Monday Morning Nugz: Congrats to Gopher Baseball, Phil Kessel and some Football Links

Four Golden Gophers were drafted in the recent MLB Draft.

Dalton Sawyer went to Oakland in the 9th inning to extend the program's streak of having a pitcher drafted to 14 consecutive years.  Sawyer is a senior.  Jordan Jess, also a senior and the Gopher's top relief pitcher was taken by the Pirates in the 31st round. Team MVP and the Big Ten Player of the Year, Matt Fielder was also taken in the 9th by the St. Louis Cardinals.  He is a junior with a decision to make on whether to return for his senior season or take the paycheck to play in the Cardinal's organization.  And finally catcher, Austin Athmann was taken by Detroit in the 14th round.  Athmann is also a junior with a decision to make.

Overall this means that at worst, the Gopher program will only lose two players to the MLB before their eligibility is exhausted.  Jordan Smith, Torrin Vavra and Toby Anderson were a few names I was concerned would be drafted.

Eli Wilson, son of former Gopher Dan Wilson, was selected in the 37th round.  He is a Gopher commit and just finished up high school.  This legacy Gopher recruit will have a decision to make regarding his future, but being that he was a 37th round selection, I anticipate you'll see him at Siebert Field next year.

• Some random sports reporter for the Clinton Herald has the Gophers as a sure bet to be over the Vegas win total of 6.
• ESPN released it's top 25 basketball players for the class of 2019 (just finished their freshman year) and Matthew Hurt comes in at #22.  Matthew is the younger brother of incoming Gopher Michael.  Let's hope Michael has a good experience and convinces younger brother to come and play with him for a year or two.  Let the recruit watch commence.
• The Owatonna People's Press covered the last day of the Gopher Coach's Roadtrip.  In this article Claeys talks about Owatonna's Andrew Stetler and how tough of a kid he is.
• Claeys and Coyle met at DQ, Claeys was hoping for a public meeting to ensure he wouldn't get fired (that's sarcasm btw).
• Coach Pitino done talking about last year, me too.  Can we just vacate the season?
• Congrats to former Gopher Phil Kessel on becoming the 8th Gopher to have his name etched on Lord Stanley's Cup.