Down with Goldy

Game Preview: Minnesota vs. Illinois

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:17:00 +0000

This afternoon for lunch we went to this really cool authentic Mexican deli-type place where you could order our tacos or burritos or whatever you wanted with any one of a whole bunch of different meat choices, and I noticed that among those choices were beef tripe, beef tongue, pork stomach, and beef head. Now, I really like trying new foods - not that long ago I had wild boar with escargot as an appetizer - and usually if there's a new type of meat (to me) on the menu I'll give it a shot. I've never had anything like those, and I figured I could handle tongue because I know a lot of people consider tongue to be quite tasty, so that's what I was going to have. Then I got to the counter and I ordered the adobo carnitas. I'm such a sissy.

I opened with that because I have very little reaction to the loss at Michigan State because as I said in my preview post I didn't really care because I expected them to lose and the game essentially meant nothing as far as their NCAA Tournament hopes since I knew there was no chance they could pull an upset. And also because I missed 90% of the game running around getting my car stuff figured out and then a torturous experience picking up dinner for the family at Zantigo that took nearly 40 minutes somehow. But now the real season begins. Now it's do or die time, starting with Saturday against Illinois.

Illinois is on a two-game losing skid after dropping a home game to Wisconsin and a roadie at Penn State, but are still in pretty good shape at 15-5 and 4-3 in conference thanks to big wins over Ohio State and Gonzaga and only the Penn State loss sitting in the "bad loss" column, even if it is understandable to lose a road conference game. They certainly are ahead of the Gophers in the conference pecking order, but they may need this game as badly as Minnesota does because their next game is against Michigan State, and if they don't beat the Gophers they may be looking at a 4-game losing streak and sub-500 league record.

And make no mistake, Illinois can absolutely win this game. If the Gophers' home losses to Iowa and Purdue don't tell you they can lose at any time, Illinois's wins at Maryland and Northwestern and neutral site victory of Richmond let you know the Illini don't shrivel up and die on the road. Both teams are extremely evenly matched which you'd realize if you subscribed to kenpom.com and looked them up, so this one is going to come down to execution and mistakes, but if you wanted to take one thing to look at and concentrate on to decide how this game was going to go down, I'd point you towards the Illini's three-point shooting. Actually the #1 deciding factor will probably be if Tubby decides to give a crap about this game or not, but the 3-point shooting thing is definitely #2.

The Gophers' issues with defending the three under Tubby Smith are as well known as they are perplexing, but as a refresher they allow opponents to shoot 35.8% from three, which ranks 218th in the nation - not good. Normally I would say that's ok against Illinois because they're not a particularly good shooting team, hitting just 32.9% on the year (ranks #222) and no real great shooters, but teams continually get more of their points from three against the Gophers than they normally would, simply because they're open more often.

Plus, Illinois does have a tendency to fall in love with the shot and they have just enough mediocre, high-volume shooters that they have a high likelihood of somebody getting hot, and sometimes thats all you need. Like in the Illini's win over Ohio State when Brandon Paul completely lost his mind and hit 8-10 from three (he's a 35% shooter this year and that includes that game) en route to 43 points and basically won that game for them. D.J. Richardson was 4-7 in their win over Gonzaga. Sam Maniscalco was 5-8 in their win over Maryland. And most of their losses have come when they shoot too many threes and nobody makes them: 7-25 vs. UNLV, 4-16 vs. Missouri, 5-21 vs. Purdue, 7-22 vs. Penn State, and 3-12 vs. Wisconsin.

So that's your real key here. Hope they shoot a lot of threes (given the Gophers' defense this is likely), miss a lot (less likely), and hope nobody gets hot (even less likely). I have, of course, not mentioned the Illini's best player, center Meyers Leonard, but that's because he's gonna do what he does. He's gonna go for 12-20 points and 6-10 rebounds and that's that. I also expect that, because he and Ralph are similar, finesse type players who both lack the ability to just take the other out of the game, those two will cancel each other out like last time.

Other than the 3-point thing the other big thing the Gophers need to do is force turnovers. Illinois still struggles with point guard (as they have since Chester Frazier graduated) and rely on an undersized shooting guard (Maniscalo) , a small forward (Paul), and a freshman (Tracy Abrams) to handle most of their ball-handling. Abrams playing time has really increased since conference play started and I'd assume he'll get most of the ball work (he he) on Saturday, but he can be a turnover machine at times and struggled against the Gophers in Champaign (5 TOs).

Pressure on the ball-handlers and shutting down the 3-pointer are your keys to the game. If they can continue with the attacking, aggressive, get-in-the-lane offense they've showcased the last 3 games they'll be able to score against Illinois, but if they let the Illini get off from 3 and play that shitty stand around crapfense they did against Iowa and Purdue Illinois will win this game. As Fred Durst once said, you gotta have faith.

Minnesota 62, Illinois 56.

Game Preview: Gophers vs. Spartans

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 05:39:00 +0000

This game is non-interesting in an interesting way, and I mean that because it's the only game left on the schedule where I don't really care if the Gophers lose. Obviously I hope they win, but going into East Lansing to play one of the better Spartan teams of the last few years is not a real great recipe for success and I harbor no illusions about their chances of winning (I'd put this around 1.2% - Ken Pomeroy says 11%). Every other game the rest of the year is either a must win (every home game besides Mich State and Ohio State), a great chance to steal one on the road (@Nebraska (may be a must win), @Northwestern, @Iowa), or a good opportunity to grab a real quality victory (@ Wisconsin, Ohio State, Michigan State). This is the only game left where a loss really doesn't represent any kind of negative hit or loss of a positive hit.

Draymond Green, Branden Dawson, and Keith Appling are all better than anybody the Gophers have. Michigan State ranks #8 in both offensive and defensive efficiency while the Gophers are outside the top 50 in both. Look at this link. Look at it. Green means good, red means bad, and neither means average. Do you see any red on there? No. It's like the United States in the 1800s after all the Indians had been wiped out or whatever happened. I don't know because I don't read books because I like to live life not read about it nerd, but I know that the Spartans rank higher than the Gophers in nearly every single metric you can think of. Especially couches set on fire.

I mean, I don't really want to oversell Michigan State here, but Draymond Green averages a double-double while still being in the top 10 in the Big 10 in assists. They go 8 deep (and I mean actually 8 guys not like Maverick or whatever) and even managed to get Austin Thornton to be a quality contributor (side note: this guy looks just like Bogart). I'm pretty sure Brandon Wood kind of sucks but he'd be the leading scorer on the Gophers. Sparty hasn't even come close to losing at home this year. The closest any team has managed to stick is Lehigh who lost by 9 (and I assume Sparty was all like meh for this game). They beat Florida State, who has since beat both Duke and UNC, by 16. They beat Indiana by 15 and both Iowa and Purdue by nearly 30. Yes 30. They're a force.

I was going to write a whole bunch more on this, but after I started this post we had to go car shopping because my piece of shit car has broken down 3 times in the last two weeks and now I'm the owner of a spoiler-less Honda Civic. Ballin'.

You jelly, brah?

Anyway, I can see the Gophs keeping this one semi-close and I don't think they'll get blown away like Nicole Eggert in that movie called Blown Away, but I don't think they ever seriously threaten either. I'd love to be wrong. Plus then I'd know what Dawger feels like all the time.

Michigan State 80, Minnesota 70.

Week in Review - 1/18/2012

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 04:26:00 +0000

So do you think we'll hear a little bit of talk about a rematch, revenge, redemption, etc. the next couple of weeks? Hey, at least David Tyree will probably get to be interviewed on TV again.

WHO WAS AWESOME

1. Joe Coleman. No, I'm not actually giving all the credit to Coleman for the 3-game winning streak, but it's easy to notice that the streak started when he was put in the lineup. Coleman has an aggressiveness and a fearless streak to him that's pretty unique on this team (although I think Andre Hollins has some of it too, but just doesn't have the skill level to pull it off just yet), and it seems to be rubbing off a bit, particularly on Austin Hollins, but on pretty much the entire back court - even Maverick, although I'm not sure if that's a good thing. I'm not sure if it was that more aggressive attitude or betting coaching by Tubby (who did, by the way, seem very engaged in the game for the first time in far too long), but when Northwestern went into that 1-3-1 I was ready for all kinds of collapse, but they handled it well. I'm not saying they carved it up like a Thanksgiving taco buffet, but they were definitely more aggressive going into the gaps than the last several hundred years (and seriously, it's not a "trap at half court" 1-3-1, so you don't need to treat it that way). Add in the defensive effort and this was one of the team's best games of the year. The latest bracketology is out on ESPN.com and they currently have the Gophers in as an 11 seed. I'm not sure they're there yet and there's plenty of work to do, but make no mistake, the Gophers are all set-up to disappoint. Prove me wrong. Please.

2. Timberwolves. I didn't even know I missed the Timberwolves. The wife and I watched the end of their big win against the Clippers, and when Kevin Love took that shot I put both arms in the air and when he hit it I turned to Mrs. W and said "Hell Yeah" or something similarly stupid, but the point isn't that I said something stupid, it's that I said anything at all (plus that arms in the air thing). When is the last time I reacted to anything the T-Wolves did with anything other than laughter or indifference? I have no idea. I can't even remember the last time I got irritated. Hell I can't really even remember the last time I watched an entire game and I've watched all or nearly all of three or four this year already. I hate to jump on the Rubio bandwagon and give all the credit to one guy, but he makes them fun to watch, even in a loss, and he's made them a much better team than last year. Even if the upside is an 8 seed an an early exit (and that might be pushing it), they're relevant, they're talked about, and they're entertaining. What more could you ask for after the hell that team has been?

3. Missouri Tigers. After Saturday's win over Baylor I have now narrowed my possible National Champ pick to Kentucky or Missouri (Ohio State and Baylor are my other 2 Final Four picks right now) because that win answered every possible question I could have about the Tigers. And really there weren't many questions, just two: could they win against a tough team on the road (only road wins this year are Iowa State and Old Dominion with neutral court wins over Illinois, Notre Dame, and Cal) and how would they handle a team that could match there athleticism but with more size like Baylor (Ratliffe is Mizzou's only contributor over 6-6). Just an awesome team. And I'm trying to think of anybody else, but Phil Pressey has to be the best point guard in the country right? I know you can get into the scoring point vs. pure point and Pressey probably isn't as good in either category as guys like Ashton Gibbs (scorer) or Kendall Marshall (pure), but combine the two and add in his elite level defense and I think he's gotta be the guy.

4. Florida State. Wow. So after a last second three knocked off Duke in Cameron on Saturday, Florida State's last four games are the win at Duke, a win over Maryland, a win over North Carolina, and a win on the road at Va Tech. All four impressive in their own way, but the win at Duke and the thrashing they gave UNC (remember they won 90-57) are two of the more impressive wins by anybody this year (although I'd give the nod to the Mizzou win referenced above). What's even better for the Noles is that they've always been a great defensive squad (top 5 in defensive efficiency the last 3 years), but in their last few games the offense has shown up. 90 points vs. UNC? 84 vs. Maryland? 75 vs. Duke? In all three cases that's a top 2 score against, put up by what was supposed to be a pretty crappy offense. And since I don't really watch many FSU games I can't really pin it down, but it seems like a different Seminole is stepping up offensively in each game. With that defense and there pretty good guards the Seminoles have March sleeper written all over them. With a sharpie. One of those cool glittery ones.

5. Victor Cruz. Yes, El Juegito finally gets a mention. See, I'm a huge Hakeem Nicks fan, so I could easily convince myself that everything Cruz did was fluky. Like when he burst onto the scene in Week 3 with 2 long touchdowns he only had one other catch and so obviously that was just a fluky lucky day. Then after an 8 catch, 161 yard day he followed it up with a 2 for 12 day, so yeah, no worries, clearly just a fluke. Then, and I'm just realizing this right now by looking at his game log, Cruz went the final 10 games of the season with at least five catches 9 times and at least 90 yards seven times with a 5-44 game in week 16 his only clunker. He ended up 5th amongst wideouts in receptions this year and third in yards, not to mention tied for fourth in touchdowns. Crazy. And after his 10 catch, 152 yard game this weekend against 49ers where he was basically their only offensive weapon I'm finally ready to admit that he's pretty damn good. He's no Hakeem Nicks, but he's a lot better than I've given him credit for.

WHO SUCKED

1. Billy Cundiff. So let's get this straight - your defense manages to keep one of the best offensive teams in the league under control, your much maligned QB keeps you in the game and then, miraculously, manages to drive your team all the way down the field and into chip shot field goal range to tie the game and you shank it worse than Dobby got shanked? It was practically an extra point and I think Cundiff missed it further to the left than how far away the spot he kicked from was. But, I guess that's what happens when you trust a kicker from the Missouri Valley Conference, because everyone knows that other than UNI's upset of Kansas a couple of years ago the MVC has never produced anything that didn't suck. Plus this guy was Dawger's kicker on his fantasy team, so between the curse of Dawger (which is a real thing, just ask Darren McFadden, Josh Freeman, Rodney Williams last year, or basically any Twin) and the Drake thing this guy was pretty much screwed.

2. UCONN Huskies. Add the Huskies to the list of team's in free fall. The warning signs were there after UCONN lost to both Seton Hall and Rutgers earlier in the month, but since Ryan Boatright was shut down by the NCAA they beat Notre Dame, but have now lost their last two - a home game vs. Cincy and on the road at Tennessee who is terrible. What's funny is Boatright, who I desperately wanted to be a Gopher, plays the fourth most minutes on the team while the two starting guards, Jeremy Lamb and Shabazz Napier, play the most minutes. So basically this team is three guards + Andre Drummond and that's it (actually the rest of their guys would beat the Gophers, but you get my point). So what do you get if you take something with four legs and chop one off? A Def Leppard drummer, the guy who killed Indiana Jones's wife, or a really funny looking dog, that's what.

3. New York Knicks. Wow, what a shocker that Knicks are 6-9. See, getting two superstars (or more) on one team is definitely a good way to build a winner in a hurry, but you can't just slap any superstars together or you end up with a broccoli and poop sandwich. Lebron and Wade don't necessarily make sense, but Bosh does with either and those two are so good and so special it works. If Deron Williams and Dwight Howard end up together it makes sense, and if both end up with Nowitzki it makes even more sense. Outside of the ball-hogging, bitching, and raping Kobe and Shaq made a ton of sense. Pierce, Allen, and KG, the first of the superteams, made sense. But Amare and Carmelo? No. Chris Paul and Amare, yes. But not this. Two guys who need the ball at all times and are terrible defenders who also take up almost all your cap room and reduce you to using Landry Fields and Toney Douglas as your back court. I thought the Tyson Chandler signing was genius, but not even he can save this defensive wasteland. God the Knicks are just worthless. The only city in America who puts NBA as their #1 sport and this is the crap they get. It would be sad if so many New Yorkers weren't abrasive A-holes. Or at least that's what TV has led me to believe.

4. Michigan Wolverines. Thanks a lot, assholes. So all the talk about how the Big 10 is the best conference in the land and how it's not only good it's deep and that's why things like Indiana losing to the Gophers and Illinois losing to Penn State and Nebraska beating Indiana happen, and then one of the supposed better teams in the conference has a rare chance to prove how good they are in mid-season and the Wolverines lay and egg and lose to Arkansas, a bottom third SEC team with no chance at an NCAA bid. Actually, I was starting to kind of believe the hype so really this just did me a huge favor by reminding me that outside of Ohio State and Michigan State the big 10 always sucks in the tournament so now maybe I can win the bracket pool instead of tearing my stupid bracket up by 6pm Thursday night for the 10th straight year.

