Positive Numbers: Gopher softball (Last Week: -4). Since I only have less than 3 1/2 hours to do this, I went into it not thinking much about which local team to put on top. But then I have two teams standing out far above the rest, and I could not decide immediately which one gets the birddog seat. So I have had to spend a lot of time -- OK, more like two minutes -- to actually think which is the tops.
In the end I made the best compromise I could. The Wild get to escape negative numbers as they begin the Stanley Cup Playoffs which arguably the best assemblage of players in Wild history. I risk the team not being recognized for basically rising from the dead to get a playoff spot with the top spot in the WMNSS, and by this time next week they very well could be eliminated.
However, I could not ignore how well the University of Minnesota softball team did in the four games they played this screening week. They hosted and then summarily spanked Northwestern, the team that once led the Big Ten with an undefeated conference record in three games by a combined score of 31-7, thus exposing the Wildcats for the cupcake-soft schedule they had up to that point. (The pollsters could see right through Northwestern; they weren't ranked despite what appeared on paper to be a lofty record.) The last two games were mercy-ruled after five innings. And Gophers ace Sara Groenewegen notched the second no-hitter of her career Sunday, striking out a dozen as the U. blanked the 'Cats 11-0 in five. Sure, no-hitters are much more common in softball than they are in baseball, but I still believe what Groenewegen did was spectacular.
I was at Saturday's game, where Northwestern scored once in both the second and third innings. I had bad feelings that the Gophers would get impotent like they did Easter against Michigan. But then they exploded for eight runs in the fourth inning. And Tyler Walker's RBI single to right field gave Minnesota the last of the two runs needed to reach the eight-run threshold to invoke the run/slaughter/skunk rule. It was also, by the way, the 100th victory for the Golden Gophers at Jane Sage Cowles Stadium.
Kudos to Danielle Parlich, by the way, for being named Conference Freshman Of The Week for the third time this season and a finalist for Freshman Of The Year.
So, after finishing up a seven-game homestand with an 8-2 win over South Dakota on Tax Day, the Gophers, still knocking on the Top 10 of the polls, go to Michigan St. for a quick three-game series.
#0: Wild (Last Week: -1). OK, so they cooled off at the end there. They followed up a nice road win against slumping Nashville by resting some of their guys and losing the regular season finale in St. Louis, ending their franchise-record winning streak on the road at ... a dozen?
But they are in, a few months after they looked like they're dead in the water. And so they start the Stanley Cup Playoffs against ... the Central Division-winning St. Louis Blues, the team they just ended their series against. There seems to be a consensus that, at least, this is a matchup featuring two teams that are too strong to be facing each other this early. There is some heat for both teams to reach the Stanley Cup Finals, let alone lifting the Cup. Advanced metrics also provide evidence that Minnesota should be considered a favorite to win it all, in particular their league-best penalty kill and their success in scoring five-on-five.
Nevertheless, prognostication is a tricky business, and so the writers are all over the place. Of the 13 "experts" ESPN has on staff, all but one predict St. Louis will win the series. However, the one holdout, Sarah Goldstein, actually thinks the Wild will beat the Rangers and win Lord Stanley's Cup. Somewhat conversely (and perversely), all four NHL writers for Sports Illustrated (only four? Times really are tough for print) have Minnesota beating St. Louis (even though only one, Sam Page, has them reaching the Finals, where he thinks they will lost to Tampa Bay).
Guess we'll see. As of press time things are looking good; Jason Zucker opened scoring with the lone tally so far, 1-0 Wild in the first intermission.
#-1: Twins (Last Week: -6). Well, after starting the season by getting swept in Detroit, losing two-of-three at the White Sox (at least they won the Pale Hose's home opener by blanking them 6-0, thereby assuring that they won't go through the season winless) and beginning their home slate by getting dick-smacked by American League pennant-winners Kansas City, I was ready to bury the starting pitching, the relief pitching (blech), the starting lineup, the coaching staff, the management, the ownership, and even the fans. But then, inexplicably, they have righted themselves by taking the series over the Royals by scores of 3-1 and 8-5 to get to 3-4 for the week. I'm not sure if this is a beginning of good things to come -- OK, it probably isn't. But you've got to think that the this team, this organization, is so close to rock bottom that they might as well hit rock bottom in order to rebound into something better. Maybe, just maybe, it is making these young players take their lumps and force them to sink or swim early in the season in the hopes that they'll be better, or less worse, by the end of the season. Guess that's the hope, isn't it?
This week: Home to Cleveland for three, then a visit to K.C. for a trio starting on Monday.
#-2: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -3). Lost two-of-three at Nebraska, then clobbered North Dakota St. at home, 13-5, Tuesday. And, my God, I have nothing else to say about these guys. I'm seriously; I got nuthin'. They're 13-19 overall and 3-9 in B1G play, and they're not going to the NCAA Tournament. And that's all I have.
