A blissfully short survey!
Positive Numbers: Concordia-St. Paul (Re-Entry!). A short and late shout-out to the Concordia-St. Paul Golden Bears, who won their ninth NCAA Division II women's volleyball championship in the last eleven years a fortnight ago in Pensacola, Fla. Moreover, they only dropped two sets in the 64-team tournament.
One thing I noticed upon looking at the bracket: As dominant as the team was (and the program has been), they were not the top-seeded team in the tourney. For Division II v-ball, apparently they do something weird: They break up the field into eight region-based, uh, "parts." They seed those eight teams 1-8. In their "part," Concordia-St. Paul was only seeded second. The top seed, Southwest Minnesota St., was upset by five-seed Minnesota-Duluth, whom the Golden Bears defeated in four Sets to reach the Elite Eight, where all teams were reseeded 1-8 and rebracketed. It's there where CSt.P was named the top seed.
Anyway, congratulations! I should make it out to a match some day.
#0: Vikings (Last Week: -2). With a pair of convincing wins this screening week over Cincinnati (at home) and Green Bay (at Lambeau), albeit two teams that have packed it in, we have to recognize that this Vikings squad may be the best since the Brett Favre-led 2009 edition. And that is a good thing.
We come to the time of the year where teams are so banged up that those who have been eliminated from the playoffs are furtively packing it in and playing youngsters or scrubs in order to save the best players on their club for next year. Still, it was impressive to be on the field to watch the Vikes pick apart a Bengals squad just hours after rumors surfaced that Cincy Head Coach Marvin Lewis would finally leave the team. And while I have some reservations for the offensive output Saturday night against a Packers squad that was there for the taking, Minnesota blanked an opponent for the first time since the 1993 season. (I'll blame the cold.) That they did it against the Cheeseheads makes it all the more satisfying. Seeing visiting Vikes fans do the Skol chant and the Viking Clap in Lambeau? I'm in heaven.
The only thing preventing these guys from reaching Positive Numbers is the revelation that I saw during the game that the Philadelphia Eagles only need to win one of their next two games to have home-field advantage on the NFC side of the playoffs. The possibility of a three-game homestand to the end the season at the Super Bowl takes a serious blow. Also, late word that Left Guard Nick Easton is done for the year with a broken right ankle flummoxes the Offensive Line once more. Nevertheless, this team is still good enough to reach Super Bowl LII, even if they have to do it on the road.
#-1: Timberwolves (Last Week: -6). For all the angst generated by the lack of results a team so good on paper should have by now, they stand fourth in the West. (In an underplayed irony, after an offseason where nearly all the East All-Stars were moved westward, the Eastern Conference has gotten appreciably better this year.) Weeks like the 3-0 one they just enjoyed show how good these Woofie Dogs can be when they're not tripping over their own dicks or getting run into the ground. Now, this is a long season, so I'm sure bad weeks are going to come. But this was the kind of screening week I was kind of expecting.
For the second year in a row, the Wolves are one of the ten teams to be showcased in the NBA Christmas Games; they visit the Lakers for the league's nightcap. They also play a hard back-to-back: Home to Denver Wednesday, at Milwaukee Thursday.
#-2: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -7). This blog post (by a real good blogger) says the U. is the tenth most disappointing team in top-flight men's college b-ball. They are currently unranked now and are a bubble team when it comes to RPI after losing three games (two of the non-conference, high-profile ones, the third a shoulda-been win at Nebraska), so he has a major point. All these Goofers can do is win, and they did just that this screening week with post-finals frog-stompings of Oral Roberts and Florida Atlantic.
That's all I got. They finish up their non-con Saturday afternoon with the fourth game in a six-game homestand against one final quality opponent: Harvard.
#-3: Gopher women's basketball (Last Week: -1). Finished their non-conference sched throttling Cal-Riverside Friday afternoon, 101-75. They finish their non-con at 11-2. Don't think they're even sniffing the NCAAs; that loss at San Diego might loom large. They start conference play at Northwestern Thursday.
#-4: Wild (Last Week: -5). Just noticed that of the five local teams to play this week, the Mild were the only ones who lost. An absolutely ugly weeklong 1-3 roadtrip ends with back-to-back defeats to the Florida teams on back-to-back nights. Only a 6-4 victory over Ottawa -- a game where they once fell behind 3-1 -- prevented a complete wipeout.
This club just doesn't have it this season. Never thought the loss of Zach Parise and the trade of Marco Scandella could do so much damage. The only saving grace is that they are in a three-way tie for ninth place in the West (along with Calgary and Chicago, the latter of which beat the Mild Sunday), just one point behind Anaheim for the final playoff spot in the West. It's there for the taking. But can the Mild take it? This week they host The Bastard North Stars before doing a direct home-and-home with the Nashville Predators.
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