U-M mens’ b-ball in sad shape
By: Larry Fitzgerald
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
Originally posted 1/21/2004

The best news for the University of Minnesota Men’s Gopher basketball team is that the season is far from over and there is still time to turn things around. However, like the winter weather forecast, it’s not looking good.
Clem Haskins has been long gone now for five years, but he still continues to be used as the scapegoat for the sorry state that has befallen the men’s program. Probation, sanctions, and ill will are all a part of the aftermath of academic fraud.
Gophers are comfortable hanging out in holes, and that is what this team has dug for itself. Starting 0-3 in Big Ten Conference play — dead last — and 8-7 overall, they are the only team still winless in the conference.
Wednesday they match up against 12-4 co-Big Ten leader Purdue at West Lafayette, and face long odds at getting a win. Saturday, co-Big Ten Conference leader Indiana travels to the Barn, a place that used to strike fear in the hearts of opponents. Not anymore — the place has lost its mystique. The best basketball on this campus is being played and coached by the women Gophers, who are rated number six in the nation at 15-1.
Such poor performance by the men never happened under Haskins. This is the fifth year of the Dan Monson era, and the program has not been in the NCAA tournament since his arrival.
That is the bottom line. The Gophers have many players on their roster that are native-born Minnesotans. But from what I’ve seen, this team lacks an identity. They don’t play like a unit. They don’t seem to have a commitment to one another. They don’t have a defining characteristic — no fire — and that’s coaching.
They are what they are: a last-place team drifting along into the abyss.

Timberwolves on top of the Midwest

Kevin Garnett is the only athlete that I’ve ever seen over a period of eight years who has gotten better every year. As a journalist, I’ve seen many of the greatest athletes in every sport over the last 26 years, and he is the first that I’ve seen progressively get better.
And that is a major statement about an athlete who is the reigning MVP of the NBA All-Star game. Sports Illustrated, in its 2003 Year in Review issue, wrote, “Garnett is the highest paid player in the NBA, but fights off the image of the star who hasn’t measured up.”
Garnett is the first athlete on this earth to sign back-to-back $100 million contracts. He is simply sensational. Garnett is averaging 24.5 points, 14 rebounds, and five assists per game. He’s fourth in scoring, and leads the NBA in rebounding. He is the best player in basketball — period.
“I really don’t toot my own horn, so to speak,” Garnett said of his standing. “As long as we win, I could care less about the numbers. It’s for you guys and the fans to evaluate, but for me, it’s game by game.”
There is electricity in the air this season at the Target Center. It’s not the new multi-million-dollar state-of-the-art scoreboard or the fancy lights or the recently added Xcel Center-like presentations. It’s the addition of veterans Sam Cassell (21 points, seven assists) and Latrell Sprewell (18.2 points), and the feeling that this team could be special. That feeling has not been around here since the days of Tom Gugliotta and Stephon Marbury.
Last year, the San Antonio Spurs and Dallas Mavericks each led the NBA in wins with 60 each. The Spurs, led by league MVP Tim Duncan, captured another title. It is becoming clear that the Midwest Division is the toughest in the NBA. It is the only division in the league where every team is playing better than .500 percentage basketball.
And guess who’s on top? The Timberwolves are rolling winners of 18 of their last 22 games, and after 40 games, Wally Szczerbiak, earning nearly $8 million a year, has the same scoring average that I have. Who knows if and when he will play again? He’s missed 73 games over the last two years, and still counting.
Will he disrupt this dynamic trio of Garnett, Sprewell and Cassell — by being Wally? Therein lies the answer to whether or not this team will end an NBA-record streak of losing in the first round seven years in a row.

NHL All-Stars coming to Excel

For anyone who doesn’t already know that the 2004 NHL All-Star Game is coming to the Twin Cities in February, there is a team of giant, hockey-themed bobbles spread out across town to help underscore the message. They are standing guard and turning heads at entrances to metro-area hotels, restaurants, shops and offices. The 2004 NHL All-Star Bobbles on Parade is a once-in-a-lifetime promotion to capture the enthusiastic and charitable hockey spirit of the State of Minnesota.

Starting Monday, January 26, The Larry Fitzgerald Show will report live from Houston, Texas, on Super Bowl XXXVIII, New England vs. Carolina, 9-10 am on KMOJ Radio 89.9 FM, and twice daily Monday through Friday, 8:20 am and 5:10 pm.