Remember this Guy?

Remember Darius Smith, combo guard for the class of 2009 out of Illinois?  The Gophers were interested, offered, and at one point he actually said they were his lead school, and it was basically a toss-up between him and Cobbs.  Justin accepted first, filling up the roster, and Smith ended up at UCONN.

Now, with Cobbs gone, it's interesting because Smith is also transferring out of Connecticut.   He wasn't exactly a paragon of success with the Huskies, playing in just 19 of the team's 34 games and just seven conference games and scoring a grand total of 19 points all season, but I'm still intrigued.

He was ranked as the #12 point guard in the class and the #71 recruit overall in the final rankings from Rivals.com, and the scouting reports on him called him one of the best on-ball defenders in the class and made a huge run up the rankings with a big senior year.

He was a day away from signing with the Gophers last year (seriously, one single day from having him instead of Cobbs).  I would then assume that there would likely still be some interest on his part, and since Tubby liked him before I'd assume you would still like him now.  Add in the Gophers' pressing need for a point guard in 2011 and it makes too much sense to not happen.  Of course, that means it probably won't.

But maybe once, just this once, things that should happen actually will.

Recruiting Updates

If you've been reading The Daily Gopher, and why wouldn't you, you'd know there has been a flurry of recruiting activity of note to Gopher fans lately. Of note:

- Minnesota boy Sam Dower heading to Gonzaga. Dower, a center from Osseo, is a late bloomer who recently shot up the ranks after averaging 22 points per game for in AAU ball this summer after putting up just 13 per game in high school. Gonzaga was after him early, and had the inside track. After visiting the campus, Dower made his choice. The Gophers got in the game late, and I was never optimistic Dower would sign here. Dower is currently ranked #119 on the Rivals Top 150.

- Torin Walker to Oklahoma State. Walker is another center Tubby wanted, and I'm quite a bit bummed he didn't get him, mostly because Torin Walker just sounds like a good name for a player. Walker was supposed to take a visit to the Minnesota campus, but after visiting OSU he canceled all other visits. I'm guessing he was set up with some very nice female "superfans" of the program. Take note for the upcoming Rodney Williams visit to the U please.

- Trevor Williams to Colorado State. Yet another center to spurn an offer from Tubby Smith, although for the life of me I can't figure out a single reason why anybody would want to go to Colo State. This was another case of a player having a visit scheduled to Minnesota, but opting to sign with another school following a visit there. There was a lot of chatter about Williams, and the Gophers were involved in his recruiting early so this one does sting a bit.

Not a Minnesota target, but of interest nonetheless is Hopkins' Mike Broghammer committing to Notre Dame. I'm not entirely certain why Tubby never chose to get involved in recruiting Broghammer, but I'm guessing it is because he is related to Christian Laettner, who once stomped on a Kentucky player and all the hearts of Kentucky fans. And Tubby still loves Kentucky.

Also of interest is Eden Praire's Ethan Wragge committing to Creighton last night. Wragge was never in Tubby's sights, but the a three-star instate player is still worth mentioning.

Does this all mean that Tubby is losing his touch? After the miracle class of 2008, are we sunk for 2009? No, not really. Calm down, spaz. Plenty of quality players still on the radar, particularly if Williams signs here. Other possibilities:

- PG/SG Darius Smith, #113 on Rivals. According to Scout, Smith considers the Gophers the Gophers his favorite school, and had a visit scheduled for last weekend at the U. He hasn't signed following that, which makes me nervous. I haven't heard a single peep about how the visit went, which also makes me nervous. I don't know if it actually happened or what. Expect Smith to sign with Bradley.

- PG Eric Bledsoe, #67 on Rivals. I've mentioned him before, and he is absolutely, without question my number 1 guy I want for this team for 2009, above even Rodney Williams. Everything I read about this kid gives me a boner. The problem is it's going to take a major coup to steal him away from Mike Davis and UAB. He's from Alabama, they've been recruiting him forever, he likes Davis, and he loves their running style. Odds on landing Bledsoe are around 10% or so, but if anybody can do it, Tubby can. Please.

- PG Johnnie Lacy, #110 on Rivals is also still a possibility, and has been written about here plenty. If Bledsoe doesn't work out, I'd be more than happy to get Johnnie, assuming he's eligible.

- Lastly, two Power Forwards from Georgia I've never heard of apparently have received offers from the Gophers according to Scout: Terrence Shannon and Kadeem Batts. Shannon is the superior player, coming in at #125 on Rivals while Batts is unranked. Batts is mostly being pursued by middle tier major conference teams, while Shannon has Florida State and Memphis as his leaders, with the Gophers listed as a longshot.