5. Northwestern Wildcats. Pardon my french, but what the deuce was that? I can't even decide the most perplexing part between John Shurna's suddenly inability to even come close to hitting a free throw, Luka Mirkovich only playing 10 minutes and most of it in garbage time, or why Dawger was terrified of Dave Sobolewski (as he wrote in the comments of my game preview) when they guy is some kind of cross between a ball boy and a lesbian with a game more on par with Maverick Ahanmisi than somebody anyone needs to be afraid of. Give the Gopher defense plenty of credit because they did a great job, particularly in taking Drew Crawford basically completely out of the game, but Northwestern surely didn't do themselves any favors. Not to mention that now gives them four losses in their last five games, and although they can't quite be counted out of getting their first ever NCAA bid, it's not looking super duper likely at this point.

Of course, all this pales in comparison to the real story of the game, which was that I was selected to do that thing where you pick between the four kinds of lotteries and then whichever one you pick has a certain amount of Gopher 5 tickets behind it and then you win them and stuff. So they come get me at half-time right after the alumni came out there for what I swear was the 4th time this year, and bring me over down by the baseline where we sit in the second row and they tell me we're going up on the floor at the first TV timeout of the half, which is the first clock stoppage under 16 minutes. Ok, fine.

Then, after explaining the bit, they bring over this hideous orange Gopher 5 shirt and tell me that I have to wear this because the sponsor is there and well, that's the bit. Ok, fine. So I look at it and it's a Large, which usually either means it will fit fine or be way too tight, depending on the brand. Of course, this doesn't stop somebody from behind me from yelling "better get that guy a double-XL!" and when I turn around it's some old dude who had to have been at least 90, and he's giving me this big smile and so I laugh and I'm like, "good one, old dude." So whatever, I put it on and it's super tight but I'll live.

I was at the game with Bear and Snake and they kept telling me I had to shtick it up and be funny and they kept saying that when it was my turn to talk I needed to say something like "I'll take the scratch-offs" which was ok I thought but I couldn't think of anything else until right before they called me up there I had an inspiration. So when it was my turn and they're like, "what's your choice?", I said, "In honor of my personal hero, Luka Mirkovich, I select Northstar Cash" and then I looked over and he was looking around so he definitely heard his name. It was awesome.

Look how loved this guy is. And now he knows for sure who his #1 fan is.

Preview: Gophers vs. Northwestern

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 04:52:00 +0000

First, drop whatever you're doing unless you're holding a baby or working with plutonium (1.21 JIGGAWATTS!!! - side note: I bet that's Jay-Z's favorite unit of measurement) and go here to read four awesome Gopher fans be realists. Matt from Fringe Bowl Team, FrothyGopher aka G'Swan from Still Got Hope (ha ha suck it TRE), and myself were invited by the From the Barn dudes to have a virtual roundtable type discussion about the Gopher hoop team. The results were predictably cynical, yet moody. Also predictable? It was more entertaining than anything I've ever written, so stop being such a douchebaby and go read it.

Now, onto the business on the table, and that's Sunday's game against Northwestern, and as depressing as it is to talk about this only 7 games into the Big Ten schedule, this is a must win game. Yes, it's a must win game. Of course, since Northwestern has followed the Gophers' plan of not beating, nor scheduling games against, any quality opponents and then starting the B10 season at 2-4, it's close to a must win game for the Wildcats as well (although in their defense the Iowa and Purdue losses by the Gophers are far worse than anything Northwestern has done so far). Since these two teams desperately need this one, you can expect an intense, well-played game with crisp execution and a maximum effort and focus on every possession.

I'm just kidding. These two programs are the most likely in the conference to play like dickheads in a big game and are equally likely to rise up and crush some poor fools (Minny over Indy, NW over Mich State) so basically anything could happen in this game and it wouldn't surprise me. But what could we see? Let's look. Join me on a magical adventure. Levar Burton is here too.

The first thing I have to tell you is I really don't know much about the Wildcats this year. Every time I sit down to watch one of their games it's at their place where that weird ass purple court (where the entire area betwixt the paint and 3-pt line is this weird purple but not quite a solid purple) eye rapes me and I can't really look at if for more than a few minutes at a time. So I'm only going to discuss three players who I know quite well and ignore guys like Dave Sobolewski and David Curletti and Alex Marcotullio because I have no idea who they are, even though Sobolewski spent a week on my fantasy squad.

First up are Drew Crawford and John Shurna, and honestly they're like, the only two who actually matter because they score over half Northwestern's points and are top 3 in everything else. They can both do basically anything and everything. Crawford does it in a smooth, suave, athletic way and is kind of a poor man's Ray Allen without an immortal jumper and Shurna does it in the nerdiest way ever that is reminiscent of the weird kid who was always at the park shooting at those chain nets and double rims with his rubber ball who never had an ounce of teaching but still managed to be pretty decent. There's no reason the Gophers shouldn't be able to shut down Shurna but let's be honest you could say that about every game he's played this year. the guy is just a nerdtastic machine who makes Kevin Coble look like Brad Pitt. But he gets it done. And Crawford is a straight up stud.

Normally if there's a team who relies on two dudes this much I'd say just do everything you possibly can to stop those two but I assume Northwestern has a shit ton of white dudes who can shoot based on some of those names and since the Gophers have little to no idea how to defend the three-pointer that would probably be a bad idea. Also Northwestern has that zone which sometimes gives the gophers fits and I'd totally go into it but there's something I really want to talk about and I can't think about anything else so let's just go: Luka vs. Ralph.

Luka Mirkovich is the least mobile person I've ever seen. His defense is very similar to this lamp I'm sitting next to. His best offensive move is somehow using his fat slowness to trick the guy guarding him into thinking he's not actually moving and then suddenly make a lay-up. If he and Stephen Hawking had a good ole fashioned athletic face-off the line would be Luka -120. If Ralph and Luka played one-on-one there is no good reason Ralph shouldn't win 11-1. And yet.

This what I want to see and it's my own fault for caring about Ralph so much when I've metaphorically fallen down the stairs so many times because of him, and yet I'm back for more like whatever Charlie Sheen's wife's name was. Please Ralph. I shouldn't even give you another chance but this is it. Line drawn in the sand. Must win game. At home. Crowd wants to get behind you. Going up against a tree with glasses. Please Ralph. Give it to me. Give it to me how I like it. Stop being such an asshole. This is your time.

Also I have no idea why I wrote that Levar Burton thing earlier. I'm not sure that made much sense. But really, not much about this post made sense. I'm very tired and you're annoying me.

Gophers 66, Wildcats 65.

Monday Musings

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 03:36:00 +0000

So dumb. I actually had a Week in Review about 90% done and all typed up. I saved it before bed last night with the intent of finishing it off this morning, except when I went there it was gone. Completely gone. So I'm just going to do this thing instead where I type stuff that you end up reading for some reason.

- Good win for the Gophers Sunday winning in Penn State. It's not so much a great win because Penn State is any good (spoiler: they aren't), but more because losing at PSU right after rescuing their season would be exactly the kind of thing the Gophers would do. Also I should say that when I say the Gophers "rescued" their season after beating Indiana all I mean by that is they shifted the season from a epic flameout to what will probably end up being a disappointing season, but they still have a chance to do something at least. So yeah, I'm not exactly throwing a party just yet but at least they managed to beat Penn State. God I was so convinced they were going to lose. Thank god I'm stupid.

Now the Gophers are 2-4 in Big 10 play, and at an absolute minimum they're going to need to get to 9 wins to even get within sniffing distance of an NCAA bid, especially because Virginia Tech - their one hope for a quality out of conference win - keeps sucking. With 12 games to go that means they need to win at least seven more. Here are the easy wins left on the schedule: Nebraska at home. That's it. Everything else is going to at least be a little tough; HOME: Northwestern, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan State, Ohio State, Indiana, and Nebraska. AWAY: Michigan State, Iowa, Nebraska, Northwestern, and Wisconsin. Yikes. They're gonna be favored in what, 3 games? Maybe four? It's long ass road to those 9 wins, and I'm not even sure 9 would get there. Looking like another long year. I need a vacation.

- Elsewhere in a rare move the Twins made that I actually like they signed reliever Joel Zumaya to a one year deal for $800k (with incentives that can double that), but it's a non-guaranteed deal so if his elbow (which you may remember exploded in a game against the Twins) isn't all the way back they can just cut him easy peasy lemon squeezy. Good deal.

He's been hurt a lot since bursting on the scene in his rookie year of 2006 - he hasn't thrown more than 39 innings in a season since then - but if he can somehow stay healthy he could end up being a real bargain. Zumaya has always been a flamethrower (his average fastball for his career has been 98.5 mph, topping at an average of 99 his last two years and he's struck out a batter an inning for his career) and like many of that ilk he's struggled with his control. 2010, however, was different. Although he was still throwing hard and still striking people out he also had gotten the wildness under control, slicing his walk rate basically in half and was developing into a dominant reliever pre-injury. Big fan of the signing.

- Sticking with baseball, why the hell would you trade a 23-year old pitcher who already has one of the best fastballs in the league and has already proven himself to be a #2 type pitcher and if he ever fully developed a second pitch he could end up a full on ace. I know Jesus Montero is thought to be one of the best hitting prospects in baseball and he definitely hit well when he was up with the Yankees last season but it was just 69 plate appearances and how is that all the Mariners got for Michael Pineda?

If Seattle was dead set on trading Pineda and his 171 high quality innings Montero would have been a nice centerpiece to the deal, but there should have been at least a couple more prospects thrown in. Now Seattle has a nice middle of the order future with Dustin Ackley, Montero, and Justin Smoak but they're pitching is suddenly pretty thin again behind Felix. And the Yankee rotation just went from crazy shaky to Sabathia, Pineda, Hiroki Kuroda (who they signed like, 3 minutes after making this trade), Ivan Nova (who finished ahead of Pineda in the ROY voting last year), and their choice of Phil Hughes, Freddy Garcia, or A.J. Burnett. You know the worst part? And of those three pitchers the Yankees get to choose from as their #5 would be the Twins' ace. I'm going to go lick a car battery now.

- No matter how disappointing the Gophers' hoops season might be to you at least it's not as bad as what's going on with Pitt. The Panthers have been dominant in their own way over the last several seasons and were expecting more of the same this year, starting the year ranked #11, but things haven't exactly gone according to plan. An 0-3 week with a 20 point home loss to Rutgers leaves Pitt in dead last in the Big East at 0-6 and currently riding a 7-game losing streak that started with a home loss to Wagner. Wagner! There's no doubt the Gophers' season has been a bit of a disappointment but it's nothing like what Pitt fans are going through. This year Pitt is hands down the most disappointing team in the NCAA and it isn't remotely close. They're just like The Phantom Menace.

- What's more sweeter than a Packer season ending early? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Suck it, Packers.

Gophers vs. Hoosiers Live Blog

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 04:36:00 +0000

I'm not exactly certain why, but I'm going to live blog this game. I'm a bit nervous because I fully expect that three-eighths of my body will be covered in vomit by the end of this and let's face it I'm not 28 anymore so that's not cool, but I'm going to do it anyway. I had a work sponsored happy hour earlier and am now armed with five Coors Light silos and a giant vat of Mrs. W's delicious vinegar dill cucumbers so I'm feeling confident. Confident I'll be done with this post in less than an hour, but I'm now committed so let's see I guess.

20:00 - Ahanmisi not in the starting lineup tonight. It's like we've already won.

20:00 - I love how everyone is so confused about Tubby being 0-4 in conference and how it's a miracle. It's not a miracle when you don't care. It's like, it's not a miracle that I have no Wild pennants in my house. It's just that hockey is for idiots and I don't give a crap. Kind of like how I imagine Tubby feels about this job.

19:38 - Welch's slow feet commit a foul. He's now officially slower than small white dudes.

19:34 - Rodney bringing the aggressive getting his own board off a miss and converting it into a 3-point play. I'm feeling like it might be a Rodney night. Not sure if Indiana really has anybody outside Oladipo who can handle him.

18:48 - Indiana attacking the paint early. What a weird concept. Speaking of such, what percentage of Mbakwe's shot attempts were off of offensive rebounds? Gotta be like 80, no?

18:16 - 8 seconds on the shot clock and the Gophers hadn't crossed the 3-point line yet. Austy Hollins takes it to the rack and gets a lay-up. MORE OF THIS MORE EARLIER PLZ!

17:40 - Coleman gets it in the paint and makes the lay-up. 7-4 Gophers. What's will all this paint action? I haven't seen anything like this since Bear and I were firing paintball guns out our windows at each other at 2am back in high school. Ok, they were staple guns, but same thing.

16:58 - Zeller finds himself in a breakaway situation and Ralph chases him down and gives him a good hard, clean foul to prevent the lay-in. The exact kind of foul he needed to throw Lewis Jackson's way against Purdue. I don't know if I should be more frustrated or encouraged. Maybe this is like when Zack learns he's native american and half-asses his assignment and the professor is all like "dude" and then he goes to talk to Chief Henry and gets all serious and is all like "I'm running Zack." Now that I look at it, I'm not really sure how that relates but Saved by the Bell references are always a hit.

15:38 - Ralph scores in the paint to make it 11-8 Gophers. Yes, in the paint. I assume he got lost.

15:15 - #1 for Indiana isn't Jordan Hulls is it? Cuz #1 is freaking terrible.

14:35 - Zellar lay-up, Ralph grabs it to throw it in to the guard guy, half-ass lobs it without paying any attention and Zeller steals it and scores again. 12-11 Indiana. Time-out Gophers. Uh oh, Rexy, I don't think this one has the distance.

13:17 - I should mention I'm watching this on tape delay on account of my stupid kids, and it's 9:02 right now and my phone just buzzed with a text. I'm too scared to check it, seeing as this is about the time the game would have ended. I know, I'm stupid. But what if?

12:33 - Will Sheehey checks in. I had no idea he was white. Kind of a Lew Ford moment for me here.

12:12 - Joe Coleman to the rack. Blocked by Zellar, but at least he's got the stones to take it inside. I dislike an awful lot about Coleman's game, but for a freshman there is a ton I like. I can't wait to watch him not develop at all over the next 3+ years and/or transfer after year two.

11:44 - Christian Watford goes down with an apparent ankle injury. Not to sound like a callous dick, but I hope he's out for the game. Just the game, nothing serious or anything, just maybe take the night off. You've had a good year, you deserve some rest. Maybe bring a cheerleader or team booster back with you. Crack open a nice bottle of wine and maybe eat some grapes or whatever. Have a nice relaxing evening.

10:36 - Holy fuck. Zellar just dream shaked Ralph resulting in an uncontested hammer dunk and I'm not sure Ralph's figured out where the ball is yet. Wow. Seriously that's gonna be a sportscenter thingy. Which means the Gophers will show up on the plays of the day for the second time this year. Huzzah!

9:45 - Chip for 3 (Gophers 19, Indiana 18). guess how much room he had and how much time he took to take the shot: wrong. The answer is zero.

9:02 - Ahanmisi to the rack for a lay-up. Where the shit was all this against Iowa and Purdue? I swear to god if they win this game I'm going to be more pissed than happy.

8:02 - Wide open three for Indiana and he goes clang city. Got to assume those will fall eventually. Just like the 3 Maverick just hit to open up a 26-20 lead for the Gophers. Then Verdell Jones missed an open 8-foot jumper. And just now as I'm typing Chip hits another three. It's 29-20. I hate this team for what they do to me. I hate them so much. I should be in bed right now.

7:04 - I forgot to pause it when I went upstairs to get a beer and it's 29-23 now. That is all.

6:34 - Couple more text messages trickling in. Perhaps this one is closer than I thought in the end. No chance Gophers can win. None. God I hope I'm wrong I think. I'm so tempted to read them. What if they aren't even about basketball? Maybe it's some hot chick texting me pictures of her boobs and I'm ignoring it? I think I'll resist for now, but it's close.

6:04 - Fucking awful charge call. And another text comes in. Interesting.

5:21 - Indiana continues to clang open threes like a wrestling team an open gym. If that continues and never mind because Jordan Hulls (who is indeed #1) just buried a 25 footer in Chip's face. Nine point lead now down to one. Waaah waah.

4:24 - Joe Coleman either lost an eye or a contact. I'd write more but I was trying to fast-forward to half-time and this made me stop so I'm kind of annoyed.

