Pretend you're Minnesota men's basketball coach Dan Monson. Almost three years after perhaps the worst case of academic fraud in NCAA history, how do you, the person forced to play maid to Clem Haskins'...

Pick a story, any story. The Jean Freeman expose on athletes' eating disorders is far too expansive for her liking. Freeman, the Gophers women's swimming and diving coach, has seen on average about one...

Pity those few remaining Gopher football fans who stuck around with two minutes left in Saturday night's 31-28 loss to Ohio State. They probably thought the Gophers could stop the Buckeyes, then get the...

Send a U-Haul to Mariucci Arena. Minnesota women's hockey coach Laura Halldorson is packing up her championships and moving - next door. From the moment she arrived on campus in 1996, Halldorson knew Mariucci...

How bad does Jason Groth want to be sitting in a pressbox, media luncheon and post-game news conference? Bad enough to launch his own Gopher sports Web site - located at Gopherhole.com - five years ago. Bad...

There might be some consequences to perhaps the most inconsequential aspect of the worst tragedy on American soil: What happens to University athletics this week? As of Tuesday afternoon, all upcoming...

Down by one, 11.1 seconds left, facing Georgia. Gophers forward John-Blair Bickerstaff has done it before. He beat the Bulldogs a year ago under the same situation, draining the game-winning shot with...

For the first time, the games really count. This season's games, that is. The big story in Gophers basketball camp has been about a team happy to have Rick Rickert here. Coach Dan Monson has stressed that...

Cheryl Littlejohn knows what's at stake this season. Beginning the fourth year of a five-year contract as the Minnesota women's basketball coach, she doesn't need anyone telling her this season could be...

This isn't baseball, it's basketball. So after two strikes, Mitch Ohnstad is out. Gophers coach Dan Monson kicked the Fairbault native and Gophers guard off the basketball team Friday, in part because...

The time to act is now. Actually, it should be less of an act and more of an action. Or two. The "action" being wins, and "two" being the number of wins the Gophers softball team needs to at least partly...

What a finale. Dana Ballard and Michelle Bennett finished their home softball careers Sunday with an impressive 9-2 win over Purdue. Their final weekend included four games crucial to Minnesota's chances...

Unaware that four-plus hours and 16 innings of nerve-racking softball would follow, the 617 fans who paid to watch Saturday's marathon between Minnesota and Iowa actually got even more for their dollar. It...

Deep down, somewhere between Saturday's exhaustion and desperation, was the faint knowledge of what the standings sheet read in the mind of the Gophers softball team. This weekend's four games against...

This last weekend in April is the last homestand for the Gophers softball team. You might happen to be wondering -- and there's no doubt you were -- exactly how often has Minnesota played in its new stadium? Good...

The premise behind bringing Concordia College of St. Paul to Minneapolis for a date with the Gophers softball team on Wednesday could be seen as a chance to get two local schools - one from division I...

Whether it's good or bad, nobody quite knows, but Title IX was stirring in the Sports Pavilion on Tuesday. So too, were Women's Athletics Director Chris Voelz and Wendy Davis. Davis, 42, was officially...

With the halo of not having a Big Ten win for the first two-thirds of the season encircling them, the Gophers softball team sought some comfort out east. Comfort, of course, meaning wins. They found a...

Scholarships and money are being plucked away from Dan Monson by the University, but give him some credit. While the University and the basketball program is fed up with the NCAA's dogged defiance and...

Finally, if only for one game, the Gophers softball team broke through its own wall. Despite the giddiness and excitement generated from playing in a new stadium -- a stadium which ushers in a new era...

If you were a regular passenger trying to get off Flight 745 from Detroit on Sunday at around 8:45 p.m., then good luck -- you might still be trying to get off. Not only was the plane an hour late landing...

Here's nothing new: The Gophers softball team is on the road. After all, they had been back in town a mere 36 hours, just enough time to leave Tuesday afternoon for doubleheaders against Drake today and...

For months now, the memories have stuck in their minds. The Gophers softball team has the hardware to prove it all happened in real, live color in the form of an award. But the accomplishment itself is...

It didn't show by way of a four-game slide to open the conference season at their new park, but the Big Ten's new softball scheduling setup may benefit the Gophers. In the days of old, Big Ten teams would...

The Minnesota softball team is making people nauseous. Two weeks ago, the Gophers ran through Florida, winning the South Florida tournament in convincing fashion. Last week, they spent spring break in...

