Positive Numbers: Gopher volleyball (Last Week: -1). I am ... getting around to laying down my sword when it comes to being hopping mad that Minnesota got upset in Regional Semifinals of the 2018 NCAA Tournament, the one they were hosting in Minneapolis. I don't think I'll ever fully get over it, but my fear (hope?) that the program would go into a tailspin after such a debasement has not come to fruition. They reached the sport's Final Four in 2019. And right now they're 8-0 after a scintillating two-Game sweep of Penn St. at Maturi Pavilion.
I give plaudits -- and, admittedly, not just the top spot in this Week's WMNSS but also an elevation into Positive Numbers (and subsequent lifting of all boats below this club) -- because both Games this past weekend were available to listen to on terrestrial radio. Thank Buddha for The Fan, extending its Gopher sports media properties to include non-revenue but nonetheless popular sports such as volleyball. I was able to listen to Sunday night's thrilling, come-from-behind five-Set victory over the Nittany Lions on 96.7 The Plus. (Kudos go out to Golden Gopher announcer Corbu Stathes; he pulled double duty Sunday, calling the women's basketball win over Wisconsin at Williams Arena in the afternoon and then the volleyball win over Penn St., by himself, at the Pav.) These Big Ten teams are so awash in money that they can afford to give some to their Olympic programs. And I think there has been enough sustained investment by the Gopher athletic department that interest has been raised, and reinforced. This new broadcasting deal, even though this club will be broadcast on the radio only five times all season, is a further investment in expanding the support of this proud program -- and, maybe in the not-too-distant future -- an important step in making it a self-sustaining one.
In the meantime the U. will play in possibly The Biggest Matchup In Top-Flight Volleyball This Weekend. Minnesota, ranked fifth in the AVCA Top 25, travel to Nebraska, ranked fourth, for Matches tonight/Friday night and early Sunday afternoon. Wish I could hear these Games on the radio!
#0: Gopher men's hockey (Last Week: -7). Now this is what you call payback -- sweet, satisfying payback. The U. responded to being swept at home a Month ago to Notre Dame by marching into South Bend, Ind., and sweeping the Fighting Irish -- and in fact blanking them, by identical 3-0 scores. That pushes (or keeps) the Gophers in first place in the B1G, and almost assuredly gets them a place in the NCAA Tournament. It also wipes away some of the bad taste left by Wisconsin coming into Dinkytown and whipping the Gophers' asses by 4-1 and 8-1 emasculations.
Already next week's series at Penn St., which was to be the last road series for the U. this Year, has been postponed or cancelled (one of the two), because of a potential outbreak with the Nittany Lions team. But that's next week. This week Minnesota is at home versus Michigan St. for contests tonight/Friday night and early tomorrow/Saturday evening. Both Games can be heard on the radio -- 103.5 The Talk, to be specific.
#-1: Gopher wrestling (Last Week: -3). Routed Wisconsin in Madison last Friday morning, 27-7. Unlike the Gopher men's and women's hockey teams, this U. program took care of Border Battle business, winning eight of the ten Matches, capped off by Heavyweight #1 Gable Steveson pinning the Badgers' Pete Christensen in 3:20.
Senior Night/last Dual of the regular season Sunday afternoon as the rasslers host Northwestern.
#-2: Wild (Re-Entry!). Finally, after 13 Days of no Games, the Minnesota Wild had enough players to get back on the ice and resume its schedule. That's not to say the squad had all their players back. At its worst, the Wild had 13 of its players on the COVID Protocol List, and once the team resumed play, half of them were still on there. (So can a club play Games even with several players on this List?) Many of them that were still held out were Defensemen, so for the Wild's first tilt back, at Los Angeles, they had four D-Men called up from its AAA affiliate in Iowa, via its taxi squad. And that inexperience, combined with trying to shake the cobwebs of a two-week forced furlough, contributed to an understandable 4-0 trouncing by the Kings. But they got things turned around last/Thursday night. With more players coming off the List (including Defensemen), Minnesota handed Anaheim a 3-1 loss.
They finish up a two-Game set vs. the Ducks Saturday night, then complete their road trip out west with stops in San Jose Monday and Colorado Wednesday.
#-3: Gopher women's basketball (Last Week: -6). Outlasted Wisconsin by five Sunday (quick note: I feel as though all this team's victories have been relatively close, and I just checked; Minnesota has won only once by double digits, and that was by ten over Illinois on February 10), only to be throttled at Rutgers by 27 Wednesday. They're 7-10 on the season and they're going nowhere. At Maryland and home to Nebraska this week.
