Wolves Win In OT at Home

Against another team with a similar record. It beats losing to a team with a similar record. Rubio was 6-9 from three-point land. Is he learning how to shoot?

Go Wolves!

Victoria

I tried the Pro Bowl game last night. I watched it during a break between Victoria and Elementary,

What can say about it? At least it's NFC vs AFC again.

Victoria on PBS? The best thing on TV right now.

Twins Trivia

In 1986, Tom  Kelly was hired as the Twins manager. He was 35.

He had three starting pitchers on the roster older than him that year: Bert Blyleven, Joe Niekro, and Steve Carlton.

Wolves Have Easy Win

It's not often I get to use a headline like that when talking about the Wolves. Towns had 37.

Brooklyn has just 9 wins the entire season.

The Wolves now have 18, including 7 of their last 10.

Go Wolves!

Bridgwater OUT For Next Season?

Doctors have told the Vikings and Terry Bridgewater that the typical time to heal his injury (torn ACL and dislocated knee) is 19 months. At this point, his recovery is very normal, which means a best-case scenario for his return will be March 2018. There is no reason to expect him to be ready sooner. At least he can come back fully healed.

That Sam Bradford trade is looking smarter and smarter for the Vikings.

Wild Win, Still Number TWO in ESPN Power Rankings

I sure wish hockey were a better sport.

Size Matters

Daniel Faalele is seventeen years old, half-Samoan and half-Tongan, and he hails from Australia. He's also got football scholarship offers from several major U.S. universities including Michigan and Oregon State, even though he's never played football.

Why?

Because size matters.

This kid is 6-foot-9 and weighs 394 pounds and he's got speed while his favorite hobby is lifting weights. He'd be perfect as an offensive lineman. With training, he might become a great defensive lineman.

He's a little chunky yet, but with the right diet and exercise program, this kid could become a physical specimen. I'm waiting to see what happens.

Dodgers Get New Second Baseman

And it's not Brian Dozier.

MAYBE the Twins will keep him after all.

Wolves Win

I know it doesn't seem like much, beating a team with only 15 wins at the buzzer after blowing a big lead, but it sure beats losing to them.

Wolves now 17-28 on the season.

Wolves Number 17 in NBA ESPN Power Rankings

And yes, there are still 30 teams in the NBA.

Patriots!

That was a horrible first game yesterday.

The Pack missing a field goal on their first drive and then fumbled DEEP in Atlanta territory on their second. That was it. Atlanta is too good for those type of mistakes.

The Patriots did their best Atlanta Falcons imitation against the Steelers in the second game. Now THAT was a fun game.

Two weeks of nothing to watch and then The Super Bowl.

And last night the Wolves won their fourth straight home game. They haven't done that since 2012! They aren't a great team. They aren't even a good team. But when the pressure is on they can sometimes beat teams as bad as they are. Sometimes.

Not a ringing endorsement certainly, but it's all I got right now.

Football

As much as I like playoff football, it's sad that the season is coming to an end. Two games today, one more in two weeks, and then POOF! All gone for another season.

And with the the Twins so bad again, I won't have any real sports to watch for 6 months.

It's easy to watch other football games when the Vikings aren't playing. I have no desire to watch other baseball games when the Twins are bad. Football is becoming the superior sport for me.

I never thought that would happen.

Minnesota sports magic rears its ugly head again.

Go Pack and Pats!

Rubio Trade Talks Continue

The Wolves have actively been trying to trade Rubio for some time. Yes, he's a spectacular assist man. No, he's never demonstrated the ability to shoot well. I wouldn't mind seeing him in a Wolves uniform awhile longer, myself, but a team with OUR record isn't built for the future right now.

New pieces will need to be tried.

Wolves Beat Clippers AT Los Angeles

Wolves now 15-28 on the season.
Clippers 29-15.

Headline at ESPN? The emphasis was on the Clippers being "injury-depleted".

Excuses, excuses.


Go Wolves!

