#-1: Gopher wrestling (Last Week: -1). An underwhelming week overall, but I have to give the top spot to the U. grapplers, who finished the regular season by immolating cross-border rival Wisconsin Sunday, 34-5. They finish the year 13-2 overall and 7-1 in the B1G, which is good, but they put up those records every year. What I think reveals this team more are the losses, which are to Oklahoma St. and Iowa (both, by the way, at home; they finish a perfect 5-0 on the road and 2-0 at neutral sites). Both schools are ranked ahead of the Gophers, as is top-ranked Penn St., whom Minnesota managed somehow not to play this year. Unless they surprise me -- and surprises on the team side rarely happen in wrestling, I hypothesize -- their ranking of fourth is probably where they'll finish. Again.
I don't know if there has ever been a National Dual Finals before. If so, I don't know if the U. has ever hosted it. But they are in two weeks. The format? Beats the hell out of me.
#-2: Swarm (Last Week: -5). The Swarm and the Toronto Rock were tied after two, three and four periods -- tight game. In overtime, Transition Tyler Hass registered a hat trick and earned the team its second of the season, 13-12. Getting outscored in the fourth quarter has been an early bugaboo for the Smarm, so seeing them score in lockstep with the Rock in the final stanza is a good thing.
One game this week: Their annual doubleheader with the Minnesota RollerGirls, which means their game against Calgary will begin at the special time of 6 o'clock. I've thought about going, but last year I was really tired sitting through the doubleheader. Maybe I'll just skip the lacrosse game and somehow snag a ticket for the roller derby nightcap. ...
#-3: Wild (Last Week: -3). Well, the first game after a hastily-arranged players-only meeting was a listless, troubling, awful 4-1 dicksmack by the Vancouver Canucks at home. However they ended the week with a pair of 2-1 wins. Sure, they needed extra time to win both those games, so they still only have three regulation victories (the last one coming Jan. 29), but the shootout win in Calgary was their first on the road.
Unfortunately they are still having trouble scoring goals. And now it looks like backup Goalie Josh Harding might be sitting for awhile; reports are that he told higher-ups that he felt "odd" the past few days. Is he feeling the effects of his Multiple Sclerosis?
This week: At Vancouver, then hosting Colorado and Detroit.
#-4: Gopher men's hockey (Re-Entry!). A split at St. Cloud St., the second game of which featured a rare 4-1 deficit before scoring two goals in a too-little comeback, dropped the Gophers out of the top spot in both national polls, being replaced by ... Quinnipiac. Quinnipiac??? They're a small school in the ECAC, derisively called the "EZ-AC" because it's a conference generally regarded as no better than Atlantic Hockey. That leavens my heart from being disappointed over the Goofs dropping to #2; this should mean that the ... Bobcats, if they keep this up, will be prime upset material when the tournament begins in a month.
Meanwhile, the squad has a very special road trip this weekend: Friday they visit Wisconsin, and on Sunday, both teams travel to Chicago's Soldier Field to play, the first time in the modern age that Minnesota has played under the gaze of Mother Nature and God.
#-5: Timberwolves (Last Week: -6). The final game of the Woofie Dogs' week, a 100-92 victory on the road over Cleveland (snapping an eight-game road losing streak) also snapped a four-game losing period streak. Beating Kyrie Irving isn't going to wipe away the bad taste losses to San Antonio, New York and Memphis crammed into my mouth this screening week, however.
I saw parts of the defeats to the Knicks and Bastard Vancouver Grizzlies, and the club once again exhibited how, uh, diverse they are in losing. They took the lead over New York Friday between the end of the third and the beginning of the fourth quarters, but because the Woofs have no one and the Knickerbockers have Carmelo Anthony (who has played less like a bitch since Head Coach Mike Woodson has convinced Amar'e Stoudemire to come off the bench), New York made the shots in the clutch. That was dispiriting, yet it was nothing like seeing them get behind early against Memphis early Sunday evening. As one of the rare persons not a fan of the current iteration of the Grammys ("Let's throw these two guys together! And then let's throw these three people together! And then let's push all four of these bands together to make one supergroup, and they'll do snippets of each of their songs, and then they'll do a song from a dead guy! Ain't this a celebration of music or what?!"), I needed to see something compelling, and that sure as shit wasn't it.
Oh, one other thing: Derrick Williams is nothing, absolutely nothing, without Ricky Rubio. His career will die on the vine if and when he gets traded.
The only thing to look forward to is the fact that, after Wednesday's home game against Utah, the entire team is off for All-Star Weekend. No one on the team is participating. As it should be.
#-6: Gopher women's basketball (Last Week: -4). Won at home over Iowa, lost at Illinois. I have nothing else to add besides, uh ... the team is 12-3 at home. They have one game this week: Sunday at home vs. Northwestern in their annual "Pink" cancer fundraising game.
#-7: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -2). OK, now this team is in big fucking trouble. The Big Ten is a beast this year, and 19 wins might be enough for these Goofs to get into the NCAA Tournament. But they look like shit, and they played like shit in going winless at Michigan St. and home vs. Illinois.
It's the Illini loss that is particularly gruesome because the old weaknesses with this team appeared again: No one moving on offense, turnovers, poor decision-making at the end of the shot clock, shitty defense around the perimeter, mediocre free-throw shooting. That all adds up, again, to a supreme lack of gumption at crunch time, and Illinois managed to hold off the Goofs, 57-53.
The only good thing I can still see out of this group is that, according to Kenpom, the U. is still pretty good, the 13th-best team in the land when it comes to tempo-free combined efficiency. Remember, however, that they are sliding down that list; they were once as high as 8th. They host Wisconsin and visit Iowa this week.
#-8: Gopher volleyball (Re-Entry!). I bring this program back on the WMNSS for something disturbing that I found. Last week Head Coach Huge McCutcheon hired a guy by the name of Erich Hinterstocker as assistant coach. He has head coaching experience, being the lead guy at North Dakota St. from 2006 to 2010. He turned around the program, leaving with an overall record with the Bison of 95-38, the school's first appearance ever in the NCAA Tournament, and back-to-back undefeated Summit League championships in 2008 and 2009.
But notice that his last year was 2010. The U. of M. press release does not fill in what he's done since then. But then I found this eye-opening article from Tom Pantera, managing editor of a company called Extra Media, Inc. He said Hinterstocker was "coerced" into resigning in the fall of the 2010 season after reports that he verbally and physically abused his players.
If this is true, and I believe it to be true, this pisses me off. And Hugh McCutcheon has made a terrible, terrible mistake. I'm very sensitive to stuff like this because I was bullied as a child, and I find it indefensible that he would hire a bully onto his program. I don't care that he's not Head Coach, he's going to yell and, unimaginable as this may sound, beat the players. Is that what Cutch is going to allow? What kind of message is even hiring this asshole sending? The damage may already have been done.
My interest in going to volleyball games at the U. has just been dampened.
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