#-1: Wild (Last Week: -2). This team has been mightily impressive, and with their 3-1 screening Week they easily top the WMNSS for this Week. But there is a strong Jekyll-And-Hyde vibe working here. The squad's on a three-Game winning streak, sweeping two from Anaheim and outlasting St. Louis 2-0. But that comes on the heels of a 6-0 groin punch in Denver by The Bastard Quebec Nordiques. The Wild have an 11-Game win streak at home, longest in Wild history. But they are only ... well, 8-8 with one Overtime Loss is not a bad road record, especially when compared to 13-3 at home. But whenever this club visits other arenas, especially against West Division leaders Las Vegas and said Bastard Nordiques, they look mighty mortal.
At least they're in a somewhat-safe third place in that division. For a team that was seen as fighting for a final playoff spot, the schedule favors them reaching the postseason. But they have to, well, strike out on the road this Week -- two Games at San Jose, then the first of two against the Golden Knights.
#-2: Gopher soccer (Last Week: -4). Early Saturday afternoon they were blanked by Rutgers, 1-0, the second straight loss on the road against a ranked team. OK, so this XI has a good idea on where they stand vs. the elite in top-flight women's college soccer. They returned home -- actually back to Elizabeth Lyle Robbie Stadium, their true home pitch, for the first time all season -- and defeated Purdue Thursday afternoon by the same 1-0 result. For those keeping track, that is now five Goals Scored (none of them tallied in the team's two Draws or three Losses), seven Goals Allowed. Senior Day (such as it is; I think only families are allowed to attend) is Sunday afternoon as the Golden Gophers host Maryland.
#-3: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -5). I think I said before that I have no idea how people think this Nine is going to do in 2021. But right now it's accurate to say that this has been a really, really rough start. In the final run of 11 Games to begin the season at U. S. Bank Stadium -- even though for this past weekend the Gophers were the road team -- Northwestern took two out of three. (Interestingly enough, the loser in all three Games scored exactly three Runs.) Gopher baseball is now 3-8 as they strike out for their first true road series, at Nebraska, this weekend for a four-Game series.
#-4: Gopher volleyball (Last Week: -1). After postponing (for now) the first of a home-and-home vs. Wisconsin, turns out the U. was able to field a team for the home Game Sunday night. However, they had to play without two starters, Junior Lebero C. C. McGraw and Freshman Setter Melani Shaffmaster, and the top-ranked Badgers were able to take advantage, beating the then-fourth-ranked Gophers in four Sets. It's only their second loss of the abbreviated season, but depending on how long McGraw and Shaffmaster are out, do you get the feeling that this team is going to take at least half a mulligan on the Year -- you know, saying that if they get into the tournament and do well, good, but if not, so what, it was the pandemic? I get the feeling they could mentally go that route.
The final road contests of the 2021 season -- at Northwestern for a pair.
#-5: Timberwolves (Last Week: -3). A winless screening Week (Phoenix, Bastard Sonics, Dallas) keeps the Woofie Dogs in the basement of the National Basketball Association. And yesterday/Thursday afternoon's Trade Deadline came and went without any Timberwolf that has been in the news as trade bait (Jarrett Culver, Josh Okogie, Naz Reid, Ricky Rubio) being set from of this damned franchise. And still I feel as though things are a hell of a lot better than they were at the beginning of the season and even at the All-Star Break. There is a sense that rock bottom is already behind this club, and that with D'Angelo Russell almost ready to return from injury and Malik Beasley almost set to return from his suspension, people and the front office can at least begin to imagine seeing the team, as good or as bad as it may be, the way the front office imagined it would be. That's very little, but that's better than nuttin'.
Even better, the Wolves start off the screening Week with a two-Game home series versus the Houston Rockets, who have gone from a prime title contender to a laughingstock that recently suffered through a 20-Game losing streak. If Minnesota can't win at least one of these tilts, there's no hope for them. The squad then goes out to Brooklyn (good luck with that) before coming home to play New York.
