#0: United FC (Last Week: 0). OK, this is surprising. Two Games on the road to begin the season, two road victories, and neither was close. Saturday night they crushed the San Jose Earthquakes, 5-2. Ike Opara was named MLS Player Of The Week for his brace, Jan Gregus got the match-winner, Luis Amarilla scored again, and even Robin Lod finally got his first MLS Goal, albeit a rebound off of a Penalty Kick save.
I never, and I mean never, expected the Loons to hold their home opener with a 2-0 record. But the defense is holding up after solidifying last year, and the retooled front half is firing on all cylinders. Technically, MNUFC is second in Major League Soccer, behind only Sporting Kansas City on the tie-breaker of Goal Difference, 6-5.
Hope they keep this up Sunday night when they host the New York Red Bulls.
#-1: Wild (Last Week: -2). Every day, The Athletic updates their NHL Stanley Cup Playoff probabilities for each team. I saw it once several days ago. Close to the bottom are the three California teams: San Jose, Los Angeles, and Anaheim. It just so happens that the Wild were playing all three squads this screening week. They should have beaten all three. They needed to beat all three, seeing as they're in the midst of a beastly playoff race for the final spots in the Western Conference.
Um, not quite. Sure, they outlasted San Jose, 3-2. But Kings beat the shit outta the Mild, 7-3, and the next night the Ducks pushed Minnesota to Overtime before the rocketfire of the red-hot Kevin Fiala gave them the 5-4 win. They needed six Points but got only four. And they are off until tomorrow/Thursday, which allows fellow contenders Nashville, Vancouver and Winnipeg to gain Points on the Wild. As of right now, all three of them are in a three-way tie for the first Wild Card in the West. Thus, as of right now, they're on the outside looking in.
And this week will be a tough one. The Thursday Game is at home to Las Vegas. They travel out to Philadelphia Saturday afternoon, then come back home for a Sunday night Game versus Nashville. They then begin a home-and-home with Chicago Tuesday at the Xcel Energy Center.
#-2: Gopher men's hockey (Last Week: -5). I don't know how I feel about the male U. icers. To the good, this team fought back from dropping Game 1 of the Big Ten Conference Tournament First round series to Notre Dame by winning Games 2 and 3 -- all of them at Mariucci Arena, all of them one-Goal Games.
Now to the bad: Despite winning more Games than they lost, the Golden Gophers have somehow dropped in the PairWise. They are now 17th, and that is close but firmly out of the NCAA Tournament.
The U. has up to two Games left. The first is massive, obviously: At Penn St. in the B1G Semis Saturday night. I doubt that a victory there gets them into the tourney. It'll take another one, at least -- and that is the following week's final, also on the road. But if they win that, the PairWise doesn't matter, because then they would have won the conference tournament and the automatic bid.
In other words, it's tournament time for the Gophers now. It would help to demonstrate this program's progress if they won this and next week.
#-3: Gopher softball (Last Week: -1). This club had an exact .500 record: Two wins, two losses, and a tie. They beat co-host Long Beach St. in eight Innings and Mercy-Ruled Cal Poly in five. They got shut out by co-host and the top-ranked team in the country, UCLA. The last Game of the UCLA/Long Beach Tournament was against Central Florida. It was tied after regulation at 5. It was still tied at 5 when, in the bottom of the Ninth Inning, the Game was called. You see, Minnesota had a flight to catch, and as such there was a "drop-dead" time at which the Game was going to end, regardless. They obviously built in enough time to accommodate an extra Inning, but the Gophers and the Golden Knights couldn't break the deadlock, and they had to go. Non-revenue teams, (shrug).
The U. remains ranked, but they've drifted from 18th to 19th. They seem to be dropping like a feather.
Lucky them, the club is in Honolulu this weekend, the final non-conference Games of the season. Apparently there is no tournament; host Hawai'i, Texas Tech and Drexel are just there to, you know, play Games with Minnesota and each other.
#-4: Gopher women's hockey (Last Week: Positive Numbers). All season long I thought a final between the Gophers and Wisconsin in the NCAA Championship Game was inevitable. Now, for the first time ever, I'm not sure.
Even though Ridder Arena and the U. hosts the WCHA Final Faceoff, the Gophers lost their Semifinal to Ohio St., 4-3 in Overtime. (The Buckeyes lost in the Final to ... Wisconsin, a squad that actually is doing its job.) They've been busted all the way down to fourth in the PairWise -- still safely in the NCAA Tournament, but in no way indicative of the talent I believe this still has, and should, wield.
