There were several current and former Gophers competing over the weekend in the Olympic Trials. It does not appear as though any of them punched a ticket to London but a few were rather close.
Current Gopher long-jumper, Todea-Kay Willis won the Jamaican long-jump at their Olympic trials but she failed to meet the minimum Olympic qualifying standard so she will not be heading to London.
Former Gopher Gabriele Anderson made the 1,500 meter finals, she easily met the Olympic qualifying time but finished 4th place. A third place finish was all she needed and unfortunately she just missed.
Former Gopher Hassan Mead missed out on his trip to London. Mead finished 11th in the 10,000 meter finals after running a personal best. And then Mean finished 8th in the 5000 meter finals just 8 seconds behind the winner. Mead owns pretty much every distance school record, is a 6-time All-American with several Big Ten titles to his name. Mead just finished his Gopher career and likely will be in the thick of things in four years trying to earn a trip to Brazil.
- Chad Ford came out with his list of top 100 players likely available in next year's NBA Draft. Rodney Williams checked in at #60 and Trevor Mbakwe shows up at #82.
- Vitto Brown is a high school forward that Minnesota is pursuing with what appears to be significant interest. Here is a short interview Brown did with a Michigan hoops blog.
- The preeminent Michigan blog had their Minnesota preview last week.
- SB Nation's NCAA main site had their Gopher preview up last week as well. This is a pretty good and fair preview in my opinion.
- A couple weeks ago the Gopher football team received a verbal commitment from an Illinois quarterback, Chris Streveler. Here is a local article on Streveler and his commitment to the U.