#-Infinity (tie): Gopher wrestling and Gopher men's basketball (Re-Entry! and Re-Entry!, respectively). Let's start with the U. grapplers, who just finished the NCAAs in St. Louis last weekend. The team wasn't going to contend for the title; those days are gone. (Iowa won going away.) But at least the Gophers brought home some hardware. Apple Valley Junior Gable Steveson claimed the Heavyweight championship by defeating contender Mason Parris of Michigan, 8-4. Steveson is the 18th Gopher to win an individual title in the sport but the first to do so since fellow Heavyweight Tony Nelson in 2013. Congratulations to the badass Steveson!
And while I don't think moral victories are worth that much celebrating, I want to recognize Sophomore Patrick McKee, out of St. Michael. McKee, who wrestles at 125 lbs. and was seeded 15th, lost his second match but then ripped off six victories in a row in the Wrestlebacks to claim third place. From 15th to third, and coming back from an early setback to end your year with six straight wins? That's good!
As a team, Minnesota finished tied with Missouri for seventh place. Nowhere close to first, but at least we got one belt.
And now to the male ballers, who ... well, I'm not exactly sure they fired Richard Pitino. The delay in not immediately letting him go after the Gophers were eliminated by Ohio St. in the Big Ten Conference Tournament probably was due to a combination of negotiating terms, allowing Pitino to find a landing spot, and, come to think of it, maturity in planning for a leadership transition. Pitino did land on his feet; less than 24 hours after the U. announced his dismissal, he was named the new Head Coach at New Mexico. And you know what? The outpouring of congratulations and support from people up here (at least from what I saw on Twitter) may be the model way of switching Head Coaches. And most of the credit belongs to Pitino, who carried himself with class and integrity, and so his departure, which many fans of the program thought was long overdue, was met with sadness, and his path to The Pit with sincere joy. (And it makes the headline on Chip Scoggins's latest column look very harsh.)
With all that said, the announcement that Pitino will be replaced by Ben Johnson has been applauded, for the most part. All HC changes are done with the assumption that the successor's strengths are in the same areas as the predecessor's weaknesses. As ... poor (being a nice guy means that it's difficult to trash him, as factual though it may be) as his rotation sets and Xs and Os are, the most glaring inability Pitino exhibited was convincing high schoolers from Minnesota to stay in Minnesota. You may not notice this, but right now, this state is experiencing a Golden Age of prep hoopsters. More and more high schoolers are getting noticed on recruiting sites, and over the years Minnesotans are leaping up Top 250 and Top 100 lists. It hits its apex last offseason, when Jalen Suggs, out of St. Paul and Minnehaha Academy, was named the #1 high school prep recruit in the nation.
And ... Suggs went to Gonzaga, which is poised to become the first top-flight men's basketball team to run the table and win the championship for the first time since Indiana in 1976. I think he threw a bone to Minnesota, saying they're one of his "Final Four" schools or something, but we all know he was just being nice to the provincial barbarians guarding our state's borders. Too many blue chip Minnesotans escaped the state (Tyus Jones, Tre Jones, Reid Travis, etc.). And that's why Golden Gopher Athletic Director Mark Coyle tabbed Johnson, who is said to have extensive and deep contacts with the state's AAU network. He also -- and this is important, maybe too important -- is One Of Us, a Minneapolis resident from DeLaSalle who transferred to the U. after two Years at Northwestern.
What Johnson doesn't have is any Head Coaching experience. He's bopped around the coaching scene since graduating, including five seasons with the Gophers under Pitino. Coyle brought him back from his job being an Assistant Coach at Xavier. This is his first time helming the ship. Should his virgin voyage be for a BcS school? In that sense, Coyle did not break from Johnson's predecessor; Pitino had just finished his first Year at Florida International before he was hired at the U. Would someone who ticks the Minnesota boxes but is more seasoned have been a better choice, such as Brian Dutcher at San Diego St. or Craig Smith out of Utah St.? Maybe, but there are two other factors to consider. One, the pandemic has squeezed every athletic department's bottom line, so maybe Coyle wanted to bring in Dutcher or Smith but couldn't meet their price. And two, recently Coyle was scrutinized for helming an athletic department that did not have one Person Of Color as a team's Head Coach. Did placating a form of racial inequity result in a hire who is not up to the job?
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