#-1: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -2). In what was a down, a very down, week overall for Twin Cities sports, we give the top slot to the U. penis ballers, who win this place almost by default, also known as a 92-79 win over cupcake Nebraska-Omaha. (I probably used the term "cupcake" over something else, like "pushover" or "patsy," because as I type this I am eating a cupcake from nationally-renowned local restaurant chain Cupcake. I am eating their Key Lime which I ordered Thursday but kept in the fridge because I couldn't get around to eating it until now. It's a little tough, which may or may not be its original constitution, but still ... hmmmmmmmm, cuuuuuuupcaaaaaaake .........)
You know what they should do to break up this Murdered Row of mid-to-low majors BcS schools always load up on during their non-conference schedule? Lower the damage a road loss, and elevate the benefit of a road win, to a team's Ratings Percentage Index. Sure, that might inflate or distort a program's actual strength, but at least it'll get more high majors to hit the road knowing that there might be more CV-building at hand away from home. The way the RPI is tabulated now, I can understand why the Gophers scheduled a seven-game homestand to straddle the New Year. This Saturday night they host Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
#-2: Gopher women's basketball (Re-Entry!). Well, the good news is they won their Subway Classic. However, they did it despite winding up in a three-way tie for first ... at 1-1 with the two other schools in the tournament. They crushed Auburn 67-54 Sunday afternoon, however on Friday afternoon, before the largest crowd the team has seen yet this year, they lost a close one at Williams Arena to UCLA 58-55. But since Auburn beat UCLA Saturday afternoon, the tiebreaker apparently is points allowed, and the Gophers allowed the fewest. So yay ... ?
Congratulations to Rachel Banham, who scored her 1,500th point in her college career in the victory over the Tigers. She becomes the eighth player in the program to reach that mark, and partly because of that she was named Most Valuable Player of the tourney. Also, congratulations to Amanda Zahui B., named Big Ten Freshman Of The Week for the second time. She's becoming a force, no doubt. Nevertheless, it seems as if there are only two worthy players on this squad, as evidenced by losing at home to the Bruins. They continue their six-game homestand Sunday afternoon against Oakland.
#-3: Timberwolves (Last Week: -3). Frankly it was hard to differentiate between the Woofie Dogs and the Mild this week. Both won only one game this screening week, both of them at home, both of them against pretty solid teams. I'll give it to the Woofs because their win was more legitimate. Part of what I mean by that I'll explain in the next entry, but that win came against Portland, currently the club with the best record in the National Basketball Association. Sure, they came off a thrilling victory the day before in Chicago (courtesy of a last-second shot by Damian Lillard), but it counts nonetheless.
Sadly, the ofer the Wolves pulled at Staples Center this weekend also counts. Despite playing without Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash, The Bastard Minneapolis Lakers managed to beat Minnesota going away on Friday by 13. And then came the fuck-up at the end of that howler against the Clippers Sunday. With a two-point lead very late in regulation, the inbounds pass was thrown to Kevin Martin in the backcourt. Martin was quickly double-teamed, and no one came back over the half-court line to save him. Martin lost control of the ball, and the turnover and lay-in forced overtime, where the Bastard Buffalo Braves/San Diego Clippers won 120-116. (Sunday, all three active professional teams lost. Once again, Minnesota is Loserville, USA.) So as of right now, the Timberwolves are 2 1/2 games out of the Western Conference playoffs.
One harbinger of doom is glowing brighter and brighter by the game: Ricky Rubio is rapidly devolving. While Kevin Love continues to put up insane numbers -- he scored, like, 40+ points against the Clippers -- Rubio still has not been able to develop a shot. He can see the court like few others and can pass like no one's business. But his inability to score has been so bad that Head Coach Rick Adelman pulled him late in the Lakers game in favor of J.J. Barea.
My fear is that the ceiling for Rubio, which seemed to be so far aloft only the Hubble Telescope could see it, is quickly crashing down to earth. And also remember that when reworking the rookie contracts of both, Wolves management gave Love a contract that was one year short of the maximum because they believed the cornerstone of this franchise was Rubio, not him. Doesn't seem like it lately. Probably doesn't matter now. Love is proving he's worth more than his contract and that it is he who should be maxed out. But he isn't, and he's playing like he's pissed off about that -- so pissed off that when it comes time to renegotiate again, he'll hold that against our NBA team. This could be a massive, massive fuck-up for the Woofie Dogs.
This team is off until Friday, when they host Washington. They then travel to Milwaukee Saturday and host Dallas Monday.
#-4: Wild (Last Week: -4). We have to tamp down expectations for the Mild, too. While they do have the best home record in the Western Conference, as evidenced by their shootout victory over Vancouver (which is also why I've slotted them below the Timberwolves this WMNSS: Their win is less legitimate), they are now a putrid 1-7-1 in their last nine road games. They have dropped their last three games, all on the road and all against teams in the (supposedly weaker) Eastern Conference by a combined score of, gulp, 13-4. Gulp.
