Best Gophers of the Tubby Era: #25-21.

Throughout the summer I'll be writing up each of the 34 players who played for the University of Minnesota under Tubby Smith.  Why Tubby?  Because it's the most recent era that's over.  If this goes well perhaps I'll go back and do Monson as well.  I'll be looking at any player who played at Minnesota under Tubby at some point, even if it was just a year.  And I will be considering their entire Gopher career, so guys who started under Monson or finished under Pitino will have their whole career considered, but anyone who transferred in or out is only evaluated on their Gopher stats.  With me?  Here we go:

#34 to #31 can be found here.
#26-#30 can be found here.

25.  TRAVIS BUSCH (2007-2009).
-  I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking he should be higher based solely on his heart and his hustle and his grit.  Maybe so.  But grit and a can do it attitude can only get you so far - like a career total of 132 points in a gopher uniform.  I know you've talked yourself into remembering him as an impact player in his second year, but the fact of the matter is he only averaged 3.7 points per game that season.  I think he had a handful of good games in a row or something at one point.  Also, and I forgot this and only remembered when I was perusing my Busch archives, the team flat out decided not to renew his scholarship after his junior year.  So that's something.

24.  DEVRON BOSTICK (2008-2010).
-  Ranks up there with Antoine Broxsie as one of the most disappointing Gophers in my lifetime.  I remember reading up on him after the Gophers signed him out of JuCo and thinking damn he sounds good.  A polished scorer with two years of JuCo experience?  I figured him to come in and be instant offense at worst.  Never happened.  He averaged just 3.7 points per game in his Gopher career, and played less than 10 minutes per game his senior year.  Course, that'll happen when you shoot just 43%.  He had games where he started to look like he was putting it together, and he could certainly be a smooth offensive player at times, but time ran out before he could put it all together.

23.  CHIP ARMELIN (2010-2012).
-  Another disappointing Gopher, and other than Busch this whole post could just be labeled "The Disappointments", Armelin also never quite managed to put it all together.  He averaged 4.5 points per game in 12.5 minutes per game in his two years here, and although he certainly had some serious athletic ability it never really manifested itself.  He didn't put up good rebounding numbers, he wasn't a great defender, and he shot just 42%. He blossomed in his senior year after transferring to Mississippi State, but like I said, that means nothing here.  I initially had him below Bostick, but I forgot how ineffective Bostick actually was.  Armelin outscored him by 132 points, out-rebounded him by 32, and out-assisted him by 10.

22.  OTO OSENIEKS (2011-2014).
-  Another guy who never quite put it all together.  Oto had a weird career, culminating in a career ending injury until the Gophers needed another big guy and then suddenly he could play again.  His willingness to help the team is commendable, and he was maybe is a coach or grad assistant or something so that's great, but he also averaged just 3.5 points per game in his 3-year Gopher career and was a pretty god awful rebounder despite being 6-8.  I always liked Oto, and I really wanted him to succeed since it seemed to me everyone was a bit too hard on him.  Somehow, my want never made it so.

21.  PAUL CARTER (2008-2010).
-  Carter played just two years for the Gophers before transferring to UIC to be closer to his sick sister, but he ranks this highly because he's actually good.  He had the most points and second most rebounds of any player ranked so far despite just the two seasons.  Carter really made some strides between his first and second seasons and could have been a potential star, and he blossomed quite a bit once he enrolled at UIC.  It was a bummer when he left, and I'll always remember his huge block in the big comeback win in Madison which, by the way, I was in attendance for.  After the game and then after the bar we went to some pizza place and there was some punk kid there who moved our stuff and was sitting in our seat and he wouldn't move and wouldn't even look at us or acknowledge us in any way so Dawger slapped the pizza out of his stupid mouth and then we got kicked out.  Still got to take our pizza with us though.

Breaking News All Over the Place!!!!!!!!11!!!1

Ok, so not so much breaking news, but news worth a little chat nonetheless. Three little nuggets:



1. Sammy Sosa was on steroids. Wait. Wrong file. That's not in my "breaking news" file, that's in my "no shit, sherlock" file. Everybody already knew this, didn't they? The only guy more obvious than Slammin' Sammy was Bonds.

You gotta respect a guy who is willing to cheat in all kinds of different ways, though. Not only did he bring the roids, but if you recall he was busted using a corked bat, too. He might as well have just gotten an aluminum bat that was painted like a wooden one. That's genius, actually, scratch that. It's like playing Madden and using the rewind button if you throw a game-losing interception, but then hitting the reset button too. And claiming it was an acccident.

I'm glad Stammerin' Sammy finally got outed officially though, since apparently there were some people who didn't know. Never liked him. His whole joyful act when McGwire broke Maris's record was the phoniest thing I had ever seen until Kobe and his teammates celebrated their new NBA title as if every single one of those guys wouldn't have shanked Kobe in the kidney if they thought they could get away with it.

2. The Twins finally did to Jesse Crain what they should have done to Matt Guerrier last year, and shipped Jesse Crain down to AAA when Glen "Perk" Perkins came off the DL. Crain has been an absolute nightmare this season, sporting an ERA of 8.15 (397th of 415 pitchers with at least 10 ips) and a WHIP of 1.92 (385th) and basically has made Guerrier look like Juan Berenguer. Ideally, he will spend his time in Rochester fixing whatever is wrong with him and get back to his 2005-2006 form, although it wouldn't surprise me if we don't hear from him again (Hi Jack Cressend!).

Of course, Crain hasn't been in the minors since 2004, so I'm assuming this is pretty humiliating for him and maybe it will motivate him to get in gear. Although when a guy sports a chin warmer and a sea-shell necklace like some kind of outcast frat boy who just got action for the first time from a 250 lb. drunken behemoth in cancun who just puked, I'm guessing he doesn't have a lot of shame left in him.



3. Finally, the big news we have all been waiting for. After a lengthy battle for his services, which I'm assuming involved a lot of money under the table, free cars, and copious amounts of willing and available trim, your hero and mine Travis Busch has signed on to attend (and apparently play basketball at) Colorado State next season (due to his hustle, he was granted a waiver and doesn't have to sit out next season and becomes eligible immediately.)

What? How did this happen? I thought he was going to fall down a lot and be scrappy for a D-2 type school like Winona or Metro State, but now all of a sudden he's heading not only D-I, but to a team in the Mountain West? It's not exactly a power conference, but it's not the Summit League either. I know they lost there ball-hoggy scoring point guard guy so they need scorers, but I don't think Mr. 2.6 points per game is really the answer here. Actually, I'm pretty sure a 6-3 (yeah right) 210 lb. power forward is the answer to anything, unless the question is "Who can dominate at the local YMCA adult pick-up?"

Do you remember just a few years ago Colorado State had three seven-footers? And now they are going to bring in a six-foot power forward who couldn't guard a black guy to save his life (he should do ok against BYU and Utah). It's pretty clear Tim Miles has run that program into the ground, or whatever is below the ground; Magma - I don't know, I'm not a geologist, all I know is these quotes from Miles really speak for themselves:

"We are excited to have Travis join us. He is a person who values education, he's got a dynamic personality, and he is a relentless basketball player. He will be a great fit for our program."

"I expect he will step out of his role of a complementary player and into a leadership position on our team. He's got the tools and work ethic to make big things happen for Rams basketball"

I swear I didn't make either of those up, although they are damn close to what I would write if I was making them up - but with more references to falling down. When reached for comment, Devron Bostick said, "He do b hustlin."


Also I'm very sad that Austin Daye stayed in the draft, I hit a home run at softball last night, Jason Kubel is still awesome, and this food on a stick thing at the State Fair has got to stop. I just saw a show that profiled the Rueben on a stick and Spaghetti and Meatballs on a stick. Ridiculous. Just knock it off. Although I also learned that the Meat Raffle was invented in Minnesota. Awesome.

