Positive Numbers: St. Thomas men's basketball (New!). Wow, what a surprise! The Tommies won the Division III championship this (Sunday) afternoon by crushing Wooster (in Ohio), 78-54. This was over early; the Tommies blitzed the Fighting Scots in the first half of the first half 34-5 and never looked back. This is the first time UST has ever won a men's basketball championship.
The prison sex they applied to Wooster is 180 degrees different from the way they had to win their semifinal match against Middlebury Friday. They were up by seven at the half but were down to the Panthers by seven about midway through the second half. But a 12-0 put St. Thomas up by five with two minutes left, and they held on.
I believe this is the first title the school has claimed since the baseball team won in 2009. That's two championships in the past three years. The U. hasn't done that; see below. At least one university is making the state of Minnesota proud. Congratulations, Tommies! Maybe I will attend your grad school!!
#-1: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -1). Besides the Tommies, this week's edition of the WMNSS is so fucking lame. These guys repeat on the top of this list because -- get this -- they are the only team, besides St. Thomas, which is a one-time thing, to fucking win a single goddamn game. And they went 2-2 this week, yet somehow this squad is, like, the motherfucking Yankees of this survey. It's pathetic.
Specifically, they lose two at Gonzaga (thereby losing two of three in their series against the Bulldogs), but win both games of a two-game midweek series at Sacramento St. That kind of tells you where they are in the world of college baseball.
They were supposed to begin a three-game set at Santa Clara last (Friday) night, but, for the second time this week, it was postponed due to weather (the other game being Tuesday's game against Sac. St.). So they tried to pull a doubleheader today (Saturday) ... but it's raining so much today (Saturday) that they decided to just fuckin' cancel the double-dip. Pffffffffffft, baseball. You know, we have a dome here in Minnesota; they could've played here without worrying about precipitation falling ... uh, never mind.
The Minnesota Nine will see if they will play Santa Clara at all Sunday. Then, they start their final series on The Road Trip To Begin The Season That Will Not End against Cal Poly.
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A special note: I am listing the next six teams in protest. None of these clubs won anything this week. In fact, their efforts were so embarrassing, and the consequences of their ineptitude so deep and profound, that I don't know why I'm ranking them. I had so much trouble differentiating them that I had to stop and put some of them in a tie. They are all so fuckin' bad. Shit, I should just not write about them and leave them off of the WMNSS. I am absolutely disgusted with all these teams. And that all of them, all six of them, are showing their incompetence at the same time indicates beyond the pale the dreary winter sports scene in Minnesota. The winters the past several years have been mighty, mighty cold.
I must soldier on because, well, it'd be unfair to all the other WMNSS's if I just blew this off. But all these clubs below should be goddamn ashamed of themselves:
#-2 (tie): Timberwolves and Wild (Last Week, respectively: -2, -4). The Minnesota pro sports teams are so motherfucking lame they should just relocate. Get them the hell out of here; they're sticking up our great state. Putrid, the both of them.
With whom of these bottom-scraper shall I begin? Oh, I'll go with the team that should have absolutely zero interest to the community now that Kevin Love has had his double-doubles streak broken. Yes, KLove was shackled by one of the teams in the NBA known for its hard-nosed defense, Golden State. (I'm being sarcastic, by the way.) Wilt Chamberlain, rest easy; your record of 200+ straight games amassing double-doubles is safe. As is your record of fucking 20,000 women.
The Woofie Dogs went 0-3, all on the road. They now return home with shit on their faces. If you ever catch me paying for a ticket to a Timberwolves game, you have my permission to shoot me. This week: home to Sacramento, then at Dallas and The Bastard Seattle SuperSonics.
The Wolves, at least, aren't disappointing the Minnesota sports populace after being in the thick of a playoff race, which is exactly what the Wild are doing. Well, until recently -- now, they're out of it.
