Positive Numbers (tie): Gopher men's gymnastics and Gopher women's gymnastics (FIRST TIME EVER! and Re-Entry, respectively). I don't know gymnastics at all. (I remember that when we had phy. ed., while the girls took "tumbling," we had wrestling. Bad memories. Anyway ...) But I am starting to get into women's collegiate gymnastics because floor exercise routines from competitors keep going viral. Also, I have a passing interest in men's gymnastics because Minnesota, which finished fifth in the NCAA Tournament is now, for all intents and purposes, dead; it was one of the sports the university cut. (Irony? The Gophers hosted the tournament.)
So it is bittersweet, if not bitter, that one of its team members, Shane Wiskus, was awarded the Nissen-Emery Award as the best Senior men's gymnast, the fifth (and presumably final) Gopher to do so. Cold comfort, probably, but it is an award that should be honored here at the WMNSS.
Meanwhile, this is only the second-ever mention of the Gopher women gymnasts here. The first and only other time was back in 2016, when Lindsay Mable was the first Gopher to ever receive the AAI Aaward for best Senior women's gymnast in the country. Well, we mention the program, which got bounced in the national semifinals in Fort Worth, Tex., again because five Years later, a second Gopher has won the AAI. She is Lexy Ramler, out of St. Michael, Minn., and Winona High School. Wow! She's One Of Us!
So Minnesota sweeps the two awards given to Senior gymnasts. Congratulations!! Unfortunately, only one of the teams will survive. Sorry, gentlemen.
#0: Wild (Last Week: -2). I cannot put people who win annual league- (or when it comes to college division-) wide awards anywhere else except at the tippy top of The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey. Yet it feels really, really unfair to rank a team that just went 4-0 over the past screening Week, consisting of a pair of sweeps over San Jose (at home) and Arizona (in Glendale), below any other club. Especially when you have a guy on said team who does this:
Man, Kirill Kaprizov ... just take a look at the athleticism and the, well, balls on the guy. My God, that was a one-on-three!!! If there were no pandemic right now, and people could pack the X, I know he would be the most electrifying player in the Twin Cities, bar none. At least he seems like the odds-on favorite to win the Calder. There's some guy on The Bastard North Stars who some people think is Kaprizov's equal. No fucking way, appropriators. Oh, and, thanks, Chuck Fletcher.
I have no idea if Minnesota has locked up a spot in the playoffs. But I know they're playing very well right now, and (I may have said this before) for a team slated to be fighting for a playoff spot, the rebuilding plan is well ahead of schedule.
This week: At Los Angeles and San Jose back-to-back tonight/Friday night and tomorrow/Saturday night, then a three-Day break before hosting St. Louis for a pair Wednesday and Thursday.
#-1: Gopher softball (Last Week: 0). Won three-of-four at home vs. Nebraska over the weekend. They lost the capper, 6-4, which ended their winning streak at eight. I know Pitchers in softball pitch underhand, but Amber Fiser, the team's ace/only Starting Pitcher (?), but damn, she is starting every Game and I don't know how her arm hasn't fallen off. She's 10-5, by the by. Host Iowa for four.
#-2: Timberwolves (Last Week: -3). You know, the Wolves actually had a decent Week! They actually defeated Miami (and charlatan Jimmy Butler) at Target Friday, 119-111 in a Game broadcast on Channel 23. They got blown out at the Clippers Sunday, but then they split two contests at Sacramento, the first of which was an easy 134-120 victory Tuesday, the second a moral victory/actual loss Wednesday, 128-125. Too bad that with San Antonio defeating Detroit, the Woofie Dogs are now officially eliminated for this Year's playoffs. Yep -- close but no cigar.
This week: Home and away vs. the Jazz, then at Houston (who still are the only squad with a worse record than Minnesota), then home to Golden State.
Note: The bottom drops from here on out.
#-3: United FC (Re-Entry!). So the Loons began their fifth season in Major League Soccer, after a Year in which they made a miracle run to the Western Conference Finals and were a chokejob away from getting to MLS Cup, Friday night at the team that eliminated them in said Finals, the Seattle Sounders, and ... they got shit-kicked 4-0. All four Seattle Goals were scored in the Second Half, so at least the First Half was a draw -- right?
The optimist (and season ticket-holder) in me thinks the organization has a good system going: Relentless looking for and buying help (mostly from Latin America) to push the guys they already have. But Kevin Molino, the team's longtime talisman who was both healthy and ripping up the league at the end of the season, flew off to Columbus. So the pessimist (and Minnesota sports fan) in me is afraid that every opponent is going to bottle up Bebelo Reynoso, and the team will fall apart because it's so difficult for a non-stardom team in MLS to maintain success. And to top it all off I won't even be able to see them at Allianz Field at least until I get fully vaccinated. Yeah, it's one Match, but I still feel I have a right to now fear the worst for them.
They open up the home portion of their schedule Saturday against Real Salt Lake. Like with the Timberwolves, MNUFC will be showing many of their Games -- more than half, in fact -- on broadcast television, specifically on Channel 23/The CW Twin Cities. Good!