Grabbing any one of those guys along with Rodney to fill out the two remaining scholarships for 2009 would be an excellent, excellent class following up the #25 class of 2008 according to ESPN.

Once again, I want to say I'm absolutely convinced right now that the Gophers must get a verbal from Rodney on his official visit in a week and a half. The week after that, he is heading out to Santa Clara for a visit with his friend and Bronco commit Raymond Cowels. The fact that he narrowed his list to just two, and Santa Clara is on there instead of Kansas or UCONN tells me he's very serious about the possibility. Can't you see it? The two guys, visiting a beautiful campus in California right near the ocean. All around them are beautiful women in bikinis, the weather is nice after leaving the shitty fall weather of Minnesota. The rest of the Santa Clara team telling him how it's beautiful there all winter with no snow. Cowels talking to him about how the two of them can join together to help raise the Santa Clara program to national prominence once again.

Think about it, this is probably the most important recruit visit to that program since forever. They will pull out all the stops and roll out the red carpet to kiss his ass in a huge way. I'm telling you right now, if he doesn't sign with the Gophers during his visit and actually makes his way out to Santa Clara for that visit, he's going to sign there. I guarantee it.

Gopher Recruiting News

Since I initially started this site with the sole intent of writing about Gopher basketball before tangenting off into several hundred different directions, I figured once in a while I should take a peak at Gopher recruiting. Now seems about right, since there is a lot to discuss.

Darius Smith: I wrote earlier this week about the Gophers offering Smith, a 6-2 point guard from Illinois, and there is a little more information available. He was called "the best defensive player in the state and one of the best leaders" at the Nike Peach Jam and is known as a very solid rebounder, ballhandler, defender, and penetrator who lacks only an outside shot to complete his game. Bradley is after him hard, as well as Marquette and DePaul. The Gophers are late to the party, but their name recognition as well as high profile head coach have got to help, but of course, the Gophers lost that one big goofy guy to DePaul already, so who knows what kind of decisions some of these geniuses are capable of making. Smith sounds a lot like an Al Nolen clone, right down to the academic issues (current gpa of 2.4, ACT score of 16), and as long as he's eligible I'll be very happy with that.

Sam Dower: Big man from Osseo who picked up an offer from Tubby early last week, Dower is a 6-9, 215 PF/C who averaged 13 points and 7 boards as a junior at Osseo last season and will be expected to take more of a scoring role with several good players graduating after last year. He currently ranks #130 on the Rivals Top 150. Obviously at 215 he needs to put on some weight and gain strength, but he has that big wingspan that allows him to block a lot of shots, and he has a very good game in the paint and from the high post. He recently narrowed his list to five schools: Gonzaga, George Mason, Minnesota, Marquette, and Cal. He's already visited GMU, and is expected to visit Minnesota and Marquette in August and Gonzaga in September. I'm not real excited here, but I suppose he's better than nothing. I think the Gophers have two schollys left for '09, and I'd rather they be used on one of the PGs and Rod Will, but it's nice to see that a consolation prize under Tubby would have been the keystone recruit under Monson. No, I'm not ready to let the Monson hate go just yet.

Johnnie Lacy: Lacy, the 5-10 PG and Rivals #97 player from Wisconsin who recently reported that the Gophers were in the lead for his services has transferred to Notre Dame Prep School, reportedly with the hopes that it will help him get eligible for his freshman season in 2009. Notre Dame Prep is in Fitchburg, MA and is kind of a basketball powerhouse. They have three players on the Rivals150 for 2008: Terrence Jennings (#19), Kim English (#112), and Melquan Boldin (#147) but for 2009 Lacy will be the only one on the list there. He should get some high quality coaching as well as being assured they will do whatever they have to in order to get him eligible. The Gophers may have cooled on Lacy a bit lately, with the offer going out to Darius Smith as well as some sudden interest in another guard I'll mention next, Eric Bledsoe.

Eric Bledsoe: No relation to Drew, I'm assuming because he's black, Bledsoe is a four-star, 6 foot PG out of Alabama who ranks #73 overall on Rivals list. His scouting reports from all around give me kind of a semi, because he's basically a true pass-first point guard which I love unless it's that homo Jacque Vaughn. Scout says he lacks a perimeter shot, but ESPN says he can shoot it from deep, so who the hell knows, but they both say he has the instincts for the position and is a lightning quick creator and that is all that matters. Speaking of Creators, there is also a christian rock singer named Erik Bledsoe, and I really hope they don't recruit him instead. But again, that was probably more of a concern with Monson in charge. Bledsoe says the hometown UAB Blazers are leading for his services, and the only school to have offered a scholarship so far, but Alabama, South Carolina, Indiana, and the Gophers are also in the mix, as well as the Lord Jesus Christ.

