Reusse column on Jamal

http://www.startribune.com/sports/g...rksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUUsI

Gophers senior Jamal Abu-Shamala has an uncle living in Gaza. "I'm named after him ... Jamal," Abu-Shamala said. "He's my dad's older brother."
Subhy Abu-Shamala has attempted to contact his brother to see if family members have survived the latest battle between Israeli troops and Hamas.
"He hasn't been able to reach anyone," Abu-Shamala said. "As I understand it, the communications in Gaza have been taken out."
Subhy's family is of Palestinian descent. "Way back when, his mother told my dad to find a good place to live peacefully," Jamal said. "He was able to come to the United States."
Subhy married Carolyn Kenmore. Jamal was born in 1987. He went to the Middle East on a family trip once -- as a 4-year-old.
Last summer Jamal returned, this time as a member of Jordan's national basketball team. He spent 2 1/2 months practicing with the team in the capital of Amman and playing in various tournaments.
"It was a great experience and hopefully it will open some doors," Abu-Shamala said. "If I had my way, I would play basketball for another 15 years."
Right now, it's the next basketball game -- tonight at Wisconsin -- that matters more to Abu-Shamala than any in which he has ever been involved.
"I've never beaten Wisconsin or Illinois," he said. "And to get a victory over the Badgers in Kohl Center would say so much about where we are as a team."
Abu-Shamala is one of two seniors with the Gophers. The other is center Jonathan Williams.
Jamal was a star on Shakopee's Class 3A title team in 2005. He walked on to Dan Monson's Gophers as a 6-5 shooting guard for the 2005-06 season.
"My scholarship offers were from Division II," Abu-Shamala said. "I felt if I didn't give it at least a try at the highest level, that all the time and hard work I put into basketball would have been wasted."

Monson happily accepted Abu-Shamala as a walk-on. Jamal earned playing time -- including 31 minutes against Arizona State -- during the nonconference schedule and was on scholarship by his second semester at Minnesota.
His playing time fluctuated over three seasons and three coaches: Monson, Jim Molinari and Tubby Smith. Now, as a senior, he has gone from starting eight of nine games during one nonconference stretch to seeing his minutes reduced as junior college players Paul Carter and Devron Bostick start to emerge.
"You can see we're getting better, and Paul and Devron are part of that," he said Wednesday before the Gophers left for Madison. "Any basketball player wants to be on the floor; you want to play the whole game. But there are so many things we haven't done while I've been here.
"We haven't been to the NCAA tournament. We haven't won a Big Ten title. We haven't won a Big Ten tournament. I want to experience those things. And if that means fewer minutes for me, I'll take it."
The Gophers were coming off an unexpected NCAA season with Monson when Abu-Shamala arrived as a freshman. Vincent Grier, the leader of that NCAA run, was back.
It was a veteran group that flopped to a 5-11 finish in the Big Ten and set up Monson to be fired seven games into the 2006-07 season.
"The lowest I've felt as a player was after the game with Clemson," Abu-Shamala said. "National television ... and we were lucky to get the ball over half-court."
Clemson won 90-68 and Monson was gone, replaced by assistant Jim Molinari. The season ended with a 3-13 record in the Big Ten and a nine-game losing streak.
"I was contacted about joining Jordan's national team after that season," Abu-Shamala said. "I thought it was a joke at first. And I didn't know who our coach was going to be. I didn't think it was a good idea to be in Amman when we had a new coach getting to know his team."
He said no to his father's home country and then Smith was announced as the new coach. Everything changed for Gophers basketball.
"We went from being a disaster to having one of the best coaches in the country," Abu-Shamala said. "He's an unbelievable coach and man. He's the reason we keep getting better.

"I feel like we can compete with any team in the country. I mean that."

As a Gopher football fan I refuse to give Reusse articles hits by clicking on them. You should paste the article if you want people to read something of his

same here. I'm always pissed when i mistakenly click on one of his links. Fat bastard.

Jamal is one of the nicest most approachable people that I have met. He has never let his success enlarge his ego.
The amount of playing time he received is often criticized on this board (myself included) but his leadership and unselfish attitude are unmeasurable yet indispensable to this team; key pieces to the success so far this year.
My heart goes out to his family. I hope they are heard from soon.

weezy said:

Jamal is one of the nicest most approachable people that I have met. He has never let his success enlarge his ego.
The amount of playing time he received is often criticized on this board (myself included) but his leadership and unselfish attitude are unmeasurable yet indispensable to this team; key pieces to the success so far this year.
My heart goes out to his family. I hope they are heard from soon.

Click to expand...

Right on, Weezy. Jamal's not the best basketball player we've ever had, but he's way classy, and in the long run, that counts for a lot more.

I like Reusse, but I also understand that a lot of his tuff is trying to stir the pot. I might upset some here by stating that I think his shots at Brewster and his antics have been brought on my the coach. I appreciate that Reusse is willing to gossip a little more than the others in the media about what is going on behind the scenes of our favorite teams, especially on the radio. He might be on to something about the practice facility and Tubby's willingness to invest the rest of his career here.

