Badgers | Field 2 Field

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.”

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.”

It doesn’t seem that long ago that Clemson beat the socks off Alabama to capture the NCAA football crown. As over a foot of snow sits on the ground in Minnesota (with more on the way this week), it may be surprising to realize that spring football isn’t that far away, at all. Ryan Burns of Gopher Illustrated talked all things Gopher football on a recent episode of Minnesota Sports Weekly.

“We’re only a few weeks away now,” Burns said, “and considering the kind of February we’ve had, with all the snow and the Polar Vortex, it’s going to be a sight for sore eyes. Warmer temps are around the corner, the doldrums of winter are getting behind us, which is a good thing for Minnesota residents and for Gopher football.”Recruiting has basically wrapped up (for now). Burns said Gopher coaches spent roughly three weeks in January pounding the pavement on the recruiting trail. That second national signing day cut down on the number of recruits Gopher football signed this time around during the traditional signing day, which is the first Wednesday of February.

“Minnesota only signed one more scholarship player,” Burns said. “They’d signed 21 scholarship players during the early signing day in December. It’s the second year that college football had two signing days. I’d say roughly 70 percent of all college football recruits have signed during December.

Gopher football — Ryan Burns of Gopher Illustrated. (Photo from twitter.com)

“The Minnesota coaching staff should be back in the office this week and looking at more recruiting tape,” he added. “Just a couple weeks later, the staff will get started on their spring football season.”

How much time do these coaches spend on the road trying to build the future of the program? It’s astronomical. After the Gophers beat Wisconsin at the end of the regular season, head coach P.J. Fleck was out on the road 19 of the next 23 days recruiting, all the way up to the early National Signing Day. As Burns said, “There’s no rest for the weary.” Right after that signing day, the Gophers were off to Detroit and their Dec. 26 appearance in the Quick Lane Bowl.

“They (coaches) got a couple weeks off after the bowl and they were back out on the recruiting trail through late January and early February,” he said. “They get another week off and then it’s back to work figuring out who they want to recruit for the 2020 class, which is all juniors as we speak today. It’s spring football until April 15^th, after which they’ll be back on the road till the end of May.

“Once that wraps up, their home with their families for 6-7 weeks,” Burns said. “Coaching is demanding. I know several Gopher coaches that consistently work 12-14-hour days and it’s tough being away from your family that much. When you’re out for a six-week stretch of recruiting, you’re home maybe one day every week. You better have an understanding better-half who’s willing to put up with the lifestyle.”

Looking at recruiting specifics, Burns said they had a few holes in the roster to fill. “They were trying to add more talent into a young team. The Gophers might have been the youngest team in the country last year. You always want to continue to add talent, especially at the quarterback position.

“It’s the position at which the Gophers have the biggest question marks on how the program takes the next step forward,” he added. “I’d argue they have as good of a stable of running backs that they’ve had in a long time, they have as good a wide receiver group they’ve had in a long time, and the Minnesota offensive line really flipped a switch in the last month of the season. The O line was a big reason the team took a big step forward late in the year.”

Minnesota signed two quarterbacks in the offseason. One was from out-of-state and was the highest-rated QB to sign with the Gophers in decades. His name is Jacob Clark and he’s from Rockwall, Texas. They also signed Cole Kramer, a quarterback from Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Burns said Fleck did “a good job” of filling his two biggest needs at quarterback and along the defensive line.

One of the most amazing things about recruiting under P.J. Fleck is how the Gopher program is getting recruits who are being chased by school in the Power 5 conferences. A good example is defensive lineman Rashad Cheney of Atlanta, Georgia. The 6-foot-2, 270-pound defensive tackle, a four-star recruit, had previously committed to play for both Georgia and Alabama in the SEC. However, he signed a letter of intent late last year to play football for the University of Minnesota.

“Any time that you’re able to get a kid who had committed to Alabama all the way up to Halloween of last year before deciding to look around,” Burns said, “I think Alabama’s defensive line is absolutely something you should try to emulate. Think about it, they annually send two or three guys off their defensive line to the NFL every year.

“Winning in the trenches every year is a big point of emphasis for defensive coordinator Joe Rossi,” he added. “I think they addressed that well.”

Here are lots of Gopher football highlights from last season

The Gopher football team took many Minnesota football fans by surprise, finishing 7-6 overall, getting three wins in the Big Ten Conference, and winning five of their seven home games. The goal of spring football is to make sure the program takes steps to keep things moving forward.

“The coaches want to make sure they can build on some things,” Burns said. “They want to make sure the players who had difficulties last year with certain aspects of their positions can get those things corrected by understanding the cause and correcting their technique. As much as they want to get the kids physically ready to go, it’s more about the mental aspect as Minnesota will continue to install new things both on offense and defense.”

He added, “Going into year three, they want to take things up a notch.”

The big headliner for Gopher football fans to watch in spring football is definitely at the quarterback position.

“You had Mankato native Zach Annexstad win the job out of Gopher football fall camp and then gets injured during the season,” Burns said. “Tanner Morgan then comes in to finish the season. Tanner started seven games and Zach started six. Neither one of them really did enough to pull away from one another.

“You also have the two freshmen quarterbacks coming in, both of whom graduated high school early,” he added. “They’re already enrolled on campus and will be there for workouts, as well as spring ball, trying to compete for that starting quarterback job. Fleck has said the quarterback job is wide open, but I say that Annexstad likely has the inside track. However, they’re all underclassmen, all 18-20 years old, and they’ll all grow and develop at a different pace, so we’ll see what happens.”

Tag: Badgers

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