Cory Joseph: Another PG the Gophers are looking at, this time for 2010, is the younger brother of future Gopher Devoe Joseph and could give them a Joseph to Joseph combo at the guard position, although some services describe him as more of an off guard who could play point in a pinch, much like big brother. ESPN describes him as having one of the best pure jumpshots in the class of 2010, and says he will end up being better than Devoe. If that's the case, let's go ahead and get him signed early. He ranks 75th on the Rivals 150 and will probably be moving up as his career progresses, now in the States after transferring to a Nevada Prep School, basketball factory Findlay, for his final two high school seasons. It's still early, but Joseph is getting chased by pretty much everybody, including Kansas, Texas, and Memphis.

Angelo Johnson: Interestingly, Tubby has declined to pursue the former Minnesota high school player after he announced he was transferring from USC after his freshman season due to playing time concerns. Angelo has said he will end up at either Baylor, Southern Miss, Seton Hall, or Cincinnati. Although he could certainly help out the Gophers and their point guard vacancy for 2009, Tubby remains firm that he isn't interested. A big ole difference from Dan Monson, whose bread and butter was to chase recruits he missed out on after they changed their minds and promise them if they would come to the U they could take every single shot they ever wanted ever.

Glen Rice, Jr: There was some interest in the 3-star guard out of Georgia on the Gophers part, but, like with Mfon Udofia, the Yellow Jackets of Georgia Tech signed him instead. It will be interesting to keep an eye on the Jackets in the coming years to see how these two clowns develop. Tech has a nice recruiting class going for 2009.

- Rodney Williams continues to dominate and continues to not sign here yet.

Gophers Offer Some Guy, Loads of Other Stuff

Top Story out there is that the Gophers have offered Darius Smith a scholarship. The by far weirdest thing about this is Smith's quote that he is not overly familiar with the program and that he has "Caught a couple games on TV. I know [Tubby Smith] is a great coach and it's a good program."

Smith kind of comes out of nowhere as far as the Gophers go - at least to my knowledge - but he sounds like a quality player. He is ranked 90th overall in the class of 2009 by Scout and 80th by Rivals, and has seen his stock rise since some excellent play in the Peach Jam AAU tournament. He's listed as a SG by Scout and a PG by Rivals, so it would seem he's another combo guard and at 6-2 I'm hoping, if he was to come here, he would be able to play the point.

He says he already has a favorite, and the Gophers are late to the party, so I would put the chances Tubby lands him as slim. Although the competition (Clemson, Marquette, Baylor, Iowa, Indiana, DePaul, among others) aren't the type to blow a kid away, so anything is possible. On to other things.....

Obviously there are some pretty big Minnesota stories out there right now, and I'll get to that, but first I want to take a second here to point out an article on espn.com about Clem Haskins. It's pretty much a fluff "where are they know" article, but it's written almost admirably. It seems mostly to stress that he's found happiness by staying away from basketball, and maybe it's because it was written by a broad but it seemed very complimentary of Haskins and the life he has "chosen" to lead.

I'm conflicted, because although I will always remember Haskins more as the one who brought the team to the Final Four than the one who brought the program crashing down, I'm not about to praise his decisions. Even if the accusations brought against him were overblown, as he still claims, there is no doubt he is one of the biggest cheaters in NCAA history - no joke. And I'm the kind of guy who is ok with a little rule bending if it means wins (judge me as you will), this was obviously at a level rarely seen. Which also means no high profile program would hire him. If he did want to come back, he'd have to start at a low, low, low major like a Morgan State (which is where fellow cheater Todd Bozeman ended up) or at an AAU type level (which is where Jim Harrick coached for a while). It's a joke to suggest he's some kind of courageous citizen by living on a farm in Kentucky rather than coaching somewhere. But then again, the article was written by a chick, so what do you expect.

- In Minnesota news, Franky Liriano pitched in his first MLB game since early in the season and managed to put up 6 shutout innings, giving up just 3 hits. It's not quite as sunshiney as you'd think, as Aaron Gleeman also pointed out. He walked three, which isn't a horrible number, but struggled to find the strike zone often. His fastball is nowhere near the 95ish number reported by the Twins, and failed to break 90 quite often. And pitching against the Indians isn't exactly the strictest test there is - because they suck.

All that being said, however, it was certainly a very encouraging outing after the early season debacles. He seemed to have good command of his pitches, aside from strike zone issues, and his slider looked to be at or near 2006 form. It is certainly a step in the right direction, and the fact that they made the right decision and dumped Livan instead of moving Perkins into the bullpen or something makes me smile. However don't expect six shutdown innings every time, and there will likely be some ugly outings, but he's back and he's on his way. I'm optimistic that by next season he will be very close to his old form and could be dominant again. Please.

