Monday Musings (gopher football, stupid Wisconsin, and Gopher hoops recruits)

Some thoughts from the weekend:

-  Gopher football was pretty awesome this weekend.  Well, awesome is probably a bit strong considering all they did was beat a Division II team, but since the Gophers were 0-2 in their last two against D-2 teams I'd say this is a step in the right direction.  Even more impressive was how they won, because this wasn't some squeaker like against UNLV, they came out and and put a whooping on New Hampshire, leading 30-7 at half en route to a 44-7 victory.  Honestly, it was an even bigger ass-kicking than that.  Now, a pessimist could say that the only reason they beat them was because New Hampshire's QB got knocked out with an injury after throwing just two passes and his back-up had only thrown 8 career passes going into this game, but I'm going to choose not to go down that path which I admit is not the way I would have predicted I'd go.  But I mean, of the top 50 athletes/players in that game the Gophers had 49.  They also had the two best quarterbacks and probably three if Philip Nelson had gotten into the game.  Is it impressive they beat New Hampshire?  No.  Is it impressive they beat them by 37?  No, not really.  Is it a sign that maybe the program is finally moving back towards respectability after Brewster tried to kill it, perhaps intentionally?  Well, that's the way I'm going to choose to interpret this.  As Bob Wiley once said, "Baby-steppin."  And also "New Hampshire??!!??"

2nd best Bill Murray movie of all-time

- Suck it, Wisconsin.  Awesome.  Just awesome.  Sea-son's-ov-er *clap clap clap-clap-clap*.   Not only did they lose already this early in the season, but they lost to a Pac-10 team, and as everybody knows the Pac-10 sucks at everything that matters.  Seriously, nobody cares about fencing or water polo, but congrats on winning whatever that thing is called that goes to the school that wins the most total championships to you Stanford.  Way to rock at discus.  My favorite part of Wisconsin losing is how Danny O'Brien, who was supposed to be all like Russell Wilson 2.0 and come in with an established pedigree of being awesome but taking advantage of the transfer rules in order to make Wisconsin a National Title contender just sucked.  Completed just 20 of 38 passes - and a couple I saw were just awful throws (not MarQueis Gray vs. UNLV awful, but plenty awful).  Who am I kidding, I didn't have a favorite part.  The whole thing was my favorite part.  Iowa losing to Iowa State was just the gravy on the thanksgiving taters.

Interestingly, I don't feel nearly so gleeful about the Packers losing.   Yeah they lost at home but it was to another Super Bowl contender and they could easily rip off 15 straight wins now and probably will because why not, whereas Wisconsin is now doomed.  DOOMED!  Hopefully the basketball team is this shitty too, and they should be considering they'll be relying on Jared Berggren and Josh Gasser, but then again I'm pretty sure we've been here with the Badgers before.  That deal with the devil Bo Ryan made has to be expiring soon, right?

-  Three potential future Gopher hoopsters visited campus this weekend, including watching the Gophers thrash New Hampshire.  The visitors, in no particular order:

• Cedric Hankerson, a 6-3 shooting guard from Miami who is unranked by either Rivals or ESPN.  Also holds high major offers from Oklahoma State and Virginia Tech, as well as a smattering of offers from smaller nerd schools like Penn, Boston U., and Brown.  Smart kid who had a 25 on his ACT and comes from a basketball family (dad is all-time assist leader at Hampton or Wagner I forget which, brother played at Alabama and is now at Wyoming) so he's probably got a good basketball IQ, which would be sweet if the Gophers were putting together a team for the Knowledge Bowl.
• Gavin Schilling, a 6-9 center who also comes from a basketball family as he's the younger brother of former Gopher Shane Schilling and Cody Schilling, Gavin is unranked at Rivals and comes in at a 79, good enough for three stars, according to ESPN.  His best offers are from Illinois, Kansas State, and Vandy.  Notable that he is attending Findlay Prep this year, the same school where Gopher recruits Devoe and Cory Joseph attended.  You know, the guys where one would rather reduce his senior season by half rather than stay at the U and the other who never came here at all.  Fingers crossed you guys.
• Nigel Hayes, the most highly regarded of the group, is a power forward from Ohio who ranks as the 100th best recruit in the class of 2013 according to ESPN and gets 3-stars from Rivals.  He's also being chased by Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Stanford, although his brother played football for the Buckeyes but just transferred so I'm not sure what that means.  His post game is ok but needs work, however he's already got a jumper out to 19-feet and is athletic, although he needs to gain strength.

So there you go.  Pretty underwhelming.  Other than Hayes, who would be a great get with Mbakwe graduating, these other two guys would just be depth which is fine sometimes however I'm pretty sure that would describe this year's incoming class as well and when you do that too many years in a row you end up as Penn State.  No thanks.  I'm starting to wonder if they're going to sign anyone at all.

-  I was going to put some NFL stuff in here too but I gotta say something for the rest of the week.  Plus I spent most of Sunday at Chuck E. Cheese, so what do I know?