3:52 - Fast forwarded to far. Indiana now winning, mainly because the Hoosiers switched to a zone and the Gophers are all like oh my god I'm so confused until just now when Austy hits a 3 to give them back the lead so that was good.

3:01 - Rodney dunk. Nice to see you again, sir.

1:49 - Watford's back and just missed a really stupid shot. Keep it up.

0:12 - Oto, while the team has the shot clock off and is playing for one shot, puts up a three with 12 seconds left and airballs it. Yikes. There is so much wrong about that play I'd actually be a little bit stunned if he gets off the bench in the second half.

0:00 - Gophers lead 37-34 and my phone is absolutely blowing up (and I'm still ignoring it). This is either going to be a heartbreaking loss or a heartbreaking win, if you know what I mean. And if you don't you're stupid.

0:00 - Am I drunk or is that Gary Williams as part of the Big 10 Network half-time show? Gary Williams? The Maryland guy? What the hell? That doesn't even remotely make sense. Maybe they should pull in John Chaney and Rollie Mossimino are available.

19:18 - Well this will shock you, but Julian Welch missed another lay-up (he did get fouled but it was one of those sissy fouls where you're supposed to make the shot). If you take Welch and a 3rd grader and have them do a lay-up contest who wins? Welch of course, but it's probably a little too close.

18:32 - Zeller gets it on the block against Sampson and for some reason goes for the fade-away jump hook instead of doing anything remotely aggressive - and misses. Welch takes it to the rack and makes it on the other end and Gophers now lead 43-34. The amount of rim attacking in this game has now convinced me that Tubby (well, probably whichever assistant he gets to do the actual gameplanning) reads this blog. I'm definitely the only one who had that idea ever.

17:00 - Rodney misses a weird off-balance lay-up kind of thing badly and scarily, but he took it to the rim from the top of the key. This is definitely a concerted effort by the Gophers to get to the rack. Nicely done. I try to get to the rack as often as possible as well.

16:42 - Verdell Jones just hit all backboard on a wide open 3-point attempt. That kind of night so far for Indiana. This is going to be crushing when the Gophers lose.

16:32 - Will Sheehey has a little bit of Punto to 'em.

15:51 - The announcers point out that Jordan Hulls hasn't played this half and wonder what his status is. I'll tell you his status - he sucks. Been a long time since I've been this unimpressed by somebody who was supposed to be awesome. Jordan Hulls, the Dave Matthews of Indiana basketball.

14:30 - Zeller dream shakes Ralph again, less effectively but still makes the shot, then Oladipo steals the inbounds pass and gets fouled. Misses both free throws. I can't decide if this is an omen that it's the Gophers night or a sign that they're falling apart.

14:01 - Wow, Austin Hollins is having a hell of a game after taking it right at Zeller and making the lay-up to make it a 47-40 Gopher lead. Must be rough for Lionel to have to watch his kid sit on the bench while his nephew lights it up. And he just hit a real nice pull-up J to make it a NINE point Gopher lead. I'm starting to think unthinkable things. Can't wait to have my heart ripped out.

12:25 - Rodney lay-up. 51-40 Gophers. I don't know who this team is that I'm watching. All they do is attack the rim/paint. It's a whole different team.

11:50 - Hey there's Hulls! Watford just missed a jumper off a Hulls' pass. Pretty sure it was Hulls fault.

10:54 - Coleman drives and draws the help in the paint so even thought he missed the shot nobody was there to block out Rodney for an easy tip in. Gophers 53-45 (Indiana scored while I was typing). I'm going to be honest here, if the Gophers lose this it's going to break my heart even though I thought they already broke it. They're playing exactly how I want them to play (on offense) and Indiana is missing shots. This has to be it. It has to be.

9:22 - Moving pick called on Indiana (John Thompson would be so proud). I happened while Hulls had the ball. Pretty sure he fucked up and Watford was trying to fix it when he got called for the foul.

9:00 - Williams with a lay-up (again) and a made free throw for kicks. They are just slaughtering Indiana in the paint which is exactly what they should do since Zeller is their only inside presence of note. I have no idea who this team is. It's like that movie where who you think somebody is isn't because they're someone else. The Hot Chick.

8:43 - Look at these cucumbers. You want these. If you tasted these you would punch your wife or boyfriend in the face for not making them:

8:18 - Eliason just hit a 16-footer to make it 58-51 Gophers. This was after like four straight Indiana points. I repeat: Eliason just hit a 16-foot jump shot. Like, he made it. This is not the Hoosiers night. Until it is, of course.

8:00 - Jordan Hulls just missed a three. He's 90% of the reason they're losing. He's like a white Russ Archambeau who plays the whole game. Also Julian Welch is really, really good when he gets in the lane not counting those times when he blew the game. You know how Ralph is really a fancy pants nancy boy perimeter player in a 7-footer's body? I think Welch is the opposite. If they could swap bodies like Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan in that movie or whoever else in those 4000 other movies based on that same basic premise I think everybody would be happy. Plus they'd get to sleep with each other's girlfriends and wouldn't really be cheating.

6:10 - Jordan Hulls just tried to take a dive on a lay-up to draw the charge, but it wasn't called and the gopher guy who I think was Chip missed the lay-up but because Hulls was on the floor the Gophers got the offensive rebound and scored. Hulls, single-handedly ruining the Hoosiers' season.

4:11 - Trade Oto.

3:22 - Sampson misses a hook shot, naturally (did you notice that Sampson is almost an acronym for tampon?) but Coleman gets not one but two shots at a tip-in and makes the second to put the Gophers up 66-59. They're up 7 with 3 minutes to go. I'm semi-hyperventilating.

3:11 - Rodney just fouled out. So that's pretty shitty. I've always said this whole "foul limit" thing was pretty fascist.

2:42 - Not to hammer this point home too much like I was Sid Hartman or jesus's dad, but I have no idea what team I'm watching tonight. Welch misses a lay-up (naturally) and Osenieks, filling in for Godney, gets not one but two chances at a tip-in, making the second one. It's like they somehow get how close the season is to slipping away. Maybe should've figured that out a game (or two) earlier, but this is the team I had been expecting to see this year.

Please don't blow this.

2:19 - Welch misses another lay-up which, and I'm not joking, makes four in the second half alone. Serioulsy. Remember that joke about how he'd beat third grader in a lay-up contest? Not so sure he wins anymore. This is an epidemic. If they lose this that will make three games he's blown this year. He's like the Jenna Jameson of basketball. Because of the blows thing. Get it? Whatever shut up. I'm semi-drunk and a little bit delirious.

1:42 - Sampson knocks down a 17 footer to make it 70-62 Gophers. They can't blow this, right? Right?

1:27 - Hulls misses a three. What an anchor. Terrance Simmons like.

0:50 - Mav misses a free throw but Colmean ends up grabbing the board. Probably Hulls' fault.

0:40 - Gophers turn it over on the inbounds play giving Indiana a lay-up and the foul. This is the kind of shit I don't need. Gophers up 71-68.

0:39 - Indiana fouls and the announcers are debating whether they should have, which is stupid because if you don't foul you might not get the ball back until there are only 4 seconds left in the game. Announcers are all dumb. All of them. Might as well just let women do it.

0:30 - Coleman hits both FTs (I love you) then Indiana hits a three (not Jordan Hulls) to cut it to 73-71. Blood pressure rising.

0:29 - Hulls fouls Coleman who makes both free throws. That's on you, Hullsy.

0:17 - Zeller goes for the lay-up and Hollins's's fouls him. What. The. Fuck. Once he gets inside the three-point line just let him go. Good god. Talk to Uncle Lionel one of these days about making smart plays.

0:02 - Hollins makes two, Hulls passes to the wrong guy who misses, and Welch is at the line for two. Make one and we're looking at ball game and a very serious how the hell did that happen situation. Like when Pam Beasley got boobs all of a sudden.

0:01 - Did that mother fucker miss both? Of course he did. Jesus H christ Julian Welch makes Lebron look like Larry Bird with this clutch shit. He needs to be nowhere near the court in the last 3 minutes of any close game.

0:00 - Gophers win, . Perfect storm my friends. Gophers finally learned they need to attack the basket the same night Indiana stopped making jump shots. Not taking anything away from it, it was a great win for the home town team and a great feather in their cap, but I don't think we can start talking NCAA Tournament yet because they dug themselves such a huge hole, but wow. Just wow. I didn't remotely see this coming. If they play like this the rest of the way they can win a ton of games. Don't forget Indiana beat both Kentucky and Ohio State in this same building. I think I'll have more thoughts later or next week or tomorrow or something, need some time to fully process this. I can't remember being this stunned. They led this game pretty much wire-to-wire. Obviously they need to do a whole hell of a lot more, but this win saved the season.

I'm gonna go to bed. Joe Coleman is my hero.

Also suck it Sidler.

Gophers vs. Hoosiers Preview

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 03:12:00 +0000

So the 0-4 Gophers head to Bloomington to take on the 3-1, and 8th ranked, Indiana Hoosiers. This, my friends, is not going to be pretty. Of course, it's nearly impossible to look at these two teams without comparing the coaches since both Tubby Smith and Tom Crean came on at nearly the same time, encumbered with the hopes and dreams of their respective fan bases that they could turn around struggling programs. Tubby got a nice head start with a very stellar first recruiting class (and a year advantage), but while his players have either left or never developed to their full potential, Crean's kids struggled for a couple of years but have really started to come together this season with the addition of Cody Zeller, one of the best recruits ever signed by the Hoosiers. At present, the Gophers are struggling through a second straight lost season (barring a miracle turnaround), while the Hoosiers have turned into one of the better teams in the country with wins over the #1 and #2 ranked teams this season. Kill me now.

There are about a million reasons why this is going to be a blowout, but all you really need to know is that the Hoosiers are the #1 three-point shooting team in the country at 47.6%, and the Gophers rank 287th defensively against the three, allowing 35.7% shooting this year. About the only hope they have is that Indiana doesn't shoot a high volume of threes normally, but I have a feeling that's going to change on Thursday. With Christian Watford, Jordan Hulls, Derek Elston all shooting 50% or better and Will Sheehey checking in at 44% with Verdell Jones at 35% it's going to be raining threes all game long (note: Sheehey has been hurt and I have no idea if he's going to be back and I refuse to look it up because it really doesn't matter - he wasn't there for the wins over Ohio State or Michigan either).

Of course, the natural tendency then would be to game plan to stop the three-pointer, but since Tubby couldn't seem to make it happen against Purdue or Iowa (whether the fault lies with him or the players' execution of said game plan) I don't exactly trust they'll pull it off against Indiana. And how could you? The only way would be to trust Ralph/Eliason/Ingram to handle Zeller one-on-one and there is zero chance that will happen. The only team he's remotely struggled against this year was Michigan State, and they have like 100 big athletic guys to throw at him where the Gophers have approximately zero. You could say this is a great opportunity for Ralph Sampson to step up and help this team in his senior season, but then you'd be an idiot or some kind of weird Rip Van Winkle guy who just woke up and missed this entire season of Gopher basketball and in that case I would envy you.

Oh, and Indiana is also pretty good defensively, particularly at forcing turnovers. Which is the Gophers' biggest offensive weakness, at least among things that are measurable because as far as I know there is no stat for how often four offensive players stand around doing nothing while one guy dribbles the ball or how many times a shot is taken with under 5 seconds on the shot clock after the ball fails to cross the three point line during a possession.

Seriously, this is going to be a slaughter.

Indiana 90, Minnesota 64.

Gophers something something

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 03:32:00 +0000

This is where I said I'd write something, huh? Well I don't know, I'm not particularly feeling up to it but I'll give it a go as long as I'm watching this college football championship thingy anyway. I will preface this by saying I brought Wonderbaby^TM to the game, and although she was very well behaved (and even made it up on the scoreboard with uncle Snacks) I still had to keep her entertained from time to time so I did miss some plays here and there - and thank god for that. She also disappointed me by continuously telling me "I want to high five Goldy the Gopher" but that's not relevant right now.

So were do we start? How about with the defense, which was the absolute biggest problem with that shellacking Purdue put on the Gophers at home (AT HOME!). Yes, the same Purdue team that just lost 65-45 at Penn State just beat the Gophers 79-66 at Williams Arena in a game that wasn't remotely that close. I don't even know how to explain just how sad that is, but it was basically a complete defensive breakdown. The problems defending the three-pointer have been a running narrative of Gopher basketball since Tubby arrived so I'm not going to rehash that here except to say yeah, some of those threes were awfully tough shots (deep, quick trigger, etc.) but they were still made on the Gophers defense so you can't excuse it. Even worse, however, was the complete inability to stop penetration by Lewis Jackson.

Now, I do get that somebody that little doesn't make it in the Big 10 without being lightning quick and being able to handle himself in the paint so it's not surprising the Gopher guards struggled to stay in front of him, but I didn't figure he'd get to the paint every single time he felt like it. And what really bothered me was where the hell was the interior help? Lew Jack is 5-9 and even though he's one of my favorites in the Big 10 amongst opposing players even I can recognize there is no way in hell he 20 points on 8-11 shooting because he's a FUCKING TERRIBLE SHOOTER. Every time he got by the guard somebody needed to get in his way and either force him to shoot a pull-up or dish it somewhere else, you can't let him keep getting lay-ups because even girls can make lay-ups. At the very least if he's going to keep going at the rim somebody needs to put him on his ass at least once. Not maliciously, not flagrantly, and not by making a dirty play or anything but a good ole-fashioned hard foul. He's like 140 lbs. he's going to go flying if you just put a body into him hard. If only the Gophers had a 7-foot senior who could make such a play.

Yeah, that's right. Ralph Sampson may have just played his most worthless game ever. Not only was he invisible on defense to the point where a god damn child sized player was making lay-up after lay-up in his paint on his home court, but he was disinterested on the offensive end as well. He took three shots. Three god damn shots. He grabbed all of three rebounds. He was so worthless Tubby only played him 13 minutes which now qualifies as the only good call Tubby's made all year. It just baffles me. Your senior year, a game where you absolutely need a win or your last season in college will almost certainly go down as a failure, and a home game in front of a crowd that knows how badly this win is needed and would readily jump up behind you and you basically don't even leave the locker room. He gave the team absolutely nothing on either end.

Which brings us to this team's offensive issues, and despite a decent offensive effort against the Boilers this team is still in a lot of trouble. Basically it boils down to that they just aren't skilled enough. Rodney Williams is really the only one on this team with any kind of discernible skill, and it's "jumping." The rest of the team is basically interchangeable, and not in the "everybody is good and can do it all" kind of way Calipari's old Memphis teams or Huggins' WVU teams when they were good were built. Everybody is just mediocre at basically everything..

Really, even somebody as nondescript and Brian Cardinal-ish as D.J. Byrd has a skill that nobody on the Gophers can match in his shooting prowess. He's hitting 44% from three this year, and that five-for-five first half was enough to basically bury the Gophers. Can you see anybody on this team matching that first half at any point? I sure as hell can't. Nobody on this team is a good enough shooter to pull that off. And that goes for basically everything. Nobody is a great shooter. Nobody is a great ballhandler. Nobody is a great penetrator (although I can see Andre Hollins possibly getting there someday). Nobody is a great scorer (maybe Coleman in the future?). Nobody is a great passer or distributor or facilitator or whatever word you want to use, and outside of Williams nobody is a great athlete. Perhaps the worst part of this is how the three-pointer is such a huge and important weapon in the college game, as Purdue shoved down all our throats, and the Gophers not only don't have an elite shooter, I'm not even sure they have an average one. Oto Osenieks is the only chance they have but Tubby seems pretty freaking committed to keeping him on the bench. Much be reverse racism or something, I don't know.

So what to do? With this season basically lost at this point it's time to take the guys who have shown the aggressiveness and effort to deserve more time along with any flashes of ability because there isn't much here. Coleman did a nice job last night of being aggressive and trying to score and although he was only 4-13 shooting he did put up 13 shots. On a team where nearly everyone's first, second, and third instinct is to defer, that's valuable. Coleman needs to start the rest of the way.