They usually vacate the Xcel Energy Center this time of year because of the boys' state high school hockey tournament and the WCHA Final Five. They were on a four-game road trip and they lost all goddamn four. They were outscored 15-4 in that sojourn, against teams that either are fighting for playoff slots or are the cream of the Western Conference. Shit, they even lost to The Team That Was Stolen From Us, which pisses me the fuck off royally.
They then played this afternoon against Columbus. They are the appetizer for the main course, the WCHA Final Five final tonight, in their own fucking building. And they skated scantly better: They gained a point, but they lost with 33.5 seconds left in the goddamn overtime to the BJ's, 5-4. So, technically, in my mind, they lost. Therefore, they have now lost five in a row.
This fatal skid now puts them in 11th place, five points behind The Bastard Atlanta Flames for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference. It's over. They host Montreal tomorrow (Sunday), then play at the X vs. Toronto on Tuesday.
#-Infinity (tie): Gopher wrestling, women's hockey, men's hockey, and men's basketball (Last Week, respectively: -6, -3, -5, -7).
The only reason I'm putting both teams above these four blights on the U. community, and the state of Minnesota, is that the seasons of the Woofie Dogs and the Mild aren't done yet. Per my rule, only teams whose seasons end (and with failure to win a championship) get designated with the "#-Infinity" rank. But this is the second year in a row where more than one -- maybe even more than two -- Gopher programs end their seasons the same screening week. That goes to show that these winter programs are just horseshit right now.
I'll begin with the grapplers. No player won a title. When's the last time that fucking happened? Sad. The Gophs, at the exact moment I'm typing this, is in sixth place. Their final place won't be decided until the whole tournament gets done tonight (Sunday night). So, I guess that technically the season for the Gophers isn't over yet. But the team is done, it can't play anymore. And besides, this season has been such a disappointment that I don't give a fuck.
Women's hockey? Please. They got the their asses kicked at Boston College last Saturday, a good team but one the Gophs could have, and should have, beat. It was over in the first 20 minutes as the Eagles scored all their goals in a 4-1 rout.
These Goof icers fail to advance to the Frozen Four for the third time in the last five seasons. This program was the first elite program in women's hockey. But since their back-to-back NCAA titles in the 2004 and 2005 postseasons, they haven't even been back to the the title game. What the fuck, Brad Frost?
Men's hockey was a goddamn tease. They actually went on a run to finish the regular season, not losing their last seven games. That put them in fifth place in the WCHA and home-ice advantage in their conference tournament series against Alaska-Anchorage. That's, like, 10,000 miles away from here.
But last Saturday night's 2-0 loss completed an inexplicable, inexcusable 2-0 sweep by the Seawolves. Let me re-emphasize: They got swept at home by Alaska fuckin' Anchorage. After being on the cusp of getting in as an at-large, this is the third straight year they won't make the NCAAs. Shit, this is the second year in a row they didn't make the WCHA Final Five, which is held in their metro-fucking-politan area. Plus another guy, Aaron Ness, said fuck this and quit the school.
Yeah, I think Don Lucia should be let go. So why in the fuckety-fuck is he going to get a contract extension?
Finally, men's basketball. I didn't end their season in the WMNSS last week because I assumed they were going to get into the NIT. And then on Sunday they didn't even fucking get into the NIT. Shit, 13 losses in 14 games is so awful that even the NIT thinks the Goofs are below them??
Just after they lost their last game I thought they didn't deserve the NIT and if they were invited, they should decline. Being in the Not Invited Tournament, to me, was almost as awful as not playing in the real tournament. But now that it turns out they really aren't playing in the postseason (there's a rumor that the College Basketball Invitiational, the third level of college basketball postseasons, wanted Minnesota, but Head Coach Tubby Smith couldn't hold his nose long enough to coach through that tourney), I'm thinking, "Oh my shit, this team is so fucking bad that they're not playing in any postseason? That suuuuuuuuuuuucks."
Joel Maturi seems to be a nice guy, and I wouldn't give his problems to a monkey on a rock, as David Letterman would say. But Jim Souhan is right.
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