#-1: Gopher wrestling (Re-Entry!). Congratulations apparently are in order for the University of Minnesota wrestling team because, for the second year in a row, they have won the National Duals Finals, not just beating but dominating Virginia Tech, Iowa and Oklahoma St. The semifinal and final victories avenged the team's only two losses this year.
That's great, right? Um, I don't think so. They won these Nat Duals last year, and you'd think they'd be a great momentum-swinger for the conference and NCAA Championships, but they finished fourth. And look at those scores again: They beat Iowa 22-15 after the Hawkeyes beat the Goofs on a tie-breaker last month, and they crushed the Cowboys 28-9 even though they handily defeated the U. in early December at the Sports Pavilion 22-15. What I'm asking is: Were these teams really trying?
Minnesota is third in the polls, and at least they have the top-ranked individuals at 174 pounds (Logan Storley) and at heavyweight (Tony Nelson). I just doubt this means that they'll vault over Penn St. and Okie St. to win anything really important. We'll soon get to find out, for the B1G Tourney takes place at the University of Illinois the ninth and tenth of March.
#-2: Gopher men's hockey (Last Week: -1). The final series against Minnesota-Duluth as members of the WCHA ends with a win and tie over the hated Bulldogs. Second in both polls and the all-important PairWise rankings behind Quinnipiac, who continues to sport the best record in college hockey and who continues to fail to convince me they can win the title. They can't ... they're from the ECAC! By the way, they're still in a dogfight for the conference regular season, two points behind leader St. Cloud St., only a point ahead of third-place Nebraska-Omaha and North Dakota and two points ahead of Minnesota State-Mankato. And the U. is only four points ahead of the next rival they'll miss once they start the Big Ten Men's Hockey Conference: Denver, this weekend, at home. It'll be the team's final home games of the regular season.
#-3: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -3). Like UCLA, which responded to their season-opening loss at home to the U. with a pair of ass-kickings, the Gopher Nine answered a 2-0 shutout in the second game of their four-game series against Western Michigan (Saturday afternoon, part of a doubleheader) with a resounding 15-1 dick-smack that was over at seven innings because of the mercy rule. Well, maybe it's the mercy rule, maybe it had something to do with the fact that it was a double dip. I wanted to go to Friday's home opener, where the Gophers beat the Broncos 7-1, but even though there wasn't a whole lot of snow and it all ended that morning, I figured it was best to keep off of the downtown streets that evening.
They also won Sunday's series finale 9-2. So right now we know they're better than Western Michigan but not as good as UCLA. We will continue to suss out how good this team is in the big scheme of things when they host their annual Dairy Queen Classic this weekend at the Metrodome. I hope to go to either Friday's game against Dartmouth or Saturday's against Utah.
#-4: Wild (Last Week: -4). Won at Edmonton 3-1 Thursday, lost at Calgary 3-1 Saturday. Still can't score. Still very close to a playoff spot despite sporting a record of 8-7-2. Eh. They have four games this week after (and I didn't notice this until a sportscaster said it on TV) having four days between their win at home vs. Detroit and the victory over Edmonton. The Flames and Oilers make return engagements in St. Paul, bookending the Mild's quick trip to Phoenix and Anaheim.
#-5: Swarm (Last Week: -7). A home-and-home series against the Edmonton Rush results in both teams winning on the road, surprisingly. But this .500 week on balance became a loss when the team revealed yesterday that Captain and National Lacrosse League Transition Of The Year Andrew Suitor is out for the rest of the year after tearing an ACL during Friday's win in Edmonton. (The Swarm lost at the X Sunday afternoon.) The club's currently fighting with Colorado to stay out of the bottom of the Western Conference and thus out of the playoffs, but losing Suitor, their team leader and a guy whom I've seen drop the gloves and fight guys the past two games I've seen in person, is going to be a huge loss. They visit Washington Sunday.
#-6: Gopher women's basketball (Last Week: -6). An indicator of how this is yet another nothingburger of a season for the Gopher vagina ballers, the squad somehow completes a season sweep of Ohio St. by beating the Buckeyes in Columbus by a point Thursday before coming home and getting shellacked by ranked Purdue Sunday.
Rachel Banham, who is really good but appears to be a one-woman show, drained a jumper with two-tenths of a second left to defeat Ohio St. The Buckeyes were once good, especially when they had Jantel Lavender, who's now in the WNBA. But, believe it or not, the school has a worse record than the Goofs. Purdue is good this year; they're ranked in the bottom of the Top 25. And they lost handily in front of the home crowd, whatever's left of it -- despite the fact that, embarrassingly, Minnesota Public Relations characterized their 75-63 defeat as a "close contest." Oh, drop it, you're fooling no one ... at least no one who's paying attention.
The club finishes the regular season this week: Home to Penn St. Thursday, in Indiana Sunday.
#-7: Timberwolves (Last Week: -5). I'm basically done with this team after listening to the Woofie Dogs blow yet another late lead Sunday afternoon at home and lose to Golden State, 100-99. Yet another instance of a young team (mischaracterized as a good team with clutch attitude by Wolves brass) pissing down their collective legs in the face of not a good team, but a team that has a really good player in Stephen Curry -- a player David Kahn could have drafted. They did beat Philadelphia at home (completing the season sweep) but lost in Oklahoma City.
Curry was drafted the same year as Ricky Rubio; man, that could have been a dynamite show to watch. I haven't been impressed with Rubio, I'll be honest; if he was so good, he would be the transformative player that could carry a team on his back to wins, and the Timberwolves obviously aren't doing that. Maybe I'm being too hard on him, though, because Rob Mahoney of SI.com thinks that not only has he come all the way back from his ACL tear but is learning to expand his game. In particular, Mahoney has noticed lately that he has worked on what scouts considered to be his weaknesses coming in to the league -- scoring (especially in the paint) and defense. I'll defer to his observations and hope that this team can be the playoff squad they were supposed to be this year.
Minnesota, currently twelfth in the Western Conference, visit Phoenix, the Lakes and Portland before coming home Monday and hosting the defending champion Miami Heat.
#-8: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -2). Yeah, this season's over. Sweet Sixteen? With this team? After putting their heads in the sand and holding up their asses so Ohio St. can put their feet up their assholes (they lost in Ohio St. Wednesday 71-45)?
And the damndest thing of all of this is, Tubby Smith did at least one important thing right. Knowing he had a veteran-laden team, he scheduled extremely tough -- tops in non-conference strength of schedule, in fact. And so, even though they've gone 3-8 in their last 11 games, they still -- still! -- have an RPI (the metric that the NCAA Selection Committee uses to pick and seed teams for the Big Dance) that is third-best in College Basketball Nation. So it looks like, even if they lose every single game from here on out -- and they start the screening week tonight hosting the #1 team in the nation, Indiana -- they will back into the tourney. I don't know how you can do that in college b-ball, but apparently the experts cannot see any way they miss the NCAAs even if they lose out. Now, they might fall into the play-in games, but according to the NCAA (though not to anyone with common sense) they're still in.
It might be interesting to see if the Gophers can somehow pull off the upset. Time and again I see squads that are apparently overmatched against a great opponent, but because they play that team at home they win. The conditions are there. The players, and the coach, capable of winning, are not. And I wonder if the crowd will get behind the team at the beginning of the game or turn on Smith, regardless of how the game starts off. No one believes they can win. Very few believe they can even make tonight's very important match, one that could cement the Goofs' place in the tournament, a close one. It's weird to write off a team even though they're going to make the Big Dance, but we can read the tea leaves. Oh yeah, they finish the home portion of their regular season Saturday against Penn St.
No comments:
Post a Comment