If you're lucky I might have a US Open preview tomorrow.

Some Stuff Quick

- Cry. Travis Busch is leaving the Gophers. The team declined to renew his scholarship, so Buschy is taking his ball and leaving which, with the graduation of Shamala, leaves the team dangerously low in the unathletic white guy department. The Daily Gopher reports that the Pioneer Press reports that Busch is getting interest from Winona State and Nebraska-Omaha, and I'm kind of surprised. I actually figured that his little hustle routine and pigmentless skin would have a higher profile team (like a Northern Iowa or Valpo) come calling, but it would seem not. Faith in the world slightly restored. Slightly.

- One of the things I'm most impressed with this early in the season is the improvement of Carlos Gomez's batting approach. His stats aren't staggering, but looking deeper (or even just watching him) you can see he's matured and made changes, and the Spring Training reports to that weren't just Spring fluff. Last season, according to fangraphs, Gomez swung at 36.8% of pitches thrown that were out of the strike zone, and so far this season he's only gone after 21.7%. He's even letting more balls in the zone go as well, swing at 58% of strikes this year compared 68% last season. Overall, he's swinging at just 34% of pitches this year, whereas last year he went after 53%. This is awesome, and should not only contribute to more walks and less strikeouts, but also to a higher batting average and slugging percentage as he stops going after pitches he can't hit. Excellent.

- Also excellent is Alexi Casilla turning the double play. I agree with The Fourth Strike that he and Punto might be the best double play combination in the league - fielding wise at least. Certainly not offensively, since Punto sucks and that honor pretty clearly goes to Hanley Ramirez and Dan Uggla in Florida.

- ESPN released their final list of the top 100 prospects, The ESPNU 100, for 2009. As you'd guess, two Gophers ended up in the top 100, with Royce coming in at #35 and Rodney at #42. According to this list, they end up being the #2 and #3 ranked freshman coming into the Big Ten for next season, since there isn't a whole lot of talent coming into the conference, behind just Indiana's Christian Watford at #34.

- Oh, and if you're wondering, last year Delmon Young swung at 39.9% of pitches out of the zone (fourth in the league) and this year he's so far gone after a whopping 60%, and overall has gone after a staggering 64% of pitches he's seen.

- Joe Crede just hit a home run in his first at-bat against the Sox. So awesome. Eat it, queers.

- The Masters is shaping up nicely, with a couple of surprises at the top of the leaderboard in Chad Campbell and Kenny Perry, with nearly all the big names in striking distance, including Furyk, Garcia, Kim, Singh, Ogilvy, Mickelson, Villegas, Westwood, Harrington, and el Tigre all within seven shots. Shaping up to be a fun weekend, although my new least favorite golfer in the world Zach Johnson won't be there after shooting a freaking 80 today. 80! Raymond Floyd is 66 years old and hasn't won on the Champions tour since 2000. There were only five rounds the entire first two days of the tournament worse. What a giant piece of crap. Thanks for sucking and making me look like an idiot.

- I have two movies queued up to live blog when I get a chance. The first is Shark Attack 3: Megalodon, which I have mentioned before and finally found again and Tivo'd, and The Sandlot 3, starring Dylan McKay which I can't wait to watch - it has to be better than Sandlot 2, which had girls playing ball for god's sake.

- Since baseball is harder to keep up with who is being Awesome and who is sucking in a given week, I'm considering going to a "Daily Review" every morning rather than just the weekly roundup. So that would mean daily content updates. Stay tuned.

- By the way, if you search this blog for "Shark" it returns 11 posts, only one of which references Greg Norman and zero of which reference the San Jose Sharks if they still exist. I may have a problem of some sort.

EDIT: Un-freaking-believable. I get my ESPN Streak for the Cash up to 10, and Phoenix gets beat by Memphis - and not only beat, they get rolled by 20. F that. Turns out Phoneix played their backups more than their starters. God that sucks.

Gopher/Illinois Game Blog

Yippee skippee. I feel sick before this game even starts, and it it's not from the Cheeseburger Ranch Hamburger Helper (made with Turkey) we had for dinner. It's also not from drinking, because I'm not.....oh wait. Hello Cranberry & Vodka (with Lime). How did you get in my hand? Weird.

Hopefully I'm wrong and the Gophers, at the very least, acquit themselves nicely here, if not squeak out a win. Gophers need to play tough man-to-man defense, and get into the lane on offense in order to win. On to the game, Illinois favored by eight, I have no money on the game.

- I really hope the bad Illinois shows up tonight. And the good Gophers I suppose as well.

- Good start - two handed slam by DJ on a nice feed from Ralph. Points in the paint - good trend.

- They are continuing to attack inside and have a 5-2 lead with 17:30 left and haven't shot a three yet. I would be just fine if they don't shoot a three ball all game.

- Twins are 2-0 this spring after thumping the Reds 10-4 today. And who needs Joe Crede? In the two games, Twins third basemen (Brendan Harris, Luke "the future" Hughes, Brian Buscher, Danny "the other future" Valencia, and someone named Deibinson Romero) have combined to go 8-11 with two doubles and four runs scored. I say we trade Crede now for bullpen depth. Or make him play shortstop.

- DJ with an incredible stretch, scoring a fast break layup then getting a steal for a dunk to stretch the lead to 9-2. I am really like how this is shaping up so far, on both ends. Although it is still very early and things could fall apart in a hurry.

- God damn it, three straight turnovers - a blocked shot, a steal, and then Nolen drives and loses it out of bounds. Suddenly it's 9-7, momentum Illini.

- Wow, Tubby definitely reads my blog. Gophers really attacking in the paint right now and just killing Illinois with it. Not to mention absolutely crashing the offensive boards - and another layup for DJ as we speak, who has 12 of the Gophers 15 right now. I couldn't have scripted this much better.

- In other good news, I just completed a trade in our keeper fantasy football league for Dwayne "The Show" Bowe. The downside is that I had to give up the #2 overall pick in the rookie draft. I hope Michael Crabtree is a bust.

- Why is Travis Busch in the game? Not only does he completely suck on defense, but he's undermining everything they're trying to do on offense right now. It's clear that the focus of the offense is to get the ball inside to a big guy on the block and let him go to work. Well, Busch isn't an offensive threat even a little bit, and when he gets the ball the Illini defense just laughs. It just makes zero sense.

- Illinois on a 9-0 run with Busch in the game.

- I also want to note that the Gophers are 0-8 from three. STOP.

- Halftime, Illinois leads 28-23. Positives are the Gophers seem to have a plan in attacking the basket from the paint, hitting the boards hard on both ends, and they are forcing the Illini to settle for jump shots. Negatives are they still will chuck a stupid three far too often instead of getting it inside, are turning the ball over way, way too often, and the continued regression of Al Nolen. Despite some negatives, I still very much feel like the Gophers are in this and have a decent shot at pulling it out.

- People not named Damian Johnson are shooting 4-21 at the half for the Gophers. Oof.

- Right off the bat the Illini dump it inside to Tisdale. He missed, but I definitely like it better when Illinois was doing their Gopher impression and refusing to get closer than 15 feet from the hoop.

- A couple Illinois jumpers and it's suddenly 32-23. It's getting very nervous in here.

- Don't you miss The Bear? I do. I emailed him to make sure he wasn't dead, and he isn't, and he claims he still reads all the time but he hasn't left a comment in months. Hopefully baseball season and Dawger's insanely idiotic comments and his Jack Cust love and draw him out of his cave of hibernation.

- Damian Johnson is utterly and completely unstoppable on either end. He's like the new JaJuan Johnson who is the new Hakim Warrick who is the new KG.

