Old Spice Classic Primer

As I'm sure you are aware, the Gopher hoop team will be in Orlando for the Old Spice Classic over Thanksgiving rather than spending it with their families, simply so the unwashed masses can be entertained rather than actually talking to their family members.  I, for one, could not more be thrilled by this.  Of course, the last time the Gophers played in this particular tournament it was an absolute disaster when they finished in 8th place (out of 8) after getting swept by the murderer's row of Marist, Southern Illinois, and Montana on the way to the end of Dan Monson and the two least enjoyable seasons ever.  Should we fear a repeat?  Yes.  Absolutely yes.

The DePaul Blue Demons will be the Gophers first round opponent on Thursday, and even though that's a scary name they're still the worst program in the Big 6 conferences over the past like 20 years or so - how ever long Mark Aguirre graduated.  DePaul is 2-52 over the last three years in Big East (no that is not a misprint), play in one of the worst arenas in the world, and although they come into the game 2-0 those two wins are over two of the worst programs in history (TX-Pan American and Miss Valley State) and they haven't exactly impressed (beat MVSU by only 10).  So yeah, they're pretty terrible.

That doesn't mean they don't have some interesting pieces/players and can't be dangerous, however.  Cleveland Melvin (nice name, poindexter) is one of the best players you've probably never heard of.  He was originally a UCONN commit before they told him they expected him to be a power forward (he prefers to play SF) and he won the Big East Rookie of the Year last season after averaging 14 & 5 per game.  He's kind of like Rodney Williams in that he's a small forward with no jump shot who uses his athleticism to get the rim, only if Rodney paid attention all game and actually, you know, wanted to score on something other than a put back dunk over a small white kid.

The other legit scoring threat on this team is fellow sophomore Brandon Young, who is averaging 15.5 per game with four boards and six assists per to follow up a nice freshman year (13, 2.5, and 4).  Young and Melvin actually give the Blue Demons a nice 1-2 punch and they are the reason the Gophers can't show up and just sleep walk through this game.  Luckily, however, I don't think they have much else to get worked up about.

Senior guard Jeremiah Kelly is actually leading the team in scoring at 17.5 per on the strength of 4.5 made 3s per game and a .500 shooting percentage from deep.  This despite being a career 32% 3-point shooter, so I'm sure this will last.  They have two other players who are averaging 10 per game but I don't know who they are and I'm pretty sure Mt. Saint Mary's point guard could score 10 against the competition DePaul has faced.

Oh, and speaking of that competition, guess what DePaul is absolutely dreadful at so far this year - allowing offensive rebounds.  Against TX-Pan American and Miss Valley State they've given up offensive boards on 39.7% of all missed shots, good for 315th in the country.  Against Pan American and MVSU.  Trevor might get 20 boards.  Gophers roll:  Minnesota 80, DePaul 63.

Following that rout, the Gophers will face the winner of Texas Tech and Indiana State, and defeating either shouldn't be all that daunting of a task. 

Indiana State isn't a great team by any means, but they should end up in the top half of the Missouri Valley, and go ahead and take that for what it's worth.  They come into the tournament sitting at 4-0 with wins over some nobodies (East Ill, LA-Monroe, Ball St., and Green Bay) and they've won those four games by a grand total of 27 points so you could say they know how to play in a close game.  You could also say that they haven't looked very good thus far.   Don't forget though, this is the same team that made a run in the MVC Tournament to get into the NCAA Tournament, and they've got four starters back so they ain't no slouch.

They're woefully undersized with their top two scorers and rebounders both being guards, and only two major contributors are 6-8 or bigger and one of them is a freshman.  Despite that they do a good job of keeping their opponents off the boards and take care of the basketball.  This is a team that the Gophers are immensely more talented then, but are the disciplined type of team that could give them a real problem if they're enjoying Orlando too much and don't focus Rodney and Ralph.  If the Gophers play Indiana State they shouldn't have any real problems:  Gophers 74, Indiana State 65.

On the other hand, if the get the Texas Tech Red Raiders they should be fine, because T Tech is horrible and I'm starting to think they should be kicked out of Division I or at least have to go play in the SWAC or the Southland or something.  They're 3-0 but the beat Troy by 5, North Texas by 5, and Steve F. Austin by 12.  And no, none of those are sleeper teams.  They're absolutely brutal defensively, but could get a little pesky because they play an uptempo style and are very efficient with the basketball (#1 offensive efficiency in the country despite turning the ball over constantly thanks to 44% shooting from three and 61% from 2).

The only real danger from Tech is getting caught up in their style, taking dumb shots, and letting them run-out to get open lay-ups and good looks at the hoop.  They can obviously shoot it, but they haven't gone up against a D-I level defense yet, and even if Tubby is a terrible offensive coach he can handle it on the other end.  Gophers 85, Texas Tech 70.