At an entrance to the Metrodome near the corner of 11th Avenue and Fifth Street is a ramp. It leads to a revolving door, which in turn, leads to a 500-foot tunnel that is the gateway between the cold outside...

The Minnesota softball team's nonconference season ends in Ohio next weekend. But a spring break spent in part in Akron and Youngstown doesn't demand a suit and suntan lotion -- the Gophers got some of...

Monday was the long-awaited "Dish-out-the-Big Ten-hardware-day," and the scrupulous counting and recounting of media and coaches votes yielded some unsurprising results. Coaches picks Player of the Year:...

While the Minnesota men's basketball team held up "Thank you, fans" signs and sang the Minnesota Rouser, Ohio State conducted a small, subdued celebration on the floor of Williams Arena following Saturday's...

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- Even just one visit was more than enough. Last season the Minnesota men's basketball team played Michigan State twice, losing 71-55 at the Breslin Center in early January. The Gophers...

It's a simple case of having things go from bad to worse. Four losses in a row, two new starters forced into action, an out-of-sync offense, not much inside presence and a totally new continuity. All within...

IOWA CITY -- Oftentimes the difference between two teams that can't make shots is how they find alternatives to put the ball in the bucket. Players are groomed early on in life that if the jump shot isn't...

Next time, Dan Monson might want to pause before balking at setting up a nonconference game. Without giving up one of those now patented 15 to 20-point runs early in the game, Monson and his undermanned...

If recruiting had fallen into place differently in the past couple of years, Minnesota's starting lineup could be Darius Lane, Troy Bell, Khalid El-Amin, Dusty Rychart and Joel Przybilla. That's a far-fetched...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. --Some two weeks removed from the start of a devastating chain of events, the Minnesota men's basketball team has had enough of it. No more questions, no more talk, no more excuses. Therein...

While there's no official word, Minnesota men's basketball player Joel Przybilla is leaning toward entering the NBA draft and forgoing his final two years at the University. Przybilla was suspended by...

It was the end of January this year and Terrance Simmons was not looking forward to the Super Bowl. He was preoccupied with another issue: a fight within himself. The Minnesota junior point guard felt...

In his six months as Minnesota men's basketball coach, Dan Monson still has debris of the Clem Haskins hurricane to plow through. First the Gophers lost 45 percent of last season's scoring output. Then...

The Minnesota softball team is, in a word: youth. It is inevitable and practically cyclical in nearly every collegiate sport. And with youth comes greater ups and downs over the course of a season. A very...

Thanks to John-Blair Bickerstaff's season-ending knee injury, the day after was a little more somber than the night before. Monson told his players of Bickerstaff's fate after Wednesday night's 77-75 upset...

The signs pointed to an upset. But for Minnesota forward John-Blair Bickerstaff, there was no warning. In both a memorable and forgettable night, 14,227 packed Williams Arena, hoping the Gophers could...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- For one half of basketball, an event that occurred during a timeout of Wednesday's Minnesota-Illinois basketball game at Assembly Hall provided the best illustration -- everything went...

Before his fall from grace at Minnesota, there were a few traits of Clem Haskins' teams that were part of his on-court legacy. Among the notables were tough defense, Hosea Crittenden and Haskins ripping...

Northwestern is the free buffet line for the rest of the Big Ten. After what seemed like an eternity of eligibility, Wildcats coach Kevin O'Neill lost Evan Eschmeyer to graduation. The departed center,...

Joel Przybilla smiled while being introduced as the Milwaukee Bucks' starting center Monday night at the Target Center. A cascade of boos and taunts showered Milwaukee's big man. The taunting continued...

As a heavily-recruited senior out of De La Salle High School in Minneapolis, Ben Johnson was a wanted man last year. The potential school list went eight-deep: Michigan State, Iowa, Minnesota, Northwestern,...

Rarely do freshmen dominate in college basketball. For every Fab Five, Khalid-El Amin and Lew Alcindor, thousands of first-year players are restricted to learning the ropes of playing against a much higher...

MADISON, Wisc. -- Mike Kelley isn't a big man. The Wisconsin junior is 6-foot-3, 185 pounds. He's not going to win any scoring titles. Entering Saturday night's game against Minnesota, his career high...

The statistics are hardly coincidental in the wake of Wednesday night's basketball game against Purdue. Purdue free throws: 21-for-29 (72 percent). Minnesota free throws: 7-for-22 (32 percent). Final score:...

Perhaps no team was more anxious to rid itself of the previous millennium than the Minnesota women's basketball squad. But so far, no team might be more willing to burn the new millennium. The Gophers...