- Oh good, Travis Busch is in. That makes sense.

- Trent Meachem takes it right at Busch who is camped in the lane and Busch can do nothing but Greg Paulus flop. Running tally is now 11-0 Illinois with Busch in the game.

- Fine, he hit a three pointer. Congratulations. Even better, announcer guy just said Busch is playing a very good game. Um, it's Illini 11, Minnesota 3 when he's in the game. His reason: good energy. Seriously, anybody can come in the game and run around like a god damned retard wearing a helmet at Christmas-time. But when your team gets outscored while you try to see how many times you can fall on the floor, you're not doing anyone any good. Why are people so dumb? Why do they always buy into the scrappy, hustle-y white guy thing? I want to blame David Eckstein, but it's been around way longer than that. Read this. Know it. Live it. Love it.

- Iverson might have the worst hands since Bogart's guy Troy Williamson. Or Randy Carter.

- Suddenly the Gophers are winning thanks to Damian Johnson just stealing and/or blocking everything. Oh, not any more thanks to a lob pass right over that midget Busch's head.

- Seriously, if the Gophers could hit anything from the outside at all they'd have this one in hand. But, well, they can't.

- Where's Ralph?

- Seriously, they called a moving pick on the Gophers? John Thompson would be happy. (One time Thompson was doing commentary on a game on ESPN, and he spent pretty much the whole game complaining about all the moving screens. It was awesome).

- Tubby's tie is hilarious. It's gold and maroon striped, but as Mrs. W just said, , "it looks like it's from Harry Potter." Zing.

- There's Ralph. Dominating. 42-41 Illinois, 6 minutes to go. Come on you stupid jerks.

- You know what? When Demetri McCamey has the ball at the three point line all alone, somebody should probably go and try to guard him. He got the ball, hesitated, and when nobody bothered to guard him he shot and made it. I rewound the play, and Snake's guy Westbrook was the closest to him, but just stood there like a fat lazy slug who doesn't give a crap. God that's just so frustrating.

- and then on offense he gets the ball in the corner and just holds it for the last five seconds before the shot clock runs out, and the Gophers don't get a shot. 45-41 Illini with 4 and a half to go, but I'm more than a little bit afraid this one's over. Especially since Westbrook is still in there, trying to lose. Expect him to hand the ball directly to McCamey at some point.

- What the hell happened to getting the ball into the post? And what ever happened to Hoffarber's jump shot? This whole team is one big regression line.


- Game over, Illinois wins 52 to 41. My head says the Gophers played a good game and what more can you really ask for going into Champaign. My heart says screw this shit, I'm done with this after they fell completely apart in the last five minutes by playing like idiots. We'll see who wins.

Gophers/Northwestern Game Blog

Absolute must win here for the Gophers. They probably need to win three of the last four to feel good about their NCAA bid chances, and this is the easiest of the bunch. Easiest on paper of course, ignoring Northwestern's earlier ass-whooping of the Gophers. And don't forget they went into East Lansing and beat the Spartans, so they aren't just a home threat.

A couple of keys before we get started:

1. Gophers offense. Stagnant, lazy, perimeter oriented, and it needs to get healthy while going against it's absolute nemesis - the Northwestern 1-3-1. The one, and only, shred of good news on this front is that the Gophers showed they have the ability to go against a 1-3-1 in the opening minutes against Michigan, where they attacked and penetrated and got good shots. Of course, the bad news is that they quickly abandoned that strategy to swing the ball around the perimeter and take bad shots.

2. Gophers defense. Lazy and not smart lately. Giving up a lot of open shots, and Northwestern has the shooters to knock them down. They can't give up as many wide-open looks as they did against the Wolverines, or this one will be over quickly.

Anyway, on to the game:

- God damn overtime in the stupid Iowa/Michigan game, as if anybody cares about that. Meaning, of course, that we won't get to the Gopher game until, like, the 12 minute time out. Which, I suppose, makes it just like pretty much every other Gopher home game.

- Ooh, live look split screen style at the Gopher tip off with Iowa up by 10 and up less than a minute left. Hello NIT Wolverines, enjoy yourselves.

- We're here, 17:45 left and Northwestern up 3-0. I'm going to assume the Gophers let the Wildcats have a wide open three. It's just what they do.

- Wide open NU layup as Sampson and DJ get confused on a screen, followed by an Al Nolen airball from three. I kind of want to turn this off already.

- Northwestern is in a man-to-man. I repeat, Northwestern is in a man-to-man. This makes zero sense. You don't need to play mind games and try to mix things up when the other team can't handle your base defense. This would be like having the spread gun in Contra but deciding, you know what, I'm going to go with the Laser instead.

- Defense looking very tough and very aggressive, creating turnovers and transition opportunities. Plus Devron Bostick just scored. Things starting to look a little more positive.

- Joseph fouled on a three point attempt about a foot behind the three point line. Of course, whoever the dumb announcer is says, "that's well outside Devoe Joseph's range." the way he's been shooting lately, I'm pretty sure if he's inside the half court line, he's in range. Watch a game once in a while, ass. 2-3 for Joseph, 11-5 Gophers.

- Defense looking even better. Northwestern is, at this point, chucking up threes but they aren't open. Generally they are a foot or two behind the line, and there's a Gopher flying out in the shooter's face each time. I am encouraged.

- Hugh Jackman is hosting the Academy Awards? What the F?

- I've thought about it, and I'm now convinced that Travis Busch is the worst player in the country averaging more than 12 minutes a game. And I'm including those guys on NJIT and other joke schools.

- My wife has really bad strep throat, and tylenol isn't helping, so we dug out some old Percoset she had from after she gave birth to Wonderbaby^TM. She's now wandering around the house saying, "this feels really good" and "I really like this." I'm concerned. And yet, the Gophers interest me more. Seems like they are dominating the game, but their only up seven (with 7 minutes left). Bostick looking great though with seven points already and a lot of PT. Maybe he won't transfer after all. I'm still hoping he doesn't, at least.

- And HERE'S the 1-3-1. This will tell the tale of the game right here. And they never cross the three point line, settling for a Westbrook heave with 3 left on the shot clock. I am now worried. Also worried about Mrs. W, who is now yelling at her Mac & Cheese for having clumps in the sauce.

- Announcer guy: "I think Minnesota sometimes struggles when their guards overhandle the ball, and they don't feed the big guys." Ok, so maybe he does watch the games sometimes.

- Halftime, Gophers lead 36-18 and are looking very good doing it. A very aggressive, high-pressure defense is forcing Northwestern into bad shots, and despite a lack of turnovers, they are able to get out and run thanks to a lot of missed Wildcat shots. In the halfcourt offense, they have for the most part utilized both dribble penetration as well as finding the big man on the block in order to get inside, not to mention attacking the 1-3-1 from the high post well enough to get NU to abandon playing that defense (although Paul Carter is far superior to DJ in that high post position). The Gophers have been helped by some cold Northwestern shooting, as they had some wide open shots they've missed, but overall it's their defense, reminiscent of the Illinois game, that's forcing the Wildcats to look bad. Excellent half.

- Player of the Half = Devron Bostick, with 9 points and, aside from one blown defensive assignment, has looked great and basically kept Hoffarber on the bench. Interestingly, it's also his birthday today. Happy birthday Devron, please keep this shit up in the second half.

- Mrs. W is now accusing me of deleting all the playlists off her Ipod, despite the fact that I've never used it and have my own synced to a completely different computer.

- Hm, the halftime summary thing is trying to tell me that Lawrence Westbrook has 11 points to lead the team, but I'm having trouble buying that.

