We haven't forgotten about Nugz this week, just focused on the NCAA Tournament.
Walter Bond was on the 1990 Gopher team that made a run to the Elite Eight (I think that one still counts). He lost his E8 ring (it was stolen), but it was miraculously found in a recent police raid.
"I don't think I knew how much the ring meant to me until I picked it up," Bond said Tuesday, hours after he was reunited with the ring at the Ramsey County Sheriff's Office. "It was incredible."
Kind of a cool story and gets me to thinking about just how cool it would be to see a run to the Elite Eight. It all starts later this morning. Bond is a motivational speaker, he needs to be in that locker room this morning with his ring and do some of that speaking and motivating.
- Big Ten Geeks have a lengthy preview of the Gopher's pod. No real predictions but a nice breakdown of all four teams. Most interestingly, they found a stat that ranks Minnesota 346th out of 347 in consistency. I'm not real familiar with this stat but I generally trust KenPom stats and maybe we aren't really the 346th least consistent team in the country but clearly we are inconsistent.
- This is a great article on Tubby Smith. It starts from his post game interview after Kentucky lost to Kansas in the second round of the NCAA Tournament a few years ago.
Fast forward to the 2010 Milwaukee sub-regional, where Smith looked happy, relaxed and completely at ease with his calling, no matter that the Gophers had taken a 335-mile bus ride to reach the Bradley Center.
I am so glad he is our coach. He isn't perfect and he's not a miracle worker but he is elite and we are luck to have him. - Brent Yarina of BTN had Iverson and Joseph on his B10 Tourney All-Tournament team.
- Tubby took the time yesterday to promote Vince Taylor as an assistant who is ready to move on and be a head coach. Personally I don't want to see him leave, but for his sake I'd love to see him get a good job somewhere outside of the midwest.
- Black Shoe Diaries previews the NCAA Wrestling Championships with predictions of All-American's by weight class.
- Pioneer Press gives us 5 Keys for the Gophers.