Thus, the U. has the 4-seed in the tourney, and thus draw in the Frozen Four top-ranked Cornell. I thought the Big Red's stay up top would be short-lived, but once Cornell reached the top spot, it hasn't relinquished it. But they first have to get there. They host the Quarterfinal Saturday ... but it's against Ohio St. One would think home-ice advantage would be great for such a tilt, but goddammit, the Buckeyes won there last week! Plus, how many people are going to show up? It's not just the coronavirus; less than 3,000 people showed up for the Final Faceoff last weekend.
I'm really scared the U. is in for a massive upset. If that's the case, this program will, for the first time in recent memory, face serious questions.
#-5: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -7). These Goofers snapped a losing streak at three with a season-ending ass-kicking of Nebraska Sunday at The Barn, 107-75. The school set a record for most Three-Pointers made in a Game, but this is against a club that overhauled their roster so much that there is only seven scholarship players, two other players were suspended last week, and for the tournament they got two football players to round out their team.
Make no mistake, however; the Gophers aren't coming into the B1G Tournament with a full head of steam. They finished 14-16 overall and 8-12 in-conference, and since they finished 11th in the league, they play the First Round of the tournament tonight (Wednesday night) against Northwestern, the worst team in the league. It will take a miracle to win five straight and claim the automatic bid. At this rate, it'll be very difficult to believe they'll make the NIT. That leaves the CBI ... actually no, the CBI has been cancelled due to the coronvirus.
We'll assess Richard Pitino next week.
#-6: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -4). I completed last week's WMNSS right in the middle of their battle with South Dakota St. Well, the Goofers eventually lost that Game to the Jackrabbits, 10-8. Then they lost two-of-three to Utah over the weekend. Luckily maybe, last/Tuesday night the U. beat Creighton, 5-3. It was an entertaining Game. I know, because I was there! And I saw Bubba Horton come in for relief and strike out five Bluejays in a row. Nevertheless, a 2-3 screening week probably isn't what this squad thought their season would look like.
They finish the two-Game set vs. Creighton, and the 14-Game homestand, tonight/Wednesday night. They then strike out on the road for a three-Game series versus the Air Force ... assuming they're going.
#-7: Timberwolves (Last Week: -3). A stirring win at home over Chicago was followed by home defeats to Orlando and New Orleans and a road loss vs. Houston. Meanwhile, Karl-Anthony Towns remains sidelined with a ... ? They are tied for the second-worst record in the NBA, though, so at this point, why the fuck bring KAT back?
I'm not sure if there's anything else to say.
The loss to the Rockets began a six-Game roadtrip. Their next four contests are a pair of back-to-backs: OKC and San Antone Friday and Saturday, Portland and Phoenix Tuesday and Wednesday.
#-Infinity: Gopher women's basketball (Last Week: -6). As expected, the Gopher women ballers saw their B1G tournament end with a thud, a 21-Point thumping at the hands of Ohio St. Thursday. They're obviously not going to qualify for the NCAAs. They probably aren't good enough to reach the WNIT, either. Will they stoop so low, again, and participate in the ... gulp ... WBI, which they won in a postseason no one seems to want to remember?
The season crashed after Destiny Pitts, the team's leading scorer, entered the transfer portal. But I'm not sure if this team was going to be any good if Pitts stuck with the U. And that only reinforces the stasis this program has bobbed along under the tutelage of Lindsay Whalen. Her name, her brand, her aura, the status of an icon she will forever have as a favorite daughter of Minnesota -- all were reasons Mark Coyle hired her as Head Coach ... even though she had never had experience coaching, as a Head or an Assistant, at any level in her life. And two years ago, she not only was given an HC job, but one at a BcS school? What couldn't she start small, like at Hamline or Minnesota-Duluth? This season reinforces the belief that she is nowhere close to understanding, let alone handling, the duties of a big-time women's college basketball program.
The only saving grace Whalen has, in my estimation, is the recruiting class that's coming in. There are many, many holes to fill, and only three recruits coming in, but they're damn good ones. There's Caroline Strande, a three-star Guard; Erin Hedman, a four-star Center (who, like Strande, is from Wisconsin, thus reversing the pipeline that seems to descend towards Our Drunken Cousin); and the cream of the crop, five-star Point Guard and Ohioan Alexia Smith. Whalen will need to spackle the rest of the roster with juco transfers, and she still needs to prove she can develop players and provide them with the right tactics to win Games. But at least she still has that. That might be the only reason she keeps her job ... wait a second -- she's a goddess here in Minnesota. Her job isn't in that much jeopardy. Nevermind.