I think Andre Hollins should be starting as well. No, it's not an ideal situation because he still has a tendency to get a little bit out of control and his decision making is sub-optimal most of the time he's still the best option for this team's future. He does lead the team in turnover percentage, but he's not much worse than Ahanmisi or Welch, and with every passing day Ahanmisi proves he's not a Big 10 caliber point guard (nice line last night: 0 pts, 3 asts, 2 tos). At this point in the season I still haven't figured out Welch. At times he looks like a brilliant floor leader, and other times he seems overwhelmed by the game (not surprising based on his history at UC-Davis and then JuCo). In any case, it's clear this team is more than one year away from contending for anything meaningful, so at best Welch is a stop gap. Giving him a lot of run in the back court will help take some of the pressure off Andre Hollins so I like keeping him in the lineup.

So that gives you Andre Hollins, Welch, and Coleman in the lineup, and obviously Rodney should be there too. Williams has really taken a step forward since Mbakwe went down and he was forced to play more in the paint, and he was a rare bright spot last night (19 points, 14 rebounds, and maybe most impressively 15 shot attempts). He's attacking the rim, going after every rebound with gusto, and even attempting to have some semblance of a mid-range game (it's not working that great so far, but I commend him for the effort). He's easily the team's best player, both in terms of overall potential and current ability, so there's really no reason why he should ever be off the floor. If he doesn't lead the team in minutes in every game the rest of the year Tubby should be fired immediately.

As far as a big guy in the lineup your guess is as good as mine. I never in a million years thought I'd say this but this team, and I, really miss Colton Iverson. You know damn well that he would've done something to at least make Lewis Jackson think twice about coming at the rim again, and even though I would never exactly call him skilled Elliott Elliason makes him look like Hakeem Olajuwon out there. It turns out he was a capable Big 10 big man, which is exactly what this team doesn't have any of. So I guess you continue to start Ralph and if it's a game where he decided to show up you give him plenty of run and if not you just go small (and Elliason gets his 10 minutes per game either way). I don't know. I give up.

The last guy worth mentioning is Chip Armelin, who I don't want in the starting lineup despite my thinking he's the team's second best player. I love his energy coming off the bench, plus if you take my starting lineup suggestion there is nobody in that second unit capable of scoring and so you need a guy like Chip with them to get the offense going. So I like him coming off the bench, but playing a ton of minutes.

So that's what you go with: Andre Hollins, Welch, Coleman, Williams, and Sampson (by default) with a healthy dose of Armelin. That group at least gives you a bunch of guys who are going to be aggressive, who are going to try to score rather than just pass the ball around the perimeter until the shot clock runs out. Hollins, Welch, Coleman, and Armelin can all penetrate, and although there isn't a great shooter in this group it's not like you're exactly leaving a great shooter out of the rotation or anything. Plus Austin Hollins is probably the best shooter outside of Osenieks on the team and he should be the second guy off the bench, and if you're going against a defense where you need his shooting you can just play him more. Simple.

I don't know. It's a lost season at this point anyway, but concentrating your playing time amongst those guys gives you some chances to be in games as well as giving a couple of guys who are probably your future plenty of chances to improve and develop. Or whatever. This all just sucks anyway.

Placeholder: Week in Review

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 03:25:00 +0000

I will have a Week in Review post up Monday night-ish so keep your shirt on unless you're a chick in which case send pics. Seriously I got home from tonight's game and there were like 400 people at my house and I'm now too drunk and apathetic to bother writing anything. I will say, however, it's very nice that the Gophers already broke me so I could watch tonight's drubbing without wanting to kill myself. So just hold on to your panties, post will be up soon.

Spoiler alert: TEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEBOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111

I Almost Quit this Blog

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 05:15:00 +0000

I almost quit this blog tonight, or at least switched to all ~~Twins~~ Royals all the time after tonight's embarrassing loss to Iowa, but luckily some sanity kicked in. As I was dropping off the Old Man, Bear, and Snacks after the game Bear flipped me off and Snacks threw some sort of crumpled up paper at my head and said, "Don't take it so hard, you're not on the team" and you know what, he's right. I grew up with this team. I've been going to games since I was born, the Clem years happened as I was becoming a basketball player, and the Final Four run happened my second year of college when the games became "EVENTS" and everyone gathered together to watch the games in tiny dorm rooms and professors of night school classes let everyone out early if there was a game that night. So yeah, I sometimes get a little too wrapped up in this program, and that was exacerbated by the hiring of Tubby Smith (and starting blogging about this team at that time probably didn't help).

I had been through the disappointment of Rick Rickert, I had been through the Kris Humphries debacle, and I had been through the 9 win season or whatever it was that felt like I was stuck in Punxatawney. I had made my peace with the program as what it was, and it was fun. I still remember Shamala going off against Michigan at the end of yet another lost season, and it was fun. Then, out of nowhere (particularly considering it was in the internet age) Tubby was hired. And then he found Ralph. And Devoe. And kept Rodney and Royce, and expectations were raised, and I thought the program was on it's way to NCAA invites every year with some upside. And that is why I got sucked so far in I could barely see my way out, like the Millennium Falcon and that giant purple space worm.

Honestly I'm not sure why it took so long, but tonight really hammered home to me that getting so let down by this team/program was my own fault. I was becoming everything I hated about sports fans because I was giving too much credit where it wasn't due. I should have known better and it's all my fault.

I had been mentally preparing a truly epic diatribe full of venom and vigor basically attacking everyone and especially Tubby and Ralph, but thanks to Snacks' comment (and Bear's rude genture) I'm backing off and going to approach the rest of the season the same way the team is - lackadaisical and without a plan. I mean, tonight's game made it clear the team suffers from a lack of talent, a lack of coaching, and a lack of effort - what is there to write?

All three of those things can be directly tied to Tubby Smith, and if that wasn't enough for you just take a look at the game tape and watch how baffled the players were once Iowa went into their zone. One or two possessions could be chalked up to the players being surprised or confused, but when an entire half goes by and the team still has no idea what to do or where to go that squarely falls on the coach's shoulders. How many possessions did the Gophers have against it and how many times did anybody attack the gaps? I can remember exactly one time and Joe Coleman scored when he did it.

But you know what? I'm going to stop here. I need some perspective and so I'm going to let this go for now, but may write more later in the week. It's clear to me now that I was expecting the Tubby Smith from the Tulsa and Georgia and maybe sorta Kentucky days, and I think we got a different one or something. Or maybe Minnesota is a wasteland for college basketball. Either way, we're going in a different direction here at DWG. Kindler, gentler, and more relaxederer. At least until the next game.

Seriously though, poor effort, poor execution, dumb play, and no game plan make baby jesus cry. The team has nearly zero Big 10 caliber talent, piss poor coaching, and the center is the gooiest, softest center outside of a Caramelo. I plan to finish out this year in a more positive light, but it ain't gonna be easy.

RALPH. CARAMELO IS HOW YOU FEEL INSIDE, RALPH

Game Preview: Gophers vs. Hawkeyes

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 18:53:00 +0000

This is the part where I'd usually say something like, "oh great it's Iowa, they suck who cares no preview" and then make a classy dismissive wanking motion with my hand, but they just beat Wisconsin in Madison. Yes, granted Wisconsin is criminally overrated this year, but winning in Madison is tough to do for any team that doesn't have Lawrence Westbrook, so perhaps Iowa is worth investigating further - the team, not the state. The only thing could in the state is the casino's have craps - get with it, Minnesota).

The reason it was so easy to dismiss Iowa up until that upset was because they had done nothing positive all year and piled up all kinds of negative losses. The home loss to Campbell by 16, blowouts by Creighton and Clemson, and losses to Iowa State and Northern Iowa had the Hawkeyes looking like a laughing stock but they've started to pull it together in recent weeks having won four of their last five (including that win at Sconnie) with the only loss being a three-point squeaker at Purdue. So what's going on?

For one thing, the team has become more Fran McCaffery's team than Todd Licklighter's. Where Lick played at a torturously slow pace, McCaffery actually has Iowa as one of the faster teams in the country. The season before McCaff took over Iowa ranked 321st in tempo. Last year he had them at 102, and this year they're all the way up to 40 making them the fastest team in the Big 10 by a considerable margin (besides them only Indiana ranks in the top 100 at #97).

Of course, the key to playing fast is to take care of the ball and/or force your opponent to make mistakes. Although Iowa remains mediocre at forcing turnovers, just like last year, they have made a marked improvement in taking care of the ball. The Hawkeyes turned it over on 22% of their possessions last year (255th in the country), and have made a massive positive swing this year, turning it over just 16% of the time (12th in the country). No Hawkeye averages more than 1.8 TOs per game, and the guards have been excellent - Bryce Cartwright, a TO machine last year with 3.3 per game, has nearly cut it in half with just 1.8 this year (of course his playing time has been reduced as well, but percentage wise he's improved), Matt Gatens is always a rock with the ball but has been exceptional this season with under a TO per game despite handling the ball quite a bit, giving him the 25th best TO rate in the country, while two other ball-handlers (Roy Marble's kid and Josh Oglesby) are also in the top 25.

The Hawks still can't shoot very well and don't play very good defense, but they are awfully good at being smart with the basketball. Since one of the ways the Gophers have been able to have success this year is by forcing turnovers, this particular statistical match-up will be one of the biggest keys of how the game goes tomorrow. Of course, that explains why Iowa is better than last year, it doesn't explain what's changed over the last few games to take them from laughing stock to semi-dangerous (not dissimilar to Ronald Miller in the white version of Can't Buy Me Love).

I'm slapping the role of Miller onto Roy Devyn Marble, who has gone from after thought to focal point of the offense, taken a team that was basically completely dependent on Matt Gatens, Melsahn Basabe, and the chuck-o-rama that is Bryce Cartwright and made them a more balanced team that's harder to stop, and has suddenly become the Hawks' best player. This post from a Hawkeye blog called The High Porch Picnic breaks down Marble's improvement for you in great detail, but essentially he's been on fire shooting, has moved away from the three-pointer and made the mid-range jumper his own, and his team has responded by getting him the ball more often and he's being more aggressive when he has it.

So now you add an emerging star in Marble (look at these lines: 18pts, 8 rebs, 5 assist vs. Boise; 21/4/5 vs. Iowa State; 17/1/6 vs. Purdue) to the consistently steady Gatens (has averaged betwen 10.8 and 13.3 ppg his entire career) who can do a little bit of everything (12 boards against Sconnie, 20+ points three times this year), and the explosive Basabe (at least 14 pts and 8 boards in each of his last four games; 3 double-doubles this year) and suddenly you have a really nice base of a team. If they get anything at all from Cartwright (17pts, 5 assists, 1 TO vs. Wisconsin) or the new kid, freshman Aaron White (18 vs. Wisconsin and Boise) and Iowa is a legit threat, as Wisconsin found out.

On the other hand, one big win doesn't suddenly make a bad team good, Iowa got the best game of the year from two players (Cartwright and White), out-rebounded Wisconsin by five, and the Badgers were a stupid flukey 3-28 from three-point line and Iowa still only won by seven. Not to mention that this team's losses to Iowa State and Northern Iowa both happened post the Roy Marble breakout. I'm inclined to believe the win at Wisconsin was more a fluky convergence of Wisconsin's worst game of the year and Iowa's best game of the year, and anything similar to this result is likely unrepeatable.

That said, I hate when bad teams have confidence and then get to play a team with a shaky offense and bad three-point defense. What happens if Iowa gets out to a 9-2 lead? What if the game is tied with 3 minutes to go? I don't want to see the results. Please Gophers, jump out early and keep an 8-10 lead the entire game. You should be good enough to do that. Nobody wants the torture, we all want a 20 point blow-out so we can leave early and get home before 11:30. Please.

Minnesota 81, Iowa 67.

Oh and also go to hell, Iowa.

Week in Review - 1/3/2012

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 05:22:00 +0000

I was considering doing a "Year in Review" post, like similar to the usual week in review but covering the whole year. But then I realized that would require me writing about things that happened like, months ago and years of heavy drinking and glue sniffing have made my memory really similar to that Memento guy and so I said eff it.

And really, other than highlighting an awesome guy and a sucky guy from the Gopher game on Sunday I don't really have much to say about the Gophers' two games this week (partially because I didn't watch most of the Illinois game.) They were expected to lose both games and did, while not embarrassing themselves in the process. What I'm really not sure what to think about are how the team has had chances to win both games and blew them both. If Julian Welch makes two free-throws, or even one, rather than missing the front end of a one-and-one in regulation against Illinois they probably win that game (certainly with two, maybe with one). If Welch makes an open lay-up in the first OT, they might win that game. If Rodney Williams knocks down a wide open three-pointer against Michigan we head to overtime. And if the team gets a good shot instead of a shot clock violation on their second-to-last possession, maybe the result is different (this one I blame on Tubby - nice playcall).

On the one hand, they were in both games and absolutely could have won either or both. On the other hand, they won neither and failed to capitalize on any of the opportunities that came their way. Since they weren't expected to win either game I'm going to choose to make no changes to my opinion of this team as a deeply flawed squad that has enough ability to be in the hunt for an NCAA bid as long as they make no mistakes (like losing to Iowa - suck it, Badgers) and win a game or two that they probably shouldn't. They had chances to steal two of those wins this week and whiffed. Hopefully they find a way to take advantage next time.

WHO WAS AWESOME

1.   Ricky Rubio. Moral victories are for grandmas, sissies, and liberals so I'm really glad they beat the Mavs because I'd feel kind of weird talking up Rubio if the Wolves were sitting at 0-3, but I'd probably do it anyway because oh my god Ricky Rubio is so awesome he makes me crap my pants. Dude sees the court like a mofo. No, seriously, he's incredible. The way his head is always up and some of the angles and passes he sees are un-freaking-real. A lot of point guards can make a great pass hear and there, but I've seriously never seen anyone like this since Magic Johnson. Yeah, you heard me. Name another PG that sees the court the way Magic and Rubio did/do? Stockton? Every single assist he had was on a pick-and-roll and was the exact same pass (you can look it up). Paul? Please. Nash? Poor man's Rubio. He's just so good. We'll see about his defense and shooting in the future, but his passing is like whoa. Plus Ricky's even contagious because I saw Beasley pass up an open jumper to try to find a teammate for a lay-up against the Mavs. No, seriously it happened. Of course he turned it over by throwing it into traffic, but, like self-exploration, it's the thought that counts. [and then tonight, after I wrote this, they go and dominate the Spurs in a game they led wire-to-wire. Can you say playoffs? I'm seeing playoffs.]

2. Alamo Bowl. If you like stuff like defense and tackling you probably hated the Alamo Bowl and are also probably like 60 years old and drink sherry because that was freaking awesome. Baylor 67, Washington 56 in mother effing regulation are you kidding me? A bowl record for yardage, touchdowns, points, and "are you freaking kidding me" moments - how could you not love it? Baylor had three guys rush for over 100 yards, while Washington QB Keith Price waited until this bowl game to have the best game of his career, throwing for 438 yards and 4 TDs and rushing for three more scores. Fun fact: This was just Price's second career game with 300+ yards, second game with 4 TDs and no picks, and those 3 rushing TDs were the first 3 of his career - not his first 3 TD game, the first 3 rushing TDs ever. Just a crazy entertaining game in every way, and anything that gets cranky curmudgeons all up in arms whining about the days of leather helmets and 6-3 ball games ok in my book. Suck it, grandpa. Go listen to some Mellancamp.

3. Trey Burke. Son of a whore is this kid good. I don't even think I can blame the Gophers for this one because so much of what he did was just knocking down shots after creating space for himself. Obviously he's not going to shoot 8-11 from the floor very often, but his 46% from the field so far this year is pretty solid for somebody who takes as many mid-range jumpers as he does, particularly for a freshman, and his 76% free throw accuracy this year says he's probably going to be a very solid shooter who is just going to get better. Which depresses me immensely. You know where Burke was on Rivals Top 100 list? #142. You know where Andre Hollins and Joe Coleman were? #110 and #121. I like some of what I've seen from those two, but they are NO WHERE near Burke. God damn Beilein.

