#-1: Gopher men's hockey (Last Week: -1). A very difficult, tough-to-discern week since every team here lost at least once. That's why I can't give any team anything above negative numbers this week. I thus relied heavily, then, on how they look in relation to postseason play.
It was still tough to figure it out, but I'm going with the Golden Gophers men's hockey team. Technically they won and drew against Michigan St. this weekend at Mariucci in the regular season title. In my opinion, since they lost that draw in a shootout with the Spartans, they split the series. Regardless, when they beat Sparty on Friday, 4-0, they clinched at least a share of their sixth straight regular season conference championship (which is the four Big Ten titles and the last two years they were in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association). I believe, though don't quote me, that Minnesota is the first college hockey program to ever do that, making them the Kansas men's basketball team of men's hockey, if that makes sense.
I just looked at the PairWise, and I'm not sure if I should be assured that they will get a #1 seed or not. Right now they have the fifth-best PairWise. Assuming they win the Big Ten Tournament (and they have a bye; they'll play either Penn St. or Michigan in Friday's semifinal), they won't fall lower than that. Harvard is a team that is ahead of them, and if they win the ECAC Tournament, the Crimson will stay ahead of the Gophs. But the other three teams are all in the same conference; Denver, Minnesota-Duluth and Western Michigan all reside in the NCHC. There can be only one tournament winner. One of those teams must fail to make the tournament final. I have to believe that that is enough to push that team below the U. in the PairWise. Now I could be wrong. Also, I haven't computed the odds of the teams behind the Gophers in the PairWise, such as Boston College, Union and Massachusetts-Lowell. But I have to think that this club will, through inertia, rise back into the 1-band. Which is a good thing, partially brought about by the results of this weekend. We shall see; the 19th is Selection Sunday for men's hockey.
#-2: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: 0). I really don't give a shit about conference tournaments. I don't think teams such as Minnesota really give a shit, either. No teams should, at least not teams in major conferences. Once these guys upset Maryland in College Park, they were making the NCAA Tournament. (As of press time Joe Lunardi has them as a 7-seed, albeit slipping -- for what, playing to their 4-seed in the B1G Tournament?) So why go full out for this money-making TV contrivance? A higher seed? The risk of injury isn't worth that. (I feel differently for one-bid conferences because the tournament is the only way they determine a conference's only Big Dance rep. By that cold fact, mid- and low-major conference tournaments are very important. Now, that brings up the counter-argument that you those conference shouldn't decide its rep through three or four games at the end of the season because that invalidates all the games before that. Fair point, but it's not germane here.) So sure, they followed up a win over Michigan St. with a loss to Michigan in yesterday's (Saturday's) B1G tourney semifinal. So what?
#-3: Timberwolves (Last Week: -3). Don't look now, but this team is finally playing some good basketball, re-sparking dreams in fans' heads that these guys could be the next Golden State Warriors. They have won six out of their last nine games, including going 2-1 this screening week. That may not seem impressive, and yes, their seven-point loss in lowly Milwaukee last (Saturday) night looks bad. But look at who they beat: The Clippers and ... the Warriors. In the latter win, Andrew Wiggins sank two free throws late to nose the Wolves ahead, and for good.
They remain on the outside, chasing a playoff spot. But this recent good form is a sign that things are looking up. In fact, things may be so good that their time may be this postseason, not a future one. This week: Home to Washington, then at Boston and Miami.
#-4: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -5). I finally took in a baseball game at U.S. Bank Stadium, Friday night, their series opener vs. Missouri St. It's as weird as you would think a baseball configuration would be in a football-first stadium, and the setup is in fact weirder than it was back in the Metrodome.
As mandated when the state became a paying underwriter for Das Bank v.2.0., the stadium had to be able to turn into a baseball dome for all the small school teams that wanted to play games there in the winter months of February, March and April. So, once I got in (there were only a few doors open, and stupidly, they were not the doors that led to the only sections of the stadium where we could sit; we literally had to walk halfway around the concourse in order to get to the open sections, which basically went from the end of the First Base line around to halfway down the Third Base line), I saw that seats on the visitor's side of what would be the football field were pushed back; those are the seats which, once retracted, would turn it into a viable baseball configuration. However, there was a setup what seems to be a tall-enough cushion that rang from foul pole to foul pole, right in the middle of where the football field would be. And they put a huge purple curtain over the retracted seats, which ran from Right to Center Field. Most conspicuous of all are the dugouts. There are none, since this is a football-first stadium. Instead, what appear to be shipping containers with one side torn down to erect chain link fence were recessed from both base lines. That is where both teams stayed in during the game.
I understand this is a way for the Gophers and other local teams can play at "home" when it's just too cold to play outside. But this is weird. This feels as though someone had to go out of their way, to the point of inconvenience, in order to make this look like a baseball diamond. I appreciate the novelty, but the look of the field of play is awful. Hell, there are no dirt basepaths; it's all grass. And I think the pitching mounds are just rock-hard brown hills, too.
Oh, the Gophers won that game, 5-2. It was tied at 2 in the bottom of the eighth when, with the bases loaded, Right Fielder Matt Stemper, who was 0-for-3 up to that point, hit a first-pitch liner into left for a three-run double. That extended their winning streak to four, with victories midweek over South Dakota St. and Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The Bears, however, would end the winning streak yesterday (Saturday) afternoon with a 7-2 win. They play their final game of the series, and end their 13-game homestand, today (Sunday), they had to Northern California for a one-off vs. Cal and a weekend series against Sacramento St.
#-5: Gopher softball (Last Week: Positive Numbers). Welp, it finally ended -- their undefeated streak to start the season ended at 19 games after Friday evening's 3-2 loss to host and eighth-ranked Washington in the Washington Tournament. That's not the worst thing in the world, but since these guys have been on top for such a long time, I think it is really sad to suffer your first loss of the year, and so I put them down here.
They did sandwich a pair of wins against Seattle University around playing the Huskies, however. And they'll have a second crack at U-Dub again this (Sunday) afternoon, right after they play South Dakota. And then they'll hopscotch in the West Coast this week, with one-offs vs. Oregon St. and Cal before playing a doubleheader against Pacific in Stockton, Calif.
#-6: Wild (Last Week: -2). OK, so Head Coach Bruce Boudreau was concerned after the club's first regulation-style losing streak this week, defeats to St. Louis (at home) and Tampa Bay (away). That got rectified with a 7-4 thrashing at Florida one day after the Lightning loss. I don't really like their spotty recent form, especially after making that blockbuster trade with The Bastard Winnipeg Jets for Martin Hanzal and Ryan White. Plus, since there haven't been many opportunities to put these guys at the bottom in an WMNSS, the two defeats were just the excuse to level the playing field, so to speak.
However, when it comes to gearing up for the Stanley Cup Finals, I don't know if the Wild going Mild is necessarily a bad thing. For one thing, this would be a good time, with a playoff berth virtually sewn up, to rest players. (That has been done recently, but only because players had to sit out because of a mumps outbreak.) And second, history has shown that the Stanley Cup Playoffs oftentimes have never panned out the way you predicted they would. In particular, teams with gaudy regular season records have not won the Stanley Cup in many instances. So if the Wild slip up even further and become, oh, the second- or third-best team in the conference, does that really portend doom for a team that once had the second-best record in the National Hockey League?
So I will try not to panic as I note that this squad will be playing exclusively Sundays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays for the rest of the month of March. This week picks up in the middle of the Wild's five-game road trip; they go to Chicago again before a pretty big game at Washington (the likely Presidents' Cup trophy winner), then visit Carolina before hosting the Rangers.
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