#-1: Gopher women's basketball (Last Week: -2). This was not a good week for local sports. By default, this week's survey goes to the lady ballers. They had their winning streak snapped at four games when they were steamrolled at Michigan Sunday, 92-76. Wait a second ... the Gopher women's b-ball team won four games in a row? Did I see that? That's something to note! Anyway, last (Thursday) night they steamrolled a not-good Rutgers team at Williams, 85-72. For what it's worth, they are 11-2 at home. So it looks like they can book their ticket to the WNIT, baby! This week: At Northwestern, then home to face what I think is a pretty good Nebraska club.
#-2: Timberwolves (Last Week: -4). Went on the road all screening week, so understandably they got steamrolled in defeats to Utah, Portland and the Lakers. The Woofie Dogs remain many people's slumpbusters: Kobe Bryant harkened back to days of old and poured in, like, 39 points to help push The Bastard Minneapolis Lakers out to a big lead, enough to withstand a late run by Minnesota to make it a respectable, four-point moral victory.
But, somehow, they held off The Bastard Buffalo Braves, in the same place where they got schooled by the now-hideous Lakers, the following night, 108-102. They ended their five-game losing streak against a very good team. Whodathunkit?
Their reward for playing all last week on the road is playing this week all at home: Chicago, New Orleans and Toronto.
#-3: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -5). From this point downward, all the teams went winless. But they were leading late at Indiana before losing by six, so everybody's counting that as a moral victory. Sure, they then got trounced at Northwestern by 24 points -- Northwestern??? -- thus extending their losing skid to a dozen games, so there's that. Next year can't come soon enough.
The only team that may be even worse than the Goofers in the B1G is Rutgers. I believe both are winless in-conference, yet when it comes to advanced statistics (in particular the Efficiency Margin tracked by ESPN writer John Gasaway), the Scarlet Knights, believe it or not, are much, much worse than Minnesota. Thus the U.'s games against them will be the best chances to rack up victories. They play twice, yet they haven't played yet. The fourth-to-last and last games in conference play. (They only have one game this week, Michigan at The Barn on Wednesday.) Does that make any sense to anyone? Why can't teams that play each other twice play once in the first half of league play and then in the second half of league play? In fact, why don't they create a schedule so that, if you cut it in half, the opponents are in the same order for both halves, you know? I don't see why you have two teams playing each other only, what, 11 days apart. /rant over
#-4: Gopher wrestling (Last Week: -3). Usually the Gopher grapplers would at least acquit themselves respectably in a loss at legendary power Iowa. But in this frighteningly uncharacteristically bad year for the program, the Hawkeyes beat the ever-living hell out of the U. Friday, 34-6. Only Tommy Thorn and Brett Pfarr won for the Goofers. Meanwhile, Iowa racked up two Major Decisions, one Technical Fall, and -- yikes! -- two Falls, both of them in the first two matches of the dual, the first one, at 125 lbs., being done in only 79 seconds. Most Mixed Martial Arts matches last longer than that! Geez, Skyler Petry, were you even trying?
This could get even worse: They have a pair of contests this weekend -- at Northwestern tomorrow (Friday), at Wisconsin Sunday afternoon.
#-5: Gopher men's hockey (Last Week: -1). Wow -- all momentum they had going into last weekend's North Star College Cup evaporated with a last-place finish. Arguably they were the second-best team in this four-team, Gopher State-only tourney. But they crapped out against Bemidji St. (4-2) and then in the consolation game against MSU-Mankato (3-2).
Most damaging is that they squandered the last best chances to score any quality wins out-of-conference. Instead, they have added a pair of demerits against squads that aren't that good. As a result, they dropped to 20th in the PairWise and, at least according to Jayson Moy of USCHO.com, would only get in if they won the Big Ten Hockey Tournament.
Looking at the schedule and the standings, they play the back half of their conference round-robin each of the next five weekends. Three of the teams are crap, so they don't count. The only "good games" that could lift them in the PairWise are against Penn St. and Michigan. Luckily, both series are at home. In fact, the Nittany Lions come in this weekend. But that's really it. Four games to raise their PairWise. I'll go out on a limb here and say that that won't be enough. No, it'll be Big Ten Tournament title or bust for these guys.
#-6: Wild (Last Week: -6). Fuck this team. Seriously. Fuck this goddamn team. A squad that was supposed to have so much promise, so much talent that was only going to get better, has just come back from the All-Star Break with a pair of two-goal losses to the New York teams. Last (Thursday) night's defeat to the Rangers was particularly galling. They got out to a 2-0 lead in the first period but allowed the Rangers to tie in the second and coughed up the game-winning goal in the third. Nothing's going right with this team now, and most worrying, Zach Parise admitted in the paper this week that there's something "different" to this team. There have been swoons in the middle of seasons past and they were able to right the ship. But if Parise thinks that might not happen this year, well, shit, it probably won't happen, now, will it?
This joke team plays at St. Louis before coming home to the fanbase that this organization has to answer in games vs. The Team That Was Stolen From Us and Washington.
No comments:
Post a Comment