Week in Review - 1/21/2013

I really have no idea why I stopped doing these posts.  They're fairly easy, since I can write parts of them during the week, they cover all sports for an entire week period, and they give you, the idiot reader, something to depend on knowing this post will be here every Monday morning.  I'm going to do my best to get back on this and start having the Monday morning Week in Review's again.  Or your money back.  And I'm going to start with Lance Armstrong.

Ha ha just kidding.  I don't care. 

WHO WAS AWESOME

1.  Joe Flacco.  As much as I hate to give credit when it's due, I'm going to have to in Flacco's case because he had a great game getting the Ravens to the Super Bowl and outplayed Tom Brady to do it.  He seems to have developed a couple interesting skills to go with one of the strongest arms in the league - he can pick apart a defense underneath using his backs and TEs, and he has that over the shoulder throw to Boldin in the end zone down cold.  Both of his touchdown throws to Boldin were on that same play, and more than half his completions were to backs or tight ends, and then he can cut loose with that big arm to Torrey Smith when needed.  It will be kind of interesting to see how he adjusts in the red zone when the 49ers inevitably put a safety on top of Boldin when they get close.  I also just realized this is going to be a Harbaugh vs. Harbaugh Super Bowl and we're going to have to hear that over and over and over again.  Oh god, and also Ray Lewis.  And I have a feeling Colin Kaepernick is going to get way too much press, too.  God I am suddenly remembering how much I hate the 2 weeks leading up to the Super Bowl.  Don't they have some kind of 2-week coma drug?  I know the wife and kids probably wouldn't be down for me going in that direction, but I'm not sure I have a choice.  Not my fault.

2.  Washington Nationals.  In a baseball hot stove league that's been characterized by teams "going for it in their window" more than any other I can remember (Baltimore Orioles exempted, for some reason) the Nats just made another move that put them in the Dodgers/Blue Jays tier for "going for it" signing closer Rafael Soriano to a two year, $28 million deal with an option that automatically vests if he finishes 120 combined games in the two years.  That now gives the Nationals a bullpen of Tyler Clippard in the 7th, Drew Storen in the 8th, and Soriano in the 9th, and that's in front of a rotation of Stephen Strasburg/Gio Gonzalez/Jordan Zimmermann/Dan Haren/Ross Detwiler.  Their also loaded with a young and talented lineup with only one bad contract (Jayson Werth), Wilson Ramos will be back at catcher, they traded for Denard Span to fill their only real lineup leak, and resigned Adam LaRoche to a reasonable contract which gives them an excellent trade chip (Michael Morse, now a back-up who was just traded to Seattle in a three-way deal that brought them a couple decent prospects because lord knows they don't have enough) all at the same time.  Yes, paying $14 million to a reliever is too much especially when you have to give up a first round pick to do it, but I'm a big fan of this "going for it" thing and I'd say they're in pretty decent shape.  At least until they shutdown Strasburg after 190 innings this year because, you know, you can never be too careful.

3.  Butler Bulldogs.  I don't know if it's Brad Stevens or what (NOTE: it's probably Brad Stevens) but Butler just keeps on going.  When they made those back-to-back NCAA Championship games you kind of figured like, ok he found a few diamonds in the rough in Gordon Hayward, Shelvin Mack, and Matt Howard (really rough, in his case) and Stevens got them to perfectly come together for a magical run (or two) and then they'd go back to being Butler.  When they missed the NCAA Tournament (made the CBI) last season everything looked confirmed.  But now?  First Stevens gets Rotnei Clarke, and ultra-experienced deadeye shooter who fits Butler's system perfectly, to come to Indy, joining a couple of decent players, and you figure Butler would probably be decent.  Little did you know Clarke was going to play out of his mind and a couple promising youngsters would suddenly blossom into double-digit scorers.  Then Clarke gets hurt against Richmond and you'd think Butler would slide, but they had no issue finishing up Richmond, and then played a really, really good Gonzaga team and did this:

I hate teams that are always good because I'm so unfamiliar with it.  It's like an Amish who was dropped in Dubai.

