First Victory for New Coach
Saturday, December 2, 2006

With a new caretaker coach in place, the University of Minnesota men’s basketball team, celebrated the onset of the Jim Molinari era with a narrow 66-63 win over the Arizona State University Sun Devils.

Hired in 1999 as a caretaker coach to oversee a basketball program riddled with scandal for three decades, Dan Monson did what he was told and kept NCAA investigators away. His teams, however did not accumulate an impressive enough number of wins for him to keep his job. Molinari, a Monson assistant, took over with no assurance that he would return next season. Thus, one Gopher caretaker coach was replaced with another.

In Monson’s first game as Gopher head coach on November 20, 1999, Minnesota defeated Texas-Arlington by the score of 90 to 62. For Molinari, his first opponent was Arizona State, a team considered to be a peg or two above Texas-Arlington. The Sun Devils, too, have a new coach. Herb Sendek came to Tempe this year for his first season there after serving as head coach at North Carolina State University. The low-key Sendek had taken the Wolf Pack to five consecutive NCAA tournament appearances. In that same period, Monson’s Gophers made exactly one. Monson most certainly would be coaching the Gophers today had his teams made five consecutive NCAA appearances. But the bar is set higher at NC State, and Sendek was replaced by alum Sidney Lowe, who, strangely enough, was something less than a championship NBA coach in an earlier stint with our Minnesota Timberwolves.

For years, college basketball attention in the state of Arizona has been focused some 110 miles south of Tempe to Tucson and Arizona University where the saintly Lute Olson has been worshipped for years. This should sound familiar to Sendek, who was routinely overshadowed at NC State by ACC rivals Roy Williams and Mike Krzyzewski. Sendek’s status in the Arizona desert was further downgraded when star ASU performer Kevin Kruger announced he was opting out of the program to play for his father, Lon Kruger, at UNLV. This left Sendek with 6-10 forward Jeff Pendergraph as the team’s lone star.

Indeed it was Pendergraph who dominated play early against Minnesota with a dozen points in the first 16 minutes of the half. The sophomore from Etiwanda, California, simply overpowered the Gophers. He and 6-7 Serge Angounou combined for 10 rebounds in the half. Minnesota countered with forward Dan Coleman, who scored the first six Gopher points. Molinari chose to go with an eight-man rotation, at times using point guards Limar Wilson and Kevin Payton in the game at the same time. The Gophers held a 32-30 halftime lead with Coleman and Spencer Tollackson hitting for 8 points each.

The new coach, who played his basketball in college alongside Jack Sikma, one of the toughest players in NBA history, preaches defensive intensity and was not pleased that Minnesota was being outrebounded. He responded by going with a pair of centers, Tollackson and Jonathan Williams, in the game at the same time. “We have to get more athletic, block out, and get more rebounds,” Molinari said after the game. He also yanked a sleepwalking starter, Brandon Smith, after he (Smith) turned the ball over with 17 minutes and 57 seconds left in the game. Smith was rested for nearly six minutes and post-game stats show he was used for only 19 of the game’s 40 minutes.

“I want my players to be accountable for each other,” said Molinari. “My players are required to dive on loose balls. We want to play guys who care. We have a lot of work to do but I am proud of our team.” Minnesota held highly regarded Arizona State freshman guard Christian Polk, who has led the team in scoring this year, to only seven points in the first half.

In fact, Minnesota took advantage of an injury to Pendergraph and grabbed a 59-40 lead with only seven and one-half minutes left in the game. But fans were reminded that earlier in the season, Arizona State trailed Iowa 60-48 with less than six minutes left but had four players hit three-point baskets and outscored the Hawkeyes 19-4 to win. In this game, the Sun Devils applied a pressure full-court defense and outscored Minnesota also by 19 to 4 and trailed by only 63-60 with a minute left to play at Williams Arena.

The Gophers had a chance to capitalize on Sun Devil fouls in the last minute but Lawrence McKenzie was able to score on only one of two free throws to make it 64-60. Next, Jamal Abu-Shamala missed one of two foul shots, but the Gophers still led 65-60. Arizona State then set up gunner Jerren Shipp, who scored on a three-point basket to make it 65-63. Coleman was fouled with 12 seconds remaining, but, again, could only make one of two foul shots. The Sun Devils set up Shipp again for a three-pointer but he was unable to make the shot, and time ran out.

The Sun Devil press allowed them to get back in the game. “Full-court pressure normally is not part of the ASU game,” Sendek said afterward. “We press only in certain circumstances.” It was game circumstance that led the coach to employ the tactic against Minnesota, and it allowed Arizona State the opportunity to get back in the game.

“We have to handle the press better,” Molinari said after the game. “I knew that there was going to be a point where they were going to make a run, and we were going to respond badly for a while. When you are on a losing streak (Minnesota had lost the previous five games), it’s hard to fight past thoughts. We have a lot of work to do.”

Part of the job includes making defense the top priority. Along those lines, Molinari ordered the players to slap the floor as they assumed their defensive positions. “We did that at Bradley,” he said. (Prior to coming to Minnesota, Molinari was Bradley’s head coach.) He also expressed a desire to “shorten the bench” in the future and cut down on dribbling. Rebounding will also be a priority. (Pendergraph and his ASU mates outrebounded the Gophers by 40 to 30 boards.)

Meanwhile, the Gophers continue to search for an identity. Many point to a 90-68 loss to Clemson earlier in the week as the main reason for Monson’s departure so early in the season. In reality, it was losing three straight games this year to inferior opposition in a Walt Disney (Mickey Mouse?) basketball tournament in Orlando. Monson’s downfall since that first victory in 1999 may well have been his insistence on pursuing state high school stars that never blossomed in Williams Arena. The University of Minnesota openly recruits students internationally for all its academic departments, often ignoring local scholars including those who have earned National Merit Scholarships. Is it too much to ask the athletic department to consider doing the same?