4. Spencer Hawes and Kyle Lowry. This is more representative of any player who is having a crazy good start to the NBA season but Hawes and Lowry stand out to me because Hawes is averaging 12.5 rebs per game so far and Lowry is leading the league with 11.5 assists per game. You know in a shortened season with basically no training camp you're going to see some weird things, and I suppose you could have seen Lowry coming, especially with Aaron Brooks out of the picture, but Hawes? Guy had the look of a career back-up and another big white stiff since he came out of Washington, and is suddenly shooting 68% from the floor after being a 47% career shooter with career highs in points and that massive jump in rebounds (career just 5.6 per game). Did he suddenly get it? Doubtful. It's not like he had anybody blocking his development, so I'm going with fluky fluke.

5. Indiana Hoosiers. How can I possibly leave them off after the beat Ohio State, which now means they've beat the #1 and #2 teams in the country this season (or that's what they were ranked when the Hoosiers beat them).   What's most amazing to me is that it's basically the exact same team from the last couple of years when they were terrible. The only real change was the addition of Zeller, and although I'm really impressed with him (as documented somewhere within this stupid blog), he shouldn't be able to just suddenly make a terrible team good. Did Jordan Hulls and Verdell Jones suddenly become good? No, of course not. So I don't know. Maybe Zeller is that good. Maybe Tom Crean deserves a hell of a lot of credit. Maybe it's the whole Victor Oladipo thing. I don't know because I haven't watched Indiana yet this year, but I'm thinking I should probably want to do that.

WHO SUCKED

1. Ralph Sampson. Have you ever seen a big man more passive when he gets the ball on the block? It's like that center in that Simpsons episode about soccer - wing passes to center, center holds it, holds it, holds it. Every time just looking to pass, waiting for the double team. Almost hoping for that second defender like a chubby 17-year old girl staring at the phone just hoping that really cute boy will call (ok fine, chubby dude and cute girl and it was me, you happy now?). I looked at the box score for that Illinois game that I didn't really watch and saw Ralph had 19 shot attempts. 19! How is that even possible?   What happened? That's a career high in shot attempts, the first time he's hit double figure attempts this year (you cannot make a big enough question mark/exclamation point combination for that one), and just the second time in his career he's topped 14 FGAs in a game. The last time? Last year against Illinois when he had 17 attempts. I'd say he must like the matchup against Illinois but their front line is completely different this year so you fucking figure it out. I give up on this mess. He now joins Voshon Lenard's senior year, Michael Bauer''s senior year, Rick Rickert, Adam Boone, and Antoine Broxsie on the most disappointing Gophers ever list.

2. Brock Lesnar. As you know if you pay a shockingly creepy amount of attention to the things I write you know that I used to be like way into boxing and am trying to get back into boxing and/or UFC or MMA or whatever you call it.   Well I watched it again on Friday night and I saw some fairly entertaining undercards (Nate Ortiz omg hi 2 u) and then the main event happened and oh my Tebow.   I wish we were having an actual conversation right now because I'd be all like "did you see that" and you'd either be like "yeah dude wtf" and we'd high five or you'd be like "no dude, what happened" and we'd high five. Basically Lesnar came out, clearly didn't want to be there, looked terrified like a little bunny, got kicked in the ribs, fell down, and instead of trying to get up he just covered his face with his hands either to cry or to try to block the 83 haymakers the other dude landed on his noggin before the ref mercifully ended the fight (maybe both). Then he quit the sport. It was, well, not very impressive to say the least.

3. Wisconsin Badgers. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.   OMG. hahahahahahahahahahahaha. Iowa? You lost to Iowa at home? Oh my god so awesome. I knew the Badgers sucked this year. 3-28 from three. Awesome. And Iowa isn't even good at defending against the three-pointer. Nice offense, Bo Ryan. You know it's ok to drift inside the arc from time to time, right? So awesome.

4. Pitt Panthers. For whatever reason, behind Wisconsin, Iowa, and Duke on my most hated basketball schools list sits Pitt, so this pretty epic collapse they have going on is yet another loss, this time to Cincy, and this time at home. That loss follows an embarrassing home loss to Wagner and a road loss at dreadful Notre Dame. You may recall that Pitt started the year ranked 10th and won eleven of their first twelve games, so this is quite the slide. Turns out when you forget how to shoot, don't take care of the basketball, and play terrible defense you end up losing a bunch of games. Hell, at least the Gophers play defense (sort of).

5. Florida Gators. Since I consider Florida to be a legit sleeper to win the NCAA Tournament their loss earlier this week against Rutgers, one of the worst teams in the Big East, was a bit troubling. Both teams are pretty heavily backcourt dependent, so you'd think this would play right into the Gators' hands, but it wasn't meant to be. Although Florida's guards (Brad Beal, Kenny Boynton, Mike Rosario, and Erving Walker) scored a total of 55 points it came on just 18-53 shooting, they turned it over 15 times to just 10 assists, and they allowed Rutgers guards (also four dudes) to score 74 points on 31-57 shooting and they dished 15 assists to just 7 turnovers. I know they say Rutgers gym is a tough place for visiting teams to play (and I only remember that from way back when Quincy Douby was there and the team was decent), but this shakes my confidence in my sleeper team a little. On the other hand it's tough to believe all four of those guards will play poorly on the same night again. It would be like lightning striking twice, although if you ask that dude from The Great Outdoors that happens all the time.

I was gonna put something else here but it's really late and I'm still watching this damn Fiesta Bowl so I don't feel like it anymore.

Preview: Gophers vs. Wolverines

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 02:47:00 +0000

So we move on from the disappointments of the Illinois game and up next is another road game against a slightly worse opponent in the Michigan Wolverines. Yes, slightly worse. Because although Michigan is ranked higher than Illinois in the polls (16 vs. 27), kenpom has Illinois a little bit better (46 vs. 52) and Illinois is significantly better in the RPI (20 vs. 59). If you're like me and wondering why you haven't heard anything about Michigan even though they were supposed to be like so awesome its the same reason their RPI is so crappy - they haven't played anyone since December 3rd (wins over Oakland, Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Alabama A&M, and Bradley since then - all terrible teams). So, again, this makes them kind of hard to evaluate.

By now you know the basic drill with a John Beilein team - shoot a ton of threes coming from every single player/position on the court, a lot of ball movement, and mediocre man-to-man defense. This is year is no exception with one major wrinkle - the Wolverines, although still one of highest volume shooting three-point teams, have become extremely efficient on TWO pointers. This year they are hitting at 59.2% from two, tops in the nation. Notable in this is that all eight players who matter on this team hit at least 51% from two. So they got that going for them.

Despite their efficiency inside the arc, Michigan still lives and dies outside of it and as such their guards are the key and they have two really, really good (but not quite great) ones in Trey Burke and Tim Hardaway.

Burke, although just a freshman, is probably the best player on the team. He's their second leading scorer at 13 per game, leading assist guy with 5 per (ranks 3rd in b10), and chips in 3 boards and a steal per game. His turnovers are a little high at nearly 3 per game, but that's not out of line for a freshman point guard and his nearly 2-to-1 assist ratio is a nice number. He's an excellent penetrator (just like me, ask your mom), and can finish at the rim or kick-out to a teammate and is a solid shooter anywhere on the floor. I wouldn't have thought it possible but he's stepped in for the departed Darius Morris and Michigan hasn't missed a beat.

Although Burke might be their best player, Hardaway is almost certainly their most important simply because he dominates the ball as much as he does. So far this year he's done well, ranking in the top 500 in basically every advanced offensive metric other than the rebounding ones and he's mainly upped his effectiveness by shooting better from two (58% this year compared to 48% last year) and contributing more assists (2.9 vs. 1.7). He's still a terrible chucker overall (33% from three this year, 37% last year, and leads the team in three-point attempts) but he's masked that with his ability to get to the rim and the line this year. The Gophers would be wise to coax him into jacking up a ton of threes rather than having him gain confidence getting to the rim. You're taking a chance that he'll put up something like the 5-9 from 3 performance he put up against Oakland, but you're also better off betting that won't happen and keeping him away from the paint. He's a chucker, let him chuck and hope the percentages play themselves out the way they should.

Michigan has three other guys who can hurt you - Evan Smotrycz, Jordan Morgan, and Zack "8th year" Novak. Smotrycz is a 6-9 "power" forward who is third on the team in scoring (11.7) and leads in rebounds (6.7) despite being a perimeter playing nancy boy forward who spends more time outside the 3-point line than Ralph Sampson. He's been on fire lately, averaging over 18 a game over his last four, but he's done it by being unconscious from deep (15-19 in those four games, not a misprint). Obviously there's no way he can keep that up, but considering he gets most of his points from three the Gophers would do well to be sure his crazy shooting streak stops.

The other two, Morgan and Novak, are both technically forwards but couldn't be more different. Morgan is the model of efficiency, hitting 71% of his shots by never shooting anything other than a dunk or lay-up, and is big (6-8) and strong (240 lbs.). He also has a tendency to disappear in games and losing playing time in some games due to lack of effort. That's not an issue with Novak, who is under-sized, under-athletic, and under-talented but makes up for it with Eckstein-ien hustle and grit and an occasionally deft outside shot (which is the majority of his offensive game). He also manages to grab about five boards per game despite being just 6-4, which goes back to that whole constant effort thing. Since Novak hit six threes his freshman year against the Gophers they've done a pretty good job of holding him down, but I can't get that six three game out of my head. So yeah, I'm scared of a 6-4, floppy haired, mediocre athlete. But in my defense, he is left-handed.

So I guess I really don't know here. The Gophers are clearly better than I thought, especially against decent squads, based on my predicted massacres at the hands of Va Tech and Illinois which clearly didn't materialize. I don't know, with Ralph playing well (and in the paint) and with Julian Welch's influence clearly affecting this team they look really, really good. They can absolutely win this game, and I am very close to predicting them to do so. The only thing holding me back is that Michigan shoots so many threes and the Gophers are so completely terrible at defending them. I think that will bite them in the ass, and another winnable road game goes by the wayside.

Michigan 63, Minnesota 60.

Wednesday Writings

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 04:40:00 +0000

So I decided not to watch the tivo'd version of the Gopher game. I received some advice that really it would just frustrate me beyond belief, and I realized that makes a lot of sense. I know as an alleged Gopher blogger watching the game would arm me with more information, but I'm thinking the trade-off between getting that info and wanting to kill myself like 30 different times made it not really worth it. I do promise to have a preview up of the big Gopher/Wolverine tilt on Sunday, and have it up tomorrow night. Really, I promise. In the meantime, here's just a couple things about stuff.

- I saw the most weirdest thing ever when watching the Diamond Head Classic over Christmas. UTEP is playing Clemson and they (the Miners) go with the Triangle-and-2 on Andre Young and Tanner Smith, their two leading scorers and only two play-makers with the ball in their hands. Not only that, but it was the most extreme T-and-2 I've ever seen. They were actually guarding them wherever they went and not looking at the ball, so at times Smith and Young would stand out by the half court line and their defenders would follow, which meant the game basically turned into 3-on-3 on one end of the court. It worked too, because those two scored just 14 points and tallied 4 assists (both about half their season average) and UTEP won by double-digits. One of the weirdest, coolest things I've ever seen.

- Let's check in real quick on my NCAA Wagers on teams to win the whole thing, and see where we stand:

Vanderbilt 40-1 (current: 40-1). They've lost every meaningful game they've played. Consider this bet dead in the water.
Wisconsin 50-1 (current 40-1). I have no idea why I made this bet, but it came it at 1am on a Friday when I probably had a drink or two. I think Wisconsin is incredibly overrated this year and they'll be lucky to win 10 Big 10 games so I don't think they remotely have a teeny tiny shot at winning the NCAA Tournament. I guess I can consider this a hedge against the pure agony that would result if the Badgers did, in fact, find a way to win.
Xavier 25 -1 (current: 40-1). I have no idea why this number dropped. The Musketeers dropped 3 of their last 4 but were dealing with the suspensions and other fallout from the fight with Cincy. Prior to that they had wins over Vandy, Georgia, Purdue, and Butler. None of those teams are good, but none of them are terrible either (well, maybe Butler) so X was rolling well pre-throwdown. I don't know. I'd recommend you take a look at this one if you are looking to throw some gambling money around. I also just found that I have a little extra on these guys from even earlier at 60-1. So that's good.
Illinois 100-1 (current: 200-1). Was purely a value play at the time. Based on the athleticism of Paul and Richardson and the great off-season reports on Leonard I thought it was worth a shot. Clearly that hasn't played itself out so far, but the win over Gonzaga and a 4-point loss to Mizzou say this team still has potential. At 200-1 any person with a gambling account should throw $1 on this.
Texas A&M 100-1 (current: 100-1). Tough to get a read on these guys because they've spent most of the year without their best player, but he's back now and they lost to Rice. Not loving this one.
Syracuse 15-1 (current 6-1). Feeling pretty good about this one, as the Cuse are one of the legit 5 best teams in the country.
New Mexico 100-1 (current: 300-1). Garbage bet.
Arizona 60-1 (current 60-1). I have no idea why this number hasn't moved. Arizona is completely awful and can't beat anybody. On the bright side, they're in the Pac-12 which is like puking on your own face so they're guaranteed to at least make the tournament. Kind of.
Florida 40-1 (current 25-1). My favorite bet. The Gators pretty clearly had the kind of back court players that can lead you to a championship, the only question was if they'd have enough in the front court to be able to make a real push. Patric Young and Erik Murphy have answered that and Florida might be the best "sleeper" team out there. They hung right with Ohio State and Syracuse, blew out TAMU and FSU, and likely will only play 3-ranked teams the rest of the regular season (Kentucky twice and Miss State) so they'll end up with a favorable seed. There's still value here at 25-1 - in fact I just threw a few more bucks at it.
Missouri 75-1 (current 20-1). My second favorite bet, if only because I have half the amount on Mizzou that I have on Florida. Advanced metics adore what Missouri has done this year and it's tough to argue with the results because they're 12-0, ranked in the top 10, and have blown out pretty much everybody they've played. I'm not sure there's value left here at 20-1 because that style of play can backfire hard, but if they swoon a bit and drop to 30 or 40 to 1 jump on that.
Baylor 35-1 (current 10-1). According to current odds (and preseason odds), the most likely winner I have money on and I do feel pretty good about it. They're crushing teams, winning on the road, and winning some tough battles (including the semi-home win over a good Miss State team tonight). I don't like them much at 10-1, but at 35-1 it was a great bet.
UCONN 30-1 (current 20-1). I grabbed this the minute it came across Twitter that Andre Drummond was going to be playing this year, before they had a chance to move the line (it moved all the way to 10-1). It's tough to know where the value should be here because they haven't really been tested yet, but there's certainly plenty of talent. And if Drummond keeps improving they could still end up snagging a 1 or 2 seed. Really. It's also my biggest bet out of all the futures I'm on, so I'd like this one to hit yes please.
Iowa State 200-1 (current 500-1). I took this one back in May. Yes, May. Figured it was worth a shot. Oops.

So that's where I stand. Keep in mind I'm sort of addicted to future bets, because it's kind of like an investment. For example, I lost about $100 on baseball futures this year, but because I made so many futures bets I had $700 come into my account. So even though I pumped out $800, I pumped that out in March, then had the money come back way in October. So in a weird way that's probably kind of stupid but whatever shut up it felt like I made a free $700. So I keep doing it. I have a ton of money into NFL futures (actually looks like it will be a real life profit), a ton in the NBA, and I even have money on Best Picture for the Oscars. No, I'm pretty sure you have a problem.