Then on the other side of the bracket, game 3 will come against either Fairfield, Arizona State, Dayton, or Wake Forest.  You can read about Fairfield here and here.  Arizona State has three guys I'd actually be interested in watching play in Trent Lockett, Carrick Felix, and Keala King but they also come in at 1-2 with losses to New Mexico (understandable) and Pepperdine (gross).  Dayton would be semi-interesting because they actually have some size and their fans are tools, but they already lost to Miami-Ohio so yuck.  And Wake is desperately trying to rebuild their program after one of the worst years in major college history that included a 1-15 conference record and an 8-24 overall mark that included losses to teams like Stetson and Presbyterian.  In other words, the Gophers are better than every team on this side of the bracket as well.

Look, the Gophers are the best team in this tournament and it's not close.  Every one is picking them to win, and they should because they're an obvious pick.  The way I see it this can go one of four ways:

1.  Gophers cruise to the title.  Good, great, grand, wonderful.  Everything is happy and it looks like the team is likely headed for an upper division Big 10 finish and a comfortable Selection Sunday.

2.  Gophers win the title by winning some tight games.  Nothing hurt and it's always excellent to win a tournament.  It might not have been pretty but they won the games they needed to win, it's early and the team's first games away from Williams, and maybe grinding out these wins will help in the future.  I'd still feel good about the team's bid chances, but with a little less confidence.

3.  Gophers win 2 of 3.  Bad, but not a complete disaster.  None of these teams are terrible enough that a loss would spell doom to the season even though the Gophers should be around a 6-8 point favorite or so against everybody.  This would be a pretty big disappointment, and would probably mean that us fans are in for a long year with a lot of inexplicable losses and just enough wins to keep the nail biting going in March.

4.  Anything else.  Complete meltdown.  It doesn't matter if it's one win or zero wins, it means the same thing because losing to two of these teams is just completely unacceptable.  Anything fewer than two wins means the season is done, sell all your tickets before everyone else catches on, and fire up downwithtubby.com because it would be a complete disaster.  Please please please don't let this happen. 

I'm terrified.

Trading Nothing for Nothing gets Nothing

Obviously the big news is that the Twins gave up on the world's largest Largemouth Bass, Delmon Young, and shipped him off to division rival Detroit.  I'm never a fan of trading someone when their value is at an all-time low, but I suppose when you combine lazy with malcontent and frustrating there's no guarantee that you're at the nadir no matter how much you feel like it must be.

On the other hand, the return for Delmon essentially equates to the proverbial bag of balls, and I'm just not sure that's the way to go, especially when you're trading a 26-year old who was once the top prospect in the game and finished 10th in MVP voting last year(no shtick) to a division rival.  There are about a million different ways this can backfire, but apparently the team has decided they would rather pursue signing both Cuddy and Kubel this offseason instead of getting any value out of trading Matt Garza.  Delmon was almost guaranteed to be criminally overpaid next year if they offered arbitration, so now instead we're looking at a likely overpaid Cuddy and Kubel.  I don't know.  Maybe that whole hometown discount thing might exist with these two.  Seems possible.

Anyway, I was going to break down Delmoney's stats and then talk about Cole Edina or whatever his name is that they got back, but it turns out I'm drunk and tired and really you're asking a lot here.  All you need to know is that you can't find Cole on any list of top prospects in the Tiger system anywhere, and they're a thin system.  I even found one that went to 40, and he's still not there.  So they almost literally gave him away.  Which, frankly, is pretty stupid.

The real problem for me though is I just have trouble caring.  I'm not really scared of Delmon.  I'm just not.  There's nothing about what I've seen from him in the last however many years that makes me think he's suddenly going to put it altogether.  Even the fact that he finished 10th in MVP balloting last year seems completely ludicrous to me.  He's never inspired confidence that he was putting it together, he just somehow had a good year.  To me he'll always be the swing at everything bumbling fielder he's always been.  Except for tonight, apparently, where he decided to hit a bomb off Liriano (like that's hard) and make a play in left that he's never made ever ever before.  So I just don't care.  I always trust Bill Smith and his eye for talent.

- Speaking of Bill Smith and his penchant for sucking at roster management, just how dreadful has Nishioka been?  Is there even one facet of his game that is remotely presentable right now?  He's like the fat girl with small boobs and a bitchy personality.  And the saddest part is that it was obvious to see.  If you aren't Ichiro or Hideki Matsui (and those were the two best players in Japanese history not named Oh) and you're coming over from Japan you're going to suck.  Kaz Matsui was terrible.  So Taguchi might have been worse.  Iwamura has been completely meh and Kosuke Fukudome is heading down the same path.  Remember Orestes Destrade?  He was a masher in Japan and was supposed to tip the balance of the league, and he was terrible.  Perhaps the biggest indictment on the Japanese League?  Guess who is tied for the single-season HR record in Japan and who holds the single season hit record?  Karl "Tuffy" Rhodes and Matt "Fucking" Murton.  Two dudes who were basically forced to retire from MLB because they sucked on a Tobertian level.

