Positive Numbers: Gopher wrestling (Last Week: -2). Seriously, if you are a Twin Cities sports fan, you bitch about how all the teams playing now suck, and you don't follow any of the niche, non-revenue sports at the University of Minnesota (or the Swarm; see below) because "they don't count," you suck and you have no right to complain. You need to find local winning teams wherever and whenever you can, and you just might realize that in rooting for your team, you wind up loving the sport.
I'm kind of getting to that point with softball, and I'm still debating whether or not to put the U. softball team on the survey, because I still have the notion that the sport is still too dominated by pitchers who can strike out, like, 20 batters and still lose a game 1-0. And even though I've had the wrestling team on here from the very start of Wailing And Failing, I had never gone to a game until two years ago, when the team was not a championship contender, just a program that's really good. That appears to have changed, at least for this year.
From the start of the season they have been ranked #1 or #2. For the past couple years the top spot has been hoarded by Penn St., but Head Coach (and wrestling legend Cael Sanderson) seems to be suffering a down year. For on Sunday, Minnesota marched into State College, Pa., and gave Penn St. its first loss in a dual meet at home in just about four years. I didn't realize this until late, but the home team (I guess) has the right to decide which of the ten weight classes in college wrestling the dual meet will begin with. They have to increase in weight class (until Heavyweight, at which point they'll go to the lowest weight class of 157), but knowing this and your team's strength, you can backload your best players for the end in the hopes you'll pull out a win.
Knowing this I think it's even more impressive that the U. grapplers have yet to lose a game. Penn St. decided to start the dual at 133 because that meant three of their guys, each of them in the top ten of his weight class, would be able to close out the meet and possibly the victory. That made #4 Nick Dardanes's major victory over the Lions' Kade Moss at 141 and Dylan Ness (top ranked at 157) major over Cody Law so important; the club needed the four points they got from both guys to weather a major decision in the last match and Morgan McIntosh's upset win over the Gophers' Scott Schiller (who is, or was, #1 at 197) and pull out a 17-16 victory.
The next game is the squad's last home game of the year, and possibly the biggest match the wrestling program has seen in a long, long time. Tomorrow (Friday) night they face Iowa, which, depending on the poll you look at, is either #2 (according to the poll the U. uses) or #1. Also, this will be the 100th time these two schools will meet. This match is so big that it has been moved from the Sports Pavilion to William Arena to accommodate what they anticipate will be a huge crowd ... which, assuming my car doesn't conk out on me, will include me.
#0: Swarm (Re-Entry!). I wanted to put this team on there partly for encourage, an atta-boy type of thing, and also because I don't know if winning a second straight game on the road will happen again. Saturday night they beat the New England Black Wolves, formerly known as the Philadelphia Wings, which was the last charter franchise of the National Lacrosse League, 19-13. That is the most goals the Swarm have scored since racking up 21 against Buffalo two seasons ago. They finish their three-game road trip tomorrow (Friday) night in, of all places, Buffalo.
#-1: Gopher women's hockey (Last Week: -1). There is nothing wrong being third in a relatively strong week. All they did was crush St. Cloud St. in St. Cloud by scores of 4-0 and 7-1. It's just that they remain a solid #2 and have yet to gain any ground on Boston College. Unless something bad happens -- and since they're second-best in the country with only one loss, the only way they can go is down -- we are all waiting for what appears to be an inevitable clash between these two teams in the championship game ... which, by the way, will be at Ridder Arena, the Golden Gophers' home rink.
I expect no trouble in the club's two-game series at home against Ohio St. tomorrow (Friday) night and Saturday afternoon.
#-2: Wild (Last Week: -5). To be honest, they get a lofty spot in this week's WMNSS because the entire National Hockey League had the first part of the screening week off. Ryan Suter was the only Wild representative in the All-Star Game, and I haven't heard of anything spectacular he did. In fact, if there is anyone from the squad that deserved to go to Columbus, it would be Zach Parise, even with the extended time off he has had this season.
They resumed play with a 2-1 win at Edmonton. Once again they were listless for long periods of the game, and the bottom-dwelling Oilers were dominating the game and poised to take the lead when Charlie Coyle gave the Mild the two points with a breathtaking breakaway goal. They need all the points they can however they can get them, but there's nothing to suggest this is a great team right now.