4. Florida Gators.  For my money, there are six teams (seven if you count my super sleeper VCU) who could potentially win the NCAA Championship this year - Louisville, Syracuse, Michigan, Indiana, Duke, and the sixth is Florida.  For some reason they're only ranked 10th.  Why?  Because they have two losses, although those happen to be at Arizona (a one-loss team) in a game Florida controlled for 38 minutes before letting it slip away, and against a good Kansas State in Kansas City.  Look at their recent results.  After a week of dominating fools they've now won their four SEC games by 33 (vs. Georgia), 22 (@ LSU), 21 (@ Texas A&M), and 31 (vs. Missouri).  I know Mizzou is in kind of a tailspin right now with Bowers hurt and Dixon having been kicked off the team, but beating that team by 31 is still damn impressive.  Florida is one of the few teams in the country with a great offense and a great defense, with great players both on the perimeter and in the paint.  I feel pretty effing good having gotten down on them at 12-1 to win the whole thing.  Don't think, just do it.

5.  Syracuse Orangemen.  I've touted Louisville as my #1 team in the country so I need to give credit to the Orange for taking them down on the road, and actually this was the game that convinced me to put Cuse in that "could win the title" group because they played great in a tough environment.  I have no idea why Syracuse has kind of been under my radar, but I assume it's because I'm an idiot.  They're loaded at guard and play two point guards in Brandon Triche and Michael Carter-Williams, which they can get away with because they're 6-4 and 6-6, and an awesome front court that includes two great scorers (C.J. Fair and James Southerland) and a defensive superstar (Rakeem Christmas).  Their only loss was to Temple at MSG, and they now have probably the best win of anyone this season with that roadie vs. the #1 team to legitimize them.  They do have a big issue hanging over them with Southerland's indefinite suspension due to some kind of academic issue, but I would assume he'll be back soon enough given that Syracuse is a big time hoops school and so the administrators probably understand it's best to get him back on the court. 

Stupid Joel Maturi.

WHO SUCKED

1.   Gopher basketball.  I'm not giving up on the season, thinking they suck, or anything like that.  I mean they have three losses this season and they're all to teams that have been ranked in the top 3 this season, and only the Duke game was a double digit loss.  What sucks, and why I have to put the Gophers here, is that I'm having trouble imagining them as a Final Four team anymore, simply because there have been stretches in all three losses where they've been absolutely dominated, and the domination wasn't for a short period of time but a very long one.  Michigan outscored them 20-7 over a 7 minute period, Indiana had that entire first half, and Duke pretty much controlled the whole game.  For much of this year I had considered the Gophers to be a possible Final Four contending team and maybe the best Gopher team of my life.  That seems laughable now, as I'm fairly certain the '97 team would crush these guys.

That's not to say this can't be a very good year.  I'm picturing the team now as a top 5 finisher in the Big 10 with like a 5 seed and a decent shot to make the Sweet 16.  Wouldn't we all have taken that coming into the season?  Of course we would have.  By any measure (for the Gopher program) that's a successful season, it's just that it felt like the bar had been raised and that this might be a special team, rather than a very good one.  It's hard to feel that way anymore after watching Michigan completely outclass them on their own court.  Hopefully they can sweet these next four winnable games and I can feel a bit better, and even though I know this is a really good Gopher team it's hard not to feel a bit of a gut punch here.  It's not the losses, it's the way they lost.  Hopefully they learn and move on.  I'm also now extremely terrified of going to Northwestern. 