- Northwestern going with that hell of a 1-3-1 to start the half. Gophers need to keep attacking and not try to sit on their 18 point lead. Also I just ordered Baseball Prospectus Guide for 2009. And Ralph made 2 free throws to stretch the lead to 20. Life is good.

- A Northwestern 3, followed by a shot clock violation after Nolen passed up an open three with about 4-5 on the clock. I feel less good. Kind of like before was eating fire sauce on a Taco Bell taco and it feels so good, but now it's kind of like about a half hour after that, when it feels like that alien from that movie about an alien is trying to burst out.

- Another shot clock violation, but the Gophers still lead by 20 because Northwestern is so awful. I think Northwestern vs. Kerwin Fleming, Kevin Payton, Travis Busch, Zach Puchtel, and Steve Esselink would be a pretty damn good game.

- "Colton Iverson playing like Allen Iverson." Ugh. How do these guys get jobs? Still up 19.

- Busch with a breakaway due to playing suckhole aka Spehar style, goes up for a layup and is "flagrantly" fouled by Nash, who was almost my new hero when it looked for a moment like Busch was injured. I know it's not very classy to hope for an injury, but.....well.....I got nothin' here.

- Al Nolen's new nickname is, "I suck at basketball"

- I dislike most of the fans who dress up like idiots because it's stupid, but the dude in the Paul Carter jersey with the Flava Flav clock that says "Tubby Time" is money.

- Mrs. W now talking about our Vegas trip in May with Snacks and his wife, Optimator and his wife, and two randoms including some chick who made out with Grand Slam at Snacks' wedding. Nothing particularly funny about it this time, but it did get me fired up for Vegas.

- 62-37 with 5 minutes left after an excellent pass from Hoffarber to set up Paul Carter for a three point play. I'm going to go ahead and say that's pretty much an allegory for the season. Hoffarber has two sides to him: the one dimensional shooter who doesn't do much else, and the all-around good player who can put it on the floor and do some things. I don't remember where I was going with this but your mother's a whore.

- 67-40 with four minutes left. I'm calling this one. Excellent win for the Gophers, and if they can figure out a way to play like this all the time there's no doubt the NCAA tournament is in their future. Let's hope they keep this up for the next three. And I'll close with yet another picture of Wonderbaby^TM. This is her climbing her walker thing while I watch the Northwestern/Michigan game. It would be pretty easy for her to tip that over and hurt herself, but on the other hand it looks cute and in order to stop her I'd have to stand up, so, you know.


Hey! Shamala hit a three, good job. Announcer guy just called him a pretty good player, so I can only assume that dude will be fired by the end of tonight.

When Doves Cry

Yep, that's pretty much what we've come to at this point. It's probably time to realize the Gophers are a thoroughly mediocre team after dropping a game at home to Purdue 70-62, a score I almost called. In a game which was made even worse by rush-hour like traffic both before and after, the Gophers followed up their sloppy effort against Northwestern on Sunday with an even sloppier, uglier, lazier effort last night. A lot of that can be credited to Purdue, who is a fabulous defensive squad, but if you're a national ranked team with aspirations on a good seed in the NCAA tournament you find a way to get it done, especially when you're at home.

An ugly game was made even uglier by Heavy Handed Hightower who, along with those other guys, called a ridiculous 49 fouls leading to a total of 61 free throws between the teams. The Gophers were actually right there in the rebound battle (losing 32-29) and forced the Boilers into 17 turnovers to just 14 for the home team. Unfortunately, none of that matters when you shoot just 28% (3-19 from three) and allow the other team to shoot 47% (6-11 from three).

It's time to ramp down projections and temper your hopes and dreams, as it's becoming clear that maybe this Gopher team just isn't as good as it had appeared. They can't guard or score against the really good teams. I'm not saying they are a bad team, far from it, but after the Wisconsin win expectations really rose, my own included. It's time to realize they are basically a bubble team, looking at a 7-11 type seed if they get in and possibly one victory in the tournament. That is the new level of success we should hope for. Pretty much exactly where we were going into this season. Still a good team, but my hopes have been dashed. Let me pose something, perhaps the win over wisconsin wasn't an indication of how good the Gophers are, but how bad the Badgers are. I just blew your mind.

Anyway, here's some stuff:

Halftime Show: That was awful. When it's a bunch of girls running around jumping and flipping about like the Fargo-Moorhead Acro Team it's awesome. When it's two dudes doing the same thing, it's just gay.

Lewis Jackson: I don't know that I've ever seen anybody as fast as this little midget. His numbers aren't all that impressive this year or anything, but I have no idea how that's possible since he appears to be completely and totally unguardable. He did turn it over five times last night, but I think that's just the kind of thing you have to take sometimes with a guy like this. Not even Nolen could stay in front of him, and I didn't think that was possible. Speaking of unguardable...

Al Nolen: He's still unguardable as well, and can get to the paint anytime he wants. Here's the problem, he gets in too deep, and has no idea what to do. He either needs to start pulling up for a jumper, commit to getting to the rim and just keep going, or pass it back out before he gets in too deep. He seemed to have two modes last night, either drive and stop and have no idea what to do once he got in the lane, or keep charging in. He keep charging in thing has it's place, and last night it worked thanks to the refs as Nolen had 17 points, mainly thanks to his 10-10 on free throws. The stopping in the lane thing, however, has got to stop. He's got a ton of talent, and other than his 3-14 shooting and the driving and stopping thing, he had a great line (17pts, 6rebs, 4assists, 3steals). He's starting to become quite the enigma.

Poor Unsuspecting Girl: This was just some poor girl Snake pointing out to me, vulgarly referring to her as "Trim." Then she turned around, and was clearly no older than thirteen and wearing braces. I hope you enjoy prison Snake, say hi to Tweeder for me.

Lawrence Westbrook: I'm pretty upset with myself for defending Westbrook in the comments of my last post, he really played a very lazy game last night. He got lost on defense a few times, and even seemed to have trouble handling the ball - like he couldn't quite dribble correctly, more like an 8 year old girl than a nationally ranked team's leading scorer. One play was completely inexcusable - I don't remember exactly the situation, but a ball was heading out of bounds of the Boilers and in Westbrook's direction, rather than grab it, he lazily waited for it to go out of bounds, when instead a Purdue player ran over and saved it to a teammate. Just inexcusable. I honestly think he might have the flu or mono or the HIV or something, because I've never seen somebody play with less energy.

Ralph Sampson: One of the lone bright spots last night, Sampson finished with 6 points and 7 rebounds and won the coveted "Boston Scientific Heart of the Game." I still think this guy has the most potential out of any of the newcomers, and he seems to be gaining confidence. His outside jumpshot is pretty much completely random, either it's on or it's way, way, way off, but I have faith in him. All American in two years?

Devoe Joseph: I really liked how he tried to take over the game offensively for a stretch when the Gophers couldn't seem to score. It showed he has a scorers mentality, despite being used mainly as a PG - including playing the 1 when he and Nolen were in together. It wasn't his best game, but I saw something I really liked - much like when I watch that stats lady walk across the floor.

Green Guy: Honest to christ, what the hell was that? I don't even get it. Am I just old? I think it's pretty much just kind of stupid and weird. If you're going to be weird, at least make sense. Like, I get the guy who dresses like a cow, and I get the guys who painted their chests. It's demented and sad, but I get it. I don't get the gorillas (they aren't found in barns - you don't make sense) and I really don't get the green guy.

Travis Busch: Busch played 12 minutes which is far too many against a team like Purdue. I get that you want to mix it up a bit when things aren't working, but how about giving Devron Bostick more than 8 minutes? He might be our most complete offensive player, so why not give him more of a shot against a good defense? Sorry, I know I'm not allowed to question Tubby, my bad. The only memorable thing Busch did was when he blocked the shot of a 5-5 midget, then backed away from the ball which allowed the midget to grab it and throw it over to Hummel for a wide open three pointer, which he thankfully missed. You'd think a guy with all that grit and hustle would know to grab the ball, and probably dive at it even when not necessary.