Yet the Twins paid billions of dollars to sign Yoshi.  Why, you may ask?  Because a .280 career hitter with minimal power suddenly had a career year by hitting .346 with minimal power - in a league where MATT MOTHERFUCKING MURTON hold a major hitting record.  Basically they signed the Brady Anderson of Japanese ball banking on him becoming J.J. Hardy when he has so far been worse than any single year Punto put up.  And at least Punto was an awesome fielder, while Nishi looks lost hitting, fielding, running, being in position, or knowing how many outs there are.  Honestly this team makes me want to quit baseball for life.  Where for art thou, Andy McPhail.  You never McPhailed in my heart.

-  Oh and the actual big news of the night is that Jim Thome hit his 600th home run, which is sadly a bit less holy shitty than it used to be.  He's still only the 8th guy to do so, and only the fifth to do it legally.  I don't want to get all caught up in the puritan steroid talk or anything, but there really is something refreshing about a dude like Thome.  I mean he's really not all that different from Matt Stairs, who I idolize.  He just did it more often and for longer.  Ok that isn't actually remotely true because for several years in the late 90s/early 00s Thome was a truly elite player.  In a way he's a compiler because he's been bombing them out for 21 seasons now, but it's not like he's been holding on like Pete Rose or Brett Favre or Al Pacino.  His OPS last season was actually the fourth best of his career.  The guy is basically completely bankrupt at running or fielding or not being old, but he can still crush the ball.  He's probably one of my ten favorite players of all-time, and if you remember this you just remember knowing it would be him.  Love the guy.  Congrats.

-  Moving on from the world's worst baseball team, let's talk about the world's best basketball team - the Minnesota Golden Gophers.  They're in another early season tournament, which is good, but this time they're the favorites with every single ESPN nerd picking them to win the Old Spice Classic.  And really you can't even argue with it.  They play DePaul in game 1, who is maybe the worst team in D-I history so suck it Krys Faber, and then in the semis they'd either see Texas Tech or Indiana State.  Unfortunately Tech just graduated everybody of relevance (from a bad team) and Indiana State is just pesky enough to possibly end up as a "bad loss" with no shot at becoming a "good win."  Then, if they make it to the championship game they'd either get Dayton, Wake, Ariz State, or Fairfeild, where Fairfield is probably the best choice but really nobody offers much upside.  It's a tournament where, no matter how well they do, they can't really win but could definitely lose.  Although based on this team's past I suppose third place could be considered upside.  Minnesota sports are awesome and  I love them.

-  Made some pretty awesome Teriyaki-Pineapple chicken drumsticks this weekend.  Need to use less Pineapple juice because it waters down the Teriyaki, but the sauce was stellar overall.  Try this:

1/3 c. Soy Sauce
1/3 c. Water (tempted to use Beef Broth here next time)
1/4 c. White Sugar
1 T Worchestershire Sauce
1 T White Vinegar
1 T Olive Oil
2 T Dried Onions
1 t garlic powder (could probably go a little more, maybe 2 t)
1/2 t ginger

Marinade Chicken overnight if possible, then dump the whole thing in a crock pot and cook on low for 5-6 hours. I used a full cup on pineapple juice but I'd cut down on that by at least half next time and probably add in some green pepper as well, but you're on your own here.  And even if you don't try this I can't stress more how awesome cooking chicken drumsticks (or wings) in a crockpot is.  They are like falling off the bones.  So awesome.

-  I lost 3 units this past week gambling on my baseball props.  Just the third losing week this season out of 13.  Still smarts. 

-  The best moment in this entire season of True Blood, outside of every Anna Paquin nude scene, was when Jessica killed Hoyt, and it might have been the best scene since season 1.  Unfortunately it turned out to be a hallucinatin/dream of Jessica's.  But what was awesome about it was that someone semi-meaningful died.  Hoyt isn't a top tier character and probably isn't even tier 2, but at least he's tier 3 and someone who has been around since Season 1.  Maybe I'm spoiled by Game of Thrones, the series and the books, but I like shit better when people who matter can/do die.  Season 1 of True Blood had both Grandma Stackhouse and Rene go down, and they were meaningful.  Since then has anybody of any import died?  You're telling me they couldn't kill of Tara or Andy Bellefleur?   It's just dumb now.  It's like watching Scooby Doo with boobs.

-   Finally, if you're looking for a Gopherhole type place for the Twins but less homery and dumb, dig on this site.  It's like talking Twins with the commenters on this blog, if only they were less retarded and weren't convinced Nick Blackburn was a star.  Big fan.