- I was going to write a bunch more about the NBA (Rubio rocks, Lakers suck), the Saints (Brees's record should really have an asterisk), Jayma Mayes (sneaky hot), and Ginger Snaps (underrated movie), but I'm bored now and to be honest that comment you had about my gambling problem really hurt. I'm not mad mad, but I don't think we should talk for a little bit. Just to show you there's no hard feelings I'll leave you with a pic of Katharine Isabelle (star of Ginger Snaps), but we probably shouldn't talk for a while. Especially because you're going to say she's a plain jane, aren't you, you sick son of a bitch?


You gonna tell me this is a plain jane too, dickfuck?

Gophers lose, but almost win

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 04:38:00 +0000

I'm not generally one who goes in for moral victories, but going into Illinois and coming out with a close loss in two overtimes is a pretty good sign for the Gophers' fortunes this year. Of course, on the other hand, having your best free throw shooter brick the front end of a one-and-one in a situation where he could have iced the game, and then once again NOT getting a shot off in an end of game situation, says this is another blown opportunity. I'd like to watch more, but I've only seen the last 2 minutes of regulation and a few minutes of the overtimes. Let me explain.

My parents took the kids overnight tonight. My wife works from home and usually works from 7-midnight or so when I'm home to watch the kids. But I have the entire week off since I'm so awesome so she was able to work during the day today and so we had the entire night free. We decided to go see Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (sidenote: AWESOME) and I tivo'd the game with the intention of watching the game when we got back. When I mentioned this on the ride home wife gave me one of those looks that made it very clear that going in the basement by myself to watch basketball when we have an empty house to ourselves and she doesn't have to work would not be a very good idea. So I watched the important parts instead.

I'm considering doing a game blog tomorrow if I end up watching it, since I don't have to work like a sucker, but I'm just not sure. Knowing that's the end result may be too painful. Stay tuned.

For the Whiners: Gophers vs. Illini Preview

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 21:42:00 +0000

I wasn't going to do a preview because with all the running around for christmas and what not I just didn't have time. Unfortunately, however, there has been a ton of whining so I suppose I should put something up: I really don't think the Gophers can hang with Illinois.

The Gophers have that sparkling 12-1 record, but they've got there mainly by playing poorly, falling behind, and then relying on their superior talent and athleticism to come back and win - sometimes by a lot. The problem with this strategy is that Illinois is both more talented and more athletic than the Gophers. Thus the only way the Gophers can beat Illinois (at Illinois, especially) is by executing on both ends of the floor with near flawless precision. Unfortunately, there was only one game this year (Va Tech) where this team even approached that level of excellence, and I'm not so sure I see it happening again against Illinois, one of the best defensive teams in the land (#22 in defensive efficiency).

To make matters slightly worse, Illinois's only defensive weakness is defending the 3-pointer where they are merely average, but as we know the Gophers can't really exploit this because they can't shoot it and don't really even look to shoot it. On the bright side, Illinois isn't much of a three-point threat, but they love to drive to the rim - something the Gophers couldn't stop against the nerds on NDSU so I have no idea how they're going to stop Illinois. Even if they can somehow keep Brandon Paul and D.J. Richardson out of the lane (doubtful), they have no answer for Meyers Leonard in the paint unless Ralph suddenly mans up.

NOT BLOODY LIKELY.

Illinois 70, Minnesota 54

Merry Christmas, Nerds

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 16:46:00 +0000

Some Hard Truths about the Gophers

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 04:59:00 +0000

The 12-1 start is nice and shiny and everything and you probably think the Gophers are good, but it's time to face the cold hard truth: the Gophers are not an NCAA Tournament caliber team. Not even close. Take a look at these arguments and tell me where I'm wrong. No, seriously: please tell me where I'm wrong, I'd absolutely love to be convinced that I don't know what I'm talking about. Hit up the game with $nake, Dawger, and Bear tonight (there, you guys happy with the mention) and I think we all left feeling like we'd been punched in the stomach so hard we were about to vomit. Here are my comments, please comment on my comments and convince me I don't know what I'm talking about:

1) They play terrible defense. Did you see that garbage tonight? NDSU attacked the rim again and again and again, and even their mediocre guards were getting edges on the Gophers, and with zero help defense on the interior for some reason they were able to get fouled or get lay-ups way too often for their talent level. What's going to happen when Brandon Paul and D.J. Richardson come flying down the wing? Throw in some of the worst three-point defense in the country (seriously, they were 292nd in the country in 3-point defense going into the game) and how many points do you think William Buford will score? 25? 30? Hell Matt "12 points every game" Gatens will probably hit for 20. They can probably hold down Penn State, but I'm pretty sure that's the whole list of teams they can stop

2) They have zero inside presence. With Mbakwe down the Gophers inside players are now reduced to a dude who makes Jeff Hagen look like a prima ballerina and a guy who is the softest dude I've seen since the black dude in those Revenge of the Nerds movie. One plays defense with the mobility of a tree and the other is more like a weeping willow, and they're getting brutalized by a bunch of weakass low major players. Jared Sullinger is going to make them cry. Hell I'm not so sure Luka Mirkovich isn't going to go for a double-double (just kidding - sort of). The team's only prayer is for Andre Ingram to get bitten by a radioactive spider that gives him super powers. Seriously, Ralph, you cannot be pushed around by non-recruited players who are 3 inches shorter than you. It's just pathetic. I'm pretty sure every rebound "Once bounce Ralph" got tonight hit the floor first. I'm just done. I've defending him for 3+ years and I'm done. He's averaging 4 god damn rebounds per game against this shitbox level of competition. FOUR! He's fucking seven-feet tall and playing shitty teams with shitty players and he gets four rebounds per game? You know who else can get four rebounds per game? Fucking anybody.

3) There is no reliable offensive option. None. Rodney is the leading scorer but most of his offense comes off fast breaks and put-backs which may or may not translate in Big 10 play, and outside of him who do you go to? There isn't a single perimeter player who you can count on to either make a shot or penetrate which is just sad. Sometimes Welch looks like he gets it and could develop into something, but then you remember he's already a junior and slower than the fat lady with the cart full of ham at Walmart. And the one guy who is supposed to be a shooter (Oto) is so hesitant to take his shot you'd think he's a walk-on. When Maverick Ahanmisi looks like your best guard things have gone wrong in a horribly shocking way. Look, I like Mav. I think he's the best pure point guard on the team and he's looking like the best shooter (god help us), but he's a back-up. He may become a very good back-up, but he's a back-up. When he carries the offense (like tonight) it's a massive cry for help. Unfortunately due to NCAA regulations it appears you can't just magically add someone in mid-season. Commies.

4) The talent level is mediocre. I'm sorry, but how many Gopher players would start for even half of the other Big 10 teams? Rodney Williams, right? Is there even another one? Maybe Ralph just based on his height, but his passivity and wienershipitude would have most Big 10 coaches sending him to the bench. Who would you rather have, Ralph or that fat dude from Michigan State (not Draymond Green, the other one)? Sampson is more talented but at least that Spartan dude will throw his J-Lo ass into somebody and get rough in there and mix it up when the need arises. The guards? Not a chance. The Hollins's's would probably start for Penn State and Nebraska, but I don't even think they'd get the nod over Cartwright and Gatens at Iowa. 50/50 probably. How sad is that?

5) There is no offensive scheme. What, exactly, does Tubby do? Clearly he coaches defense, and the team occasionally responds, but offensively they're just awful - and I'm talking outside of the players' talent level. How many times tonight were there four dudes standing around while somebody dribbled? And why (like, WHY????) did Rodney never ever ever get the ball posting up in the second half? Not once. Not one single solitary time (I'm pretty sure). He's their only semi-reliable option to score or get fouled and against a team like NDSU they should have made him the focus, but instead the offense consisted of hoping a guard could go one-and-one and get a shot. It worked just enough for them to win tonight, but against the real grown-up defenses in the conference the combination of a lack of offensive talent and a lack of offensive imagination or even a simple game plan is going to sink them in a hurry.

I will admit it's possible I'm overreacting to one of the worst played games I've ever seen and just being a spaz, but I'm having trouble seeing more than 7 Big 10 wins. So please, somebody tell what I'm wrong about. Please.

To cheer myself up, here is a picture of J-Woww in a bikini.

Preview: Minnesota Gophers vs. North Dakota State Bison or whatever

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 04:33:00 +0000

North Dakota? More like North Dasnowka, am I right? I have no idea why I just wrote that. But then again, you read it, so I think it was probably your fault. Let's just agree to disagree.

Anyway, the Bison come to the Barn Thursday to take on the Gophers and I couldn't be more pumped. Wait, no. I mean the opposite of that. Apathetic. That's not right either. Less-pumped. Something.

I guess they aren't terrible. They do have a 8-2 record and rank as the 107th best team in the country according to Ken Pomeroy's advanced metrics, but even though those take opponent into account this is still a fantastically terrible schedule. Their best opponent so far has been Arizona State (rank #144) who beat them by ten. They also have a pretty terrible loss to Western Carolina (#242) and there are only four other top 200 teams on the schedule. It's hard to get any kind of read on a team with that line of shitbox schedule, but thanks to advanced stats I'll try.

The Bison have done well this season by holding opponents to poor shooting (both from 3 and 2), shooting well themselves (particularly from 2), and taking care of the basketball. The Gophers don't shoot and can't shoot from three so that's pretty irrelevant, and the Gophers biggest weakness should at least be minimized because although the Bison are a decent three-point shooting team they don't take that many - this game will be played inside the perimeter. Both teams' strengths are shooting inside the 2-point line and both defend there well, with the Gophers having a slight edge. The Gophers also commit and cause a whole lot of turnovers, while the Bison don't cause any and commit even fewer. It's a fairly even match looking at strengths and weaknesses, and I'm going to be honest here - that makes me nervous.

On an individual basis, the Bison employ a very balanced attack with five players scoring between 8.5-14.1 points per game and being involved in at least 20% of the team's possessions. And oh my holy christ I'm boring myself to sleep. How do people do this all serious like this all the time. I'm done.

Here's what you need to know:

NDSU sucks. They suck. They don't suck like in a way where the Gophers can't possibly lose like Mt. St. Mary's or some shit, but they're terrible, they've played nobody, they've beaten nobody, and they've been beaten by some piss poor teams. There is absolutely no way the Gophers shouldn't beat them down like Stephen Davis did to Michael Westbrook. Or the other way around, I don't remember. Doesn't matter. North Dakota sucks. The team sucks, the program sucks, everything sucks. I know they had their cute little run with all those white guys who lost to Kansas, but that was a once in a lifetime experience because they just suck. The one time I somehow ended up in that stupid state even their Taco John's sucked which should be impossible.

If you wanted to be some kind of dicknose and spin things in NDSU's favor you could say that the team is really balanced and has a lot of quality players. Of course, the real reason they're balanced is because they don't have any good players and are just loaded with adequate ones. Any one of a half-dozen guys could kill the Gophers, but none of them should. As an added bonus they only have one good 3-point shooter (Mike Felt "erup"), so as long as the Gophers remember that he's the guy they need to watch (terrifying prospect) they shouldn't get beat out there, and NDSU simply doesn't have the athletes to beat them in any other way.

When lines come out I fully expect this one to be the Gophers by about 10 (that's what kenpom predicts it at and the lines are usually pretty close). If they can't beat this crap factory by at least that there's no reason to even bother with this season. Look I'm sorry. They're a cute little team who probably makes the folks in Sioux Falls feel all tingly inside when they beat up on Nebraska-Omaho at the Indian Hater Dome or whatever, but if this team can hang with the Gophers it doesn't mean "look out for the Sues" it means "the Gophers fucking suck."

I don't know. Maybe I'm just cranky because Kubel left but I'm not ok with an 8 point win or some shit. Blow these fuckers out. It's like playing five Rudys, and Rudy is one of the worst movies of my lifetime. No, I'm serious. If you like that movie you should do a cannonball onto a pitchfork. So stupid. Great, so the little wiener gets his big chance and gets a sack. And then what? HE'S SPENT HIS WHOLE FUCKING LIFE GETTING PAID TO TALK ABOUT IT. What a loser. And now it turns out he might have been stealing people's money. I don't know, google it. This shit is bananas.

Gophers 99, Sioux 30. Also I just realized at some point in this garbage rant I started referring to the Bison as the Sioux. My bad and all but also not my fault because it's irrelevant because they're both the same because they both suck and should get physically assaulted by the Gophers. Whatever. Like it's even a real state.

Will you look at this? What the shit is this?

Monday Musings (and good-bye, my love)

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 03:31:00 +0000

You know what's crazy? I am super excited for the NBA to be back. Actually I guess that's not all that crazy because I get excited for the NBA every single year. I get all jacked up and decide that I'm going to really dedicate myself to following the NBA all season long rather than just jumping in for the playoffs, and it's finally time to really become an NBA fan. Then, at some point in the second quarter, I watch a defender not fight through a screen, the picker not roll, the wide open jump shooter clang it off the rim and the team with the ball getting a put back basket because nobody boxed out and the only one who jumped for teh rebound was the 2nd year power forward who still tried on every play. And now they're playing back-to-back-to-backs and 66 games in like, 3 months or something like that.

Yet, here I am, getting all excited to watch the NBA on Christmas Day. God I'm so dumb. Here's some other quick stuff, in lieu of a Week in Review post which I was too lazy to write.

- I guess the most obvious thing is the sad news that Jason Kubel will no longer be a Twin after signing for 2 years, $15 million with the D-Backs. I've been pissed off at signings before (when Mussina left the O's for the Yankees I swore off baseball - for some reason I grew up a rabid Oriole fan), and others moves have left me stunned (when Brunansky was traded for Herr I distinctly remember calling my dad a liar, which he wasn't pleased about), but this is the first time I've been broken hearted, or at least as broken hearted as a reasonably rational adult male can be about sports.

I can't even be mad. That 2 year, $15 million dollar deal is probably more than Kubel is worth considering he's a poor fielder, struggles against lefties, and has trouble staying healthy so I can't be mad at him for taking it or mad at the Twins for not matching/beating it (although I am a bit perturbed that they seemingly wrote him off and never seemed to care about trying to retain him). So that's why I'm just sad, not angry at anybody.

I don't even know why I love Kubel so much, but I know his is one of only two articles of clothing I own with another man's name on the back (I also have a Denard Span shirt for some reason). He is also the first player who I ever broke down and bought a shirt/jersey off with my own money (at other points I had owned a LaDainian Tomlinson jersey and a Randy Moss jersey - both gifts). He's not particularly fast, or athletic, or anything. His best skill is hitting the baseball, but he'll never be confused with Albert Pujols. He doesn't even have the small, scrappy gamer thing going for him (although that would have made me hate him). I think the reason Kubel is so loved, by me and many others, is because he seems like an every man. Just a cool, laid back dude who would love to play softball and then pounds some beers. Except in his case instead of softball he crushes pitches from the best baseball throwers in the world and gets millions to do it.

Obviously I won't be able to follow his career as closely when he ships on over to the land where games start at 10:30pm, but god knows I'll try. I'm not sure anybody will ever surpass him as my favorite Twin. And yet we're stuck with Joe fucking Mauer and his enema of a contract and Justin Morneau who may or may not know what year it is. This blows.

Tell me this guy wouldn't love to destroy you at Beer Pong.

- On to other, less soul crushing things, you know all that talk about how great Cody Zeller was going to be right off the bat and was the kind of player who could turn Indiana's program right around? Well I think for once the hype was right because I had a chance to actually watch this dude against Notre Dame (a game the Hoosiers won by 11) and he's absolutely the real deal. There was one play where he blocked a lay-up attempt some some poor bastard on the Irish, then beat the defense down the court for an easy score. He's really athletic for his size, very polished for a freshman, and can pass like a guard, and is like whoa. I now feel very dirty for liking a Hoosier this much. I'm going to go take like, six showers and then burn myself with matches.