Cross Country Hat Wearing Guy: This dude sat in front of us, wearing some kind of cross country hat, which was completely unformed and the back tab thing wasn't tucked in so it stuck out like some kind of reverse antenna. Every single timeout he had to stand up. It may not sound like much, but when me, Snake, and Snacks all noticed it separately, it's clearly pervasive and completely irritating. Just stay in your god damn seat, you damn hippie.

JaJuan Johnson: I said I was a bit concerned about Johnson, and didn't think Iverson could handle him and hoped Sampson could. Turns out nobody could. "The College KG" led Purdue with 19 points and 8 rebounds, and tossed in five blocked shots just for kicks. Completely unstoppable force. Big Ten Player of the Year.


Paul Carter: I didn't much notice Carter, and other than a very short stretch where he grabbed a steal and blocked a shot or two, he didn't do much, but the important question is: Who would win in a bar fight, Westbrook or Carter? Official bar type fight, where whatever weapons you can find (broken bottle, pool cue) are available? Snake says Carter, I say Westbrook.

Escape!

Despite playing the worst game in Gopher history (including the Monson years) our beloved Gophers managed to escape from the shithole that is Hawkeye arena last night with a 52-49 victory, mainly due to the Hawkeyes sudden inability to hit open shots in the second half. I don't have much time to write, thanks to my stupid job, but here are a few observations I had, other than if that was the first basketball game I had ever watched, I would never watch another one again.

- I believe Al Nolen is morphing/needs to morph further into TJ Ford/Jacque Vaughn. Despite the huge three he hit in the second half, he seems to not only be generally unable to hit an outside shot, but also unwilling at times. He can certainly help the team with his defense and I maintain that he's nearly unguardable when driving to the rim. He seems, at times, to embrace that and at this point I'd be happy with a creating, driving and dishing point guard. We have Hoffarber, Joseph, and Westbrook (ok fine, and Shamala) to hit the threes, so maybe this is the right direction for the team. Funny thing is, I had my phone off because I had to watch the game on a slight tape delay because of stupid Wonderbaby, and when I turned it on after the game I had a text from Snake which said, "Al Nolen needs to turn into Jacque Vaughn." So it's unanimous.

- I don't understand the seeming unwillingness to dump the ball into the paint against the smaller Hawkeyes, particularly after Tate went out with that injury. Sampson looked awkwardly unstoppable, hitting 3 of his 5 shots, and Iverson only ended up with one attempt on the night and only played 11 minutes. My only thought here is maybe Tubby thought they needed a smaller lineup against the tiny Hawkeyes, but I didn't notice any worse defense when the big guys were in there than not. And that doesn't excuse the refusal to get the ball inside. Iowa is one of the most three-pointingest teams in the nation and attempted 23 three pointers last night; the Gophers chucked up 22. Falling in love with the three for the Gophers is not the way to win, and is troubling against a team that small.

- I love Westbrook, truly I do, but at times his "I scored 40 points a game in high school" mentality shows through. Sometimes I think it's a good thing, such as in the second half against Michigan State when nothing was working and somebody needed to try to take over the game; it didn't work, but I understood it and liked it. But at other times it boggles the mind. Last night at one point a loose ball kicked over to the corner where he grabbed, and pretty much shot a turnaround jumper from three point land. I have no idea why he thought that was a good shot - but it wasn't unless you played for Loyola Marymount in the late 80s. I'm not particularly concerned, as I think Tubby has him reigned in pretty good and like I said, sometimes you need a guy like that, but this one was so out there I had to mention it.

- Man or Zone or switching defense, I thought the defensive effort the Gophers gave was absolutely brutal last night. The only difference I saw was that the shots weren't falling in the second half, despite being open (although yes, in the first half they were able to get to the rim more successfully than in the second). One thing that frustrated me was after Anthony Tucker came in Willis Reed style, the defense seemed to focus far too much on him. On consecutive possessions he started to drive and got maybe a half step when a perimeter guy would leave their man to help. Perhaps fundamentally correct, but in both cases the guy they left was Matt Gatens, the leading three point shooter in the big ten who, of course, knocked down both open threes. There was really no need to help that far out on the perimeter when help was available further down in the paint, especially to leave a shooter like the next Chris Kingsbury. The other thing about Gatens I noticed is that he probably needs to get more aggressive if the Hawkeyes are going to have any success. He shoots 54% from three and was 4-5 last night, but I noticed he only shoots if he's very open. He might need to be willing to bring his percentage down a bit and take more chances shooting. He's good enough that if he can get his shot off, he should probably be taking it, even if he doesn't have that extra second to totally set himself.

- A commenter somewhere down below said, "The Gophers don't beat Louisville without Travis Busch" which I thought was laughable. But I'm going to say "The Gophers don't beat Iowa without Travis Busch" which truly hurts my soul to type, but I believe it today. Maybe somebody else steps up by the end of the game and takes the Gophers to the win, but I didn't see any likely candidates out there. Busch hit some big shots, and as much as I'd like to I can't ignore that. Let's just move on.

- Paul Carter made his biggest impact of the season last night, despite playing just nine minutes. He scored five points and three offensive rebounds on the night, and his athleticism will come in handy as the season advances. Bostick looked good as well, playing 15 minutes and picking up six points and a couple of steals. There really is a lot of talent on the team this year, hopefully Tubby can find the right combinations.

- Finally, the biggest highlight of the night was ESPN2 announcer Doug Gottlieb giving a shout out to our friends at From the Barn and complimenting their article on the Minnesota/Iowa rivalry. Very cool. On a related note, my mom recently told me I need to "clean-up" my blog, so I'd say things are moving in the right direction for both of us.

PJ Hill is a Douche (not the Badger running back)

And, more importantly, the Gophers knocked off the #24 ranked Ohio State Buckeyes 68-59, assuring that they won't start the Big Ten 0-2, will probably keep right around their current ranking of 21st, and I will still go to the games this year.

In case you missed it, the aforementioned Hill decided that although his team was getting it's doors blown off this afternoon he'd take it upon himself to trash talk one Mr. Lawrence Westbrook, a guy who I wouldn't fight if I was offered a million dollars and given a gun. He even took the douchiness to a special level usually reserved for guys who put their sunglasses backwards on their heads and wear bluetooth ear pieces everywhere they go by standing next to Westbrook on the free throw line after L-Dub was fouled an about to shoot, woofing at him the whole way until the refs made little P.J. move - Minnesota was up like 8 at this time with under a minute left. He then continued yapping even after Westbrook made the free throws, after the final buzzer sounded (and his team lost), in the handshake line (which almost led to an altercation), and from the entry to his team's tunnel while the Gophers were singing the rouser (along with Will Buford, who Jon Diebler eventually pushed to get him to get down in the tunnel).

I don't have a lot of rules in life - ok, that's not true, I have a ton of rules and most people constantly break them and piss me off - but this one is a biggie: when you aren't very good at basketball, and your career high in points is seven, and you managed all of three on that day, and the guy you want to trash talk scored fifteen and averages over 10 times as many points per game as you, and your team just got worked, you keep your god damned mouth shut you stupid douchebag, or you just look like even more of a jackaas than you already do with your wanna-be a broke ass Troy Hudson dreads. I hope he dies.

