#-1: Gopher softball (Last Week: -1). In the Georgia Tournament in Athens, they routed Western Carolina 7-1 and absolutely crushed Jacksonville 20-4. But the main matchup in this tourney was vs. the host Bulldogs, which are/were ranked higher than the Gophers. However, Minnesota managed to split their two games, dropping the first one on Saturday 6-5 but taking the Sunday showdown 4-3. That should go a long way towards keeping the squad ranked and giving the team some confidence.
Another weekend, another tournament. This time it's the FAU Tournament in Boca Raton, Fla. Five games from today (Friday) and Sunday: Robert Morris, UMass, Mercer, hosts Florida Atlantic, and Long Island-Brooklyn.
#-2: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -2). In the first of five consecutive series on the road against a single opponent, they won two-of-three at Georgia St., the only loss of which (the middle Saturday game) was 4-3 in ten innings.
That's all I've got.
Their next series, the only four-game series in this stretch, will be against Seattle University. The weird thing about this one is that once the weekend is over, they will play yet another game on Wednesday. There are three days between the third and fourth games of the series, and yet only two days between the series-ender and first game of the following series, which starts next Friday. I don't get it.
#-3: Gopher men's hockey (Last Week: -3). In response to the rhetorical question I posed last week, no, I don't think it matters that this club split their series at Michigan St. last week. What is troubling, however, is that they just laid a big fat turd in the Saturday game, 5-0, to a team which sucks and may probably fire their Head Coach after the season. Maybe these guys know that it's already tournament title-or-bust for their NCAA hopes.
But in this mediocre season for the B1G Hockey Conference, Michigan, putatively the best team in the league, dropped both of their games last weekend to another bottom-feeder, Ohio St. Somehow, Minnesota is four points clear of the Wolverines for first place in the conference and can probably take the regular season title if they can win one of the games in the season-ending series against the third and final of the B1G scums of the earth, Wisconsin, at Mariucci this weekend. Of course, that would mean very little in terms of the PairWise, so although a championship would be nice, the following week's conference tournament (to be held in St. Paul) is the be-all end-all.
#-4: Timberwolves (Last Week: -5). 1-3 this week. Most notable among those games was their loss to San Antonio at Target, where the Spurs were without Tim Duncan, like three other starters and Head Coach Greg Popovich and still killed the Woofie Dogs by 25. They begin a four-game road trip (necessitated by the state boys' high school basketball tournament) with games against The Bastard Seattle SuperSonics, Phoenix, and The Bastard Vancouver Grizzlies.
#-5: Wild (Last Week: -4). OK, so if you quit on your coach to the point where he gets fired, that must mean you have been playing so shittily that, once you get your way and get a new coach, you don't have much margin for error if you're trying to make it to the postseason. And beating shit teams such as Toronto and Buffalo (both of them on the road while The Boys' State High School Hockey Tournament was going at Xcel, natch) was good. But coming back home and sticking it up against a listing St. Louis squad, and then losing to an awful Edmonton franchise ... well, that just won't do, because now they're two points behind The Bastard Quebec Nordiques for the final playoff spot in the West and a full nine points behind Nashville for the seventh. It feels like these people just dug themselves too deep of a hole. And time's running because there's less than a month left in the season. This week they're entirely on the road -- Montreal, Ottawa (two of the Canadian teams that may be out of the Stanley Cup Playoffs ... which is to say, and don't know if you've noticed, all of them are right now out of the Stanley Cup Playoffs), and The Bastard Colorado Rockies.
#-6: Gopher wrestling (Re-Entry!). Ninth? NINTH?! They finish ninth in the B1G Championships?!?!?! They were atrocious this season, but I didn't think they'd finish ninth! Either I was wrong and they were even worse than I thought, or Head Coach J Robinson is just packing in this year and trotting out guys who could help his program next year or scrubs that he doesn't mind seeing lose and/or get hurt. But seriously ... ninth?
I don't even know if I should talk about the team's performance in the NCAAs next week, which will be held at New York City for the first time in a long time, if not ever. (Will it be held at Madison Square Garden?) Five Goofers will be there, which must be the fewest in Robinson's tenure. If he doesn't care, why should I?
#-Infinity: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -6). So yeah, the three players that were suspended just before the Wisconsin game were suspended for the rest of the year, and maybe even through now, for all I know, and Richard Pitino was only able to dress six guys. But still, this was the 12-13 game at the B1G Tournament, and Illinois destroyed the Golden Goofers 85-52. Thirty-three points, for crissake!!! Talk about coaches (and players) who want this season to be over; J Robinson ain't got nuttin' on this squad.
I don't know where to start, especially if everything that needed to be said has been said. Maybe I shouldn't start ... besides saying that Pitino probably has no rope now with all the bullshit that's come on top of him (which he possibly brought upon himself). But I have to say that of the eight victories this putrid team was only able to muster this year (against 23 defeats, by the way), one of those wins was the only game of this team I saw, their 89-83 triumph over Clemson as part of the Big Ten/ACC Challenge at Williams Arena Monday, November 30, a ticket for which I bought as part of a deal back at the Minnesota State Fair. Find it kind of funny.
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