You're entitled to your opinion but the fact is that Reusse NEVER says anything positive about the football program or the coach and takes every single chance he gets to blast both and make the coach appear to be an idiot. When the football team has success Reusse doesn't write a single word about them. When they lose he almost always has an article up right away. Its just stupid now. He's more then critical, he has a personal vendetta against program and coach

Regarding PR's article about Jamal. I found this a very good interview with a fine young man. I especially appreciated this quote by JAS a very good example of the attitude that Tubby Smith is instilling into our Gophers:

"We haven't been to the NCAA tournament. We haven't won a Big Ten title. We haven't won a Big Ten tournament. I want to experience those things. And if that means fewer minutes for me, I'll take it."

Agreed, Don. The Unselfishness on this team has been very impressive. One of Tubby's greatest feats has been to get every last guy to buy in, all the way down to Payton at the end of the bench. As a senior, JAS sets a great example of what it is to be a team player.

It's pretty interesting to see the fans weren't the only ones who thought the program was in disarray.

"We went from being a disaster to having one of the best coaches in the country," Abu-Shamala said. "He's an unbelievable coach and man. He's the reason we keep getting better.

Go Gophers!, Go Tubby!

Where are all the Reusse only writes negative things about the Gophers people?

GVBadger said:

Where are all the Reusse only writes negative things about the Gophers people?

Click to expand...

You'll notice that nearly the whole article is Jamal talking. You can bet if Jamal had anything negative to say, Reusse would have printed it.

Where are the Reusse haters?

They're all busy "not reading anything he writes", yet the very next day they're always commenting on every single Gopher-related column Patrick writes.

Actually I believe the tune above has been changed to PR never writes anything positive about Gophers football.

SelectionSunday said:

They're all busy "not reading anything he writes", yet the very next day they're always commenting on every single Gopher-related column Patrick writes.

Click to expand...

It's further proof that we have an inferiority complex. We want the major media markets to take notice and appreciate us, and not see us as close-minded, religious hicks living in the frozen prairie and woods. We take ourselves so seriously that we get offended when people like Reusse poke fun at our institutions even when it's funny or warranted.

It's comical even in politics in that some people think a vanilla Tim Pawlenty can be a serious presidential candidate. Our provincial preferences in expecting any pro or college coaching jobs should stay local is also good humor, remember the Flip and Dungy Gopher coaching vacancy pipe dreams?

Get over it and be able to laugh at us. We are in "fly over" territory and that's not always a bad thing. Our pro sports teams are in medium sized markets and our university has some obstacles when recruiting outside of the upper midwest. Reusse is satire and our local culture and teams are logical targets. Every time someone blames his negativity for the Gopher football failures just fuels his fire and makes him and his fans long for more. Could you imagine how his critics would handle living and cheering for teams in the Philadelphia, New York, Boston, or Chicago media markets?

akgopher said:

It's further proof that we have an inferiority complex. We want the major media markets to take notice and appreciate us, and not see us as close-minded, religious hicks living in the frozen prairie and woods. We take ourselves so seriously that we get offended when people like Reusse poke fun at our institutions even when it's funny or warranted.

It's comical even in politics in that some people think a vanilla Tim Pawlenty can be a serious presidential candidate. Our provincial preferences in expecting any pro or college coaching jobs should stay local is also good humor, remember the Flip and Dungy Gopher coaching vacancy pipe dreams?

Get over it and be able to laugh at us. We are in "fly over" territory and that's not always a bad thing. Our pro sports teams are in medium sized markets and our university has some obstacles when recruiting outside of the upper midwest. Reusse is satire and our local culture and teams are logical targets. Every time someone blames his negativity for the Gopher football failures just fuels his fire and makes him and his fans long for more. Could you imagine how his critics would handle living and cheering for teams in the Philadelphia, New York, Boston, or Chicago media markets?

Click to expand...

You're from Iowa, right?

Suburban Minneapolis, but did live for a time on the West Coast and got a different perspective on Minnesota. I like it here for what it is, but accept what it isn't.

akgopher said:

Suburban Minneapolis, but did live for a time on the West Coast and got a different perspective on Minnesota. I like it here for what it is, but accept what it isn't.

Click to expand...

It's no New York, but you make it sound somehow vastly different from a Denver or Pittsburgh, which it isn't.

Pittsburgh is a pretty fair comparison, but Denver is a destination city. We're probably the best of the upper midwest metro areas, other than Chicago.

akgopher said:

Pittsburgh is a pretty fair comparison, but Denver is a destination city. We're probably the best of the upper midwest metro areas, other than Chicago.

Click to expand...

You really think folks from Denver are somehow 'different' than Minneapolis? Or Milwaukee, or Memphis, Charlotte, St Louis, Portland, Orlando, Baltimore or any other metro area outside the top 10?

akgopher said:

Reusse is satire and our local culture and teams are logical targets.

Click to expand...

I just checked the definition of satire in case it had changed. It hasn't, and what Reusse does isn't.

akgopher said:

Suburban Minneapolis, but did live for a time on the West Coast and got a different perspective on Minnesota. I like it here for what it is, but accept what it isn't.

Click to expand...

What does the 'ak' in your moniker stand for? At one time, I thought you might be my buddy from Alaska.

This thread is hardly basketball, so I'll leave it at this, but did anyone see this coming out? Tubby was quoted in today's paper that he had a hard time getting acclimated to Minnesota.
http://www.newintownmovie.com/#/home
We're perceived as the midwest or cold equivalent of West Virginia or Alabama in this one. Damn, some people might get uptight like they did with Fargo.