I've said for a while that Handy-Holly will visit in late January, and that visit is now set for January 20-22. After talking with his dad, I'm confident Minnesota is the leader, as their family is really big on academics and opportunities after graduation and they think Minnesota is a great fit in that sense. It also helps Minnesota that Handy-Holly and Mark Williams are close friends.

I think all of his helmet school offers aren't committable right now, but Florida and Louisville are probably the closest and both visited him this week.

Right now, UAB is the biggest competition. Handy-Holly's UAB recruiter was a mentor to his father and it's also attractive since it's near home.

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The biggest news of the day is another JUCO quarterback target. I can confirm that Southwest Mississippi CC dual-threat quarterback Neil McLaurin (Hudl) will visit this weekend. Jay Johnson visited McLaruin yesterday to set up the visit. McLaurin is a new target. Where things get interesting is that Ole Miss just fired the co-offensive coordinator Dan Werner, who coached the quarterbacks and was in charge of the passing game. I'm told now that Ta'amu isn't sure anymore what he's doing this weekend (remember he was planning to visit Ole Miss before) because of the Werner news. Ta'amu is the bigger want, so the Werner fire is unfortunate timing. I can't imagine the Gophers would take both quarterbacks, but I think that has yet to be discussed. If Ta'amu does end up visiting this weekend, Minnesota will wait to offer McLaurin until Ta'amu makes a decision.

Javan Hawes had Brian Anderson and Tracy Claeys in tonight. Anderson and Claeys will visit Trey Creamer in about an hour.

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Anderson also visited Grant Walker tonight. "Coach BA came by to see my at school again today. He wants to get me up there on an official in January, and we will go from there."

Poore is visiting Dominik London right now.

Like I posted before, Bart Miller is visiting Gage Blackston (Hudl) today.

Minnesota either has been in or will be in to see Kendarian Handy-Holly sometime this week. Florida, Mississippi State, and Louisville are all visiting him this week as well, which leads me to believe that those offers are committable. I still expect Handy-Holly to take a January official.

We need a Christmas present for the Gopher faithful!

I am tired of talking about my nervousness about QB play and recruiting. So, I got to thinking, what is the best speech you have seen a coach make on TV or a recorded locker room speech, etc.?

I just watched the Jimmy Valvano speech again and it still gives me chills. I am from Aberdeen, SD and went to Don Meyer's basketball camps at Northern all the time as half the players went to the church my dad was a minister at, so Don Meyer's ESPN speech was awesome as well.

What other ones come to mind ? There have been some great ones.

RB JaKyle Holmes from Louisiana committed to the Gophers per Twitter

Hell of a play toget sdsu on the board. Should be a good game.

Who saw that coming?

I love this game. I absolutely love everything about this game.

...and p.s., the game is awesome so far as well.

at some point thinking I will be buying two handguns. One will be a revolver, one an automatic.

For the revolver thinking a simple classic, full size, maybe 357 that allows me to use .38s. Only use the 357 shells if needed.

For the automatic, thinking again something, classic, reliable, reasonable maintainence, reasonably good history of not jamming. Etc

Have received some recommendations from some good sources, but know I need more data.

Look forward to real responses.

Seth Green 6'4"245 Senior University of Minnesota!

Gophers an 11-seed in Joe Lunardi's latest Bracketology update (December 8th). Has Minnesota playing 6-seed Arizona in the Midwest Region.

http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/bracketology

We have a 9-1 record with a great chance at 12-1 before playing the Big 10 season. We are playing defense at a good level and sharing the basketball so well.. So much improved over last year. Dupree and Nate are playing with so much more confidence. Adding Amir, Reggie, Akeem and Eric have made such a huge difference in this team.. I think Richard Pitino has improved as a young coach, as well. Better shooting in the last 2 games. Even Bakary had a good game off the bench last night... Lots of good things..

What tempers that to being a bit more sober, IMO, is that we have all of our wins against opponents that we were superior or maybe just a bit better. The Texas-Arlington win is looking real good right now..The other thought is that we have had nothing but home games except the one loss at Florida State.. Even the game in South Dakota was a decidedly favorable venue for the Gophers, in geography. We will have to see how our guys do, on the road, before I feel we can talk about our accomplishments.. That said, I love the direction of the team, right now, for every reason.

I believe we have to think of this team's success as a process. We have the perfect schedule to get our young guys and new players to gel together. Playing with lots of confidence. Guys starting to understand their roles and knowing where our shots can come in our offense. .. WE ARE GOING TO GET A DIFFERENT LEVEL OF EXPOSURE AND DIFFICULTY, AFTER THE NEW YEAR.. Michigan State will be no picnic at the Barn and then we have the next 4 of 5 Big Ten games on the road. We have Purdue, Northwestern, Michigan State(2nd time), and Penn State as road games. Then come home to play Wisconsin. Not easy. It will be a test of inner strength and confidence to win road games then muster the energy to play our archrival at home.. If we were to lose some of those games, we will find out the strength of team leadership in coming back off those losses. I am a firm believer that character is REVEALED in tough times.

What will it take to beat the Big Ten teams like we did last night?? Guys have to be confident that what got them to this record up to this point, will work in all games. We are who we are, and that is a good thing. When the struggles of playing better opponents become reality, Pitino has to get the guys to believe that they cant play any other way than they did in the early season. No time to "freak out" and play differently when the quality of opponent gets better.. Disciplined teams stay in the moment and are supremely confident in what they do, as good enough to beat anyone.... THOSE ARE THE NEXT STEPS IN THE GROWTH OF THIS TEAM, IMO.. We still have 3 opponents in preconference that we cannot afford to take lightly but I am liking that we are IN THE PROCESS of becoming a very good team.

