#-1: Wild (Last Week: -3). For the first Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey of 2014, we give the top spot to the Mild, even though every team lost at least once and this Mild still faces an uncertain future.
Adding insult to injury is ... well, injuries. They really piled up this screening week -- Zach Parise will miss a few weeks, Josh Harding's back in traction after his MS medication failed to connect, Mikko Koivu will be gone for a while, and even Nicklas Backstrom has to go on the injury list. Mike Yeo may not deserve the excuse losing four very important players gives you, but the reality is they are not playing for this team, and the results, good and bad, will reflect those absences.
Nevertheless they went 3-1 the past eight days (I have to include their New Year's Eve defeat to St. Louis, the club's annual game at the X), and despite a horrific losing streak, they are putting that behind them. How? Fuck if I know. They remain out of the playoff race and they have an active week ahead of them: At Phoenix, home to Colorado, at Nashville and home to Ottawa. And remember that the Winter Olympics loom. Parise and Ryan Suter, the team's two most important players, will be playing for country. Won't they be tired by the time they come back from Sochi to drive the Wild into a playoff berth?
#-2: Timberwolves (Last Week: -2). My usher friend was able to get me a free ticket to the New Year's Night game against The Bastard Charlotte Hornets. (He actually got two; I was going to scalp the extra ticket, a scalper was going to swap one of his singles [for a better seat, he said] for the two I had, but he gave them back to me because one of the pieces from one of the tickets was gone and he wasn't absolutely sure he could sell that ticket like that.) What I saw was this team playing at what I imagine to be their best: Ricky Rubio dishing, Nikola Pekovic bullying and driving to the hoop, Kevin Martin stopping and popping, and Kevin Love being at the right place at the right time, when it comes to either shooting or rebounding. Sure, their defense was nothing to stand up over, as evidenced three days after the Wolves' 124-112 win over the Pelicans (or, as I like to call them, the Pels) when they blew a double-digit fourth-quarter lead and lost by four to The Bastard Seattle SuperSonics. But even though they are still on the outside looking in, games like the one on Wednesday are ones the club has to win, and proves that they are capable of hurting people when they are at 100%.
Pithy notes on the squad's two most important players. Ricky Rubio was playing aggressively. He scored by driving to the layup. If he can do that, why does he need a jump shot? And I was able to see the end/flameout of the Timberwolves' loss to the Thunder while eating at the MOA Hooters. Love was fouled on a three-point attempt very late in the game when they were down by three -- and he proceeded to miss all three shots (although the third he missed intentionally because, well, he unintentionally missed the first two). I think he has convinced me and many other Woofs fans that he's more important to this team than Rubio, newfound scoring confidence notwithstanding. But it's moments like that that give ammunition to those who doubt him, even if those doubts are unfounded.
They host Phoenix in the back end of ESPN's doubleheader tonight (which is why the scheduled start time was moved back to 8:30), then host Charlotte Friday before going to San Antonio Sunday.
#-3: Gopher men's hockey (Re-Entry!). I don't remember the last time a WMNSS had the Twin Cities pro teams on top and all University of Minnesota teams bringing up the rear. Probably doesn't matter to the Gopher men's hockey team. Despite losing (in my mind, not technically) over the weekend, they still retain the top spot in both polls. They lost to Colgate -- Colgate??? -- in their matchup of the Mariucci Classic on a shootout; it goes into the record books as a tie, but since this is a tournament, where Ferris St. was awaiting the winner (a Gopher victory meant that #1 Minnesota would haved the second-ranked Bulldogs -- that would have been a game I would have walked a mile in the freezing cold to see), someone needed to win. And it was Colgate, whose nickname at present escapes me. Oh well, at least they didn't finish dead last in their tournament, since they crushed RPI. They face Penn St., in only its second year in existence as a varsity team and as Big Ten rivals for the first time ever, at Penn St. this weekend.
#-4: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -1). Early signs point to a rough transition. They opened up conference play by coughing up the ball at will late in the second half and never regained a lead they had up until 4:15 left in the game to lose 63-60 to Michigan. Then, they had to hold off a Purdue team long gone from the Robbie Hummel days, 82-79. I would like to see if this team can learn and grow under Richard Pitino, but I doubt it.
They finally hit the road for their first true road game since November 16 this week: At Penn St. right now, at Michigan St. Saturday.
#-5: Gopher women's basketball (Last Week: -1). Oof, I knew that 11-3 overall record was deceiving, and the 25-point home beatdown by Michigan St. Saturday afternoon to begin B1G play proved that to be so, so true.
I've got nothing else. Playing at Iowa now; hosting Northwestern Sunday afternoon.
No comments:
Post a Comment