The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#0: Timberwolves (Last Week: -Infinity).  When the T-Wolves were shit there were a lot of people that were sounding the death knell for this franchise.  Nobody would come here, they said, because it's too cold.  And I'm going, Anybody would fucking come up here to play basketball!  First of all, if there's someone up here willing to pay, they're going to play in Minnesota.  But what those naysayers mean, of course, is that good players won't come up here.  There's a key to solving that, though: Drafting really good, young players.  If there's talent already there, that'll attract other good players.

And coaches.  And since this organization finally has some extraordinary talent (a byproduct of being so awful that they receive the best players in the draft -- the draft wheel is a fucking bad idea), the best of everything is coming to the Frozen North.  Guess there's no need to move the franchise now, huh?

It still kind of sucks that Sam Mitchell, pressed into head coaching duties after the death of his boss and mentor, Flip Saunders, was fired immediately after the season was over.  But if that allowed Owner Glen Taylor to get Tom Thibodeau, I'm all for it.  Borrowing the words of Rush Limbaugh after John McCain announced that Sarah Palin would be his running mate for Vice-President: "Fucking home run."  But this time I think it's actually true.

Remember that Thibodeau, whose NBA coaching career began here as an Assistant Coach under Bill Musselman in the club's first year, was the assistant for the Boston Celtics that clamped down defensively against the Lakers on their way to the title that Kevin Garnett won there.  Thibodeau then was hired as Head Coach of the Chicago Bulls where, with the luck of drafting Derrick Rose, he revived that team's future.  He knows defense, and for all of the strides the Wolves made, they were all on offense.  Mitchell's replacement needs to teach this young team how to defend.  It is a perfect match made in heaven.

Now, some critics of the hire point to the end of Thibodeau's tenure in Chicago.  He clashed with upper management, and his hard-driving practices eventually burned out his players.  That's bad; that might even happen here in Minnesota.  (That's partially why I can't just give the Woofs a Positive Numbers.)  But the former issue is not a problem because Taylor made Thibodeau Director Of Basketball Operations.  He has total control of personnel; he might careen the entire team towards disaster, but there can't be any acrimony when both sides of the management-coaching dialogue are represented by the same man.  For the latter, frankly, I'll risk it.  There is too much talent now to worry about how the players are going to feel about how hard they're working in shootarounds.  And if it takes a drill sergeant to inject the final piece into a championship team, you give him everything it takes to succeed in doing that, and then you worry about the consequences after (hopefully) and NBA title.  This is a risk you have to take.

Fantastic hire, the next of several great ones.  As of right now, it's possible the Timberwolves may be the best franchise of The Local Big Four.

#-1: Gopher baseball (Last Week: 0).  They won two-of-three at home against Maryland over the weekend, then crushed North Dakota St. 10-0 on Tuesday.  But the reason they're in this spot is what the series win over the Terrapins gave them: Their first ranking, albeit in the online-only D1Baseball.com poll, for the first time in almost seven years.  They just made it, at #25, and they might be able to improve upon it with a trio of games at Northwestern over the weekend, followed by another matchup with NDSU Tuesday, this time in Fargo, N.D.

#-2: Gopher softball (Last Week: -1).  Yes, this club went undefeated over the weekend, crushing Rutgers in their three games (two of them mercy-ruled) by a combined score of 26-2 and doing it in only 18 total innings.  Sara Groenewegen was named Co-B1G Player Of The Week for her efforts in destroying the Scarlet Knights.  And they remain in the polls -- around 23 and 24, which is higher than their male counterparts.  But it's the newness of the baseball team's accomplishments which compel me to rank them above the softball program, at least for this week.  They play a challenging three-game series against Nebraska, a team that is orbiting around the Top 25, this weekend at Cowles Stadium.

#-3: Twins (Last Week: -3).  Well, that's better.  No one can go 0-162, and the day that I put out last week's survey, they finally got their winning cherry popped by defeating Anaheim 5-4 on Jackie Robinson Day.  In fact they went 5-2 for the whole week, giving the survey a really good week overall.  The pitching has been pretty solid all year, although Ricky Nolasco is off to a very strong start, something I never thought I would see.  But finally the bats have come around and the lineup is starting to crack, which is something I expected.  Now to keep it going at Washington for three and then home for three vs. Cleveland starting on Monday.

#-4: Wild (Last Week: -2).  Yeah, it's over.  It's humiliating, but despite showing some piss and vinegar in coming back from an early 2-0 hole in Game 3 to win 5-3 (Chris Porter's goal late in the first period to finally crack the scoring column was heavily important; on-site witnesses believed the Xcel Energy Center crowd were ready to boo the squad off the ice), they lost Game 4 3-2.  So now the Mild have to win the last three games, two of them at home (ETA at 8:32 the evening of Friday, April 29 that I meant on the road) (starting with Game 5 tonight), to win the series.  The franchise has done that before; I don't think this team has the sack to do it.

You know, I saw a picture of the Dallas skyline lit in purple last (Thursday) night.  During tonight's game they probably will play Prince songs during the game -- as an homage to Prince as well as a nice gesture to the guest.  I hope that the Mild don't get soft and in fact throw that hidden agenda back in those Bastard North Stars' faces -- figuratively speaking.