Tubby Smith's agent says the Gopher basketball head coach will sign an extension with the Gophers before next year. No real specifics on when or for how long, so take that for what it's worth.
As GN noted yesterday, Trevor Mbakwe was named 2nd team All-Big Ten, becoming the first Gopher since Vincent Grier in 2004-05 to be an all-conference selection. Minnesotans Jordan Taylor (1st team coaches and media) and Jon Leuer (coach 1st, media 2nd), who play in the state that hates teachers, were also honored. No surprise Purdue center JuJuan Johnson was the POY and Ohio State center Jared Sullinger was the Freshman of the Year. Purdue's Matt Painter was named Coach of the Year.
Plenty of Gopher hockey news from the Goal Gopher blog this morning: Don Lucia says he'll have injury updates on Wednesday on defenseman Aaron Ness and forward Taylor Matson. Roman reveals his all-WCHA ballot, and lists a couple of Gophers. Official announcement from the conference should be coming soon. The official who made the bogus hooking call last Friday that allowed Bemidji State to tie the game has apologized to Nick Bjugstad.
Yahoo! sports has dropped a potential bomb on the Ohio State football program, claiming head coach Jim Tressell knew about players selling gear well before it was reported to the NCAA. Five of Ohio State's top players, including star QB Terrelle Pryor, are suspended for the first five games of the 2011 season for selling Buckeye memorbilia for profit. Ohio State AD Gene Smith claimed at a Dec 23rd news conference the school became aware of the player violations December 7, 2010, but Yahoo! is alleging Tressell was aware of the incidents as far back as April of 2010. IF he lied to NCAA investigators, that could have some pretty significant implications for the Buckeye football program. Remember Dez Bryant was suspended for all of the 2009 season for lying to NCAA investigators about hanging out with Deion Sanders. Right now it's an IF, but this could make the 2011 Big Ten title race wide open, and could have much bigger impact on what's been the Big Ten's glory program for the better part of a decade. Yahoo! does have a track record here, as they broke the Reggie Bush scandal too.
Whoopsy, somehow missed this in my original post: a new SB Nation blog called Sports Bar Nation are ranking the top 64 beers. You heard me. Get over there and vote! Unfortunately, you don't get free beer for voting. When are they going to invent digital beer? Not soon enough, I'd say. They also asked what three beers you would want if you were stranded on a desert island? Without giving it much thought, I'd say Newcastle, Left Hand Milk Stout, and Molson Canadian. Done and done. Oh, and since we're talking about beer, I'm going to an Irish beer tasting get-together Saturday. Everybody brings an "Irish" beer (classified as either being from Ireland or being an "Irish" brew like Finnegan's Irish Ale, for example) and there's blind taste tests and we vote on winners, and drink a lot of beer. Anybody have suggestions for an Irish beer besides the obvious ones like Guiness or Killian's?