2. Los Angeles Lakers.  I know I'm not exactly breaking new ground here because I think everyone is aware of the Lakers' struggles, but holy crap you guys.  Anybody who ever watched sports new their might be an adjustment period bringing in Nash to play with a guy who dominates the ball like Kobe (similar to the LeBron/Wade pairing initially) but even if it took them a while to get it figured out with complimentary players like Dwight Howard and Pau Gasol you'd expect them, worst case, to end up being a very dangerous low seed in the playoffs as they finally figured it out.  One problem - they're not figuring it out, and at 17-23 are in severe danger of missing the playoffs after losing to Toronto on Sunday (TORONTO!!) thanks in part to Howard getting booted for picking up two technicals.  They've now lost eight of their last ten, and count losses to the Raptors, Cavs, Magic, and the Kings among their failures this year - those are some bad teams.  Normally I would be enjoying this immensely, but I just acquired Kobe for my Fantasy NBA team and so now I don't hate him as much.

3.  Jordan Hulls.  So let me get this straight, the Underpants Gnome plays out of his mind against the Gophers but then plays like a total asshole against Wisconsin?  And don't you dare credit Wisconsin for this either, because he was just total garbage who couldn't shoot, only bothered to take 1 three-pointer (seriously with that range he only attempted one?  First time all year), and turned the ball over like he was giving it away for Valentine's Day to some handsome man.  Plus he was outplayed by Ben Brust who sucks.  And what was with Indiana doubling down on Ryan freaking Evans on the block?  Just let him go to work, you'll be better off letting him shoot.  The only possible explanations for this game was that Indiana felt invincible after beating the Gophers and forgot to try or Jordan Hulls threw the game.  Also, why do I have so much trouble spelling invincible?  Everything about this has my brain scrambled like Kevin Burleson trying to break a press.

4.  Matt Ryan.  I thought Ryan was getting a little too much heat for never having won a playoff game (probably because the Matty Ice nickname is so annoying) but it's hard to find a way to not blame that game on Ryan (with a major assist to the defense).  I'll even forgive him the pick because Roddy White fell down, but there were plenty of unforgivable mistakes.  The fumbled shot gun snap that San Fran recovered which hit him perfectly in the hands and not picking up a single first down after recovering the Crabtree fumble (giving the Niners great field position after a shitty punt) were both pretty awful, but Ryan saved his worst for the biggest play of the game.  On that fourth down inside the 10 he forced the ball to a non-open White, never bothering to look at any other receive and thus missing an absolutely wide open Tony Gonzalez who had slipped behind the linebackers and there wasn't a safety over the top - easy TD.  I should feel good about this loss because the Falcons screwed over the Vikings in '98, but I hate Jim Harbaugh, Ray Lewis, and the Patriots so Atlanta was my only chance to enjoy the Super Bowl.  Hopefully they'll be good food.

5.  Seattle Mariners. If I'm going to praise the Nationals for making a good move, I gotta point out that the Mariners apparently are assembling a softball team or something.  After acquiring Michael Morse in the above mentioned trade, they now have all these guys: Morse, Raul Ibanez, Jason Bay, Kendrys Morales, Justin Smoak, and Jesus Montero.  Which means that even if they plan to give Montero another shot to be a catcher (LOL) they've still got five mostly immobile types to try to shoehorn into a lineup.  That means something like Montero at C, Ibanez in LF, Morse in RF, Morales at 1b, and either Smoak or Bay at DH with the other coming off the bench?  Ibanez and Morse as two of your 3 outfielders?  Franklin Gutierrez is very good, but he's not that good.  I guess the real point is why even trade for Morse?  Even if they've given up on Smoak (and if they have they should trade him to the Twins because I STILL BELIEVE DAMMIT) acquiring Morse brings nothing to you that you don't already have, and by trading John Jaso to do it you've severely downgraded your defense going to Montero, but they don't really have another choice because, again, they have way to many slow RF/DH/1b types to fit Montero's bat in any other way.  Seattle has the potential for a pretty kick-ass future (seriously their minor league pitchers are top shelf) but if they keep fucking up the present like this it's not going to matter.  Those Nintendo guys haven't done anything baseball-related right since Baseball Stars.  Remember Baseball Stars 2?  What were they thinking?