I never, and I mean never, expected the Loons to hold their home opener with a 2-0 record. But the defense is holding up after solidifying last year, and the retooled front half is firing on all cylinders. Technically, MNUFC is second in Major League Soccer, behind only Sporting Kansas City on the tie-breaker of Goal Difference, 6-5.
Hope they keep this up Sunday night when they host the New York Red Bulls.
#-1: Wild (Last Week: -2). Every day, The Athletic updates their NHL Stanley Cup Playoff probabilities for each team. I saw it once several days ago. Close to the bottom are the three California teams: San Jose, Los Angeles, and Anaheim. It just so happens that the Wild were playing all three squads this screening week. They should have beaten all three. They needed to beat all three, seeing as they're in the midst of a beastly playoff race for the final spots in the Western Conference.
Um, not quite. Sure, they outlasted San Jose, 3-2. But Kings beat the shit outta the Mild, 7-3, and the next night the Ducks pushed Minnesota to Overtime before the rocketfire of the red-hot Kevin Fiala gave them the 5-4 win. They needed six Points but got only four. And they are off until tomorrow/Thursday, which allows fellow contenders Nashville, Vancouver and Winnipeg to gain Points on the Wild. As of right now, all three of them are in a three-way tie for the first Wild Card in the West. Thus, as of right now, they're on the outside looking in.
And this week will be a tough one. The Thursday Game is at home to Las Vegas. They travel out to Philadelphia Saturday afternoon, then come back home for a Sunday night Game versus Nashville. They then begin a home-and-home with Chicago Tuesday at the Xcel Energy Center.
#-2: Gopher men's hockey (Last Week: -5). I don't know how I feel about the male U. icers. To the good, this team fought back from dropping Game 1 of the Big Ten Conference Tournament First round series to Notre Dame by winning Games 2 and 3 -- all of them at Mariucci Arena, all of them one-Goal Games.
Now to the bad: Despite winning more Games than they lost, the Golden Gophers have somehow dropped in the PairWise. They are now 17th, and that is close but firmly out of the NCAA Tournament.
The U. has up to two Games left. The first is massive, obviously: At Penn St. in the B1G Semis Saturday night. I doubt that a victory there gets them into the tourney. It'll take another one, at least -- and that is the following week's final, also on the road. But if they win that, the PairWise doesn't matter, because then they would have won the conference tournament and the automatic bid.
In other words, it's tournament time for the Gophers now. It would help to demonstrate this program's progress if they won this and next week.
#-3: Gopher softball (Last Week: -1). This club had an exact .500 record: Two wins, two losses, and a tie. They beat co-host Long Beach St. in eight Innings and Mercy-Ruled Cal Poly in five. They got shut out by co-host and the top-ranked team in the country, UCLA. The last Game of the UCLA/Long Beach Tournament was against Central Florida. It was tied after regulation at 5. It was still tied at 5 when, in the bottom of the Ninth Inning, the Game was called. You see, Minnesota had a flight to catch, and as such there was a "drop-dead" time at which the Game was going to end, regardless. They obviously built in enough time to accommodate an extra Inning, but the Gophers and the Golden Knights couldn't break the deadlock, and they had to go. Non-revenue teams, (shrug).
The U. remains ranked, but they've drifted from 18th to 19th. They seem to be dropping like a feather.
Lucky them, the club is in Honolulu this weekend, the final non-conference Games of the season. Apparently there is no tournament; host Hawai'i, Texas Tech and Drexel are just there to, you know, play Games with Minnesota and each other.
#-4: Gopher women's hockey (Last Week: Positive Numbers). All season long I thought a final between the Gophers and Wisconsin in the NCAA Championship Game was inevitable. Now, for the first time ever, I'm not sure.
Even though Ridder Arena and the U. hosts the WCHA Final Faceoff, the Gophers lost their Semifinal to Ohio St., 4-3 in Overtime. (The Buckeyes lost in the Final to ... Wisconsin, a squad that actually is doing its job.) They've been busted all the way down to fourth in the PairWise -- still safely in the NCAA Tournament, but in no way indicative of the talent I believe this still has, and should, wield.