Two growing concerns. One is the injury to Zach Parise, probably the best player the Mild have got right now. He missed Monday night's 4-1 drubbing to the Philadelphia Flyers due to an injury in one-half of his body. In many games he is the only genuinely professional player on the ice for Minnesota. The other, more pressing, issue is the goaltending situation. Josh Harding has played extremely well for the Wild, but has been put on Injured Reserve because his multiple sclerosis medication has to be tweaked (whether this was foreseen or unplanned is still unknown). In his place is Nicklas Backstrom, who was hurt early in the year but has apparently been well enough to play but hasn't because Harding's been so good. This week he has resumed netminding duties, but as you could see by the three straight losses he hasn't been doing well. He's been dreadful, in fact. This raises all sorts of questions: Do you name Harding the starting Goalie from now on? Is Backstrom tradeable now? Is Backstrom so awful that his value as trade bait is zero? And, I guess most importantly, what the fuck happened to Nicklas Backstrom?
One more game on the road, this time in Winnipeg after the Christmas Break. They then return home for a four-game stretch starting with the New York Islanders.
#-5: Vikings (Last Week: -1). I was torn. I had planned on going out before the Vikings game was on TV Sunday to do some grocery shopping and grab a bite to eat using an Arby's coupon and, if I got up early enough, exercise. Instead I decided it was a good time to shovel the snow. Why I did it without checking the forecast is beyond me, because the fucking snow started up in the afternoon, just as I got done. Doing that pushed my timeline back to the point where I decided to quit shoveling just around the time the game began.
So I had a choice: Continue shoveling, quit and stay to watch, or leave. In the end, I thought that I needed to give my parents' minivan a workout after leaving it untouched on the driveway for two straight days, so I thought then and there that, fuck it, forget the game, I need to get some groceries and a bite to eat. They were going to lose, anyway.
By the time I started the minivan and turned on the radio, Matt Cassel got sacked and lost the football. And by the time I parked at the grocery store, Cincinnati scored. And once I got to the parking lot at Arby's the score was 21-7 Bengals.
I stuck around watching the dining room television till halftime, when the ViQueens were safely behind, for me to resume shoveling, this time the back deck. And once I got done with that, I sat done, saw the rest of the abortion, and promptly shot myself.
We are a fickle people, fellow Vikings fans. I admit to a bad case of knee-jerk reactions and recency bias. Just last week, after Cassel's masterful performance in crushing a very good Philadelphia squad, I thought he could be good enough to keep around. Now, after this debacle, I can't see him starting for us and think the team needs to draft a Quarterback pronto purgers. Then again, I can see him throwing for 400 yards and four touchdowns in beating the hell out of an unmotivated Detroit Lions team that lost five of six and just got eliminated to the New York Giants at home Sunday. (Man, I thought we Vikes fans have it bad. I thought the Lions were going to crush the undermanned Giants. OK, we're not the only miserable football fan base, I see.) And then I will think, "Well, at least he's the devil we know." So maybe I should just not make any assumptions until at least the season's over next weekend.
What does worry me is how lifeless the club played for Head Coach Leslie Frazier. In my mind there are only two reasons you fire a coach: He loses the lockerroom or he has shown in inability to get the most talent out of his players. Of the four professional sports in America, being a Head Coach in football is the most important. But seeing Cassel throw to the wrong people (or to space) and seeing the secondary continually get burned by A.J. Green and the Bengals receivers makes me think that not only does this team need a better defense, the defensive players they've trotted out there have been hand-picked by General Manager Rick Spielman.
Now, I'm not calling for Spielman's head either; his draft two years ago of Matt Kalil, Harrison Smith and Blair Walsh still stands up, despite this bad season. I'm just saying that diagnosing the problem(s) is complex, and in the National Football League fortunes can turn on a dime from season to season. Yes, you are what your record says you are, and Frazier has led teams that have amassed at least ten losses two out of the last three years. I nevertheless am not convinced that firing Frazier will make a goddamn bit of difference.
I saw on the news today that Adrian Peterson will go to bat for Frazier. I appreciate his loyalty. But if Spielman and/or Zygi Wilf decide it's time to let go of Frazier, they might let Peterson go, too. After all, he's so good a commodity that the offense is built around him and the running game ... and the run game is what you have to abandon if you're down by 20+ points at halftime. Dare I say it -- the offense may be freed if Peterson is gone from the team.
#-Infinity: Gopher volleyball (Last Week: -Infinity). They didn't play, nonetheless I am compelled to talk about this team just one more time before I let the program rest for the next eight months. We don't have a fierce rivalry with Wisconsin in volleyball the way we do (at least in our minds) against Penn St. and Nebraska. But while Hugh McCutcheon has been with Minnesota for two years, leading both teams to Sweet 16 appearances only, Kelly Sheffield, the rookie Head Coach of the Wisconsin Badgers after leaving Dayton, shocked the college volleyball world by taking the 12th-seeded Badgers to the NCAA Championship Game. Wisky is the lowest seed ever to make it to the final, and they did it after beating the #1 overall team in the bracket, Texas, in the semifinal Thursday. Moreover, the Badgers beat the Longhorns in only four sets.
How did that happen? How could a mid-major coach go all the way to the last game of the season on his first try while a gold medal-winning national team coach stall with a more decorated program at the regional semifinals two years running? There shouldn't be an explanation to that. I mean, the Badgers have a great Setter in Lauren Carlini, but I saw Minnesota beat Wisconsin a few weeks ago at the Sports Pavilion in four sets. You can say dem's da breaks, but ... I'm still disappointed that the team across the border beat us out in a sport where we have had much more success.
But hey, congratulations to Tori Dixon, Senior Middle Blocker for the Gophers, for being named one of the 14 players of the AVCA All-America First Team. Plaudits also go out to Ashley Wittman for making the Second Team and Adrianna Nora for getting an Honorable Mention.
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