Hartman: Knight says SMU will be a battle for Gophers

Bobby Knight was impressed by the play of the Gophers in their 67-64 overtime victory over Florida State in the NIT semifinals at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday.

"I thought [the Gophers] played very well in critical situations," said Knight, who is doing color commentary on the tournament for ESPN. "They had a chance where they could have been beaten, but they stayed away from it. They showed a lot of poise when the game went into overtime."

Knight praised Gophers junior point guard DeAndre Mathieu, who scored 17 points and orchestrated the team's offense.

"He did a good job … throughout the course of the game, getting the ball to people," Knight said. "Minnesota's inside game is pretty good. They played against a very athletic team in Florida State. They did a very good job in the game [Tuesday]."

But Knight said he believes SMU, Minnesota's opponent in the championship game, is the better of the two teams and will win Thursday's title game. He said that SMU has great guards and more talent than the Gophers and that it will be tough for Richard Pitino's team to defeat the Mustangs to became NIT champions in his first year as head coach.

"They're just very good," Knight said about SMU. "They have a really good guard [sophomore leading scorer Nic Moore]. They play the game extremely well and they have been good the entire season. That'll be a tough game, a very tough game for [Minnesota]."

SMU played a tough schedule and twice defeated UConn, a Final Four squad, and won games over Memphis and Cincinnati. The Mustangs have 27 victories, compared to the Gophers' now official university record of 24 wins.

"He has done a very good job wherever he has been, and he has done a really good job with SMU," Knight said. "They've beaten some very good teams this year and very good teams [in the NIT] to get here."

Southern Methodist, like the Gophers, was close to making the NCAA tournament but just missed that accomplishment and took a No. 1 seed in the NIT. The other similarity between the two squads is they both defeated teams that reached the Final Four. SMU defeated Connecticut 75-65 at home and 64-55 at UConn, while the Gophers defeated Wisconsin 81-68 at Williams Arena on Jan. 22.

Scott Ellison, Gophers associate athletic director for facilities, says the university is going to hire a consultant to study the utilities and traffic implications for the potential new athletics complex.

Reports are the consultant could cost around $80,000. The $190 million fundraising project is ongoing, but this initial consultation also was part of the process when the university built its football stadium.

"We did something similar to this when we built TCF Bank Stadium, where we did the scoping part," Ellison said. "We had to take a look at all the utilities required and all the utilities that run into the ground there and work on it from there."

"They'll take a look at the plans that we established through the master plan process and we'll scope that," he said. "We'll look at utilities, the underground utilities that might have to move, we'll look at traffic, traffic flow on the property — pedestrian and vehicle. Really that's all we're doing, we're not looking at designing facilities, we're just kind of looking at the site and the flow of traffic on the property."

Proposals for the study are due by April 17, with answers to be available by Aug. 1.

• Richard Davis, CEO of U.S. Bank and co-chair of the Super Bowl committee, about the Vikings submitting a 2018 Super Bowl bid on April 1: "Submitting this bid was a tremendous task that involved multiple individuals and organizations in Minnesota. This level of collaboration allowed us to produce a comprehensive bid that accurately reflects the excellent attributes of our region. [Monday] we put Minnesota's best foot forward and we feel extremely good about our bid." Doug Baker, chairman and CEO of Ecolab, and Marilyn Carlson Nelson, the former chairman and CEO of Carlson Companies, are also on the committee. … Indianapolis and New Orleans also made bids for the 2018 Super Bowl.

• Dennis Dale, who had the title of head men's coach for the Gophers after the men's and women's teams were combined and Kelly Kremer assumed the role of true head coach after the 2010-11 season, is no longer with the program. Dale had been with the Gophers since 1985. The men's swimming program won seven Big Ten titles under Dale, and he won six Big Ten Swimming Coach of the Year awards.

• Four former Gophers are among the top 30 in NHL scoring. Toronto's Phil Kessel is tied for fourth with 36 goals and 41 assists in 77 games. The New York Islanders' Kyle Okposo is tied for 17th with 27 goals and 42 assists in 71 games. Winnipeg's Blake Wheeler and Montreal's Thomas Vanek are tied for 24th, each with 27 goals and 37 assists. Wheeler has three goals and two assists in his past five games; Vanek has two goals and four assists in his past five.

• Two Gophers hockey recruits, defensemen Ryan Collins (Bloomington) and Jack Glover (Golden Valley) from the USA developmental team in Ann Arbor, are among the 22 players who will play for the U.S. Men's Under-18 team in the 2014 International Ice Hockey Federation Men's Under-18 World Championship from April 17-27, in Lappeenranta, Finland. Chaska's Shane Gersich is also a forward on the team, and Jack Dougherty, who played at St. Thomas Academy, is a defenseman.