Patrick Reusse: If a Gopher falls in a Barn and no one sees it ...

Vikings coach Brad Childress provided high comedy earlier this season when he refused to reveal the identity of his starting quarterback. In Chilly's world, it was a competitive advantage if opponents were not sure whether to prepare for Tarvaris Jackson's scatter arm or Kelly Holcomb's slow feet.

The fondness for skullduggery in every possible circumstance has earned Childress the nickname "Secret Squirrel" with a few media members and in Internet circles.

As it turns out, Childress is basically an open book -- because of NFL access rules -- in comparison to another prominent coach on the Minnesota sports scene.

Tubby Smith is preparing his first Gophers basketball team in secrecy inside the cavern of Williams Arena. Practices start at 7 a.m., and what happens after that only a few people will ever know.

We thought Minnesota had quite the contrast when our electees to the U.S. Senate were Paul Wellstone, the most liberal member of that august body, and Rod Grams, among the most conservative.

That's nothing compared to the contrast that Gophers athletic director Joel Maturi found early this year in his hires for the two most important jobs in his department:

Tim Brewster as football coach and Tubby as basketball coach.

Brewster hasn't stopped spouting and selling for a moment, and Smith has been dedicated to keeping himself and his team largely out of view.

The Gophers did appear in public for "Tubby's Tipoff" on Oct. 12, but there was not much buildup, and objective people in attendance gave an estimate of 2,000 people.

"My job is to win basketball games," Smith said that night, then retreated behind closed doors until he reappears this Wednesday for the team's media day.

That could be the one evening when Smith's Gophers get a snippet of videotape on the local newscasts, before they surface for the opening exhibition against Minnesota State Mankato on Nov. 1.

Smith will continue to greatly limit access to himself and his players once the season is under way. Tubby's rules were mentioned to a Twin Cities sports anchor over the weekend.

The gentleman was unaware that the days of stopping at Williams Arena after practice to tape an interview with a player were over.

"Hey, that's great," the TV guy said. "We're short-staffed anyway. We'll ignore them."

Dan Monson did what was long perceived impossible and made men's basketball the secondary wintertime attraction to men's hockey at the university. That gap will widen in Smith's first season, because of the tremendous contrast in both the prospect for success and in media exposure.

Fox Sports Net North, Minnesota's major sports outlet, is so attached to Don Lucia's hockey program that it showed the non-Gophers games in last weekend's season-opening tournament in St. Paul. The hockey Gophers are so revered by FSN that it has been known to pass on a Wild or Timberwolves game in favor of Lucia's lads.

Meantime, the limited information on Smith's team available in local newspapers -- and the anticipated absence of videotape on local newscasts -- will be trumped by a greater publicity void.

The Gophers will be playing their 30-game schedule in a virtual TV blackout. If your TV service is cable and without the sports tier, as is the case with most Minnesotans, you are certain to see just four Gophers games:

Nov. 27 -- at Florida State. Jan. 17 -- home with Indiana. Feb. 9 -- home with Iowa. Feb. 21 -- home with Michigan. There's also the possibility that games with Ohio State and Indiana near the end of the Big Ten schedule will be on CBS or ESPN.

Best-case scenario: 20 percent of the Gophers' 30 regular-season games will be available on the current television service of most Minnesotans.

Tubby's high profile as a coach has resulted in an increase in ticket business -- from under 8,000 season tickets sold to the public in 2006-07 to a current 9,014. If he fulfills his main task and wins, the fans will continue to drift back.

Then again, it's unlikely that Rick Pitino, the best in the business, could win with this core of established losers, so this figures to be another low-key Gophers basketball season -- in the Barn, in the local media and particularly in TV dens across the Twin Cities.

Patrick Reusse can be heard weekdays on AM-1500 KSTP at 6:45 and 7:45 a.m. and 4:40 p.m. • preusse@startribune.com