#-2: Gopher men's hockey (Last Week: -4). What may be the big thing coming out of this weekend's split vs. Michigan at Mariucci is the crowd. The U. reported that the two-contest attendance is the highest the arena has ever had. I and many others who lamented the death of the WCHA (v.1.0) and saw the Gophers fall off as a program saw 3M Arena with more empty seats than occupied ones too often in previous Years and wondered if 10,000 people would ever care about going to a Golden Gopher hockey Game again. Well, they did this weekend, and in a high-powered showdown between a Wolverines squad full of blue-chippers and the most exciting talent Minnesota has collected in a long, long time, the crowd was treated with a pair of Overtime thrillers, Friday's won by the Gophers' Matthew "Nails" Kneis, Saturday's won (after a comeback by Minnesota) by Michigan's Jacob Truscott.
I might be a rube for saying this, especially when I think people who said the following about the Vikings' season that just ended with a thud are fucking stupid, but I'll say it anyway: I like the ride the Golden Gopher men's hockey team is taking us on now, and I want to see how it'll end. They host Michigan St. over the weekend.
#-3: Whitecaps (Last Week: -3). Finished a series road sweep of, uh, Metropolitan last Sunday afternoon, 4-1. They remain in third place in the PHF and have separated themselves from the teams under them. And now, unfortunately, they're out of sight until the weekend after next.
#-4: Gopher wrestling (Last Week: -8). Crushed #29 Michigan St. and #22 Indiana over the Week. Great, but since they lost to #16 Nebraska the Week before, it just makes me think this U. team is only the 17th-to-21st best in the country. Right now they're hosting Purdue; on Saturday they host Illinois.
#-5: Timberwolves (Last Week: -2). This is not exactly a Wally Pip situation. But with Karl-Anthony Towns still in traction (and, in a bit of a tangent, Rudy Gobert severely underwhelming for what the organization traded to Utah for him), this is becoming more and more Anthony Edwards's ballclub. They followed up Losses to Utah (which pipped them by a Point even though the Woofie Dogs led by eight at the start of the Fourth Quarter) and Denver (where the Woofs blew a five-Point lead with 2 1/2 Minutes to go and allowed the Nuggets to score the last nine Points of the Game) with comeback Wins over Toronto and Houston (both at home). Edwards scored 23 and 44 both Games, and in the victory over the Rockets, Ant made not one but two poster dunks over beleaguered Houston Center Alperen Sengun (sorry, won't embed the dunks; I've got to get this survey done). Edwards already excites much of the fanbase; if his scoring leads Minnesota to the playoffs (and right now Minnesota is in a three-way tie for sixth in a Western Conference where sixth place and 13th are within two Games of each other), Wolves fans might see KAT when he comes back and go, "Who are you?"
Didn't know that the Game against the Rockets was a de facto home-and-home; they play in Houston tomorrow/Monday night. They play in New Orleans Wednesday, then play home Games back-to-back vs. two really good teams this season, Memphis and Sacramento.
#-6: Wild (Last Week: -7). This team has gotten shaky. Michael Russo of The Athletic said that the Mild have been weirdly off since the New Year. A three-Game winning streak capped off by a defeat of the Washington Capitals was cut off with a loss at The Bastard Hartford Whalers. They finish the screening Week with another Loss in Florida. Meanwhile, The Bastard Quebec Nordiques are getting through their injury bug and are now only a Point behind Minnesota for third place in the Central Division.
One problem one writer on ESPN.com sees: Lack of depth. Nick Bjugstad and Nico Sturm were very productive for Fourth-Liners last Year, but the bite of Zach Parise and Ryan Suter's contracts forced General Manager Bill Guerin to let them go and find cheaper replacements, and those replacements aren't doing that well.
The Mild finish their trek to areas in the United States that don't get cold with a visit to Tampa Tuesday. They then return home for Games vs. Philadelphia and Buffalo.
#-7: Twins (Re-Entry!). I didn't write about Carlos Correa because I didn't know where the hell he was going to go, and besides, he's a fucking cheater. But the trade of Luis Arraez to Miami on Friday is something I have to address, because I sure don't fucking like it.
Yes, I understand the trade: Arraez to budding Starting Pitcher Pablo Lopez and a pair of raw but promising prospects, Shortstop Jose Salas and Outfielder Byron Chourio. One guy for three guys is, on a theoretical level, good. But the one you're talking about is the defending A. L. batting champion and, more importantly, the biggest, and possible the only, shining star this big-league club has. And you're trading him?! One year after the only accomplishment of any worth the Twinks had in 2022?!?! (By the way, Arraez is the last player to win a batting title and then get traded in the offseason since Rod Carew got traded after the 1978 season by ... the Minnesota Twins. Trading batting champs right after they won it seems to be a kink for this franchise.)