#-4: Timberwolves (Last Week: -5). They suffered through another 1-3 screening Week. The losses were all by single digits, so there's that. And their only win was a 116-112 decision over Toronto Valentine's Night, the first time since 2004 the Woofie Dogs have defeated the Raptors away from Target Center. (This Game was played in Tampa, where the Raptors are playing their home Games this year because the U. S.-Canada border is tightly restricted due to the pandemic.)
Really, though, I should be ranking this franchise lower in the WMNSS. 'Cause when it comes to existential damnation, these sorry folks should be #-Infinity forever. Last Year this organization was transformed by the trade for D'Angelo Russell, close friend of superstar Karl-Anthony Towns. Those two have played a total of five Games together as teammates. Five. FIVE. And the goddamndest thing is is that it seems that once the injured or sick teammate finally can play, the other one get sick or injured. Russell was playing at the start of the season only for KAT to be waylaid with COVID-19. Now that Towns is back, Russell has to sit ... literally, for four-to-six Weeks, because he just had knee surgery. Seriously, this organization's only forte is fucking itself.
They finish a three-Game homestand by hosting Toronto/Tampa. They then are on the road for four in a row, the first thing encompassing the majority of this Week: New York, Milwaukee, and Chicago.
#-5: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -2). Have a very tough decision when it comes to the bottom. Both the Gopher men's b-ball and Gopher women's hockey teams went 0-2 this screening Week, and as a result both teams suffered serious damage to their tournament hopes.
I am not quite sure ranking men's basketball over women's hockey is the right move. It was demoralizing to see the Goofers get swept for the Year by Maryland after a shitty First Half led to their 13-Point loss in College Park Sunday, then possible The Worst Three Minutes Of The Year led to a 14-2 Hoosier run late in the Second Half on Minnesota's way to an 82-72 defeat Wednesday.
They are, according to ESPN.com's Joe Lunardi, still in the field -- in fact, in his latest projection, the Golden Gophers are still in the "real" tournament (of 64 teams -- those "First Four" Games are nothing but Play-Ins, and they are legitimate, and they should be disregarded with prejudice). But they are a 10-seed and, as you may have guessed, are dropping like a stone. These guys still haven't won away from home, and I don't know if any team has made The Big Dance going winless on the road. My guess is no, and for good reason.
The problem is that the two-man team of Marcus Carr and Liam Robbins has been solved; shut them down and the team shuts down because none of the role players have been able to step up to save his teammates and steal a Game, whether it be Gabe Kalscheur or Eric Curry or Jamal Mashburn, Jr. And the outlook for this squad is getting gloomy because Robbins continues to be hobbled with a bad ankle. That means you can shut Minnesota down for good if you just double-team Carr.
They've only lost once at home, to Maryland, but their only contest this Week will be a big one: Illinois, led by budding star Ayo Dosunmu, comes to town Saturday afternoon. Winning that Game would be a huge boost to the U.'s tournament chances, but it'd be like having an exterminator go through one side of your house when termites are eating through the other side.
#-6: Gopher women's hockey (Last Week: -4). And then there are the Gopher women's hockey club, which, I'm afraid, are in serious danger of missing the NCAA Tournament for, I believe, the first time ever after getting swept, at home, by Ohio St.
First of all, kudos go out to Buckeye Head Coach Nadine Muzerall. The U. legend took over a program that was considered to be a mismanaged joke that had violated NCAA rules the Year before and, in five seasons, turned it into arguably The Second-Best Team In The WCHA. They're a force to be reckoned with, especially after winning the season series with the Gophers, 4-2.
With that being said, the U. have now (technically) lost four of their last five Games. They have just finished a homestand at 1-3. They have slipped from second to fourth in the USCHO.com poll. And even though they are third in the WCHA when it comes to Points, because of the pandemic and all the Game cancellations and the resulting fact that the teams in the conference have not played the same number of Games, if the league were to rank their teams by, say, Point Percentage, the Gophers actually are in fourth. Add to that that the PairWise this season doesn't work because there are little-to-no inter-conference results with which to compare conferences. If the NCAA decides to, for example, allot the eight tournament slots by conference and dole out to the WCHA (far and away the best conference in top-flight women's college hockey) four, or three, or even only two spots ... that would mean the Minnesota will not make the tournament. Such a "first" is an existential threat to the aura of what Minnesota women's hockey is and the standards the program should permanently hold itself to. And that is why I decided to place these women at the bottom of this Week's survey: It's a wake-up call.
Now, I could be overreacting. They finish up the regular season this weekend at Bemidji St. There ... may or may not be a conference tournament ... ? And the NCAA still hasn't decided how to select for its tournament. Maybe there's nothing to worry about. Or, maybe it's too late.
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