Anyway, the game was awesome. With Al Nolen in foul trouble very early, like before we even got to our seats, running the offense for the majority of the first half fell to Devoe Joseph, and he answered the call in a huge way, leading the Gophers to a 34-24 halftime lead with his scoring and, more importantly, some stellar point guard play, including breaking a Buckeye press with the dribble and finding Shamala cutting from the corner with a pretty pass that would have been a monster dunk by pretty much anyone else on the team other than Hoff or Busch. Joseph's numbers actually ended up pretty pedestrian, 7 points on 3-9 shooting, four assists and two turnovers, but unlike it baseball the numbers can't and don't tell the whole story here. If Joseph can't step in like he did, Westbrook would have had to give it a go, and that's not a good look. Absolutely the player of the game in my book.

Although it is very hard to overlook what Damian Johnson did out there today. This statline is just sick: 12 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists, 4 steals, and 3 blocks with zero turnovers. A completely dominating performance without actually being dominating. What can't this guy do? Well, he can't hit a jumper beyond about fifteen feet, but that's ok. And I think he's starting to realize that himself, so that's even better. PJS over at the Daily Gopher is falling more and more in love with him each game DJ plays, and has even started lobbying for Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year consideration. And you know what? I completely agree.

Overall it was a very enjoyable game, and it was awesome to see a game where the Gophers were much more talented than a Buckeye team. A couple of short thoughts on some other players:

- Ralph Sampson III is probably my second favorite Gopher behind Joseph, and he looked to be on track for a nice offensive game after scoring a couple of early buckets. Tubby pulled his playing time however, opting for a smaller, more athletic lineup and RSIII ended up with just those four points in 17 minutes, but finished tied for second on the Gophers with five boards. Call me crazy, but I know Snake will agree, I think Sampson has the potential to be an absolute star by the end of his stake here.

- The guy who tied Sampson with five boards was Paul Carter, who looked good today and helped the Gophers outrebound the Bucks 35-27, a nice change from the Michigan State game (although let's not compared the two opponents, let's just be happy with this result). I'm not really sure what to make of Carter. At one point today I joked he was Quincy Lewis without the scoring, which is funny because that's all Lewis did. I think Carter can follow in DJ's footsteps eventually. I don't expect him to a major scoring threat at any point, but he could easily develop into something approaching DJ's all around game.

- Travis Busch and Jonathan Williams only played 3 minutes each, none of them in the second half - and the Gophers won. Not a coincidence.

- I think I still believe in Devron Bostick, but I'm starting to wonder if he's nothing more than a more athletic Hoffbauer. Nearly half his shot attempts are from three. Of course, the Hoff is at over 70%, so maybe not quite. (NOTE: Not a rip on Hoff. I love what he gives this team).

- Jon Diebler for the Buckeyes is at over 75%, and that's before today's game where he chucked up 13 shots, 11 of them from beyond the arc. Although "chucked" seems to invoke visions of poor shots, and since he was 5-11, I'll withdraw my adjective.

- Lastly, B.J. Mullens is very, very good. I don't know why he doesn't get more touches, but I'm glad for the Gophers and the rest of the Big Ten. He only took two shots today, but made them both and they were both impressive. The first was a really smooth jump hook from about 12 feet, and with his seven foot frame was pretty much unstoppable. The second was even more impressive, getting it on the block and using a combo shot fake-drop step-duck under to go right around Colt Iverson like he was Felton Spencer for the easy lay-in. The kid is very smooth, and has very good footwork. Once he gets a little more confidence and with it more aggressiveness it's going to be trouble. Although I'm still pretty sure RSIII can take him.






Also P.J. Hill is a douche (not the Badger running back).

Craptacular

Well, my emotions yesterday ranged from disappointed to wildly disappointed to anger to apathy to kind of sleepy and back to disappointed. Not because of the football game, because in all honesty I have no idea who won that game, but the god damn jerk hole basketball team. I think I've finally settled on optimistically disappointed, because although Michigan State is a better team, they still couldn've won that game but just weren't all the way there today.

Some things, of course, are out of the team's control. Kalin Lucas was completely ridiculous today, despite what, in general was pretty solid defense. Chris Allen was hotter than Tiffani-Amber Thiessen in that episode of 90210 where she wore that black lacy thing in the first half. The Spartans, seemingly like most Gopher opponents, were unconscious from the free throw line making 12 of 13. There was little doubt in my mind that MSU was both better and more athletic than Minnesota, and clearly the better team.

However, there are certain things that left me absolutely stunned and bewildered yesterday. The first among these was the complete and utter unwillingness and inability of the Gophers to get the F back on defense, whether after a miss or, even more unforgivably, after a made basket. The highlight dunk reel dunk you've seen on sportscenter that I've been too pissed off to notice who did it was a prime example. The game was still in the balance, and the Gophers had just scored. Whoever that was for the Spartans just ran up the court while three Gophers' backs were turned and put it down for the thunder dunk. And that's just the most emphatic example, because it happened over and over again, a fundamental mistake and an embarrassment on a Tubby Smith team.

Overall defense didn't seem to be much better. When the team was matched up, making the correct switches and fighting through screens when needed they played well, and overall held the Spartans to just 41% shooting, but the amount of breakdowns leading to easy baskets was an absolute killer. One guy switching and the other guy not, getting lost in screens, not helping at the right time or helping at the wrong time (such as Colton Iverson jumping out to double the horrible shooting Travis Walton's 18 foot jumper, leaving Suton open for the jump-pass to layup) all led to easy buckets for Michigan State. Another fundamental issue that just shocked me on a Tubby team.

Lastly, and no big surprise here, but the rebounding and specifically offensive rebounding was really a killer. A 41-22 edge to the Spartans, who also grabbed 16 offensive boards, is just too much to overcome. Some of it was to be expected, as The Daily Gopher says, this was a MSU strength against a Gopher weakness, but my god, how frustrating to watch. Particularly plays like when Hoffarber got Chris Allen to settle for a long jumper, then turned and watch it miss as Allen went right around him to grab his own miss for an easy put-back. Again, some of it is to be expected, the Gophers just don't have the personnel to keep guys like Morgan and Suton (5 o-boards apiece) off the glass all game, but effort plays like the one I described by Hoffarber seemed to abound all game, and that is what led to the disappointment in this team.

Last thing I want to say, because this is making me a bit sick, is that Tubby needs to find a shorter rotation. Far be it from me to criticize the black jesus, but playing 12 games like yesterday just seems excessive, and nobody can really get a rhythm. Busch has got to go. He can score when he's open, no doubt, but he gives anything he scores right back with horrible decisions, poor defense, and the inability to rebound with big ten caliber big guys. Shamala also doesn't bring much to the table, except against the right matchup. There is no reason to ever have Hoffarber and Shamala in the game at the same time, except against slow teams who are playing a zone - like Northwestern. Shamala is basically a poor man's Hoffarber, so when you need to get Hoff a rest, go with someone who gives you a different look like Paul Carter everytime, not just a watered down version of the same player. And some of the combinations Tubby came up with yesterday really give me pause. Where does he expect to find offense with Devoe, Hoff, Shamala, Busch, Bostick, and Williams? How are you going to rebound with Nolen, Westbrook, Shamala, Busch, and Carter? Just bizarre.

Three final points (I promise):

1. You might as well light my big ten predictions on fire. Already.

2. We got the Fargo-Moorhead Acro Team yesterday. Awesome as always, but I really hate it when dudes are on the team. If sexism is to be allowed anywhere, and it should probably be allowed everywhere, the FM Acro Team should be one of the first places on the list.

3. I am, quite seriously, going to kill the guy who sits next to us at Williams. Dude, no matter how loud or often you yell at the refs, it isn't going to change a thing. Also, please stop yelling at Al Nolen to "GO!" when there are still fourteen seconds left in the half. I think he knows what he's doing. The opposing teams also don't travel every time they get the ball, or commit a foul every time they get near a Gopher player. I could go on and on, but I get feel my rage starting to boil over and I don't want Mrs. W to accidentally run into that damn doorknob again, so I just need to stop.


