Gophers stuck in a hole
MINNEAPOLIS – Ten years ago this month, the Minnesota men’s basketball team was surging toward the school’s first and only appearance in the Final Four.
Some of the Gophers, however, were passing off their term papers to tutor Jan Gangelhoff and slouching toward an embarrassing scandal of widespread academic fraud.
A decade later, a program that sports fans in Minnesota were fiercely proud of for years has bottomed out.
NCAA sanctions – including scholarship and recruiting restrictions – have come and gone, but the Gophers still haven’t recovered. At 9-21, they’ve lost more games this season than any other since the university began playing the sport in 1896.
After finishing 3-13 in Big Ten conference play, Minnesota’s only hope of playing in the postseason is an implausible four-game winning streak at next weekend’s Big Ten tournament.
“It’s tough,” sophomore guard Jamal Abu-Shamala said. “Everyone wants to be playing for something during tournament time.”
Clem Haskins was the coach in 1999 when the rule-breaking was revealed. Dan Monson came from Gonzaga to replace him, and his firm approach to classroom responsibilities helped clean up the off-the-court mess.
Progress wasn’t made on the court, though, and Monson’s eighth season with the Gophers ended early when he was forced to resign on Nov. 30. Assistant Jim Molinari took over as interim coach, and athletic director Joel Maturi is expected to fill the job sometime this spring.
“Coach Mo’s been saying he believes that this is the group,” Abu-Shamala said. “And I also believe that this is the group that can do it.”
Minnesota has had two players leave this season, but there aren’t any seniors. Molinari has tried to instill optimism for the future.
“Great hearts are forged in great trouble,” he said recently. “I think these kids are getting better and better. I really believe that.”
One of Monson’s biggest problems was an inability to keep Minnesota’s best players from crossing the border. Kammron Taylor, who played at North High School in Minneapolis, is a senior leader for rival and fourth-ranked Wisconsin. Isaiah Dahlman, the two-time prep player of the year from tiny Braham, is a freshman with Michigan State.
The Gophers finished in the Big Ten’s top five and made the NCAA tournament only once under Monson, both in the 2004-05 season. Since the scandal, public interest in the program has fallen sharply. During spring break last year, Minnesota beat Wake Forest in an NIT game that drew an announced 2,643 fans.
The Gophers came within 3,000 people of their cozy arena’s capacity of 14,625 only twice this season. Opened in 1928, Williams Arena – known as “The Barn” by locals – is a college basketball icon for its age and uniquely raised floor.
But the homecourt advantage just isn’t there anymore. A place that used to be packed by Minnesotans escaping the winter cold to create a deafening and daunting atmosphere for opponents is now blemished by a nearly deserted upper deck.
Joe Haynes, a fan who used to attend as many as eight games each year, went to Williams Arena twice this season. He saw the Gophers lose an exhibition to Division II Winona State and drop a nonconference game to Arkansas-Little Rock.
“I left with about 8 minutes to go in the second half,” Haynes said.
Still, he’s hopeful – and interested in season tickets, especially if Maturi hires a big-name coach.
Alumnus and Detroit Pistons coach Flip Saunders is high on the university’s list, but the timing of the NBA season will probably leave him out of the process. Former Utah coach and current television analyst Rick Majerus has turned down the Minnesota job in the past, and there are plenty of others out there like former Stanford coach Mike Montgomery who would help ignite interest.
“Any of those guys would be better than what we’ve got,” Haynes said.
It’s uncertain whether the Gophers will again become an elite team that competes for national titles. It’s clear, though, that it wouldn’t take long for the passion to return to where it was in 1997, when Bobby Jackson and Sam Jacobson were leading the maroon and gold to that Final Four.
“That was the talk of the town. We all want it to get back to that,” Abu-Shamala said. “We’re all going to continue to work hard and try and do that. You never know. A year’s a lot of time to improve and really mesh as a team.”