Thus, the U. has the 4-seed in the tourney, and thus draw in the Frozen Four top-ranked Cornell. I thought the Big Red's stay up top would be short-lived, but once Cornell reached the top spot, it hasn't relinquished it. But they first have to get there. They host the Quarterfinal Saturday ... but it's against Ohio St. One would think home-ice advantage would be great for such a tilt, but goddammit, the Buckeyes won there last week! Plus, how many people are going to show up? It's not just the coronavirus; less than 3,000 people showed up for the Final Faceoff last weekend.
I'm really scared the U. is in for a massive upset. If that's the case, this program will, for the first time in recent memory, face serious questions.
#-5: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -7). These Goofers snapped a losing streak at three with a season-ending ass-kicking of Nebraska Sunday at The Barn, 107-75. The school set a record for most Three-Pointers made in a Game, but this is against a club that overhauled their roster so much that there is only seven scholarship players, two other players were suspended last week, and for the tournament they got two football players to round out their team.
Make no mistake, however; the Gophers aren't coming into the B1G Tournament with a full head of steam. They finished 14-16 overall and 8-12 in-conference, and since they finished 11th in the league, they play the First Round of the tournament tonight (Wednesday night) against Northwestern, the worst team in the league. It will take a miracle to win five straight and claim the automatic bid. At this rate, it'll be very difficult to believe they'll make the NIT. That leaves the CBI ... actually no, the CBI has been cancelled due to the coronvirus.
We'll assess Richard Pitino next week.
#-6: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -4). I completed last week's WMNSS right in the middle of their battle with South Dakota St. Well, the Goofers eventually lost that Game to the Jackrabbits, 10-8. Then they lost two-of-three to Utah over the weekend. Luckily maybe, last/Tuesday night the U. beat Creighton, 5-3. It was an entertaining Game. I know, because I was there! And I saw Bubba Horton come in for relief and strike out five Bluejays in a row. Nevertheless, a 2-3 screening week probably isn't what this squad thought their season would look like.
They finish the two-Game set vs. Creighton, and the 14-Game homestand, tonight/Wednesday night. They then strike out on the road for a three-Game series versus the Air Force ... assuming they're going.
#-7: Timberwolves (Last Week: -3). A stirring win at home over Chicago was followed by home defeats to Orlando and New Orleans and a road loss vs. Houston. Meanwhile, Karl-Anthony Towns remains sidelined with a ... ? They are tied for the second-worst record in the NBA, though, so at this point, why the fuck bring KAT back?
I'm not sure if there's anything else to say.
The loss to the Rockets began a six-Game roadtrip. Their next four contests are a pair of back-to-backs: OKC and San Antone Friday and Saturday, Portland and Phoenix Tuesday and Wednesday.
#-Infinity: Gopher women's basketball (Last Week: -6). As expected, the Gopher women ballers saw their B1G tournament end with a thud, a 21-Point thumping at the hands of Ohio St. Thursday. They're obviously not going to qualify for the NCAAs. They probably aren't good enough to reach the WNIT, either. Will they stoop so low, again, and participate in the ... gulp ... WBI, which they won in a postseason no one seems to want to remember?
The season crashed after Destiny Pitts, the team's leading scorer, entered the transfer portal. But I'm not sure if this team was going to be any good if Pitts stuck with the U. And that only reinforces the stasis this program has bobbed along under the tutelage of Lindsay Whalen. Her name, her brand, her aura, the status of an icon she will forever have as a favorite daughter of Minnesota -- all were reasons Mark Coyle hired her as Head Coach ... even though she had never had experience coaching, as a Head or an Assistant, at any level in her life. And two years ago, she not only was given an HC job, but one at a BcS school? What couldn't she start small, like at Hamline or Minnesota-Duluth? This season reinforces the belief that she is nowhere close to understanding, let alone handling, the duties of a big-time women's college basketball program.
The only saving grace Whalen has, in my estimation, is the recruiting class that's coming in. There are many, many holes to fill, and only three recruits coming in, but they're damn good ones. There's Caroline Strande, a three-star Guard; Erin Hedman, a four-star Center (who, like Strande, is from Wisconsin, thus reversing the pipeline that seems to descend towards Our Drunken Cousin); and the cream of the crop, five-star Point Guard and Ohioan Alexia Smith. Whalen will need to spackle the rest of the roster with juco transfers, and she still needs to prove she can develop players and provide them with the right tactics to win Games. But at least she still has that. That might be the only reason she keeps her job ... wait a second -- she's a goddess here in Minnesota. Her job isn't in that much jeopardy. Nevermind.
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