In exchange, the Twins have traded for a lot of potential. That includes Lopez, the centerpiece of this trade. He's been with the Marlins for five Years, and he's had an ERA under 4 the last three, but he really blew up only last season, when he started 32 Games, struck out 174, sported an ERA+ of 108 and had an ERA of 3.75. You could say that Arraez only blew up last Year, too, even though he had sips of coffee with the big club stretching back to 2018. And Minnesota now has, like, nine Pitchers who can start a Game now. But Lopez is projected to be, in a best-of-all-worlds scenario, a #2. The Twinks need a #1, and I don't know if they got it.
Meanwhile, people who think this is The Best Trade Evah!!! note that Arraez is largely replaceable; Jose Miranda will now fill Arraez's place at First Base, and Alex Kirilloff will now lead the Lineup. But with the proviso that Arraez only arrived last season, those replacements are maybes. You had someone who won a batting championship and was on his way to being The Face Of The Twins (by the way, it's not Byron Buxton anymore. He can't stay healthy, so he's washed, and anyone who thinks otherwise drinks the Kool-Aid). Everything here is a maybe. The closest thing to a sure thing is seeing a batting champion ply his trade at Target Field next Year. And that's gone now.
#-8: Gopher women's basketball (Last Week: -9). Sandwich a Win at Penn St. with bad, bad Losses to Illinois and Purdue. I have nothing else I can say.
Wow -- they don't play again until the 29th?? OK. ...
#-9: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -5). Oof. Lost to Illinois by 18, then lost to Purdue by 22 ... and they scored only 39 Points. I saw a tweet, I think last Week, that the program was building for something special next season. I thought they said the same thing last season.
They're in Michigan right now as I type this. After this, they host Indiana Wednesday and visit Northwestern Saturday.
#-Infinity: Vikings (Last Week: -6). I, and probably most Vikings fans, didn't believe this team had the horses or the gumption to make it to the Super Bowl. Maybe with the assistance of time smoothing out all the emotions emanating from last Sunday's upset Loss at U. S. Bank Stadium to the New York Giants, we can see, and maybe even appreciate, that this 13-5 squad overachieved, and that reflects well on Head Coach Kevin O'Connell's ability to draw blood from a stone.
But the defeat is only a Week old, so let me say: Jesus goddamn Christ, last Sunday was a fucking letdown. And yet it felt inevitable, even fated. I thought they were going to beat the Giants. But I wasn't going to be surprised if they lost to them. And every break this ViQueens club got during the regular season evaporated when they needed those breaks the most. The team went 11-0 in one-score Games, but they lost by, you guessed it, one score.
The Defense was the problem. It was all season, and it what fucking killed them versus the Giants. The starters are veterans, some of them (Harrison Smith, Eric Kendricks) have been good soldiers for The Purple for a long time. But they are old and slow, and they couldn't mount enough of a pass rush to stop Daniel Fucking Jones from embarrassing them. Defensive Coordinator Ed Donatell was sacrificed for the D's failures this Week, but Donatell wasn't the one not pressuring the Quarterback and missing tackles and letting a mediocre set of Wide Receivers and Tight Ends continually get open (both last weekend and all Year). Maybe Donatell didn't put his players in a position to blitz the QB or go man-to-man with those receivers, but I still think it was the players more than the coordinator.
So stop blaming Kirk Cousins for this disaster. It was one dumb decision at the end of the Game to check down to T. J. Hockenson (who, by the way, should be signed long-term), but he carried this team in spite of his Defense -- that Game and for the whole season. I still think he doesn't have much of a ceiling, and he continues to lose in big Games (that streak didn't end). But he's good and he's indestructible, and those are two things not all teams in the NFL have. Yeah, I'd give him one more Year before you seriously look for a young replacement in the Draft (the QBs coming out this Year don't interest me, but Caleb Williams next Year does). But with O'Connell as HC and calling plays in the Offense, Kirko Chains ain't falling off. And he surely has earned some latitude for next Year.
By the way, those who are relieved that the Vikes lost last Week and say, "Well, they were just gonna get killed by the Niners anyway" are a bunch of fuckin' doomsayers. Yeah, they probably would get slaughtered in San Francisco. Fine -- beat the Giants and then get slaughtered in San Francisco. They were 3 1/2 Games better than the G-Men, and they lost. Again. At home. In a playoff Game. It wasn't supposed to happen, and yet you had a bad, bad feeling it was goddamn going to happen. And next Year, because they won the NFC North, they'll face fellow first-place clubs San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati. This is going to hurt, but if they were smart, they'd seriously rebuild the Defense and take their lumps on their way to, like, a 4-13 season in order to get a top QB in 2024. Like, say, Caleb Williams.
Rant over.
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