#-4: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -5). Ew. What a fucked-up week for Twin Cities baseball.
This already feels like Head Coach John Anderson's worst-ever ballclub, and the season's barely half-over. The team's losing streak now stands at seven after getting swept at home by Michigan. Look at Friday's opener; they lost 21-5. I was angling to work that Game and I'm now glad I didn't. (By the way, remember that in the Game before that, on Sunday, the Goofers lost to Iowa 18-0.) Gopher Athletics PR did not note any records set in the recap of that emasculation, but there has to be some, and they should be honest about disclosing them.
Weird note: The Goofs lost the Saturday contest 4-0, but the U.'s Starting Pitcher in that Game, Jack Liffrig, was named B1G Pitcher Of The Week. No, he didn't surrender any of the Runs and and pitched seven scoreless. But what a weird situation in which to find the conference Pitcher Of The Week.
This team is now 4-20. I read on the blog The Daily Gopher that the U. has never finished worse than ninth in the Big Ten under Anderson. That fate might already be sealed even before their three-Game set at Indiana this weekend. Note: The first two Games will be played as a Doubleheader on Friday, then they'll play the final Game on Sunday. Wut?
#-5: Twins (Last Week: -4). Holy fuck, the worm has fucking turned on this ballclub. The Twinks were flying high after the first Week of the season. But after going 0-4 this past screening Week, losing nine of their past ten Matches, and having three Games postponed (for now) due to an outbreak of COVID-19 on the organization, Minnesota now has the worst record in the American League. It's that last reason that I threw the Twinks below the Goofer Nine. But really, tomato, tomahto.
With the possible exception of Starting Pitching, every facet on this squad has fallen apart. That systemic breakdown has reached ridiculous proportions in the three Games played in Oakland. COVID-19 contact tracing smushed the first two tilts of the series into a Tuesday twi-night Doubleheader in which the team was completely shut out, 7-0 and 1-0. Then on Wednesday the bats actually came alive, capped off with a Byron Buxton Homer in the top of the Tenth Inning to give Minnesota the lead. But a pair of Errors, coming from a club that many touted as having the best defensive Infield with the signing of Andrelton Simmons, gave The Bastard Philadelphia-By-Way-Of-Kansas City Athletics a come-from-behind, 13-12 victory.
This team is butt now. I hope to God they don't use the coronavirus outbreak, or the Derek Chauvin trial, or the killing of Daunte Wright, as excuses if they finish the season, like, 62-100. Which they are well on the way to reaching now.
Pittsburgh has been a penny-pinching, freeloading franchise for Years now. They didn't have much topline talent at the end of last season and they still offloaded them for a shitload of trades. Seriously, the Pirates are a glorified AAA team right now. And I can totally see them coming into Target Field this weekend and beating the shit out of the Twinks. That's how bad this team is right now. And after this weekend they play versus Cleveland on the road for a trio.
#-Infinity: Gopher volleyball (Last Week: -1). No. No fucking goddamn way. How in the fuck did these Goofers, seeded third in the NCAA Tournament, lose in five Sets to unseeded Pittsburgh? What these players pulled is such bullshit it's embarrassing.
Now, I admit I haven't been following the team that closely, but apparently this unit was hurting, and leaking, well before the tourney bubble. C. C. McGraw, the team's star Libero, was hurt and did not make it to Omaha. Meanwhile, the passing of Setter Melani Shaffmaster apparently was shit all Year, and it reared its ugly head against an unheralded Panther program that had not lost in a long while. Finally, from what I read on the World Wide Web, Middle play was execrable too, and the Mids for Pitt just feasted on it. So how in the fuckety-fuck was this club seeded third?
I said in last week's Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey that I was OK with throwing away the U.'s women's soccer season. I can't do it for volleyball. This is the second season in the past three where Minnesota was upset in the tournament. Yeah, the season inbetween they reached the Final Four. But I cannot accept not playing up to your level of talent, nor should I tolerate the whipsaw effect the past three Years have given me and Gopher v-ball fans, nor will I accept the excuses the team and its loyalists have given as reasons they lost so early. Want to note that, for the second time in the past three tournaments, the other teams seeded similarly to the U. played to their seeds and reached the Final Four. This Year, #1 Wisconsin, #2 Kentucky, and #4 Texas are playing in the National Semifinals ... along with #6 Washington, a team I presumed Minnesota would beat. Their upset loss is even more conspicuous in this context.
And there is not consensus from fervent fans that this season can be a throwaway. There are those who are afraid that the incoming recruits are not going to sufficiently replace those who are leaving, most notably Stephanie Samedy, who was named First-Team All-American and is probably too good not to start her professional career and pass up a pandemic-given Year back at the Sports Pavilion. I'm not certain that this will start a tailspin in the program. But how can you not worry about the health of this team and its future if they keep getting upset like this bullshit?
After 2019's Final Four run, I was OK thinking that the humiliation from 2018, where they didn't even reach the Final Four they were hosting in Minneapolis, was behind them and all of us. Now, I don't know. At least I didn't waste any money watching them in person this past season because I couldn't go to their Games. This performance ensure I won't be watching them in person next season, either.
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