Please, please, please beat Ohio State on Saturday. Otherwise I can't be held responsible for my actions

Wow, and Good Call Dawger!

Well, I obviously didn't expect this. By far the most impressive Gopher victory in I can't even remember how long, the Gophers knocked off #9 Louisville today 70-64 in Arizona, despite getting almost nothing from the homecoming Lawrence Westbrook, who wallowed in foul trouble all day and ended up playing minimal minutes and scoring just two points.

The star of the game was by far Al Nolen, who the Cardinals had absolutely no answer for. Despite their four-headed monster at point guard, none of them could contain Nolen going to the hoop. He only shot 2-7, but drew foul after foul and ended up going to the line seventeen times, making 13 of them. Even when he didn't make the play, he drew the help defense and dished off to an open teammate, resulting in five assists and several other times he dished to a dude who was fouled himself. Truly a dominant performance. I think the last ten Gopher possessions were nothing more than milking the clock, then giving it to Nolen and letting him drive past whatever poor dumb bastard Pitino had trying to guard him. Absolutely dominating game.

The other big star of the game was the team's defense against Louisville. I really thought they wouldn't be able to stop the Cardinals, but Tubby's coaching really shined here. Despite inferior athletes, Tubby's scheme frustrated Samuels, Clark, and Williams with double-teams whenever the caught the ball on the block, and helping and sliding into lanes whenever anybody drove from the perimeter. Couple that with the team's incredibly impressive showing on the boards (just 28-25 L'Ville), and Tubby deserves every bit of praise he gets for this win and for the overall turnaround in the program after just one-plus seasons. The Cardinals did the Gophers a favor by ending up settling for a lot of jump shots, but in large part that was due to overall Minnesota defense. Really, really impressive.

Two last points I want to touch on quickly are Blake Hoffarber and Travis Busch. Blake I think is rapidly approaching Jake Sullivan status, where he an pretty much chuck it up at any time from any where and I'll be ok with it. The overall team has proven themselves to be quick enough and intelligent enough on the defensive end to hide Hoff's defensive deficiencies, which aren't nearly as bad as they were last year. This team is really set up to be a giant next season once RW-squared gets here. I can't remember feeling this way about a Gopher team since 1997, which of course, never happened.

Finally, Travis Busch, who won over the announcers hearts and minds with his grit, hustle, and overall David Eckstein-ness today on the way to a career high 13 points. His offensive game is clearly developing to be better than I would have thought possible, and I think he probably reads this web-log since he seems to be passing the ball a lot more lately. I, however, would argue that he gave back nearly that many points today bwith his shoddy defense and poor decision making. At one point he was inexplicably put on Earl Clark, who scored the next six points for Louisville by taking it at Busch and whose eyes must have lit up like a kid on Christmas. He's convinced me he has some kind of role on this team. I'm not sure what it is, but I don't think it's crunch time player, although Tubby had him in there for some bizarre reason at the end of today's game. They won, so I won't belabor the point. Good offensive game today, Hair Pie, and awesome win for the team. I'm even going to give them a chance to beat Michigan State now, which I hadn't planned to do before.

And what ever happened to Edgar Sosa? He was a terror two seasons ago as a freshman, even scoring 31 in the team's NCAA tournament loss to Texas A&M. Now he's averaging a career low in points and field goal percentage, and a career high in turnovers. Oof.

Gophers v. EWU

Sitting here, hoping Mrs. W stops talking about baby clothes some time soon, and about to watch the mighty Gophers as I drink down a drink or two.

- Drink of choice tonight is a Vodka/Cranberry. I don't know why, I think I've maybe had one of these before in my life. I guess with tomorrow being Thanksgiving, I'm in a cranberry mood. Which is extra weird because I don't like cranberries, fresh or canned. The drink is pretty good though, and not at all girly or gay if mixed properly, where mixed properly = at least 50% vodka. I think I'm running at about 71% right now.

- Awesome how we're missing the game here in order to watch the end of a women's game, and a women's game that is a complete blowout with Mich State leading ODU 70-46. There are about 3 minutes left. I suppose it being a blow out is good, so then we don't have to wait through the fouling and free throws at the end. They better not start the Gopher game til this band of strumpets finishes up.

- We missed about 20 seconds, and according to announcer guy an Abu Shamala drive for a score as the Gophers lead 2-0. It really sucks we missed it, because Shamala scores on a drive about once a year.

- DJ with a three point play, followed up by the kid from the sandlot scoring against him. Bad defense.

- Iverson takes it right at a short bald guy who is trying to D him up, and shows more moves right there than Kevin Loge did in his career. Excellent footwork by Iverson, helped out by the four inch advantage he has on EWU's "center."

- I had heard Westbrook may be out with a shin injury tonight, and that is indeed the case unless the Gophers "need him." Although if the Gophers "need him" against EWU, they "need" a lot "more" than "just" Westbrook and it's going to "be" a long "season."

- Abu Shamala is reading the starting lineup in a bit that hope becomes a regular occurrence on Big Ten Network. He reads well for a muslim.

- I think Busta Rhymes just checked in for EWU. Also, I'm dismayed to mention that it's 9-9 right now. 11-9 now. Iverson looking very aggressive against the overmatched Eagles with 6 points already, and this is a very, very good development. Also a good development: salma Hayek's chest:


- Devoe from deep, deep three. Dude is so much the man. He might be my new boyfriend.

- Bostick hits a three, which is awesome and also at the same time makes me sad because the fact that Bostick hit a three against Eastern Washington is something I thought would be routine, not cause for a flippin' parade. It's 24-11 now, so we should see plenty of Bostick the rest of the game.

- Bostick hits another three, and he's just going to go ahead and "leave it up there" Sidney Deane style. I thought he was supposed to be some kind of slasher.

- Count how many times Travis Busch gets the ball at the three point line or closer to the hoop and actually passes the ball. Honest to god, I think he's worse than Kris Humphries when it comes to shot to touch ratio.

- Shamala just drove past a guy. Right past him. What does that tell you?

- Announcer guy just referenced 2 Hard 2 Guard and how he would probably be the leading scorer for the Eagles if he was here. Of course, he used his "white world" name that "the man" would recognize and didn't call him 2H2G. Racist bastard.

- Halftime: 47-29 and it's basically a call your score kind of night. The guard play actually hasn't swung as much in the Gophers' favor as I thought, but it hasn't had to as the big guys, and specifically Colt Iverson, have completed dominated EWU who I don't think has anybody over 6-5. Colt has recgonized this and used it to his advantage in a big way, scoring 14 here in the first half. I really like this kid. In other news, the Eagles are bad enough that we will get a long look at Bostick in the second half. So far he's been ok, knocking down a couple of jumpers and a breakaway dunk, but hasn't particularly impressed just yet. He's looked unsure of himself at times, and I think he looks at the ball when he dribbles, but he's definitely looking better than he has in the other games.

- Taking a break to watch Top Chef. Tivo is running. Drinking will continue.

- Nolen having more trouble than I anticipated guarding Valentine on the outside, but now that I've seen him in person that little midget is crazy quick. It doesn't matter much, as he just drives past the guy guarding him but seemingly has never heard of a pull up jumper so he keeps going into big guy land and has to throw up some dumb swoopy-woopy crap.

- The defense is really giving up too many open shots early in the second half, but the offense is getting nothing but easy shots on their end so the lead remains 16, but this poor defensive effort is troubling.

- Rico Tucker is back, by the way, as I'm sure you were all worried. He's played in their last three games, but the knee must still be bothering him quite a bit as he's only played 12-15 minutes per game. Hopefully he gets better so we can all be witness to the glory once again.

