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A new start Midnight brings welcome madness to Gophers
Posted: Friday October 15, 1999 05:16 PM
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- When the doors open at Williams Arena at 9:30 tonight, fans, players and coaches will try to put the past six months of basketball talk behind them. Since mid-March, most talk about the University of Minnesota basketball program has centered around academic fraud, a costly investigation, a new coach, and pending NCAA sanctions. But tonight's event, which kicks off the 1999-2000 season for the Gophers, is a chance for fans to attend a party, and for players to leave the distractions off the court. "For the kids and the program, it's been a long six months," said new coach, Dan Monson. "The beginning of the end is to start practice, put it behind you, the things that have happened here. These kids didn't have anything to do with what happened. The staff didn't. Yet that's all anybody wants to talk about." Monson, whose Gonzaga team beat the Gophers in the first round of the NCAA tournament in March, was hired over the summer after Clem Haskins resigned when the university bought out his contract for $1.5 million. Even the players know talk of academic fraud won't end once the season starts, since the $1.5 million investigation is not expected to be complete until next month, and possible NCAA sanctions may not be announced until the spring. "Everyone's going to be watching every move we make," said guard Kevin Nathaniel. "When we're walking to class, in class, how we conduct ourselves. As players, we kind of know we have to be extra careful with the things we do and say." But guard J.B. Bickerstaff said he and his teammates will do their best to concentrate on basketball. "I think from the day of (Clem Haskins') resignation, to the hiring of coach Monson, until Friday, is the time for healing. It's the time everybody needed to make those decisions, however you feel. But I think come Friday night, it's all going to be behind us," he said. Investigators are preparing a report on academic fraud in the basketball program and other alleged misconduct in the men's athletic department.
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