#-1: Gopher women's basketball (Last Week: -4). I'm not quite sure if the U. female ballers should beat out the male icers for the top spot. What swayed me is that this club beat a ranked team, Northwestern, by a score higher than a fair share of NBA games, 95-92. Now, the Wildcats are ranked only in the coaches' poll (at #20, by the way), and the game was played at Williams Arena, but that ain't nuthin', so ... yeah, I'll put them first. They're not going anywhere, but my mood right now is that I don't want to take into consideration prospects two months from tournament time, and besides, I want to throw these players a bone. They're not good enough to have a 2-0 week (they squeaked by Indiana Sunday 78-76 at home) all that often. This week they're at Wisconsin and then home to Illinois.
#-2: Gopher men's hockey (Last Week: -1). Swept Michigan St. Maybe the players are defending their Head Coach from that quasi-hit piece from City Pages last week. Anyway, they beat a team that they should beat; if you haven't noticed, the B1G is separating like the whole conference has been spun in a centrifuge. I mean, just look at the press-time conference standings.
But (and I know I have totally backtracked on not looking at tournament prospects) as of right now they are on the outside looking in at the NCAA tourney. This week, Jayson Moy of USCHO.com says that the Gophers and Minnesota-Duluth are The Last Two Teams Out according to the PairWise Ratings, the metric that selects the at-large teams four the tournament. They may be rounding into form by, to be honest, getting into play in a weak conference, but they have more work to do. And that work is in Madison, Wisc., where they play two this weekend against a Wisconsin outfit in the dregs of the league, just like the Spartans.
#-3: Gopher wrestling (Last Week: -1). I still think a win is an embarrassment given the current state of the program compared to where we have always known it to be. Yes, it is an upset. Yes, taking out the eighth-ranked team in the nation (Rutgers) is an accomplishment. But if this were the Gopher wrestling squad that we've all come to expect to dominate the league (well, except for Penn St. and Iowa) they would've crushed the Scarlets Knights, #8 ranking or no #8 ranking.
This time around, on Sunday, they barely squeaked past them. The score was 17-16. What it boiled down to was, of all things, the first match, at 197 lbs., where Gopher #4 Brett Pfarr Technically Fell Rutgers' Anthony Messner, giving the U. five points. That more than counteracted the Major Decision the Scarlet Knights' Nicholas Gravina racked up on the Gophers' Chris Pfarr (who I assume is Brett's brother -- I mean, the last name isn't "Smith") at 184 in the last match of the dual. Major Decisions are only four points, thus the one-point squeaker.
Believe it or not, the Gopher grapplers play their last home conference game of the season Sunday afternoon, against Purdue.
#-4: Timberwolves (Last Week: -4). Wait ... what is that on the website schedule? Is that ... a green "W" next to a game they played? YAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They beat the Phoenix Suns on Sunday to end their losing streak at nine games. And they throttled them too, 117-87! Whodathunkit? Sure it was home, but come on, you get any win when you can, especially this team.
Oh, and on Wednesday in Dallas they took the Mavericks into Overtime before losing, 106-94. For these guys, yeah, I'll give them a moral "W" for that. Sure, they lost to Oklahoma City by 20 and New Orleans by 15, but whatever, they won!!! This week they visit Cleveland inbetween home dates against Memphis and the same Bastard Seattle SuperSonics.
#-5: Wild (Last Week: -3). With the possible exception of the Gopher men's hockey team, the Mild are the local club with any mass popularity that the fanbase can pin any hopes of postseason success on. Unfortunately, their six-game losing streak, punctuated with punchless losses to Nashville and Anaheim, have put this team in a tailspin. Thus, the team's 3-0 at Los Angeles last (Thursday) night (Darcy Kuemper had 32 saves) was a notable reprieve, even though it probably isn't the start of anything good.
And yet, they still are the same place they've been all season. Really all last season, too -- Wild Card 1. I'm not quite sure what's going on with that, but I guess that if they're still in a playoff spot despite a six-game losing streak, I won't complain.
Because of the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, they have been kicked out of the X. They will be completing a four-game road trip against San Jose Saturday, then come back home for the final game before the All-Star Break, Monday vs. Arizona.
#-6: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -4). Lost to Indiana and Michigan this week to extend their losing streak to eight games. So let's be clear about this: Richard Pitino isn't going anywhere. Not even to UNLV. First of all, why the hell he would jump from a BcS school to a mid-major program whose halcyon days died with Jerry Tarkanian (although, being in the Mountain West, they would be a big fish in a small pond)? And second of all, there is no way UNLV would take a guy who is head of a club that is 6-13 overall and winless in conference play.
Now, we might want him to leave, but this squad is taking its lumps this year because of the vaunted class Pitino's bringing in next year, led by the 32nd-best player in the Class of 2016, four-star Small Forward (and Minnetonka's own) Amir Coffey (son of Gophers great Richard, BTW). Pitino gets next year, without a doubt. Now, the suckitude being displayed at The Barn ensures that he won't get much beyond next year; he's lost that rope. But the earliest he gets fired is March 2017, and that will be only if Coffey, et al. can't engineer some improvement for next year's team. In the meantime, they have home dates versus Illinois and Purdue to get off the schnied.
By the way, the Gopher men's basketball team, the Wild and the Timberwolves played on both January 12 and January 20. And, as you might have guessed, all three teams lost on both dates. People have noticed how often the Mild and the Woofie Dogs have games on the same night. Well, that only amplifies local fans' misery by seeing their teams lose on the same night. Somebody please stop this next year.
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