- As long as I'm talkin' Big Ten players who brokeout or whatever I guess we should talk DeShaun Thomas after his 30 point outburst against South Carolina (on 13-16 shooting!!) which followed his 23-point game (on 10-15 shooting). Not surprising, since if you watched Thomas last year you could see he had the potential to be a big time scorer and I'm pretty sure he led the nation in points per minute last year (and shots per minute). When he's hot and hitting he's going to put up major points since he's basically always taking a heat check, and he's been on fire lately which is good timing since Sullinger has a constant hangnail or something. Of course, it's going to also be fun when he goes 1-14 in a game and shoots the Buckeyes into a loss. Hopefully against the Gophers. Ok I laughed when I typed that.

- Sticking with the Big 10, just when you think everything is hunky dory along comes to Purdue to mess everything up by losing to Butler (Illinois lost a home game to UNLV as well, but that's at least understandable). Now, in case you haven't been paying attention this year Butler isn't the same Butler they've been for the last several seasons - they straight up suck. They were 4-6 going into the Purdue game, and that includes losses to Ball State, Valpo, and Evansville, with their wins coming against three truly dreadful teams and a D-II opponent. And yet Purdue managed to lose on a tip-in at the buzzer on a neutral court. Ouch. It's probably the worst loss by a Big Ten team other than Nebraska, Penn State, or Iowa. Nice work, dingleberries.
- Sigh. I hate this, but it's time to admit that Washington, although the most fun team to watch ever, are pretty clearly not an NCAA caliber team. A completely embarrassing loss to South Dakota State - at home by 19 - slams that home pretty clearly and drops Washington to 5-5 on the season. I suppose none of the other losses are that bad by themselves (@ St. Louis, @ Nevada in OT, and versus Marquette and Duke in Madison Square Garden) but good god, a 20 pt loss to SDSU? Maybe I'm overreacting but I'm just disgusted. South Dakota State opened up a 35-14 lead early and never looked back, riding 55% shooting (10-16 from 3), and 26-32 free throw shooting to an easy, and shocking, win. I suppose whenever a Pac-10 team loses it shouldn't be a surprise (Arizona also got blown out by Gonzaga), but damn, this is just sad. I miss Captain Circus Ball.

- Ha-ha, stupid Packers. Go around all cockin' off about how you were gonna go for the perfect season and guess what happens? You get punched in the mouth by a crappy crap team with a 40 year old running back, a QB nobody wants, very little talent, and a completely dopey head coach. On one hand, it's possible this loss refocuses them and they get better, but on the other hand a perfect Packer season is more than I could possibly take and either end up killing myself or somebody would end up dead after I raged out. It was so fun watching the last two minutes of the game where the Packers needed a stop badly but their little sissy soft defense full of nancy boy hippy girls couldn't stop the Chiefs running game even when they knew damn well a running play was coming. Seemed like all the talk about the Packer D being statistically poor only because they always had the lead might have just been wishful thinking, because these guys are freaking terrible. In conclusion, go to hell Green Bay.

Seriously though. I feel like Mel Gibson in that movie where he's all like "Give me back my Kubel!" You know what I'm talking about. The only thing cheering me up at all is I just saw the Christmas card we got from $nake and guess what? His youngest son is wearing a Yankee cap in the picture they used. A Yankee cap. The Yankees. The New York Yankees. Jesus, what an asshole.

Notes from 50,000 feet (Welcome to the Twins, Willy + Paul trade reaction)

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 01:18:00 +0000

I'm on a plane. And it has wi-fi. What a glorious time to be alive. A lot has seemingly changed since I changed jobs and stop flying to random cities basically monthly and getting drunk on a bathroom sink full of Coors Lights. This is actually my first business trip since almost exactly a year ago when I went to LA (which is where I'm going today again). Of course, not that much has changed because the freaking reading lights don't work on this god forsaken plane, so I'm forced to either sleep or type. Awesome. Also Blake Lewis's version of "You Give Love a Bad Name" just started playing on my ipod, so I'm pretty sure I'm doing something wrong. Anyway. I'm bored. And you're going to listen to me, god help you.

- Biggest news is the signing of Josh Willingham by the Twins for 3 years, $21 million which I'm assuming has been finalized. (side note: Busta Rhymes now on the ipod, things are looking up). Considering this is very close to the contract they offered Michael Cuddyer (3 yrs, $25 mil) and they're both outfielders I think this signals the end of the Cuddyer era in Minnesota, for good or for ill. Let's look first at playing ability.

Both Cuddy and Willingham will be 33 to start next season, and although both are corner outfielders Cuddy is primarily a RF with a great arm and Willingham is a LF with a so-so arm, which automatically raises questions about what happens to the Twins' outfield since neither Span nor Revere can even get the ball from RF to 3B on the fly or so I assume. Fielding-wise, using UZR which is an advanced fielding stat that I couldn't begin to describe but is one of the more popular ones, both were equally shitty range-wise, which backs up what I've seen with my own two eyes. Add in Cuddy's ability to play a sub-par 1st, 2nd, or 3rd and the Twins do lose out slightly in the field with this swap, mostly due to the now lack of a true RF in my eyes.

Batting wise once again these two players are similar. Over the past 3 years, Cuddyer has a slightly higher average (.276 to .257), while Willingham has a slightly higher OBP (.360 to .341) and SLG (.479 to .465), which adds up to Willy's OPS+ of 125 trumping Cuddy's of 117, or about the difference between Troy Tulowitzki and Alex Gordon. Basically Willingham is probably a slightly better hitter, especially power and plate discipline-wise, while Cuddy might get a few more hits here and there. Plus Willingham has outhomered him each of the last two seasons, and although they have a virtually identical number of career HRs (Cuddy wins 141 to 132) Willingham has done it in about 1,300 fewer at-bats than Cuddyer (note: not a typo). So basically the Twins downgraded their defense a bit but upgraded offensively. Cool, you think, but what about the intangibles?

My answer to that question would be to punch you in the face if you were on this plane. Yes, Cuddyer filled a leadership void, but not because he's a great natural leader, but because SOMEBODY had to because Justin Morneau forgot where he was every 15 minutes and had to be reminded and every time Joe Mauer talked to anybody they fell asleep. I don't deny Cuddy provided a valuable service by becoming the face of the team by being in every single commerical, interview, event, and basically throwing himself in front of every camera he saw. I also don't deny that having a guy who is willing to play any position where he's needed, and can do so not embarrassingly, is a nice luxury to have. I also think both of those are very overrated on a baseball team. Not to mention him always chasing the press and forcing them to interview him kept the pressure off Mauer and Morneua, which at times is good but I would argue doing it to that extent during that kind of year is bad. I short, I will listen to your arguments that Cuddy is valuable in ways that have nothing to do with on-field performance, but I will also then dismiss this arguments with a roundhouse kick to our face and a condescending wave of my hand.

The Final piece of the puzzle is perhaps what pushes this from a pretty close to even swap that saves $4 million bucks to a great (well, good) decision by the Twins that saves $4 million bucks. Because Cuddyer was offered arbitration, that means that when Cuddy eventually signs with another team the Twins will receive both a first-round pick and a supplemental pick between rounds 1 and 2. That's good for any team, but for the Twins, whose list of prospects is getting thinner and thinner by the year, that's huge. That basically means two top-35 picks in the next draft, and even if Willingham was a notch below Cuddyer this swap might have been worth it. As it stands, it's the correct move. And if you're crying because Cuddy is gone, well, you're too dumb to care about anyway.

- Looks like this Chris Paul trade went down. Not to follow Bill Simmons' comments, but the Paul to Griffin combo is going to be pretty sick in the open court. I have no idea if Griffin is pick-n-rollable (and actually I don't know if Paul is either), but if they're both adept at the play look out. They also (reportedly) managed to do it without gutting their team. Paul, Billups (who they may regret adding at this point), Bledsoe, DeAndre Jordan, Griffin, and Caron Butler is absolutely a contender, especially if Bledsoe matures (and Jordan to a lesser extent). Not to mention they have decent vet rotation guys in Gomes and Foye (thanks Wolves), and a bunch of young guys (Willie Warren, Travis Leslie, Trey Thompkins). If one of those youngsters breaks out look the hell out. I grabbed some Clips to win the whole thing action at 15-1 last night when it started to look like they were close to getting Paul (heard it was 50-1 earlier in the day, dammit). Interested to see where that goes to.

And it's not like the Hornets screwed themselves either. Kaman is a serviceable center in a league with very few of them, Aminu sucks but has potential, and Eric Gordon is probably one of the best young players in the league (there's a Bill Simmons column on that but I'll be damned if I can find it now). Then there's the pick from the Wolves, which, no matter how optimistic you are, you have to admit is going to be in the lottery. Hopefully it's late, but even if it's late that doesn't mean it ends up late. Especially because the Clippers just traded it, upping the odds it ends up in the top 3 by at least triple. It's a waaaaaay better package than they were getting in the Lakers/Rockets swap so, at least for now, it kind of looks like the league knows what it's doing.

I'm sure there is plenty more to write about, but the plane is landing shortly and they're saying something about turning stuff off, so I must go. Later.

Live Blog: Gophers vs. Chippewas

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 04:00:00 +0000

Since I didn't get you a preview (prediction: Minn 64, CMU 50) I figured I might as well live blog this garbage. Although fair warning: I'm not drinking tonight so this probably won't be funny. I'll also probably lose my motivation and will quit by halftime.

Plus I'm in a shitty mood because my car broke yesterday and I had to pay $1,500 to fix it. Then this morning we had a plumbing issue which cost us another $500 and we know have holes in our walls the plumber dude had to cut to get to our pipes, all to get a baby washcloth out of the trap thing. Then, this evening on my way home, my car broke again the exact same way and I had to walk home after dropping it at the same shop who had earlier claimed to have fixed it, and I almost got hit by a car passing another car on the shoulder. So yeah, it's been a great day.   I need a drink.

20:00 - Ralph's expression priar to the jump ball is some weird combination of "I'm about to cry" and "I'm really bored", with a sprinkle of "why won't you just leave me alone" mixed it.

18:52 - Gophers up 4-0. Thus far Minnesota has taken, and made, two shots both in the paint. CMU has airballed a jumper and tossed up a running lay-up thing that missed the rim completely and got all bored. All though in that guy's defense he is a short white guy.

17:04 - Welch airballs a three-pointer. Gotta admit, I didn't see that one coming. Welch almost has this weird calm aura about him that just makes me feel so confident that he's going to make the right play at all times. Pretty sure that's not going to end up being the case.

16:06 - CMU hits back to back threes to take the lead 8-4, including one by some dude with knee high socks that enrage me. Ralph has also missed shots on back to back possessions inside the lane. This is going to be a long night.

14:28 - Ahanmisi misses a three-pointer for the second straight possession. Announcer guy, "Ahanmisi with the shot. It draws iron." Good god this team sucks at shooting. Wasn't Tubby shooting his mouth off about how this was going to be a great shooting team? You know who can shoot on this team? Oto. That's the whole list. Austin Hollins is ok, Welch is ok, Armelin is streaky, and everyone else is terrible. They might as well be shooting at that 20-point basket from the ole Rock N Jock days when they line up a three-ball.

14:16 - This will shock your pants off but CMU hit another three-pointer. This one after a pump fake where Andre Hollins jumped after so completely and convincingly and aggressively he must have thought the Chippewa guy was shooting a baby rather than a ball and he had to grab it out of the air. Good lord, I expect better from a coach's kid.

13:44 - Joe Coleman is still a terrible defender.   Arapahoe of nothing, I will be in Cali for work the next two nights. Hopefully I can get a little tipsy and blog some crap. Speaking of crap, Elliason just Knoblauched a pass into the fourth row. 11-6 CMU. Probably the ugliest game ever.

11:21 - Sigh.

11:10 - Are we going with "Andre Hollins" or "Dre Hollins"? Because the announcer just referred to him as Dre and I know it says Dre on the back of his jersey but I didn't know if that was just because putting An. Hollins looked retarded or if that's what he wants to be known as. Or maybe it's like, "Andre" is the official name but amongst his friends and what not he goes by "Dre", but then why would announcer guy call him "Dre" when I'm pretty sure he and Hollins aren't boys. Personally I prefer Andre but that's because I just don't like guys going by Dre because really there's Dr. Dre and then nobody else can live up. It would be like naming your kid Madonna or Screech or Knight Rider. Also Joe Coleman has the team's last six points and it's 12-12. I like him when the Gophers have the ball quite a bit.

9:26 - That's now three lay-up type shots where the Chippewas have missed the rim. If the Gophers lose this game I'm going to take a magnet to this computer in order to destroy this blog. That'll work, yes?

8:54 - OTO FOR THREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

7:58 - Trey Zeigler, who is really really good which you would know if I had written that preview, just scored his first two points of the game on a reverse lay-up which involved going right around Austin Hollins who is supposed to be a defensive stud. Ziegler is good enough to score 20 in a hurry and win this game for the Chippewas, at least I think so but then again CMU has been terrible his two years there so maybe I'm a liar.

7:40 - Four point play for Welch, Gophers now up 19-14.    I mean 19-17 because nobody stopped the ball after CMU broke the press and they made another freaking three-pointer.

7:04 - I just realized Rodney Williams has been invisible this game. Also across the bottom we get the news that Kansas freshman Ben McLemore, who was supposed to be a stud this year but was ruled academically ineligible, was arrested after failing to appear in court on a minor consumption charge. I'd say that's going swimmingly. Also going swimmingly? Rodney Williams dunking on people's heads.

6:28 - Announcer guy, "Rodney Williams played the 4 in high school, so it was an easy switch for him to make to help out the Gophers after Mbakwe's injury." I'm almost positive this isn't true, but not quite confident enough to rip this guy. Damn no alcohol. I really prefer to have my inhibitions be less inhibiting.

5:08 - This is weird. Whenever CMU goes with their 2-3 zone the Gophers pass it around like they're playing hand ball and inevitably throw the ball at the rim from the 3-point line and just as inevitably miss. Whenever they go man the Gophers use motion and picks and penetrate and get lay-ups. So why doesn't CMU just go 2-3 zone the entire time? I have absolutely no idea. I can only assume John Calipari must be coaching them or something.

4:00 - I cannot remotely tell the difference between Miley Cyrus and Amanda Bynes.

I'd tell which one of these was who, but I honestly have no freaking clue

2:42 - I can comfortably say now that this announcer is an idiot because after a Rodney Williams blocked shot he said, "I don't know about you, but I got my evite to the block party."

1:52 - Say you're a seven-footer. Now say you're a seven-footer whose standing near the top of the key about 18-feet from your own basket, and after you set a pick for Austin Hollins he dribbles the ball off his foot and it rolls, not bounces to you. You bend down to pick-it up and there's a defender near you, so what's your first instinct? Well if you're Sampson you just shoot the jump shot, and honestly I've never seen anybody go from picking a ball off the floor to shooting it. He must be a god damn pop-a-shot all-star, except for all th misses. Like this one.

0:00 - 34-23 Gophers. This could become a game if CMU sticks with that 2-3, keeps hitting threes, stops turning the ball over, and gets Ziegler going. So no. And why the hell are there two broads doing this halftime show? Isn't this ESPN? Don't they have real people? One chick, fine. Whatever. I don't really care, but I can't have two. I just can't. Don't you people know that they can attract bears when they're on their cycle or whatever. Bears.

18:10 - Gophers score the first four of the second half on a strong drive by Ahanmisi and 19-foot jumper by Welch. Yes, it's backwards day. This causes Calipari or whoever is coaching the Chippewas to call a timeout, because the Gophers scored four straight. It's totally necessary to give each team 8 timeouts per game or whatever.

17:43 - I just received a text that used "sry" for sorry, "sux" for sucks, "ur" for your, and "b" for be. All in the same text. Luckily it was from a girl so I can sort of let it go because their brains aren't as big and aren't wired for spelling (sorry ladies, it's science). If you, or anyone you know, is a guy and texts like this just know that it pretty much automatically means you have a small penis.

16:14 - Another three for the little white guy with huge socks, which makes four for him on the day and cuts the Gopher lead to 40-29. I also think I'm wrong calling him white. He's got a little color in there. Also he has some crazy ass hair style and I just realized he looks almost exactly like Paulie D, which makes me think about J-Woww which gets me all hot.