- Busch with a catch on the block and a shot. He never, ever passes. You watch.

- Busch with a catch in the paint and a shot. He never, ever passes. Start noticing.

- Ooh boy, Paul Carter looks to be in a considerable amount of pain, and is rolling around on the floor. This is not a good development.

- I think Trent Tucker has a crush on Benny Valentine, and why not? Seemingly nobody can guard him.

- I'm calling an end to this as I have no real energy left to keep doing it. For the rest of the game I'm expecting more points from Valentine, no passes from Busch, and a 20 point gopher win.

Gophers 72, Colorado State 71

Luckily, thanks to DirectTV's Regional Sports package, I get the Mountain Sports Network, the only place to watch last nights Gopher victory over the CSU Rams. Actually, the lucky ones are those who weren't able to watch the game, because it was ugly.

I anticipated the game being a struggle. Since the schedule came out, I'd had this game pegged as a loss, and it easily could have been. It came down to a missed three by CSU's Andre McFarland as time expired - a wide open three pointer from the corner, I might add. But you know what? To go on the road against a non horrible team with some pretty good players and a good coach and come out with win is a great step for this team, no matter how ugly it was. I am very pleased with the outcome of last night's game, however many ugly spots there may have been.

The good:

1. Pressure defense. The Gophers press and overall pressure was excellent, and the Rams seemingly had no idea how to deal with it, turning the ball over 20 times, including six by last year's leading scorer Marcus Walker, who was held to just seven points on 2-11 shooting, mainly due to the Minnesota defense. Another factor was he was hit by a car the night before the game, as the MTN Network announcers made sure to mention every five seconds. Tubby pulled the press off with about four mintues to go or so, which baffles me.

2. Blake Hoffarber. Not just for his outside shooting (5-8 on threes), but for his aggressiveness as well. It didn't work out all the time, but Blake was once again putting the ball on the floor and trying to get to the rim. He is developing into a very good offensive player, particulary when he gets involved inside and out. Slight negative here is that he was at 20 points with about sixteen minutes left in the game, and finished with the same 20 points.

3. Al Nolen. Particularly when he drove the ball. He, like pretty much the entire team, has a tendency to settle for the long three pointer at times rather than trying to get to the rim, but last night when he got inside he was unstoppable.

4. Devoe Joseph. Once again he played limited minutes for some reason, only getting in for a total of 9 but putting up five points, two rebounds and an assist while not missing a shot in that time. I can't figure out why he's not getting more time, as I haven't seen anything that makes me think he needs to develop further or why he shouldn't be a first wave off the bench kind of guy. The only excuse I can come up with is that the Gophers are already deep on the perimeter, and they are, but that doesn't explain the ten minutes Kevin Payton got last night.

5. Offensive rebounding. They managed to grab 17 offensive rebounds, which really kept them in the game on a mediocre shooting night.


The bad:

1. Stagnant offense. The offensive philosophy seemed to come in waves, for a while they were happy to just shoot the ball from three with littel ball movement, then they would work in inside through the pass or the dribble, and then fall back in love with chucking it up. The offense was much more effective when they utilized the inside game, but they didn't do it enough. I'm not entirely certain Damian Johnson needs to be putting up 3 three-point attempts, although it was good to have him back in all other ways.

2. Free Throws. They didn't get to the line much (only 13 attempts) which is not surprising when you consider the entire team turned into Rick Rickert for a large chunk of the game, and even worse they only made 7, with Al Nolen going 2-5. The team is going to have to greatly improve their foul shot shooting to have much more success this year.

3. New guys minutes. This is very much not what I expected for the season, as other than Paul Carter's 22 minutes, none of the other new guys played much. Sampson got 10 minutes (he was banged up, however), Iverson 11, Joseph 9, and Bostick just 1. I'm hoping Tubby is just trying to ease them in to college basketball, but the 1 minute for Bostick is very alarming. It screams to me that Tubby has decided he isn't counting on him making much of an impact this year, and that sucks, considering it seemed likely when he was signed he would end up being the team's top scoring option.

4. Travis Busch. He clearly has a place on this team, and although I expect his minutes to switch to Iverson and Sampson as the season goes on I'm sure he will always get his handful of playing time. The problem as I see it is he doesn't know his role. There is no reason he should have taken six shots last night, as his role on offense should be garbage baskets and offensive rebounds. There is no reason for him to shoot a three-pointer, ever. There is not reason for him to come off a screen 17 feet from the hoop and catch-and-shoot. It's not what he needs to be doing, and hopefully Tubby can reign him in. There's gotta be some game film of Zack Puchtel out there he can watch, right?

All in all, I'm very happy with the result, and I think the Rams were the perfect team for the Gophers to face as their first road test; bad enough to be beatable, good enough to actually test them. They certainly didn't play perfectly, and some flaws were very much in evidence, but they got the win, and at this point, that's the most important thing. The rest will come.

More Golf, Less Gophers

Obviously, I have no real comments on the Gopher game, since I'm out in Pasadena and can't watch it. The good news is, the company I work for rented out Warner Brothers studios for us tonight and plied us with free booze until midnight. The bad news is the score of that abortion of a game. All I know, is Snacks called me to say "It's the eight minute timeout and the Gophers are down 22 and we're leaving" and then Dawger called me to say "I really don't want to recap that game." Well, Dawger better recap that game or he's fired.

Looking at the boxscore, the turnovers were even, the rebounds were even, but Illinois shot 59% and the Gophers shot 33%. So much for that vaunted defense. Also nice to see Dan Coleman not show up, finishing with 5 points and 3 rebounds. Also very weird is Travis Busch played four minutes and took 3 shots. That can't possibly be a good sign. Luckily I'm way too drunk to bother writing because I have to get to bed because my asshat of a boss decided I need to be at a meeting at 7am. Thanks.

But the real good news, is we have a new PGA post from Grand Slam.

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Well for all of you disappointed ass clowns who were so disappointed at me last week for not talking about Phil Mickelson's tight shirts, or how big his man breast are.....sorry to disappoint you again. Phil missed the sunday cut, therefore we will not be talking about him this week. So for you who need your weekly man breast fix, you will have to get it from your gay porn collection.

As for the golf tournament itself, did anyone else feel like they were watching the American Century Celebrity Golf Tournament at Lake Tahoe?? I mean for gods sake, all it was for the first 3 days of coverage was celebrities......Boring!!! Its like all of a sudden they got to Sunday and realized that they should maybe show some PGA tour players, hence the reason they play on the PGA Tour. But in all honestly there was alot of drama when it came to the professionals. Part way through the 4th round, Vijay Singh had a 4 shot lead until the back 9 came calling. With bogeys on the 10th, 14th, 15th, and 16th and a inward nine of 39, that is not gonna win you alot of golf tournaments when in contention on sunday afternoons. The result was a man who hasn't won on the tour in 7 years, and was playing this year on a minor-medical exemption.

Steve Lowery who was ranked #305 in the World Golf Rankings coming to the tournament received a nice little paycheck, along with a 2 year exemption on the PGA Tour, and a little trip down Magnolia LN come April (That's the Masters for you idiots who don't know) As for Vijay, a man who has seemed to really choke tournaments away in the last couple of years, continued his trend.

This week the Tour will head to legendary Riviera CC for the 2008 Northern Trust Open, formerly know as the Nissan Open. This week 17 of the top 20 players in the world will tee it up. A couple of notables will be making their first PGA tour start of the year in Sergio Garcia and Adam Scott. Although you do need to hit it a long ways at Riviera, putting is always the key to winning here.

That being said, my pick to win this week is young Hunter Mahan.

Talk to you fools next week.