on a highly-recruited player he had targeted for the first time in his tenure as Gophers coach; Krys Faber finally settled on DePaul instead of Minnesota.

It’s hard to blame Faber for his choice, since the Gophers already have recruited two true freshmen post players in this year’s class; South Dakota’s Colton Iverson and Georgia’s Ralph Sampson III. Sampson is 6′11″ and plays the most like Faber, albeit on diet pills; Faber’s beefier. While Faber is more Big Ten-ready that Iverson and Sampson, it’s hard to blame Faber for choosing a university where he’ll be caught in less of a numbers game.

The Gophers still have Champaign Central Illinois point guard Verdell Jones in their sights, who is also considering offers from Kentucky and Indiana. With five recruits already signed in this class and two scholarships remaining, if Smith fails to land Jones, he may opt to carry the open scholarships into next season, when a whole new crop of top recruits will be available.

Smith’s 2008 Gophers recruiting class already ranks solidly in the Top 15 nationally, even without Faber and Jones. If Jones signs, that class might tick up a couple more notches, but there is a good argument to be made for carrying the scholarships over to the 2009 recruiting class.

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.