- The other big news is that the Packers have contacted the Vikings about trading Favre, and all tampering charges against Minnesota have been dropped. So what does this mean? I think it's all a big charade by the Pack. I can't imagine any possible scenario where the Packers would actually trade him to Minnesota. I guess, if they think him being there is too disruptive he might, but I just don't buy it. I'm thinking they probably called the Vikes and said "Give us 9 first round picks and Adrian Peterson and you can have Favre." There. They talked to the Vikings. Looks good to the Favre fans now.

Plus, the Vikings probably shouldn't trade for him. I mean, he basically is Tavaris Jackson with a drug problem and no mobility. Seriously, they both make the same mistakes. They both try to force plays when they should just throw the ball away. Why trade for a washed-up alcoholic drama queen, when we have a young Mike Vick right there on the team already? Don't think Favre's washed up because of his nice stats last season? Guess what, it was all because of his receivers. Don't buy it? Check this out. It's a very compelling post from a nerdy football blog. Performance can't be as easily quantified in football as baseball, but they make a good case. To sum up, "The Packers receivers racked up more yards after catch (YAC) than any other corps in the NFL, even the Moss-Welker-Stallworth squad in New England. On a per-pass basis, Brett Favre's passing statistics were extremely inflated by the abilities of his receivers. In fact, 52% of his passing yards came from YAC, second (tied) only to Kansas City's defenseless Brodie Croyle." There's a whole lot more there, including a compelling case that YAC is NOT a QB dependent stat, but a receiver dependent stat and the point that a QB with a high YAC average is throwing an awful lot of dump offs (I'm guessing the Vikings are career leaders in this). It pretty much proves my point that Favre is basically a football Pete Rose.

- Speaking of Rose, I bought his book where he whines a lot for $3. Expect a review. Ok, fine, more like a throwaway comment when I'm drunk and typing.

- Speaking of books, I'm reading the Tony LaRussa book, Three Nights in August. It's ok. The stories are interesting, including how much of a dick LaRussa is to his family, but the write and notorious blog hater Buzz Bissinger is killing me. He spent the whole intro bashing people who are into stats, and has spent the rest of the book using mind-numblingly stupid analogies at every opportunity. I have it next to me, and on this one page alone we have, "blooping it into center like a falling Easter egg" and "like the steady spout of water from a fountain, where you can't quite grasp the mechanics of how it can flow so easily and yet so forcefully" - and that last one is describing a fastball. These are sprinkled in about one every 2-3 paragraphs, and they take me right out of the book every time. Horrible. And this guy is a professional.

- Have you watched this new American Gladiators? That "Wolf" guy has got to be about as gay as they come. Actually I think most of these guys are. HOT.

- Jesus Christ, Mike Lamb is hitting fifth because he's filling in for Kubel? Just like Redmond hitting third when he fills in for Mauer. It just drives me crazy when people say Gardy is a good manager. If Punto ever has to fill in at first does he hit fourth? And it doesn't matter if Lamb goes 5-5 with three homers, it's still dumb.

- Sure enough, he doubles in a run. Point stands.

- Speaking of Joe Mauer, have you heard the radio commercial he does for Sun Country Airlines? It's on KFAN sometimes, and it's not going to do anything to dispel the rumor that Mauer has no personality. He reads his lines with slightly less inflection than Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. It's brutal. Of course he also makes millions, built a multi-million dollar house which included a man-made lake with a golf green in the middle, and has his pick of ladies. But I can read lines with believable voice inflection, so eat it Mauer.

- Nick Punto just hit a homerun. I knew Miguel Batista was brutally bad, but I had no idea he was that bad. Also, the guy is a notorious headhunter. I fully expect somebody to get plunked here at some point after that one.

- Batista somehow won 16 games last year, despite a WHIP of 1.52, a BB/9 of 3.96, and an ERA of 4.29. Yet, people still evaluate pitchers based on win totals.

- DownwithYou is quickly becoming my favorite commenter.

- In between innings we're watching Friends, and it's the one where Ross dates a student. That chick is quite attractive (pictured above). AND from Minnesota.

- Dang, Batista's out. But I promise if he had stuck around he would have beaned somebody.

- I don't think there's a better hitter in baseball than Justin Morneau. Ok, I'm kidding, but dang man, how good has he been? He's pretty much the exact opposite of Mike Lamb.

- Game is boring. I'm tired. And that's pretty much all I got.