Smith says Gophers peaking at right time

Gophers men's basketball coach Tubby Smith says his team if playing well at the right time of the year.

The Gophers beat Wisconsin on Thursday and Indiana on Saturday at Williams Arena to improve to 16-10 overall and 7-7 in the Big Ten with four conference games remaining before the Big Ten tournament.

Smith said the past two victories were "two of the best games I think we've played all year long, and it's coming at the right time."

Now the Gophers get an opportunity to find out how good they really are when they play fourth-ranked Purdue on Wednesday night at Williams Arena. Purdue beat the Gophers 79-60 on Jan. 5, but the Gophers were without Ralph Sampson III, who was injured.

"The presence of Sampson should make a big difference," Smith said. "When you look at [Purdue's] JaJuan Johnson, their 6-11 player who is the top shot-blocker and one of the best players in the league, and one of the best rebounders ... we're going to need the big bodies.

"Robbie Hummel is a 6-8, 6-9 forward ... and they're just very long and tall. E'Twaun Moore gets in there and [Chris] Kramer, they've got a lot of talent. But if we can get Ralph now that he's healthy and back in the lineup, I think he will make a major difference."

The victories last week were crucial for the Gophers' NCAA hopes.

"They still know we still have a chance to get to postseason play, and that's the goal. Our team's captains, Lawrence Westbrook and Damian Johnson, have been very effective lately. They showed a lot of character and a lot of spirit in the practice on Friday, so it carried over. The way you play is the way you practice."

After Purdue, the Gophers have road games at Illinois and Michigan before finishing the regular season at home against Iowa. The Gophers' RPI is 75, so they need a strong finish to make it to the Big Show.

NHL in Olympics? Chuck Fletcher, general manager of the Wild, said the contract for the NHL to participate in the Olympics ends after the Vancouver Games.

"The league and all the owners are going to take a serious look at what the benefits are for NHL players to be in the Olympics and what the costs are," Fletcher said. "Right now, we've shut our league down for two weeks. There's no NFL, and baseball hasn't started, and yet we're not playing for two weeks.

"There are some obvious benefits for [NHL players] going to the Olympics and there are some negatives as well, and that will be reviewed in the coming years.

The Wild will start practicing again on Wednesday. Fletcher is optimistic that Chuck Kobasew and Clayton Stoner will come back from injuries, although standout center Pierre-Marc Bouchard is still sidelined because of post-concussion syndrome.

"We're going to have extra players, and that might give us some options going into the trade deadline March 3," Fletcher said. "Potentially, we may try to add a player; we actually might trade a player or two as well. I could see us buying and selling if the market's there. I think it's going to be a pretty active deadline."

The Wild has the third-worst record among 15 teams in the Western Conference, but they are only five points out of a playoff spot.

"We have some work to do," Fletcher said. "There are about six teams within six, seven points of us, so we certainly have the ability to pass some teams. The problem we run into now is there are some teams ahead of us and everybody is playing each other, so somebody is going to win every night, so it's going to force us to win a lot of our games here.

"We're probably going to have to win two-thirds of our games over the last 21. We're going to have to win at least 14 and possibly 15 games to get in, and we feel comfortable we can do that."

"We're about evenly split between home and road," he said. "We have to go to Vancouver, but otherwise we don't really have any tough travel. I think the schedule sets up well, and again we're getting healthy, we're getting bodies back and we're certainly capable of winning 14, 15 games here in March and April."

Jottings When Red McCombs gave the OK to trade Randy Moss to the Raiders before the Wilf family had closed the deal to buy the Vikings, the Wilfs were very upset because they thought they had an agreement with McCombs not to trade Moss or anybody else. Now ESPN is quoting Moss that he doesn't believe that the Patriots are going to bring him back after the 2010 season. We'll see if the Vikings would be interested in him then, when he will be 34 years old. He would sell tickets. Moss is entering the final season of a three-year, $27 million contract. He is 10th in NFL history with 926 receptions.

The Indiana University athletic department announced Sunday that it had received a $15 million gift to be used for a new basketball development center for the benefit of the school's men's and women's basketball programs. Gophers athletic director Joel Maturi is looking for a similar benefactor here for Smith's program. However, fundraising has started for the Gophers basketball center and also for the new baseball stadium, and there has been some progress.

Jeff Horton, the new Gophers offensive coordinator, and Kevin Cosgrove, the defensive coordinator, spent five years together on the University of Wisconsin football staff during a period the Badgers went to one Rose Bowl and four other bowl games.

When one of the Big Ten officials scheduled to work the Gophers-Wisconsin men's basketball game Thursday at Williams Arena wasn't available, the Big Ten called on Twins Vice President of Corporate Partnerships Eric Curry to be one of the three officials. Curry is one of the top officials in the country and works a lot of games in different conferences.