Tag: University of Wisconsin

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Minnesota Gopher basketball; better than you think?

By Chad Smith

Minnesota Gopher basketball can be a polarizing discussion among their fans. The team finished the 2018-2019 men’s campaign with a 22-14 record. While there are dozens of colleges and universities that would be thrilled with 22 wins and a victory in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, not all Gopher fans were pleased with the outcome. Mike Grimm is the 13-year radio voice of the Golden Gophers, who made a recent appearance on the Minnesota Sports Weekly podcast. He says it’s important to keep a little perspective when fans look at a basketball season.

“I think it’s all how you look at it,” said Grimm. “It’s hard to say it was a disappointment. I’ve seen people say that on social media and I think they’re wrong. It’s not worth getting into a disagreement with someone if they don’t have the time or patience to look at the history of Minnesota Gopher basketball. We don’t have the history here as a UCLA does.

“This program has only appeared in 14 NCAA tournament, with two of those appearances in the last three years,” he added. “Anyone who suggests they should be ashamed of a season in which they made an NCAA Tournament and won a game for the second time in 20 years is being silly. That’s just dumb.”

Minnesota Gopher basketball
There’s no such thing as a perfect college basketball season. However, Mike Grimm, radio voice of Minnesota Gopher basketball, says the 2018-2019 campaign was pretty good, especially when you look at the history of men’s basketball at the University of Minnesota. (Photo from krocam.)

Grimm says if people really want to nitpick, they can. The Gophers did let leads slip away in a few games and they lost a few they probably shouldn’t have. However, they also beat Purdue twice and beat the Badgers IN Wisconsin for the first time in over a decade. They knocked off the PAC-12 champion Washington Huskies to win the Vancouver Showcase.

“There were a lot of good things that happened,” Grimm said. “Remember, this was one of the toughest Big Ten seasons, top-to-bottom. The Gophers didn’t have a bunch of easy wins anywhere on this season’s schedule. The Gophers had to play a total of nine games out of a possible ten against the top five teams in the conference.

“There’s really no reason to sit and argue about it,” he added. “If you want to call it a disappointment, then you haven’t done enough research or you’re just being lazy about it.”

One of the highlights from last season for the Gopher men’s basketball squad was beating Purdue twice in the regular season, as well as a third time in the Big Ten Tournament.

He’s quick to say there were things that could have been done better. However, to say a coach should be fired after leading a team to a win in the NCAA Tournament is “ludicrous.” Grimm took it a step further, saying people who think Minnesota Gopher basketball shouldn’t be proud of this past season is “stupid, really.”

One of the bigger issues when it comes to the Gophers and social media was a sometimes-heated discussion over the contract extension given to Richard Pitino. The agreement will keep Pitino at the University of Minnesota for a total of another five years. It’s the third contract extension for the coach since joining the U back in 2013.

“There are some benefits to doing it now, especially when it comes to recruiting,” he said. “But I know it’s hard to forget the disappointment of the previous season. At one point, that team was 14-3 overall and ranked at No. 11 in the country. Then, the you-know-what hit the fan.”

That team went 2-14 the rest of the way as the wheels fell completely off the wagon. There were so many injuries to contend with, and then the suspension and expulsion of Reggie Lynch added a huge distraction to the season. “I’m not saying what’s right or what’s wrong,” Grimm added, “but there are probably schools where Reggie Lynch stays on the team.” However, there’s no question it’s a university policy and an important issue.”

The main thing about the Lynch situation Grimm wants to get across is it definitely played a role in the abysmal end to the season. Then, there were injuries to several players, including Amir Coffey, Dupree McBrayer, and Eric Curry, to deal with. That dragged everything down to a 2-14 record to end the season and any momentum from the NCAA appearance the prior season was lost.

“If he were sitting on three-straight tournament berths, which likely would have been the case if the wheels didn’t fall off last season, I don’t think too many people would be second-guessing,” Grimm said. “I know people cite the 40-70 Big Ten record, but it’s important to remember that this conference is tough every season. And, if you have two down seasons of 4-14 and 2-16 in the conference, it’s going to be hard to improve your record, even during successful seasons.

“The extension is also really good for recruiting,” Grimm said. “I know people want to dismiss it and say, ‘kids aren’t that dumb,’ but it does make a difference. Everything makes a difference.”

Grimm was frank in saying that if the school does want out of the deal with Pitino, it’ll actually cost the school less money next year than it would have without the extension. “I don’t know why people lost their minds over it,” he pointed out. “There are just some people that thrive on negativity in this market.

