The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

Positive Numbers: Gopher softball (Last Week: -4).  In a winter where the local teams have been exasperating when they haven't been disappointing, there is one squad that has started off gangbusters.  And it's an irony that possibly the best Twin Cities club overall will not play in the Twin Cities until April.

The University of Minnesota softball team just went 5-0 in the Diamond Devil Tournament in Tempe, Ariz. to run their record through two weeks to 13-1.  Three of the four teams they beat were ranked (they swept a night-following day doubleheader from Boise St.), but led by Senior Erica Meyer, who was named Co-Big Ten Player Of The Week, they outscored their opponents by a combined score of 34-14, the best of which was their 4-1 victory over host Arizona St.  That lifts the bunch up to just outside the Top 10 of the softball polls, and that makes the B1G home opening series the first weekend in April against Michigan, which is ranked either second or third (depending on which poll you look at), a potentially huge one.

But until then the Golden Gophers have to keep winning.  They have a chance to take a 5-0 sweep again this weekend in the Citrus Classic in Orlando.  The opponents are: Mississippi St., James Madison, Missouri, Nebraksa-Omaha and Fordham.

#0: Timberwolves (Last Week: -5).  OK, so it was one game.  But it was one hell of a game, one that this star-starved populace needs, though (and I'm paraphrasing The Dark Knight here) not the one it necessarily deserves:



Can't imagine that he's anything besides The Kid. In many ways he still looks like a fresh-faced rookie drafted fourth overall out of high school.  And yet I look at the box score, and although he had eight rebounds (all of them on the defensive end), Nikola Pekovic got more (13).  And I also see that KG had only five points, was just a +6 and played only 19 minutes.  He's only going to be a half-a-game player from now on?  That'll be an adjustment.  Well, so long as he instills some toughness and willingness to improve to the rest of the team.  Without punching a fellow teammate in the face, of course.

But then I finally look at the score of the game.  They were playing the Washington Wizards, by the way.  And after they fell behind 20-11, they outscored Washington (and former Woofie Dog Head Coach -- and, let's face it, chump -- Randy Wittman) by 29 to win in Kevin Garnett's First Game Back, 97-77.  Maybe his influence will be felt beyond the box score.  Hell, let's hope.

The team beat Phoenix, by the way, by 2 without The Big Ticket and lost to Houston (and former Woofie Dog Head Coach and General Manager Kevin McHale) this week.  The Wizards match started a five-game homestand which will encompass the entire week: Memphis, the Clippers, Denver and Portland.

#-1: Gopher women's hockey (Last Week: -3).  In their final regular season series the Golden Gopher women's hockey team swept at Bemidji St. by scores of 3-2 and 4-2, blah-blah-blah.  Dana Cameranesi defended her WCHA Offensive Player Of The Week Award, blah-blah-blah.  They start the first round of the WCHA Conference Tournament this weekend at Ridder Arena against Minnesota State - Mankato, blah-blah-blah.  I'll talk in-depth as soon as they reach the NCAA Championship Game.

#-2: Gopher men's hockey (Last Week: -2).  Hmmm ... this is strange.  They split at Penn St.  (Oddly enough, all three goals they scored in Saturday's loss were with Minnesota on the man advantage.  The last of those goals was scored by Sam Warning, with 40 seconds left and Goalie Adam Wilcox pulled.)  And yet Minnesota actually went up in the PairWise, to tenth, thereby solidifying their hopes of reaching the NCAA Tournament, at least according to Jayson Moy of USCHO.com.  I don't know know exactly how that happened, but uh, OK.

I need to get going on this WMNSS, so I'll just say that they have just dropped the puck on the first game of this week's series, at Mariucci against Michigan St.  Yes, they are playing an extremely rare Thursday-Friday series, for some reason.

#-3: Gopher women's basketball (Last Week: -1).  I looked at both ESPN.com and College Sports Madness for their women's college bracketology, and both sites had the Gopher women ballers on the 7 line.  Five straight wins and Minnesota only musters a 7 seed?  Plus, the Gophers didn't crack the Top 25 of any poll.  I thought, What's up with that?

Well, maybe all of those people saw something I didn't, as evidenced by Tuesday's 74-50 ass-kicking in Nebraska.  It's not the worst thing in the world, I guess; they still seem fairly safe to reach The Big Dance, and a lot of people get embarrassed on the road against good teams.  But reaching a top-four seed (and thus earning the right to play the first two games of the tourney on your home court), let alone cracking the Top 25, may not be in the cards, at least not right now.

Sunday is the last regular season finale, and like the last game, the Gophers face a good team on the road.  A very good team, in fact: Iowa.

#-4: Wild (Last Week: -7).  I was at Sunday's Hockey Day In America (which is just a ripoff of Minnesota's Hockey Day In Minnesota) game against The Bastard North Stars.  It was scoreless after one, even though Minnesota controlled the puck and the game.  The Team That Was Stolen From Us scored the only goal in the second period, which made me really skittish.  But then they cracked the dam open and score half a dozen to bury them.  That made me really, really happy.

But the home loss Tuesday to Edmonton, even though the Mild essentially was living in the Oilers' offensive zone the second and third periods, hurts, a lot.  As good as the team has been playing, the hold they dug themselves left them little to no room for bad losses, and that was a bad loss.  Turns out Edmonton took revenge for the Wild destroying the Oilers at Rexall Arena 4-0 Friday.

Again, I should talk more, but I can't.  This week: at Nashville right now, at Colorado, home to Ottawa.

#-5: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -Infinity).  Just as everybody thought, they lost to Wisconsin Saturday, thereby putting the final nail in their Big Dance hopes.  They were about to lose to Michigan St., but a miracle three at the end pushed this game into Overtime, which is why I'm rushing to get this done before that game's done.  This is their only game this screening week.

#-6: Gopher wrestling (Last Week: -6).  This team's hopes of getting another NCAA title is just about over after they were upset in the NWCA National Duals tournament, losing to Cornell, 19-17.  The only thing that gives me hope for this program is that the team I presumed replaced Minnesota as the favorites to win the championship, Iowa, was itself upset in the NWCA final dual to, all of teams, Missouri.  Along with the aforementioned Big Red, who comes out on top now seems to be more of a free-for-all.  The Big Ten Championships are in Columbus this year, and that starts on the 7th.

#-7: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -8).  I want to encourage all of our teams to play good opponents.  But even I can't ignore the fact that the Gopher Nine seem to be in way over their heads.  They are just about the opposite of their softball counterparts, winless over seven games after getting swept in Texas.  Worst of all, they were shut out the last three games of the series.  Ouch.  Results like that have to put you in the bottom of the Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey.  Maybe this club will get their first win of the season playing a three-game series at Florida Gulf Coast.  The Eagles are at least unranked.