You'll notice I had the prudence to not write about this whole Manti Te'o thing because let's be honest, it's pretty played out at this point.  Was a pretty good day on twitter, though.  I also didn't write about hockey because it's a sport for cretins.  See you soon with a preview of the Northwestern game.  Or maybe just a link to the one I wrote like a week ago.  Jesus aren't they supposed to space these games out? 

That's it, I quit. NEVERMIND

[NEVERMIND ALL THIS.  FOR NOW]


It appears likely that the Gophers' best player, Trevor Mbakwe, will be suspended. 

And of what heinous offense was Mbakwe guilty?  Sending a message on facebook.  FACEBOOK!  Fucking facebook.  He didn't attempt to bash in a door with an axe or stand outside a window with a boom box, he simply sent a message on facebook.  Must have been a hell of a threatening message, no doubt?  No, it was simply something along the lines of "I hope you are doing well."  Now, I've looked and I've looked, but I'm having all kinds of trouble finding any kind of death threat in there, so unless this is some kind of zodiac killer code I'm thinking this was pretty innocuous.

Perhaps intent isn't part of the law, but it sure as hell should be part of the sentencing.  Let the law do what the law do, but not taking all the facts into account on this is ridiculous at best, reckless at worst.  Trevor Mbakwe, despite his physical attributes, is a kid.  He's a kid.  He made a mistake, as all kids inevitably do, and Joel Maturi is coming down on him as if he maced the vice president.  I mean jesus christ it's not like he starting the Army of the Twelve Monkeys here.  He sent an innocent message on a social media site which violating a restraining order against him.  Whether it was a simple mistake in timing or simply a rebellious maneuver it shows more immaturity and irresponsibility than malice aforethought.

And now because of it, the great Joel Maturi is playing around with Mbakwe's future, and not for the first time.  I get that you need to players to hold to a certain standard, and although I disagreed with what happened with Royce White I at least understood it, but what has happened to Mbakwe since he enrolled here is absolutely ridiculous and should really be the criminal act under investigation.  Maturi needs to step back from the big picture once in a while and realize he's dealing with real people - kids, actually - and his decisions don't just affect the school, the team, and us fans, but the real people he deals with day to day.

I can only guess that if this indeed comes to pass as a suspension Mbakwe will be out of here, and who could blame him?  At this point it has become apparent that Gopher athletic teams have zero chance of finding success as long as Maturi is still in power.  If they grabbed a flux capacitor and brought back Bill Walsh and John Wooden to coach, he'd still find a way to fuck it all up.

Seriously, I'm one of those "don't really care about what kind of citizen the players are as long as we win" kind of guys, I'll admit that.  But it's hard for me to see how even the most ardent believer in the character before winning philosophy can think this is justice.

For shame.

Sick of Brew

15-30 overall, 6-21 in the conference, 0-2 in bowl games.  That might not even have been the worst of it.  I think three offensive coordinators, three different offensive schemes, losses to North Dakota State, South Dakota, Northern Illinois, Florida Atlantic, and Bowling Green were the biggest issues.  That and the perception (and reality) that the program hadn't just stagnated but was actively moving backwards.  And now, as of Sunday morning, Tim Brewster is no longer coach of the Minnesota Gophers.

When Glen Mason was let go I was in favor of it.  I thought he had taken the program as far as he was going to, and although it wasn't terrible it was completely mediocre and you knew exactly what you were going to get:  a 4-0 non-conference record, a slightly below .500 Big Ten record, and a lower tier bowl berth.  Not a failure or a bad year, but it became clear that was Mason's ceiling and a new coach was needed to take the next step in turning the Gophers into a viable Big Ten football program.  Enter Brewster.

He said all the right things and certainly brought enthusiasm, energy, and positivity to the job - unfortunately those traits rank significantly below things like recruiting, team management, and game coaching on the ladder of job traits one should have to be a successful college football head coach.  I was a bit leery of the fact that he had never been a head coach, and was, in fact, a tight ends coach in the NFL, but we were assured that he could recruit, and to me that was the most important thing.  And then, well, he didn't.  Not really.  He brought in some nice players, but nothing remotely program changing, and seeing as how he couldn't coach his players up, and may have in fact coached them down at times, it was pretty clearly not working and was time to make a change.