Well, I can say that that victory against the Bison begins a 13-game homestand, payback for that long, Midwest weather-forced roadtrip they had to begin the year. This weekend they host three against Penn St. I want to see a game at Siebert Field, which is still plenty knew and really purty. But this weekend, I'm afraid, looks to be a washout, if the forecast is right. And although Friday's game begins at 6 and Siebert looks really nice at night, I don't think I can afford to be out at night without my parents getting really mad at me. So if I go, I'll have to go during the day, on the weekend, but not this one. Oh, after the Nittany Lions they host South Dakota St. Wednesday.
#-3: Swarm (Last Week: -2). Let's face it: The Smarm have sucked for the past few years. But I don't remember if the team has been eliminated so far from the end of the season like they were Saturday, when they lost to Buffalo 12-9. And the Bandits flashed out to a 5-0 lead ... and two of their best players, Callum Crawford and Jordan MacIntosh, didn't play in the second half due to injury.
So the team is out of the playoffs, again. And I don't know if I've said this on WAF, but Swarm games in-person are noisy, belligerent affairs. The music plays during play, the DJ incessantly exhorts the fans to make noise, and he can't fucking stick to one goddamn song for more than five seconds. So why in the hell am I thinking about going to their game Saturday against Calgary? Is it because of Kat Perkins, local singer who became a finalist on The Voice? Is it because I have yet to make my yearly trek to eat at Mickey's Diner? Who knows?
#-Infinity: Timberwolves (Last Week: -5). OK, so the Woofie Dogs finished off this execrable season with four more losses, thereby finishing their 2014-5 season with a twelve-game losing streak. Note that their last win of the season came on March 23. Also note that on the last game of the season, Oklahoma City, needing to win and the New Orleans Pelicans to lose (they didn't, so OKC is out of the playoffs while NO is in), they racked up 138 points, the most points this franchise has surrendered to a visiting team ever, to beat the Woofs by 25. And thus they finish with the worst record in the National Basketball Association. That fact is either notable for creating yet a new floor for this damned franchise or the most boring thing this shit organization has done, since I know this isn't the first time they've finished with the worst record in the NBA.
Yes, injuries basically killed this baby in the crib. But I am no longer sure that, even at full strength these guys would be any good. And in this very insightful league post-morten, Ben Golliver of SI.com gives the Timberwolves' season a D and convinces me that the problem may be, in fact, Flip Saunders. First of all, Golliver notes that Saunders actively disdains advanced metrics, which states (in its extreme, of course) that a basketball team should shoot either only corner threes or lay-ups and dunks around the rim ... or else. Saunders thinks that the mid-range jump shot is a valuable weapon, and even instructs Andrew Wiggins to limit his tries behind the arc. That old-school thinking may be thinking as dumb like a fox (tm Homer Simpson), but that should be backed up by results, and their shitty record kind of lends itself to the theory that his philosophy may be shit, too.
But Golliver warns that the Saunders may be further poisoning this franchise by his treatment of Wiggins, who of course is the brightest (and maybe only) bright spot for the Wolves this year. Golliver wonders why in the hell Wiggins played more than 3,000 minutes this year even though the team was out of the playoff race as soon as they began the season. I kind of believe it's best to throw a rookie into the fire and give him as much burn as possible to acclimate him to the game and force him to learn how to play and win, kind of what I am hoping the Twins are doing. But again, results matter, and it looks like Saunders has worn out a lot of tread to what is supposed to be this team's next superstar, and it only came out to a godawful 16-66 year.
In conclusion, he wonders what in the hell the Timberwolves are doing. After reading that, I am wondering the same thing. So how about this. Look at this article by The Business Journals. It's a sometimes-annual look at a metropolitan area's financial ability to sustain all its sports teams and an effort to see where the sports leagues could expand to next. Their methodology is centered on Total Personal Income, a populace's income, basically. That is measured against what the periodical believes is the amount of money required to support a team. They then add or subtract the city's TPI against the money needs of that city's sports (and major college) teams. Any city with a negative TPI is said, according to the paper, to suffer financial volatility in attempting to support all its sports.
According to Biz Journals' data, there are 20 markets running a TPI deficit. Minneapolis-St. Paul is fourth-worst, where it's estimated that the Vikings, Twins, Wild, Golden Gophers, Minnesota United (which, assuming they get a stadium deal done, is born in 2018), and Timberwolves combined need $97 billion more than the metro area can provide. So why not let the T-Wolves leave? Biz Journals estimates that an NBA team needs $45 billion in TPI for adequate support. So the Twin Cities could let this shit franchise walk and they would still need someone else to go, too. But we'd be halfway to sports solvency, and we'd kick out a team that makes Minnesota look bad in the process!
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