They continue their trek through what formerly were their divisional rivals in Calgary (playing right now) and Vancouver. The Wild then begin a three-game homestand Tuesday against Chicago, the team they will host at TCF Bank Stadium in February of next year in the organization's first-ever outdoor game. (And rightfully it'll be against Minnesota's historic arch-rival, instead of some bullshit, made-up rival, like Colorado or, ugh, Dallas.)
#-3: Gopher women's basketball (Last Week: -3). Lost a close one at Rutgers, then won pulling away at home against Penn St. The latter came after espnW crowned the Golden Gophers as The Surprise Team Of The Midseason, Marlene Stollings as Midseason Coach Of The Year, and Amanda Zahui B. (who notched her second triple-double of her career, including a dozen blocks) as part of the Midseason All-American team. I really doubted that this team would be an NCAA Tournament team after Rachel Banham went out for the year (and by the way, she gets to come back for another season next year after being granted an injury waiver), but assuming there is no collapse, the team will be playing in the Big Dance. They visit Northwestern, a prime target to pick up a valuable road win, Sunday afternoon.
#-4: Timberwolves (Last Week: -7). While the top of the survey is plentiful, the bottom of the survey, at least this week (though for many others as well) is deep as well. I put the T-Wolves at the top of these denizens of the dung heap for three reasons: One, they did have a win, going away against Boston Wednesday. Two, they have Zach LaVine participating in the Slam Dunk Contest, thereby making the T--Wolves the dynastic team when it comes to that contest (all hail Isaiah Rider and Gerald Green!). And three, with Kevin Martin and Nikola Pekovic returning to lead the Woofie Dogs to victory over the Celtics, it appears that maybe they have already reached rock bottom. Now, Ricky Rubio needs to come back and we'll see how good this team is when they have all their players playing at 100%.
They hopscotch this screening week: At Philadelphia tomorrow (Friday), home to Cleveland the next night, at Dallas, home to Miami. Yes, Kevin Love is coming back for the first time since being traded, but the Wolves are cleverly ignoring that in this promotional video touting the "big" matchup with the Cavaliers:
#-5: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -6). Yeah, this week showed that not only is this program not taking the next step, it's clearly taking a step backwards. Despite a confident 79-71 win at Williams Arena over Illinois, they once again showed their sloppy play, tendency to turn the ball over, stuck player movement and hesitation to shoot the rock late in a tight game at Penn St. last (Wednesday) night, and they wound up blowing a chance to win their first road game of the year, 63-58.
What is so dispiriting is that Richard Pitino doesn't have a bunch of new student-athletes on the team. There are a couple junior college transfers, but this is mostly an upperclassmen team. Which makes the club's lack of poise late in games so bizarre and upsetting. Assuming the talent is still there, would coaching then be the problem? They host Nebraska Saturday.
#-Infinity (tie): Gopher men's hockey and Vikings (Last Week: -4 and Re-Entry!, respectively). The only team in the Twin Cities that may be more disappointing than the Minnesota Gopher men's basketball team is the Minnesota Gopher men's hockey team. At the Xcel Energy Center last weekend, they were cashiered out of the North Star College Cup, the All-Minnesota tournament which they won last year, with then-#1 Minnesota State-Mankato and then-#7 Bemidji St. They are now out of the polls for the first time in four years.
Worst of all, last weekend may have been the last good chance for the squad to boost its standing in the all-powerful PairWise rankings. Hockey is a sport where the favored (or in this case ranked) team can certainly be beaten. After the North Star College Cup, the Goofers return to Big Ten play, which, unfortunately, is suffering a serious down year this year; Michigan is the only team in the top 16 of the PairWise, and the Wolverines are at 12th. That means that, even if the Gophers get their balls back (like the men's b-ball team this is an experienced squad that suffered little turnover since last year) and start winning, the opposition may not be good enough to move back into the PairWise's good graces. This season might already be over; without winning the conference tournament (which will be held in Detroit this year), this team, which suffered a massive choke job in losing to non-scholarship Union in last year's title game, won't even make it to the NCAAs this year. At Wisconsin this weekend.
Oh, I threw the Vikings into the survey (and slid them on the bottom, kind of like a coaster you use to balance out a table with uneven legs) because I didn't know until just before the Pro Bowl that they had absolute no one playing in the exhibition game. Kind of surprising that a team that finished 7-9 didn't get anyone (prime candidates were Harrison Smith and Everson Griffen). But even though this is a fake game, the fact that even with "injuries" no one from the team was even called in as a replacement is a serious indictment on the Vikings' overall talent level.
No comments:
Post a Comment