Golden Nuggets 04.20.09

by GopherNation on Apr 20, 2009 3:00 AM CDT in Golden Nuggets

The Nugz have been rather infrequent but I wanted to start your week off with the best of Golden Gopher related links from around the interweb.

I'll start with the Gopher basketball team fighting to be the 33rd best team in college basketball. Stupid Sideline Reporters put together a ficticious bracket of the teams who lost their first round NCAA games. The Gophers managed to be a #3 seed in the East, got a little bit lucky with their opponents beating American, Binghampton and Florida State to make the Final Four! Then once in the Final Four they overcame a 10-point halftime defecit to Clemson and won on a last second shot by Colten Iverson to send the Gophers to the title game.

You will have to check back later today to see the results of the Championship game. We drew West Virginia for the title game and I'm feeling pretty good about our chances.

Gopher Baseball went on the road and lost two of three from the Illini. Derek McCallum stayed white-hot and is almost a sure bet to be Big Ten Player of the Week.
Royce White received some praise on DraftExpress.com (my favorite site for NBA draft information). While covering the Jordan Brand Classic, which had many of the best incoming freshmen prospects in the country, they had this to say about White...

Minnesota commit Royce White really came out strong today, looking like he had a real chip on his shoulder, making shots from the perimeter, coming up with a couple of steals, crashing the offensive glass hard, and overall looking very impressive with his size and athleticism as a legit 6-7 small forward. He needs to improve his ball-handling skills, but he looks like quite a find for Tubby Smith from the little we saw today.

Good bit of ink when the Draft Express guys were really there to watch guys like Darrick Favors, Renardo Sydney Jr, John Wall, Demarcus Cousins, Avery Bradley and others.
The Pioneer Press takes a look back at old traditions of football game day on campus.
First I thought this was crazy, deranged homerism at it's finest, but actually Iowa may be a top 3 team in the Big Ten this year.
The NCPA College Paintball Championships saw the Golden Gophers participating.
How about a little "minor sports" update. The Men's Tennis team finished third in the Big Ten as they head into the B10 Tournament. Kit Beikmann (SR) finished 5th on the pommel horse to claim All-American honors. DJ Repp (FR) finished sixth on the vault to also earn All-American honors.

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Royce White

He had a decent game (10 points) in the Jordan Brand all-star game in NYC at MSG on Saturday.

He looks bigger than the 6-7, 200 pounds at which he is listed. I think 6-8 and 210 or 215.

by FortyYearCatFan on Apr 20, 2009 6:15 AM CDT reply actions

Shoddy Reporting

Gopher Baseball team actually lost 2 of 3 – came back in the final game to get a split on Saturday but lost the first 2 games of the series.

Friday – 10-15 L
Saturday – 7-10 L
Saturday – 12-8 W

http://www.gophersports.com/SportSelect.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=8400&SPID=3298&SPSID=38639

Visit my D2 Baseball Blog - Northern Sun Baseball

by FishingMN on Apr 20, 2009 7:54 AM CDT reply actions

Gee, they could have asked me about the traditions...

I remember them all. I especially remember the homecoming game when the front lawns of all the frat houses would have signs hanging from the balconys and the front lawns would have sometimes have floats. You’d walk down University avenue soaking up the excitement and a few beverages at various stops to visit. And then here would come the marching band down the street and everyone would line the streets and cheer. It was the best of times and later on, the worst of times as the team lost it’s allure and began losing on a regular basis.
As much as I would love to see the old traditions come back and the excitement of Saturday morning and afternoon and then the old “Peach Section” in the Tribune Sunday morning, I doubt it will ever return to that. Fans are much more cynical now and to into themselves to indulge in that kind of fun. And the press is far too cynical.

by COJOMAY on Apr 20, 2009 8:46 AM CDT reply actions

Thanks for the shoutout!

Minnesota got a #3 seed based on order of highest seed to lowest seed in the real tournament. Minnesota was a #10 seed in the East region and they were the 3rd highest seed to lose in that part of the bracket…..so there’s your #3 seed.

Very fortunate to get Binghamton with the biggest upset of the tournament, but the way they handled Florida State was impressive. Minnesota and West Virginia have really been the most dominant teams in this year’s tourney.

I have already simulated the final and bookmarked it so I can write up on it later, but I won’t give away the final score. All I’ll say at this point is that Minnesota scored the first 2 points of the game but fell behind 7-4 at the under 16:00 media timeout. :)

Hopefully Minnesota won’t be in BOTL next year, but in the 2nd round of the NCAA Tournament!

Seattle: Where the sun coming out or snow falling takes up 20 minutes of a 1 hour local news broadcast.

by SSreporters on Apr 20, 2009 10:13 AM CDT reply actions