#-1: Gopher men's hockey (Last Week: -2). In a bad screening week where every single entrant lost at least one game, it's the U. men icers that are left at the top after the tide of Minnesota Loser Suck receded. They choked away a ten-game unbeaten streak (eight wins, two ties) Friday when Minnesota State-Mankato's Brett Knowles popped in a rebound past Goalie Adam Wilcox with 44 seconds left in the game to give the Mavericks a 2-1 win. They rebounded to trounce the Mavs in Mankato Saturday 4-1, but the damage was done: They have slipped behind St. Cloud St. in the race for the final WCHA Race As We Know It.
Yet, somehow, they have retained the top spot in both the USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine and USCHO.com polls, holding off Quinnipiac. Quinnipiac??? The Bobcats actually lead all in the all-important PairWise Rankings. They have a bye week before having two all-important games at St. Cloud St.
#-2: Swarm (Re-Entry!). Had a lead at Toronto Friday before the Rock blanked the Smarm in the fourth quarter 3-0 (Toronto in fact scored the last five goals in the match) and collapsed to a 13-12 loss. The next night, the night where I went to St. Paul but instead attended the "Crashed Ice" event at the grounds of the St. Paul Cathedral, they had their home opener and finally won the first time this year, 15-14 over Washington. But look closer: For the third straight game they were outscored in the final quarter -- 4-1 in holding off the Stealth at the X, 13-3 total.
One game this week: at Colorado Saturday.
(Note: The rest of the teams in this week's WMNSS went winless this week.)
#-3: Gopher wrestling (Last Week: -1). Ah, so there is a tie-breaker in wrestling. In a meet so touted that they moved the game from the Sports Pavilion to Williams Arena, the fourth-ranked Goofs rasslers lost to third-ranked Iowa 15-15.
Wait; 15=15, doesn't it? The Hawkeyes flashed out to a 15-3 lead, but once again the U. managed to rally and win the last four weight classes. So what do you do? I'm guessing that the first tie-breaker is most matches won. But that was tied at five. I don't know what the second tie-breaker is, but the third is total points won within the matches (that 15 came from both schools winning five "decisions," and a "decision" gives the whole team three points ... a major decision [don't ask me what it takes to get that] gives the team four points and a pin six). And that's where Iowa kicked the Gophers' ass, 41-33. And I was kind of being dramatic about the final score; the tie-breaker gave the Hawkeyes an extra point, so Iowa actually won 16-15.
The team now stands at 5-1 in the Big Ten and 11-2 overall, but it's clear that once again, this year is a year where they'll destroy anybody even remotely less talented than them, but won't defeat any of the teams that turn out to be more talented than them. Michigan St. appears to be the former; they come to Dinkytown Sunday afternoon.
#-4: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -4). Tuuuuuuuu-byyyyyyy! Tuuuuuuuuu-byyyyyyyyyy! Tuuuuuuuuuu-byyyyyyyyyyy!
OK, let me start my review of this club this way. According to one predictive and more accurate statistic, Kenpom, Minnesota is still a Top 10 team. How? The creator of this metric, Ken Pomeroy, believes that points per possession, on offense and defense, removes the dimension of pace that really skews more popular statistics hashed out in the media, most notably points for against per game. And then he uses a variation of the Pythagorean Theorem -- remember that? Go back to trigonometry and recall that you take each number, square both, and them together, then take the square root of that. Kenpom is calculated the same way, but instead of a factor of two, he uses an exponent that, through calculations of seasons past, he has deduced ends up with the number of wins a team actually wound up with that year.
With that factor and trying to use it for this season, the Gophers, as of press time, have a "Pythag" score of .9469, ninth-best in top-flight college basketball. What Mr. Pomeroy is saying is that the Gophers are a good team, and screening out luck, this team is better, and would be better in the win-loss record, then all but eight teams.
Of course, selection for the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament isn't dependent on Kenpom but on wins and losses, so try to tell Gopher fans not to panic after playing awful in losing at Northwestern, then playing scared and stupid late in the second half in the loss in Wisconsin. I was at the gym watching the end of the game, and I couldn't believe that Traevon Jackson's last-minute shot bounced up and in through. I was looking at the floor to see the guy who grabbed the rebound because, really, neither team was shooting straight at the end of that game. However, I kind of had a bad feeling that Rodney Williams, a shitty free-throw shooter, would not be able to sink the two free throws awarded when Trevor Mbakwe was fouled (and injured) on a half-court inbounds play. He somehow made the first, but bricked the second, and of course the Goofs lose 45-44. But they held the Badgers down possession-wise!
The U., 9th in Kenpom but either 23rd or 24th in the polls, host Nebraska and Iowa this screening week. They are mired in a four-game losing streak; can Tubby Smith coach a turnaround in his team?
#-5: Wild (Last Week: 0). Well that two-game winning streak to start the year was fun while it lasted. Too bad they're now mired in a three-game losing streak after going 0-3 this week. (I know they lost in St. Louis in overtime so they got a point, but that's bullshit, they lost.)
The problem right now is a problem that has plagued this organization since its birth: No scoring. Zach Parise, so far, has been as good as advertised, leading the whole team in points. Dany Heatley, too. But past the Parise-Heatley-Mikko Koivu line, no one is scoring. Meanwhile, don't blame Ryan Suter too much for having a -5. I don't believe plus/minus is accurate in hockey at all. That just means he was on the ice when the other team scored five more times than we the Mild scored. What does that mean?
The one saving grace: Although a few people said the club could be a Stanley Cup contender, and people like me believed they should at least make the playoffs, a few experts think they won't make the postseason this year because they are too young. A year away, they say. At this moment, I'll take it.
This week: Home to Chicago and Columbus, then at Anaheim and Phoenix.
#-6: Timberwolves (Last Week: -3). Like the Minnesota men's basketball team, the Woofie Dogs have lost four in a row. Unlike the Minnesota men's basketball team, the Woofie Dogs have lost nine of their last ten games after going 0-for-3 this week. There are many reasons for that, the loss of Kevin Love and the delayed resumption of full-time work for Ricky Rubio among them, but honestly, this losing streak cannot reflect well on Interim Head Coach Terry Porter.
The last defeat, in Charlotte Saturday, was particularly galling. Gerald Henderson sank the game-winning shot in a long possession in which the Wolves knocked the ball away twice. The Bobcats had lost 16 games in a row at home ... but they beat the Timberwolves!!! And the Bobcats/soon-to-be-Hornets-again are going to be the worst team in the National Basketball Association for the second year in a row, and yet they have an all-time record of 12-6 against our team (plus, they have swept them three out of the last four and four out of the last six seasons). The Bobcats were born in the 2004-5 season, which was the year after the Woofs went to the Western Conference Finals -- in other words, The Year The Team Went To Shit. Charlotte won the first-ever match-up between the two, and has taken two out of every three games since. For some reason I find that fact particularly galling.
When should I expect my friend to give me free game tickets again? They start a six-game homestand with games against the Clippers, the Lakers, New Orleans and Portland. This would have been a spectacular time to see our up-and-coming team take on the glamour squads of the West. Now it's a case where you're going to watch the other teams' stars.
#-7: Gopher women's basketball (Last Week: -5). Yeah, this is just about over. Matching five-point losses at Penn St. and home to Illinois have given the Goof vagina ballers a four-game losing streak -- hey, just like the men and the Wolves!!! At 13-8 overall and 2-5 in-conference, this year they'll be lucky if they even make it to the WBI. When will the Pam Borton Watch begin? Seriously, when? Hosting Michigan and at Nebraska this week.
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