OK, let's do this quick because I'm sick and tired ...
#-1: Vikings (Last Week: -5). Crushed Chicago 38-17. Adding this game to the losses in previous weeks to Seattle and Arizona, I think we are getting to know the Vikes as a team that can thoroughly beat bad teams but will lose soundly to good ones. That may or may not be a good thing. But it looks as though they will be a playoff team. As of right now, if the Vikings win one more game, Atlanta (the only team chasing Minnesota) loses one more game, or, for some odd reason, the Seattle Seahawks win one more game, Minnesota is in. (The chance that the Vikes might miss out on the playoffs comes if they lose both of their games, Seattle loses both of their games, and the Falcons win both of their games. That will forge a three-way tie, and three-way tie-breakers have different criteria from two-way tie-breaks. And in a three-way where two teams get postseason berths, they just eliminate one team -- and that would be Minnesota.)
I heard that there's a 99% chance Minnesota gets in. Actually, I think the odds are a bit worse. I can see the doomsday scenario happening. But I've got to admit that changed a bit when Odell Beckham Jr.'s one-game suspension for going nuts on Carolina Panthers Cornerback Josh Norman was upheld. Without the most athletic Wide Receiver in the NFL, I don't know how the New York Giants win at TCF Bank Sunday night (and, by extension, stave off their own elimination from the playoffs.)
#-2: Gopher women's basketball (Last Week: -4). In the first game of a day-night doubleheader at The Barn, the Gopher women ballers beat North Dakota (now sporting their new generic nickname, the Fighting Hawks!!!) yesterday (Wednesday) afternoon, 57-47. Their 7-3 record tells me nothing about how good or bad this team is. But if the forecasts say they're going to be bad, at least they got seven wins to fatten up before they get grinded up by the B1G. They finish their five-game homestand and their non-con Monday vs. NJIT (the New Jersey Institute of Technology).
#-3: Timberwolves (Last Week: -7). Won their first two games of the screening week, lost their last two games of the screening week. The last of those games was a 108-83 ass-kicking by San Antonio at Target Center last (Wednesday) night. I got on Twitter a bit during the game, and the tweets regarding it were talking about how the San Antonio Spurs pass so effortlessly. One guy even said it almost drove him to tears ... of joy, not pain.
This week: Home to Indiana, at San Antone, home to Utah.
#-4: Wild (Last Week: -1). They also went 2-2 for the week. But I put them below the Woofie Dogs because, for the second time this year, they choked on a big lead at home against The Team That Was Stolen From Us and lost 6-3. They have to pay for that.
They finish a four-game homestand with matches against Pittsburgh and Detroit.
#-5: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -3). In the second game of a day-night doubleheader at The Barn, the Gopher men ballers lost Wisconsin-Milwaukee 74-65. Man, I caught the tweets for this game, too, and people were just inveighing in agony over how this team is awful. One person noted that it was the Panthers, not the Golden Gophers, that have the athletes. Really? The U.'s in the Big Ten -- that should be unacceptable! Plus, I thought the team went through its execrable season last year. I heard about the lauded class next year, but weren't these guys supposed to at least be not worse than the 2014-5 team?
They begin conference action Wednesday at Ohio St.
#-Infinity: Gopher volleyball (Last Week: 0). I'm left shaking my head over what could have been. The second-seeded Gophers (their highest tournament seed ever) lost to third-seeded Texas in the Final Four for a second time, 26-24, 27-25, 23-25, 25-21. I don't know the details and I'm too bummed to ever find out, but from the scores of the first two sets and from what I've heard from people who did watch the game, the two teams were evenly matched. And when it comes to volleyball, when you have two good teams playing well against each other, the only thing that could explain winning and losing is that, in the end, one team just won the more of the points at crunch time. And that was the Longhorns, who have more experience getting this far in the NCAA Tournament than the U., and it showed.
Besides a late flameout that ended the fourth set and the match, they seemed to play well (or so I've heard). And that has to be so frustrating. Again, they were dealing with high-caliber competition here: Ninth-ranked Kansas fell to fourth-seeded (and, since the Final Four was being held in Omaha, Neb., de facto host) Nebraska, which then swept Texas 23-23-21 to win its fourth national title. (Aside: I was rooting for the Cornhuskers. They eliminated the team that eliminated my alma mater, then they downed the team that took out my Gophers. Thank you, Big Red!) But Minnesota had a damn good team, too, led by Daly Santana, who had what may have been the greatest postseason performance of any hitter these past three weeks. To come up short when you know that tomorrow is not promised you ... that makes this so damn disappointing.
Well, from what I hear, the Gophers, who finish the season ranked third in the country, just have to reload. They lose Santana to matriculation, but everybody else important comes back, and I hear that a very hefty Class of 2016 will provide a spark off the bench. With the success of this season (I have to breathe deep and remember that they began this season unranked), I can eliminate the abortion that was the 2014 season from my memory. Hugh McCutcheon can coach; the AVCA concurs, since they gave him their Head Coach Of The Year award. He just has to be able to maintain to a level commensurate with Nebraska and Texas and Penn St. And maybe then the clutch points will be won by the U.
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