14:03 - Jesus the gophers are terrible, but luckily they're still light years better than this Chippewa team. 45-31 Gophers.

13:08 - Andre Hollins knocks down a three and announcer guy calls him both "Andre" and "Dre" in the span of six seconds. I'm so confused.

12:33 - Ziegler heating up a bit. Also appears to be willing to shoot any shot at any time. Dangerous combo. For both teams.

11:32 - Elliason grabs a rebound. Announcer guy, "That's what Elliason can do for the Gophers, grab rebounds." Well no shit, genius, he's like 8 feet tall and sucks, he's going to plant his ass in the lane and grab missed shots.

8:51 - Joe Coleman with a foul on the perimeter playing terrible defense. Good overall game though. 57-37 Gophers. I'm pretty bored, and yet I can't muster up the energy to post on anything else like the Jayme Carroll signing or the NBA Stuff or even this Josh Willingham possible signing by the Twins. I don't even have the energy to go on twitter and find out if that signing because official yet or not. Guess I'm saving something for the California trip. You could complain, but be honest: that Dumb and Dumber thing made your day.

7:04 - Back to back possessions where CMU made lay-ups and were sent to the line due to dumbass ticky-tack fouls by the Gophers. You either foul hard so they can't make the lay-up or get the eff out of the way. If I wasn't yawning so much I'd be really pissed about that.

6:54 - I'm gonna go fold some towels.

5:03 - $57 million for Nene? Man it is really not fair if you're over 7-feet tall. Also apparently ever single person involved in this game is going to hit a three-pointer in the final few minutes, blowing the fuck out of my UNDER 127.

2:02 - And there goes the over. Gophers 73, CMU 56.

0:00 - Gophers win 76-56. I've been trying to come up with a sentence to put here for like 5 minutes. I just want to get to the real games already.

Week in Review - 12/12/2011

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 03:57:00 +0000

There's no Gopher talk below because meh. I'm sorry, they blew out St. Peter's which is exactly what they're supposed to do. I just don't care. I could probably break down all the players' shit or whatever but again, it was against St. Peter's so it's all basically meaningless. Well not totally meaningless, I mean it's nice to see them work over a shitbox team they way they should so that's encouraging. And I know this is a Gopher blog and I should write up every single game but in my defense fuck that shit.

WHO WAS AWESOME

1. Anaheim Angels. Ok so yeah, the Pujols' contract is probably too long and the C.J. Wilson contract is probably a little much for somebody who hasn't shown he can be a true ace, but the Angels just grabbed the best hitter and best pitcher on the market. As someone who thinks a team should spend as much as they can and as much as they want to win and doesn't get all revved up about big market vs. small market discrepancies (I don't hate the Yankees and Red Sox because they have more money, I hate them because they're assholes), I think it's an awesome move to say "Yeah, this is probably more than these guys are worth, but we can afford it and it makes us better." Pretty sweet week to be an Angel fan, and with Pujols, Kendry Morales assuming he's ok, and Mark Trumbo now on board they have a pretty sweet trade chip which, if they're lucky, they can use to also persuade somebody to take Torii Hunter or Vernon Wells' contract. And now they have Wilson, Dan Haren, and Jered Weaver at the front of the rotation. Yeah, nice. I'd say this makes up for the Napoli thing.

2. Indiana Hoosiers. Well that was a pretty awesome game. Huge win for the Hoosiers, and they're definitely on the way back but I'm not convinced they're good. I mean really they shouldn't even have won that game but John Calipari was too busy counting his illegal monies to actually coach. Do you realize Indiana was down 2 with 6 seconds left and Kentucky had TWO fouls to give. So you wait until the guy catches the ball in the back court, let him get 2-3 dribbles down and foul. Then, when they take it out on the side, you waste another second and foul again, and at this point Indiana has like one second left and the ball out of bounds on the side at mid-court. Boom. You can choose to blame Calipari or you can choose to blame his players instead, but I contend that Calipari coached those players so IN YOUR FACE.

3. Michigan State Spartans. Pretty good weekend for the B1G 10 (outside of Ohio State) and Michigan State's win over Gonzaga in Spokane (or wherever the hell Gonzaga is) was a very good one. What I found most interesting was Draymond Green's line. Usually he's all like, I'm gonna grab a bunch of boards and dish some assists and score some points and just kind of facilitate the offense, but in this one he just took the hell over and scored 34 of their 75 points (no other Spartan hit double figures) and really didn't do anything else (2 rebs, 3 asst) and was like a completely different person than usual. I don't know if that's good or bad. Like one time I had this friend who was a huge drunk and he was hilarious but he drank like all the time and then he stopped drinking and we were like good for you that will make you so much healthier but then he wasn't funny any more and was kind of lame and I haven't talked to him in a long time.

4. Devoe Joseph. Royce White is probably the best player in the Big 12 (FACT!!), Justin Cobbs is a valuable member of Cal's almost certainly NCAA Tournament squad, and now Devoe makes his debut for Oregon and leads them in scoring with 18, throwing in 4 assists (to 1 TO) to boot. That's always fun. I'm fucking pissed at Devoe. I liked him too much for him to just turn his back on me like this, then show up with some west coast hippie dude looking sexier than ever. That was a metaphor. Also, because I don't know where else to put this and I can't remember my twitter password, I just want to mention that I'm alone in my basement and I'm choosing to watch The Next Iron Chef rather than football. Does that make me gay?

5. Rob Gronkowski. Do you remember how when you used to play Tecmo Super Bowl sometimes Christian Okoye would be in "excellent" condition and then when you'd run with him you'd actively look for defensive players to just run over and bounce them right the fuck out of the screen? That's like Gronky, he's just sick. Completely untackleable. It doesn't even matter if it's some pussy ass little safety or some big fat defensive lineman, nobody can bring this dude down. And he's not just some big bruiser, he's got hands that are baby soft. I once saw Randy Johnson whip an egg at his head at 98 mph and he just cradled it in and the thing didn't even break. Then he humped a porn star and when he was done she was all like "you're the best I've ever had" and he was all like "yeah don't call me." True story.

WHO SUCKED

1. Joe Webb Fans. Are you people serious? After a very nice day at the bar with Dawger and Bear (ps suck it $nake), I happened to be listening to the after game call-in show or whatever for the Vikings and I'm pretty sure people are completely out of their damn minds. Hosts and callers both, because there was apparently a for real debate about whether Webb or Ponder should be the Viking QB of the future. Guess what geniuses, Joe Webb sucks at throwing a football. Did you even watch the game? He was missing open receivers by five freaking yards and I'm not exaggerating. He's not Mike Vick bad or even Terrelle Pryor bad, he makes them look like me playing bar league football - dead on balls accurate. Yes he's fast. Fun. But Ponder might be an actual real life QB, even if that throw across the body crap was the worst throw in the history of football. Webb is a bit and you're dumb. You know damn well you love him, don't lie to me.

2. Creighton Blue Jays. Could be the return of the curse of DWG, or could just be that Creighton sucks balls because after getting out to a blistering start that actually had me complimenting a Missouri Valley team, Creighton sucked big-time this weekend getting rolled by St. Joseph's. Creighton allowed St. Joe's to shoot 49%, sent them to the line 29 times and got there just 9 themselves, and was out-rebounded 37-24. They also allowed someone named Carl Jones to score 29 points. I don't really have else to add since I don't really know that much about either team or care, but I did bet a decent amount on Creighton to win this one so I'm a little peeved.

3. Memphis Tigers. Speaking of betting oh my god I suck at betting so much when it's not props. How the hell could Memphis possibly lose to Murray State at home? Murray State isn't even good. They're not even mediocre, and that's why Memphis was an 11 point favorite but instead of winning by eleven they just flat out lost. Which made sense because I got raped like an Egyptian geisha this weekend. But really, could Pastnor have learned from Calipari any better? Recruit great athletes, stress defense, refuse to run anything remotely resembling a real offense and just hope your players can outplay your opponent - exactly like Kentucky these days. Too bad Murray State is boring and disciplined. I hate that shit.

4. Manchester United. Wow. Just wow. How do you lose to Basel, and how do you get knocked out in the Group Stage in Champions League? This is the first time since 2005 Man U hasn't made it to the knockout round. Also I told the swamp donkey to sock it before I gave her a trunky in the tradesman's entrance and had her lick my yarbles.

5. The Xavier/Cincy Fight. As someone who continually rips hockey because most of the "fans" of the "sport" care more about the fighting than the game I need to weight in here and say that the fight was stupid and dumb and stupid. But you know what's even more stupid? The people who are trying to blow this thing out of proportion and act like programs should be shut down and players should be kicked off teams. Yes, punching some ugly white dude in the head isn't a good thing and stomping on some guy who's already on the ground is probably not a resume builder, but this is the ugliest rivalry in college hoops and has been for years. The whole game (and pre-game really) was chippy and bitchy and you could see this shit coming when the refs didn't step in like asap. Yes, it's a black mark on the game but it's not like somebody was engaging in a little horseplay in the showers here so let's settle down. Also those people who are condemning Holloway for his "gangster" comment need to fucking relax. He's not saying they're Crips for christ's sake, it's called his vernacular. Relax, whitey.

By the way, this Tebow shit is ridiculous. Every week it's the same thing - suck badly and embarrassingly for 3.5 quarters and then tear shit up in the last 6 minutes. Once again it happened this week. When I left the bar the Broncos were down 10-0, the offense had done nothing, and Tebow had 45 yards passing. When I got home it turned out the Broncos won and Tebow threw for over 200 yards. I mean how does this shit happen every single week? It's crazy, and I gotta tell ya I think I've gone from Tebow hater to semi-on the bandwagon. Seriously if he wasn't silly religious I'd probably be all aboard, but who am I to question god? And if I was going to I'd probably start with the platypus anyway, then move on to general human misery and/or specific events like the holocaust or that tidal wave thing, and then eventually get to Tebow. That sentence kind of got away from me. Anyway, has there ever been such a lock for #2 in MVP voting? Every single writer is going to go Rodgers #1 and Tebow #2. And if they pick somebody other than Rodgers they're going to go that guy #1 and Tebow #2. He's going to finish in second with zero #1 votes. Right? Because nobody would voluntarily vote him #1, right? RIGHT?

Also I have $2 on Tebow to win MVP which would get me $200 so I'm on board. Choo choo.

Gophers vs. St. Peter's Preview

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 03:18:00 +0000

Why am I writing a preview for the Gophers' game against St. Peter's, a team that is 2-5 and whose only wins were over a couple of even more terrible squads (Siena and Binghampton which is five hours each way)? Especially since I couldn't even be bothered to do a post-game write-up on their win over Appalachian State because I was so thoroughly bored with it? It's not because I'm really super excited to see the Peacocks (yes, seriously) since I assume Keydren Clark didn't somehow get back in, it's because I see a possible crack here where the Gophers are going to need to be careful with this team. Stay with me.

Yes, St. Peter's is an awful, awful team. I mean you don't just lose to Fairleigh Dickinson by 11 or Manhattan by 26 without being an abomination, no doubt, but they do two things well: grab offensive rebounds and force turnovers. The Peacocks force turnovers on 25% of their opponents possessions, good enough for 39th best in the country, and they grab the O-board on 37.8% of their misses which ranks 42nd in the country.

They have seven different players on the team who average at least 0.5 steals per game, including Brandon Hall who plays 23 minutes per game and essentially doesn't nothing but steal the ball (2.3 per game in those 23 minutes). They also have three guys (Yvon Raymond, Karee Ferguson, and Jack Hill) who are especially adept at grabbing offensive rebounds, particularly Raymond. Since St. Peter's is pretty horrible at every other aspect of basketball these are pretty clearly their strengths.

Which is what makes Saturday's game slightly interesting to me because their strengths are two places were the Gophers are weak. They're are still terrible taking care of the ball, turning it over on 22.5% of their possessions which ranks 228th in the country, and they are very middle-of-the-road when it comes to preventing offensive rebounds, ranking just 163rd. Even that number, however, is misleading a bit because the Gophers are averaging almost 50% more offensive rebounds allowed per game since Mbakwe went down compared to beforehand (about 10 vs. 7). So you see, this makes St. Peter's an intriguing opponent.

Not like, a super intriguing opponent, just kind of. If they could shoot I'd be on high upset alert, but luckily for you they're dreadful. They shoot 26% from three and 44% from two, which when combined gives them one of the worst eFG%'s (think of it as points per shot attempt) in the country (rank 314th in the country). They turn the ball over like crazy, play mediocre defense, can't hit their free throws, and get their shots blocked and have the ball stolen away from them like they're a bunch of 2nd grade girls running around. All in all their offense ranks 312th in overall efficiency, and that's WITH that really good offensive rebounding number. Take that away and this might be the worst offensive team in the country.

So I'm not going to call out any individual players on this team because I'd be lying if I pretended to know dick about any of them. I will say that you shouldn't be surprised if this game is slightly closer than you'd think based on what I've outlined above. You also shouldn't be surprised if the Gophers win by 40. I'm guessing somewhere in the middle.

Minnesota 62, St. Peter's 50

Notes from Last Night

noreply@blogger.com (WWWWWW) — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 13:08:00 +0000

There were a lot of interesting games last night. Here is some stuff that happened.

DAYTON 74, ALABAMA 62: Dayton managed to flip it's season on it's head once more, salvaging a bit of the season they ruined after having a nice season going, and that makes total sense if you know what I'm talking about. After losing back to back games to terrible teams Buffalo and Murray State, this win over #15 Alabama is exactly what they needed. Needed to fuel their delirium that this is an NCAA Tournament caliber team, because everything about Dayton, the team and the city, is terrible. If ever there was a town that needed the Black Plague, that's it.

LAFAYETTE 61, PENN STATE 57: Quite the competition we have going here between Penn State and Iowa to see who can be the most embarrassing program in the Big 10. First Iowa loses to Campbell. Then Penn State loses to St. Joe's. Then Iowa gets blown out by both Clemson and Northern Iowa. Then tonight Penn State tops 'em all with a tremendously horrible loss to LaFayette, a team ranked #245 in the country by kenpom.com - for reference Campbell is ranked 180. This is like watching Jim Abbott and Helen Keller try to play tennis.

VIRGINIA TECH 78, RHODE ISLAND 67: A road win against a non-terrible opponent by a team the Gophers already beat. Thus an RPI boost for your favorite team, which is always a positive. Granted it's a small boost, but like the sign that homeless dude at the ramp entrance by my house says, "Every little bit helps."

FLORIDA 78, ARIZONA 72 (OT): The gators somehow managed to survive one of the worst overall performances I've seen from a really good team. Their incredible backcourt (Kenny Boynton, Erving Walker, Bradley Beal, and Mike Rosario) combined to 12-44 through a combination of terrible decision making and unprecedented brick-laying and as a total team the Gators shot 15-32 from the free throw line and the numbers were only that good because they got hot in overtime. Even more alarmimg, however, was their defense which was lackluster at best and lazy at worst, allowing open layups and three-pointers to Arizona most of the night (like watching a Gopher game). I had considered Florida to be one of my possible Final Four sleeper teams, but after a showing like that on the defensive end I'm not so sure.

ILLINOIS 48, ST. BONNIE'S 43. Obviously things didn't go as planned for the Illini seeing as how they scored just 48 points, and they were almost the second Big 10 team to go down last night, trailing the Bonnies 39-30 with five minutes to play (and almost the third if you count Purdue who only beat Western Carolina by 5). St. Bonnie's is a good team with a very, very good player you've probably never heard of in Andrew Nicholson, but Illinois couldn't lose this game if they were going to be what they think they're going to be this season. Luckily, Brandon Paul suddenly realized "hey, I'm playing a bunch of fools from a school named after a girl, maybe I should take the ball to the rack." And so he did, tallying up eleven points and an assist in the final five minutes of the game to bring Illinois back. I honestly have no effing clue what to make of Illinois. None.

So, uh, yeah, I guess. I thought I would probably write more but then I got sick of looking at your face.