There are things you can nitpick when it comes to Pitino as far as in-game strategies and substitution patterns. However, that’s something fans can do with any coach. But Grimm said you can take that too far.

“To sound off about contract extensions and ask why they didn’t even have a news conference is crazy. There are certain people that love to be negative and won’t give anyone the benefit of the doubt. It’s the world we live in, and it’s an everywhere-thing, not just a Minnesota-thing. Negativity sells and people seem to love it.”

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Rushford Man Undergoes Heart Transplant

Gary Woxland of Rushford recently went on a journey that very few people will ever have to make. Two years after having a pump put into his heart, which was weakening, he had a heart transplant operation at the University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison. He went into the hospital on April 19, and after more than 12 hours on the operating table, Woxland is feeling good about the results of the procedure. The road to the transplant began just a couple years ago.

Heart Transplant
Glen Woxland of Rushford, Minnesota, recently underwent a successful heart transplant operation at the University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison., and says “I’d recommend that hospital to anyone!” (Photo by Kayla Thompson, Bluff Country News Group)

“My heart had gotten too weak,” he recalled, “so I had a heart pump put in to help it out two years ago. That did help, but I then decided it would actually be better for me if I could get a heart transplant. Heart pumps are only good for 15-18 years before they wear out. At that point, I’d be too old to put in a new one.”

He did his original “doctoring” at Mayo Clinic, but Mayo had an age-cutoff of 70 years old, at which they would no longer perform the operation. Woxland was just shy of 69 when he first broached the topic with doctors. He said the doctors in Rochester discouraged him from pursuing the option there but did encourage him to try the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, Arizona. The Rochester doctors told him there was a bigger donor list in Arizona and he might have quicker results down there.

“We went through the hospital there and they felt the same as the Rochester clinic,” he said. “They said I was getting too old and didn’t want to risk it. Someone told me I should check with the hospital at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. It turned out they were interested and put me through their tests. They had a similar age cutoff to Mayo Clinic, but it was more dependent on the overall health of each candidate.”

Woxland was actually still working up to that point and not “sitting in a chair somewhere every day.” The fact that he could do everything on his own before the surgery really helped out. In spite of that, it still took him a while to get on the transplant list. Four or five months later, he still hadn’t heard from anyone and was about to give up on the idea when the call finally came. Woxland felt it was a dream come true.

“I was down at the shop where I work and talking with my brother,” he recalled, “and I set my cell phone down in the shop and went into another room when they began trying to call me. They called two or three times there and then called my wife, but she didn’t have her cell phone with her. I left work at noon for lunch and when I got home, the phone was ringing. At the same time, they’d called Rushford Police Chief Adam Eide and asked him to come find me as well.”

After getting word that they’d found him a good heart, it was literally a mad dash to get to Madison, Wisconsin, as hospital staff wants the transplant patients there within four hours. Woxland had a smile you could hear in his voice when he said, “we thought we were ready to go, but we weren’t.” It was a bit of a challenging drive to Wisconsin through what was heavy snowfall, at times, but they did make it safely.

“We got there and found out the donor was actually still alive,” Woxland recalled, “and they weren’t going to harvest the heart until the next morning. It was a good opportunity for them to get me prepped. About 12 hours later, I was ready to go. My wife said I was in the operating room for 12 hours. I went in around 8:30 in the morning and got out around 9:00 that night.”

The doctor told the Woxlands that the surgery went great and there were no complications. He did ask who the donor was, and staff couldn’t tell him at that moment. All the doctor could say was the donor was male. There is a form that Woxland can send to the hospital to find out the name of the donor. Hospital staff told the Woxlands that they shouldn’t be in a hurry to find that out as the donor’s family is still grieving the loss.

He still has to go back to the doctor every two weeks for biopsies, but so far, so good. Woxland said the hardest challenge was being laid up on the operating table for 12 hours, and then not being able to get up and move for another three days. He’s lost a little bit of muscle in his legs and feels a little more tired but is otherwise in good shape. Woxland says hospitals perform transplants more often than most people realize.

“When I first was looking at a heart pump or a transplant,” he recalled, “I didn’t honestly think there was any way transplants would be worth it,” he remembered. “Then, I came to find out that hospitals do transplants every day, everywhere. The University of Wisconsin does a lot of transplants, including organs like hearts and lungs. They’ll even do double transplants, such as heart and lungs in one patient.”

His last thought on his amazing journey?

“I would recommend the University of Wisconsin to anyone who asks,” he said.