I will never forget meeting one of the best basketball coaches the University of Minnesota ever had: Clem Haskins.
NCAA
Posted inSports
Big Ten commish plans to ‘make things happen’ for student-athletes
The structure and routines such events provide are critical for mental health, especially for athletes.
Posted inSports
Sidelined coaches crave that basketball fix
College coaches nationwide are dealing with a new normal.
Posted inSports
Staley ‘carrying the torch’ for Black college coaches
Dawn Staley is among the nearly 16 percent of the Black WBB head coaches in the Power 5 conferences.
Posted inGophers/College, Sports
NCAA ‘not acting in good faith’
Players, who are largely responsible for today’s big-time college sports, still aren’t getting a dime for their efforts. Is the issue skin deep?
Posted inGophers/College, Sports
NCAA still in ‘perpetual delay’ mode on student-athlete pay
The NCAA Board of Governors on October 29 voted that all three divisions immediately come up with new rules that allow college players ‘benefit from the use of their name, image and likeness.’
Posted inSports
Final Four ‘diverse spending’ called a model for future events
A recently released report highlights the Minneapolis Local Organizing Committee’s diversity and inclusion spending.
Posted inGophers/College, Sports
The sorry state of softball diversity
According to NCAA student-athlete demographics, the racial composition of college softball hasn’t changed much in over a decade.
Posted inGophers/College, Sports
Cavaliers go overtime for redemption
The Virginia Cavaliers will never forget Minneapolis where they became champions of men’s college basketball.
Posted inSports
History-making Black coach savors Final Four memories
Mike Davis was the first Black coach at Indiana and one of five Black coach to have a team play for a NCAA title.
Posted inGophers/College, Sports
Welcome: Auburn, Virginia, Texas Tech and Michigan State!
Thanks, Michigan State, for destroying millions of basketball fans’ bracket and pools, and denying the most dynamic circus-like story in all of basketball from reaching the games marquee event!
Posted inGophers/College, Sports
NCAA selection committee still hard at work as tournaments begin
The 10-member NCAA men’s basketball tournament selection committee, composed of Division I athletic directors and conference commissioners, don’t select the four finalists that will compete during the first weekend of April for the national championship. But earlier this week they did select the 68-team field. “We put in a great field,” Stanford AD Bernard Muir […]
Posted inGophers/College, Sports
Following that long winding road to the Final Four
For the last couple of weeks, this columnist instead followed other roads to that other tournament — the women’s NCAA Final Four that also is held the same weekend in Tampa.
Posted inGophers/College, Sports
Gophers defeat Louisville in NCAA opener 86-76
Freshman guard Gabe Kalscheur scored a game-high 24 points Thursday, including 15 on three-pointers, to lead the University of Minnesota men’s basketball team to an 86-76 victory…
Posted inGophers/College, Sports
All roads now lead to Minneapolis!
So let the journey begin: It’s called March Madness. The men’s field of 68 teams begins this week with the challenge of who can win six games and capture a national championship.
Posted inSports
Gopher hoopsters’ narrow focus to ‘survive and advance’
he Gophers will have to win four games this week in Indianapolis — in other words, win the Big Ten tourney and the automatic bid — to assure them a spot in the NCAAs later this month.
Posted inGophers/College, Sports
Stringer is first Black NCAA coach to reach 1,000 career wins
On November 13 Stringer became the sixth women’s basketball coach in NCAA history and the fifth Division I coach to reach the grand milestone, which brought well-deserved worldwide acclaim.
Posted inGophers/College, Sports
Another BIG school in big trouble
Athletes, remember, have from the beginning generated millions of dollars for NCAA member schools’ athletic programs annually under the guise of amateurism. NCAA men’s basketball and the tournament are very popular and generates billions of dollars each year in revenue.
Posted inSports
Grad racial gaps stagnant among Sweet Sixteen men
Women have nearly closed the gaps The Sweet Sixteen round begins this week in men’s and women’s college basketball. But nary a word has been said about the continuing graduation disparity gap between Black and White players. Our March Madness coverage continues this week not on the games, but rather on the fact that while […]
Posted inSports
Needed NCAA reforms appear unlikely soon
It might be March Madness now, but it’s been non-stop madness for the past 12 months, from assistant coaches getting arrested and charged with bribery in a federal probe to a former team doctor sentenced to quadruple life sentences for sexual assaults against female gymnasts. NCAA President Mark Emmett last fall established a 14-member “Commission […]