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.

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.

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!

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 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.

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.