#-1: Gopher soccer (Last Week: -1). No games played in this special six-day screening weeks, but they top all the other teams on this list because they have a special game, or games, they will play the next week. They qualified for the NCAA Tournament, their seventh in program's 17-year history and the first since getting to the Sweet Sixteen two years ago.
Moreover, the Gophers were tapped to host a pod this weekend, the second time they've been selected as a host (the first was the Sweet Sixteen run in 2008), even though they're not the ranked team. (Unlike the basketball tournament, where every team is given a seed and is matched up accordingly, the NCAA only seeds the top sixteen teams for women's soccer, four #1-4's. The other teams are bracketed on travel guidelines; since this tournament doesn't make money, the NCAA wants to keep member schools from flying to sites far away because the expense wouldn't justify the cost.) Moreover, they have a shot at winning both of their games here; if they beat Creighton, their first-round opponent, the Gophers face the ranked team in their pod, but only a 4-seed, Texas A&M (they have our neighbors four hours away up 94, North Dakota St.). They also had a 4-seed in their pod, Colorado, when they hosted two years ago, but the Gophs didn't even have to worry about the Buffaloes because they were upset in the first round by South Dakota St.
Soccer, at least as I see it on the pitch, is a very unpredictable sport, and many times I feel as if the better team on paper doesn't win. Add that Minnesota has the home-pitch advantage, and I will go to all three games thinking they have a chance of repeating their magic of two years ago. (Even if they lose, I will go to the second-round match Sunday afternoon.)
#-2: Vikings (Last Week: -9). Fuckin' A, that win put hair on my balls. This season, this team, this franchise was dead midway through the fourth quarter. How could a team playing so bad come back from 14 points down? But Brett Favre found his magic, somehow, Percy Harvin went buckwild, the Bastard Chicago/St. Louis Cardinals started playing like they were five years old, and the defensive line finally got some pressure on Derek Anderson. This team had no right to win, but they salvaged, well, everything with Sunday's victory.
The Vikes have become the NFL's best soap opera now that the Wade Phillips era has come to a merciful end in Dallas. After every game there's something new. This week, a story by a reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times (who used to work for the St. Paul Pioneer Press) revealed that six players want Head Coach Brad Childress fired, but their loyalty towards their teammates prevents them from laying down the rest of the year. Well, that's nice.
Actually, in any other season, I'd be scared that this is a sign of turmoil within the club. But it sounds like anything that could happen with this season's team has happened or is happening (i.e. Donggate). As bad as this sounds -- and this could be grist for a mill that still shreds the rest of the year -- this is not the worst thing to happen. And if we take these anonymous players on their word, that they will not give up on their fellow players, well, God bless 'em. They certainly will need all that and more as they go to Chicago and face the vaunted Bears defense -- and a Bears offense that could burn them but nonetheless should allow the defensive line time and opportunity to sack Jay Cutler -- Sunday afternoon. No time to feel you are safe away from the woodchipper, fellas.
#-3: Gopher volleyball (Last Week: -5). Good fucking Buddha, please put that strange, awful loss to Indiana behind you as much as possible, ladies. They beat Purdue at Purdue in four sets, thereby ensuring the program extends its record-long streak of consecutive weeks ranked in the AVCA Top 25 to 44. The 22nd-ranked team will probably need to sweep the Michigan schools, which they're playing at home this weekend, to get that to 45 weeks. But Michigan, which is their Friday opponent, is ranked 16th.
#-4: Wild (Last Week: -2). A 1-1 road week -- they followed up a solid 3-2 win at Columbus with a turd of a 5-1 loss at Atlanta (which, as was pointed out by KARE's Randy Shaver, watched by, like, 2,000 fans. The number of empty seats for this Thrashers game was stunning. Really, hockey is not a Southern sport, therefore I renew my call that there be no franchise in a city that doesn't have snow in the winter). I hope the effects from the bag skate haven't worn off yet.
The only insight I've been able to glean this week is that Defenseman Brent Burns is playing better, and that he and Nick Schultz comprise the Wild's top blueliner duo. This week they complete their Southern Swing with stops in Florida and Tampa Bay before returning home with a date with Anaheim on Wednesday.
#-5: Timberwolves (Last Week: -7). Sports fans across the state a so starved for any good news coming from the Woofie Dogs that even a scrap of news that's not pessimistic is met with disproportionate rapture. And we got two pieces of such news this week.
First, they didn't embarrass themselves playing at the Bastard Minneapolis Lakers Tuesday. In fact, they were within two points halfway through the fourth quarter, but they couldn't quite get over the hump over a Lakers squad that, for some reason, didn't blow this team out like they should have. That meant the Timberwolves were able to easily cover the 17-point spread Vegas lines gave them (they lost 99-94).
Trying so hard and falling short to a talented team usually means they'll get blown out by a much weaker team the next game of a back-to-back. But that didn't happen here. In fact, on Wednesday they were able to beat the Bastard Cincinnati Royals in Sacramento Wednesday, 98-89, ending a six-game losing streak and a road streak of 17 games that started last season. I really want to put the Wolves higher in the WMNSS, but that's just because I'm going off the euphoria I still feel from picking up a victory on the road. (The results to the Lakers and Kings almost made me forget they gave Houston their first win of their season Sunday in an execrable 120-94 blowout.)