First Trump saves 1,000 jobs in Indiana. Now Softbank will invest 50 billion and 50,000 more jobs in USA. I can't keep up with all this winning. MAGA.

Looks to be a good chance the Gophers have found a PWO QB based on the article below. Jaran Roste from Alexandria.

http://www.echopress.com/sports/cardinals/4175837-gophers-next-roste

With New York ties of Coach Young, is he a target?


http://www.espn.com/mens-college-ba...5/yankuba-sima-transferring-st-john-red-storm

TCF may get some more rental use in 2018...McGuire still trying to acquire land.

http://www.twincities.com/2016/12/06/uniteds-stadium-groundbreaking-in-st-paul-will-be-monday/

Richard Pitino

• That's as good of a response as we could have hoped for from Tuesday.
• Amir, Nate, and Dupree distributed the ball really well and got us open looks. We rebounded poorly last game and really stepped it up tonight.
• Our offense at the beginning of the game provided a spark and towards the end of the game, our stops got us the win. I always tell our guys "defend, rebound, and run"
• I thought Dupree played really well. He's playing with great confidence and effort.
• I always tell Nate to look at himself as one of the better guards in the league.
• Bakary's given us really valuable minutes. If he didn't play through the tough times last year, he wouldn't have been ready to really help us this year.
• Unselfishness led to the scoring output from the backcourt, giving up a good shot to get a great shot.
• Always tell kids every minute and possession is one where you can improve. We never
• I thought it was a great crowd. We obsess over fan support and that narrative, but I thought that was a great crowd. I saw that volleyball won, so that's awesome. We're not just a basketball school, we're kind of an everything school. It's great the support we have.
• Nice to get the bench in. They're all working hard in practice so it's nice to be able to reward them.
• I'm proud of Gas. He's worked his butt off and is a tremendous teammate. This team is a great group to be around.

Nate Mason

• This was a good response to the lack of effort from the previous game.
• Fans have been great. It's a boost for us.
• Coach sat us down after the last game and said we disrespected each other for not playing hard. We had a team meeting and came out and practiced hard the next day.

Dupree McBrayer

• Nate set the tone with making shots and then everyone kind of got going.
• "I get confidence from New York, play with swagger."

Preview here.

Georgia Southern is a good but not excellent mid-major led by a strong backcourt. They lost by only two on the road to NC State earlier this season. Georgia Southern's Pomeroy rating is 162.

Walking here, there were way more people going into the Pavillion for the volleyball game then basketball game. It will be interesting to see what attendance is like tonight.

Interesting hire. Leaving South Florida for the Pacific Northwest.

Gophers wins today:

Men's Hockey over MSU 4-2
Women's Hockey over Boston U 5-1
Wrestling over MSU 20-17
Volleyball over Missouri (on to elite 8)
Basketball up over Georgia Southern by 22 in 2nd half

We are good!

Our talented, athletic, and beautiful Women's Volleyball team are in the Sweet 16! They host the Sweet 16 and Elite 8 matchups at the Pav tonight and tomorrow night! At 7:15, our #2 Gophers will square off against #15 Missouri. The winner will then advance to tomorrow night's Elite 8 matchup against the victor of #7 North Carolina/#10 UCLA. There are still a few tickets left, so go out to the Pav tonight and tomorrow night and support the best Gophers team in the Athletic department!

A quick year in review for those shameful few who haven't been following squad. They finished the regular season 25-4 and 17-3 in the big 10 conference, ranked #1 in the AVCA poll. However, they earned the overall #2 ranking in the bracket. Sarah Whilhite was named B1G player of the year. Hannah Tapp and Samantha Seliger Swenson also received 1st Team All B1G honors.

Tonight's matchup sees Minnesota facing off with Missouri. I'll preview Mizzou with pictures, because let's be honest, that is why you opened up this thread. Other than Kira Larson, who is an absolute smokeshow, give me the Gophers all day every day on and off the court. Gophers will win 3-1.

Melanie Crow (on the left)



Emily Thater


Courtney Eckenrode



Paige Perego



Kira Larson






Julia Towler

Pregame reading for you all before the game at the top of the hour.

https://minnesota.rivals.com/news/georgia-southern-preview-3

Could very likely be that Ed Warinner and Tim Beck go to Western Kentucky... Luke Fickell and Kerry Combs may be headed to Cincinnati. I am hearing that Joker Phillips may come in and help the offense with Billy Davis maybe coming in to help Greg Schiano with defense... Davis has NFL defense experience as a coach... Would not be surprised if they approached Darrell Hazell to come back in some capacity.. Good assistant for the Buckeyes before taking the head coaching job at Purdue.

Urban Meyer has beaucoup contacts so he wont be hurting for options if those guys leave... The Buckeyes may actually get better as they may get new fresh minds in the program, as coaches.. Who knows?? He may get Tim Tebow to rejoin him in Columbus to help the program(just kidding)... Josh Harris, his former QB at Bowling Green, lives in Columbus..I would say maybe Chris Leak but I understand he is going to jail, so that wont work out so well.(okay I am just being stupid now)...... Interesting who they hire if these coaching moves transpire.

First, Nebraska the #1 seed barely survives against #16 Penn St today. They lost the first two sets and were down 24-22 (two match points for PSU) in the 3rd set. They ran off 4 straight points and then won the next two sets to escape the upset.

Secondly, how in the world did the Gophers get screwed on the television. So EspnU is showing Nebraska, Wisconsin and Texas games live this afternoon/evening. Those are the other top seeds. Then while the Gophers are playing in primetime, espnU is showing a women's soccer game. Then after we are done, they will show the UCLA/UNC match live from the Pav. It's nice we got the primetime start time but wtf?

Our game is the only top 4 seed game that will be on espn3 only.