Can you believe there are only eight Days of regular season baseball left? They finish with the Angels this/Sunday afternoon, host The Bastard Philadelphia-By-Way-of Kansas City Athletics for a three-Game series beginning Tuesday, then finish the season at Denver, of all places, and facing The Colorado Rockies for three starting on Friday. I believe that if the Twin Cities has an American sister city, it's Denver. I expect there to be a lot of Twins fans in attendance.
#-1: Gopher volleyball (Last Week: -2). It may be surprising considering that the Big Ten is, I think, The Best Volleyball Conference, but Iowa has never been a power for as long as I have tracked the sport. I don't remember the last time they've been in the tournament, if they have at all. But on Thursday in Iowa City, the Hawkeyes took the Gophs to the edge before the U. prevailed in five Sets. This is indeed a transition Year for the program.; I just hope Head Coach Keegan Cook knows what he's doing.
Big, busy Week ahead. They're at second-ranked Nebraska tonight/Sunday night, then are home for back-to-back contests with Michigan Friday and #15 Penn St. Saturday.
#-2: Gopher soccer (Last Week: -5). Lost at home to Michigan St., 3-1. Er. They've started out 0-2 in B1G play. At Iowa this/Sunday afternoon, hosting Wisconsin Thursday.
#-3: Gopher football (Last Week: -3). I can't fuckin' believe it. I went to the bar where I usually see my alma mater's Games and saw that the gridiron Goofers were leading at Northwestern by 14. That tracks; the U. ain't no title squad, but they're playing a group who lost its Head Coach because his players way back when were hazing.
We had a torrential (but needed) downpour from the evening through the overnight. I was expecting at least the diehards to come out, but only one guy did, he's not a regular but he lives very close to the bar, and he left at around halftime. He's a solid dude, and he was the one who told me to look back at the television set behind me because the Wildcats somehow fuckin' tied the Game up on Minnesota. I was wrapped up in the contest I was watching, but he spun his head back toward the other TV seconds before I did, and we both caught the Pass to a wide-open Northwestern player for the Game-winning score in Overtime, 37-34.
This, I hear, is Year 7 of the P. J. Fleck Era. He seems to average about one dumb Loss a season. And as the Era lengthens, Golden Gopher football fans keep track of the really egregious defeats. There was one Year they lost to Purdue. There was one Year they lost to Bowling Green, and that appears to be the consensus Worst Loss Of The P. J. Fleck Era. This is the passion of the mob talking, and I see the vitriol on social media, but this chokejob to Northwestern seems certain to replace the Loss to The Falcons as Fleck's worst ever.
Also, I find it ... interesting that while a new Head Coach can significantly elevate a college football program, and while he can consistently deliver the same level of success Year after Year (and I believe Fleck is doing that), the conspicuous Losses pile up, and at some point there is a breaking point where the fanbase just can't take it anymore. Before Fleck, the most success Gopher football has had in recent memory was under Glen Mason. He lasted about ten Years, but he was known for stepping on the occasional rake, too. He was the HC for that Gophers team that blew, I believe, the biggest lead in Bowl Game history. (I think it was the Insight Bowl, but it's a Bowl, so it doesn't really fuckin' matter.) And while he was miles better than any HC going back to Lou Holtz, that collapse was enough for boosters to order Mason to be fired. And he was -- around the holiday season, which is not ideal, but I think Mason was going to get paid if he were still coach by, like, that Christmas or something.
I wonder if boosters and the fans are getting fed up with Fleck like this. He can't seem to beat Iowa, but he has had success against a Wisconsin team that's fallen on black days. He's gotten them into Bowl after Bowl after Bowl, and he's won a few of them, as well. Also, the landscape of college football has changed since Mason was let go. Money for Head Coaches and the attendant staff is ridiculous and will get even more ludicrous, free agency (aka The Transfer Portal) now overheats every off-season, the B1G is furtively bringing in more schools in order to get more money from Fox, CBS and NBC, and the big specter of The Final Realignment, aka The Super League of only the best brand names in top-flight college football, is in the back of the mind of every athletic director and school president, hoping that their Head Coach -- or the one they hire to replace the one they have -- will be the one to win enough to somehow raise The Brand to the point where they're one of the Haves once College Football Rapture comes. (To wit: Deion Sanders at Colorado. I'm convinced he can win with the Buffaloes, and that will help Colorado build cachet and gain entry into this hypothetical yet inevitable Super League ... so long as he stays in Boulder.) In sports it's better the devil you don't know. The familiarity of seeing Fleck stumble against an overmatched opponent season after season may accrue enough contempt to finally convince the money power behind the scenes to shitcan Fleck and take a chance on another guy. This Loss last/Saturday night may be the first, or the final, impetus toward that move.
That ballclub is back home Saturday to face Louisiana. I wonder what the mood of the crowd will be.
Oh, and by the way, I do not throw the U. football team down as a #-Infinity despite the epic pooch-screwing because I don't have a season ticket to the U. football team. That's different than ... uh, see below:
#-Infinity (tie): Lynx and United FC (Last Week, respectively: -7 and -4). You know, they surprised me by upsetting the Sun in Connecticut in Game 2 of their series last Sunday, 82-75. They needed to cut down on their Turnovers, and they did, committing only seven of them after turning the ball over 19 times in Game 1. The Sun also cooled down from behind the arc; they went 16-of-30 in Game 1, but only 7-of-20 in Game 2. Finally, someone else besides Napheesa Collier had to get hot, and that was Kayla McBride, who actually outscored Collier, 28-26, while shooting 6-for-11 from deep. This was exactly what they needed to do to win.
Unfortunately, they couldn't pull off the upset and lost in the deciding Game 3 Wednesday at Target Center, 90-75. While Collier poured in 31, the Sun locked everyone else down; McBride only got ten and shot 2-of-7 from 3. Glad I decided not to go to Target Center and instead went to see the watch party for Minnesota United ... whoops.
Look, I'm trying not to be too hard on these players. They have talent, that's obvious. But it's also obvious that for right now the WNBA is going to be ruled by two superteams (if not one; I would've liked the Lynx's chances against New York, but Las Vegas seems invincible) for the next several Years, and there's a bumper crop of college prospects the next two seasons, only some of which will be compelled to stay in college for the NIL money. But because they were not bad enough to miss out on the playoffs, they're in the dreaded middle. It looks as though Minnesota will pick seventh in the WNBA Draft, and even though I need to research this a lot more, this could very well be a six-player Draft. So they'll miss out on a true franchise player and have another Year stuck in mediocrity.
Meanwhile, I should talk more about the Looooooooooooooooons, but if I ruminate more about not one but two blown leads leading to two Losses (blowing a two-Goal lead and losing at the Galaxy Wednesday, then losing a 1-0 lead and losing to St. Louis at home in the driving rain last/Saturday night), and then remember I have a season ticket to this clown show, I might drive my head into the wall. If I have time next Week, I want to go back and tally up how many Games they've blown a lead, how many leads they've blown (I swear they've lost leads twice in at least two Matches), and how many Points they've dropped from winning positions, and I will just assume that no other MLS club is even close to those three fucking ridiculous categories.
In the meantime I'll just throw these guys in as a #-Infinity just to show them how mad I am. This bullshit is completely unacceptable. They are giving away a playoff spot they were once in, and if they somehow make the postseason, screening Weeks like this prove that they don't deserve it. I am such a goddamn fool for giving these fuck-ups money. And I get to see them next Saturday in a home tilt vs. San Jose. Maybe I'll get to see them blow yet another lead -- yippee!!!!!!!
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