What I've known for some time: Kevin Love can flat-out play, especially when it comes to rebounding. What I didn't know till Wednesday: Michael Beasley can flat-out play, which he did to the tune of a career-high 42 points in that win. They've got a busy schedule this week: hosting New York, a quick trip to Atlanta and Charlotte, then back to Target Center against the Bastard Buffalo Braves.
#-6: Gopher men's hockey (Last Week: -4). This team woke up from the trance that allowed Wisconsin to walk into Mariucci and beat the shit out of them 6-0 the previous night. And they played up to their talent level ... which was a 3-3 tie with the Badgers Saturday. A difference in the series: Kent Patterson was the goalie in Saturday's tie; Alex Kangas was the netminder in Friday's self-immolation (though I'm shocked Head Coach Don Lucia didn't pull Kangas in the four-goal second period). What now? It's starting to feel like the only thing you should expect from this program is mediocrity, which is a tremendous fall from grace for the Notre Dame Of Hockey Programs. They are off this week.
#-7: Gopher women's hockey (Last Week: -6). I swear I didn't know Wisconsin was ranked first in the country when they lost to the Gophs last Friday. Well, like the Gopher men, they snapped out of what they were in and blitzed Minnesota Saturday, 5-0. However, that win Friday got the program inched up a notch in the USCHO.com Top 10, from 8 to 7. (Meanwhile, the Badgers remain at the top of the poll.) Like their Y-chromosomed analogues, the team is off for the week.
#-8: Gopher football (Last Week: -8). Lost 31-8 last Saturday at Michigan St. The only thing I can comment on is that the spread was 24 points, and I totally believed the Spartans were going to kill the Gophers. Oh well.
There was a sports report, that rarest of things, about the state of the Minnesota football program, on WCCO Wednesday. They made a lot of assumptions about things that had no right to assume, an argument I hate when used in news reports. The most egregious of these presumptions is that you need to spend money to make money. It helps to spend money, but there are two facts to make clear in the face of this "accepted" fact: 1) Minnesota already has spent money. It's called TCF Bank Stadium, featuring the biggest locker room in the nation. That they still couldn't win means that shelling out money for a brand-new edifice doesn't cure everything overnight; and 2) you need to have a winning program to make money. To do that, you have to get the best players you can. And to that end, it helps to find the right coach, not the most expensive.
Going along that point, the Star Tribune (of Minneapolis; and by the way, every time I see a national news network quote something from the Star Tribune they say it's the Minneapolis Star Tribune. It's not; it's just the Star Tribune. It helps to know that the paper is based in and concentrates on Minneapolis, but the city is not a part of the newspaper's official name. Isn't somebody from the Star Tribune going to make sure others know that?) yesterday had a two columns advocating for what kind of coach should be hired for the Gopher job. One says someone experienced, like Mike Bellotti (formerly of Oregon) and Phil Fulmer (ousted from Tennessee). The other says someone young and hungry, like Troy Calhoun (currently coach at Air Force) or Kevin Sumlin (currently at Houston).
Already, two mouth-watering men have said no: Fulmer said it's "not a good fit," and Vikings Defensive Coordinator Leslie Frazier, who once said he was interested in the job, has now come out and said he doesn't want the job. Meanwhile, some former Gopher football players have become so angered over the state of the team that they today they took a full-page out in the Minnesota Daily and put out a website blasting Athletic Director Joel Maturi for hiring Tim Brewster, saying they want a say in who gets hired as Brewster's replacement, and demanding that Maturi should not be the man to hire Brewster's replacement.
My take: There are two factors, which kind of counteract each other, that people have to account for:
1) I would like to find a coach that could make Minnesota a destination, or become a lifer here, such as Joe Paterno in Penn St. But because of our "place" in college football -- that we're never going to be Ohio St. or Michigan, let alone powerhouses that the school stood alongside half a century ago, like Notre Dame -- if the next coach reaches some success, like winning a conference title or Rose Bowl, he's gone. The Gophers are, at best, a stepping stone. Any booster or Gopher official who is dreaming of being king of the conference will have to deal with the consequences of dealing with him walking away from the job and soon as he lifts the trophy. Then again ...
2) This is still the Twin Cities, one of the most livable areas in the nation (even after what Tim Pawlenty did to this area). This is not a college town. There are a lot of other things to do and teams to follow, such as the Vikings right now.
However, I have to think that its big-city status appeals to some good players. It is a plus. And as long as there is a Minneapolis, so long as there isn't this instant, total migration away from the area because of a nuclear accident or terrorist attack, you will have some things with which to recruit good players. They say that San Diego St. is a sleeping giant because it's situated in one of the ten largest cities in the country. Minnesota's the same way. In fact, even though they have turned in almost 50 years of gridiron futility, they still have built-in advantages that an Iowa or Purdue will never have. And the Gophers will always have those advantages. So, I'd suggest that the next coach be OK with living in the big city and recruiting with that in mind. Or, if not that, relax -- we'll always have a chance to awaken. Maybe just not in this lifetime.
Meanwhile, Coach/Dead Man Walking Jeff Horton leads this team to a loss in Illinois tomorrow (Saturday).
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