COLLEGE BASKETBALL Minnesota misses Whalen's skills
LSU coach Sue Gunter is sidelined by illness.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
No amount of bravado can disguise the fact that No. 11 Minnesota sorely misses Lindsay Whalen -- how much was glaringly evident in the Gophers' 81-61 loss at Iowa.
When the teams met at Minnesota last month, Whalen scored 28 points and the Gophers won 75-61.
In the rematch Thursday night, Iowa stymied Minnesota with aggressive man-to-man defense, needed just 131/2 minutes to open a 21-point lead and was never threatened.
Whalen, Minnesota's career scoring leader, is out four to six weeks after breaking two bones in her right hand at Ohio State on Feb. 12. Still, the Gophers are confident they can hold on until she gets back, perhaps for the NCAA tournament.
"Yeah, it's going to take a while to get used to not having her," forward Kadidja Andersson said. "At the same time, it's not like nobody else on the team has played basketball before."
No. 9 Texas Tech went through the same kind of adjustment after leading scorer Jia Perkins quit in January for undisclosed medical reasons.
The Lady Raiders have gone 7-3 since and other players have picked up their scoring, most notably freshman Alesha Robertson and sophomore Erin Grant. In a recent victory at Missouri, Tech got 14 points from sophomore Chesley Dabbs, who was averaging just 5.4 points.
Missing coach
There's also an adjustment going on at No. 15 LSU, which just learned that coach Sue Gunter won't return for games this season.
Lung problems and acute bronchitis have forced Gunter to miss 10 games already, including the one that produced her 700th victory.
Gunter will participate in film sessions and practices when she feels up to it. But her doctor advised her to skip games because she wasn't getting enough oxygen, especially when she got excited.
Assistant Dana "Pokey" Chatman will be the acting head coach. Chatman was an All-America point guard for LSU in 1991.
LSU's situation is similar to what happened at Kansas, where veteran coach Marian Washington took a medical leave last month. Assistant Lynette Woodard, a four-time All-American for the Jayhawks from 1977-81, is serving as interim coach.