Sadly, I think part of the reason he was let go in mid-season was because Maturi was starting to feel the heat and people were starting to question his ability to do his job.  Since people always need a scapegoat, it was easy to let Brewster go, nobody outside of Sid would object, and take the heat off of him.  For now.

It's up to Maturi to make the next hiring, and he's stated that they are looking for a "Tubby Smith."  I won't speculate on who that could be, but here is a list of 30 possibilities - although more like 29 since he has Tony Dungy on there.  I think they need to go one of two ways:  either an experienced coach who may be looking for a change (the Tubby Smith route) or a young, up-and-comer who has had success at a smaller school/smaller conference.  Either way, it needs to be somebody who has shown he can coach and shown he can win.  With TCF Bank Stadium now in play the old fallback of "we can't compete without a stadium on campus" has been eliminated.  There are no more excuses, and I'm sick of getting rolled by our biggest rivals (Brewster was 0-7 vs. Wisconsin and Iowa).

In any case it should be fun to follow the rumors and see how it all shakes out.  Hopefully if we're shocked, it's more like the Tubby Smith kind of shocked ("Holy Shit!  They hired Tubby Smith!") rather than the Tim Brewster kind of shocked ("They hired a TE coach with no real experience?").

Embarrassment!

That was such a terrible loss (Gophers vs. South Dakota), I don't even know where to begin.  Ok, I do.  Barring a miraculous run, there is no way Tim Brewster should be back for his fifth year.  I know the players on the field are the ones who ultimately decide wins and losses, and Brewster can't be blamed for the amount of open receivers Adam Weber missed or the key drops by receivers, but there is a lot here that falls directly on the coaching staff.  The inability to stop a slant route?  Allowing a Division I-AA QB in his second career start to go 21-30 for 352 yards?  To get sucked in over and over by a simple screen pass?  These things are all preparation related and are the responsibility of the coaches.  And don't even get me started on somehow shifting away from the pound the ball philosophy that won the game vs. Middle Tennessee.  Once again, the Gophers had the size and strength advantage, but instead of exploiting it to their advantage as they did last week, they drifted away from their strength and it cost them.

It would be one thing if it was a fluke, with the Coyotes winning due to a few lucky plays and some breaks going their way, but it wasn't.  It was basically a domination, with USD in control the whole way.  First off, they scored 41 freaking points, and they don't exactly run one of those goofy high-scoring spread offenses.  They gained 444 yards, averaged nearly 12 yards per pass attempt, and converted 50% of their third downs.  Most of all, once they took the lead at 7-3 with 8:09 remaining in the first quarter, they never relinquished the lead.  In the second quarter when the Gophers cut the lead to 14-10 USD responded by going on an 8-play drive ending in a touchdown.  In the third quarter the Gophers cut the lead to 28-24.  The Coyotes immediately went on a 7-play drive, again ending in a TD.  When the Gophers made it 34-30 in the fourth, hey scored on the next drive yet again.  Finally, when the Gophers cut it to 41-38 with three minutes left, South Dakota didn't just sit on the ball, run it up the middle, and try to take the clock down.  They took it right at the Gophers, knowing they couldn't stop them through the air, completed two passes for first downs, and won the game.  They were in control the entire way.

Perhaps the worst thing about this loss and biggest indictment of the Brewster regime is that nobody could possibly be surprised by this loss.  I mean think about it.  Say you didn't watch the game and hadn't heard the result, and then your friend called you up and said the Gophers lost to South Dakota; what would be your reaction?  Mild disbelief?  At worst?  Maybe a sarcastic "shut up" but not with any real conviction behind it?  And how hard would he have to reassure you he was telling the truth?  Repeat himself once?  This isn't surprising at all, it's merely the logic product of four years of moving backwards.  The loss to Florida Atlantic, the loss to NDSU, the near loss to SDSU, the two-safeties collapse against Wisconsin, and 55-0 vs. Iowa were all just preludes to this:  the lowest moment in Gopher football history that I can remember being alive for, something Brewster has been on a beeline for the last couple of years. 

Look, I get it.  You took a chance on an unproven guy who talked a great game and was undeniably enthusiastic about the school and the job.  The problem was he was all talk and no walk, all flash and no substance, all sizzle and no steak.  Mediocre recruiting, poor fundamentals, an inability to put together and/or stick to a gameplan on either side of the ball, and a constantly shifting offensive identity isn't going to get it done at this level, and after four years I think we can safely assume that's still what we're going to get, so it's time to go.

Although it now looks like the absolute upside on wins this season is going to be four, so I don't think Maturi is going to have much of a choice but to can him.  The real question is, do we trust him to hire somebody better?

At least somebody I know enjoyed the game:

Mbakwe Frame Job Nearly Complete

I wouldn't have expected Deebo to be able frame Mbakwe quite so well, but Joel "I'm a fantastically huge pussy" Maturi has decided that Mbakwe will be held out of the team's games until "the matter is "fully resolved."

He can still practice with the team, be part of the team, and attend classes, but won't be able to play in any games or travel to any away games.  All of which means is that this isn't really a punishment, it's nothing more than Maturi covering his own ass, for what reason I can't understand.

First of all, it appears to me at least that Trevor is almost certainly going to be cleared of this.  Not only does he have handfuls of witnesses who can place him away from the scene when this happened, but everybody knows all black people look alike so this is probably going to end up being a case of mistaken identity.  To the best of my knowledge, the entire body of evidence against him is simply one woman's identification, made not long after she was assaulted so who knows her state of mind.  Additionally, eye witness testimony, even identifications, are notoriously spotty.  Given this, I'm surprised they are actually taking this to trial at all, and even more surprised Maturi would hold him out.  When Michigan State is in town I think I'm going to punch Mrs. W in the face, then have her tell the cops Raymar Morgan did it.

Secondly, he says he believes it is both in Mbakwe's and the University's best interests to hold him out.  What?  How does that make any sense?  This isn't remotely in Mbakwe's best interests.  He's here to play basketball.  Now he can't play basketball.  And how is this doing anything good for the school?  How does holding him out do anything at all?  Because if he plays, and is then found guilty and can't play anymore it will disrupt the team?  That happens to every team every year because of injury.  You know what they do?  They take the guy's back up and make him the starter, which is now what Maturi is forcing Tubby to do prematurely.  I also think we should probably hold out Damian Johnson and Ralph Sampson, too.  Just in case they were going to get hurt this year.  We don't want to disrupt the team.

Lastly, whatever happened to Innocent until proven guilty?  I know this isn't a court of law, but does that mean we can/should suspend due process?  Honestly, I'm completely baffled by this whole thing.

There are two questions I have, the answers to which might make this make sense:

1)  Is there more information in the assault than I know about?  Any physical evidence, a witness to the attack, or any reason to believe the plethora of witnesses who can alibi Mbwake are lying?  Any real ironclad reason to think he's guilty?

2)  Is there some penalty to the school/team if a player is found guilty of assault and you didn't "hold them out of games."  Like, say Mbakwe plays in ten games, gets convicted, and kicked off the team - would the Gophers have to forfeit those games, lose scholarships, or be denied post season berths?  Not to my knowledge, which is why, again, I question how this is "protecting the University."

Most of the people I see agreeing with the decision are saying things like "it sends the right message" or "it's the right call."  My question is, why?  What is the message?  Wouldn't a better message be "we believe in our student/athletes", "we trust our players", or "we're behind you 100%"?  Maybe I'm way off here, I don't know.  Gopher Nation from The Daily Gopher disagrees with me, and plenty of other people do too.  I just think this is incredibly unfair to Mbakwe, and incredibly disappointing by Maturi.