Players Rights

There's been a rash of college players skipping their final bowl game so that they won't get injured before the NFL draft. They've basically decided that they gave the university 50 games of their life for a scholarship to go to college, and one more meaningless bowl game is more than they want to risk.

Going into the draft 100% healthy sure beats blowing out a knee in that last game.

I agree with the strategy. The games they are skipping are not the National Championship, it's the Bill's Auto Tire Retread Bowl kind of game.

But a larger trend will be developing shortly. A few ex-NFL executives and players are planning a new PRO league, and It sound an awful lot like the idea I came up years ago in this blog. They will recruit and draft players right out of high school and they will PAY the players $50,000 a year to play for them until the NFL drafts them.

In effect, this new league will take the place of college for hundreds of players who don't wish to give up their services for free. The feeling is, "why should these colleges make billions of dollars in revenue every year while getting the top players services for free?"

It's a great question. The new league, Pacific Pro Football, is scheduled to start in 2018 with four teams but will quickly expand as more players see the need and investors get the TV contracts they desire. IF this new league is successful, watch colleges, their programs, and their dominance begin to decline sharply.

Their only alternative will be to start paying their students to play the game in order to compete.

I like the trend. There are 25 top teams in college every season with as many as 100 players on each squad. Imagine if most of them vanished over night to turn into a pro?

Alternatives are always good. This is a good trend. The University of Minnesota won't be so smug the next time they have to deal with a coach and his "unruly" program. Now THEIR money and funding will be at stake. I like it when the shoe is on the other foot.

Football revenue keeps major colleges afloat. That could all be changing rather quickly.

Twins

Anybody else notice that the Twins had one of the worst seasons in their history last year and that they made NO significant changes in the off-season? They added  a pitcher  who will be the fifth highest paid player on the club, and I can't even remember his name.

The ONLY rumors I hear are that the Twins are interested in trading our best player, Brian Dozier, to the Dodgers.

I'm not looking forward to this season at all.

sigh

Wolves And Wild Lose

I tried watching both last night. I'm glad I didn't waste much time on them.

Golden State Romp

I actually watched some of this game last night. Cleveland did not look like defending champs at all.

I can't help but notice that the Wild are still hot, having passed Chicago in the standings. I might not appreciate hockey, but I do like a team that wins.

Go Wild!

Football!!!

Two great games. Two incredible endings.

Sherlock was awful last night. Victoria was everything it was suppose to be.

A great day of viewing despite Sherlock.

Fun Football

It's easier to watch blowouts when it's your teams that win.

It's scary how good the Patriots are. They had tons of mistakes last night and were completely outplayed in the first half, yet they still won the game going away.

I'm rooting for Green Bay and Pittsburgh today, though I admit I'll be watching Sherlock and Victoria on PBS tonight. It's hard not to watch Britain's best, even when it's playoff football time.

More Football Today

Needless to say, I'll be rooting for Atlanta and New England.

OKC Falls To the Mighty Wolves

That's three straight wins for the first time all season.

FINALLY!

Go Wolves!

NBA To Consider Shortening the Ends of Games

Even the NBA is acknowledging that the last two minutes of close NBA games is intolerable. They say its because the younger generation has such short attention spans, but I stopped watching the NBA over 20 years ago on a regular basis because of those endings. I've commented on it more than once in my blogs.

Too many timeouts, and too many free-throw opportunities.

The NBA actually REWARDS the fouling team by giving the other team a chance to miss free-throws, giving them a chance to get back in the game.

How stupid is that? And then all those timeouts for strategy. They're professionals, let them figure how who should take that last shot on their own. There is no good reason the last two minutes of an NBA game should go half an hour in real time.

It doesn't create drama. It creates a ridiculous waste of time.

The easy thing to do would be to remove timeouts in the last two minutes and to simply give the ball back to the team that was fouled. The team with the lead shouldn't be forced to defend that lead by such silly, artificial constructs.

It would be a big step in the right direction. I might even watch more.

Wolves Beat Houston!

That's TWO in a row, and this time, that win comes against the team with the best record in the NBA since late November.


OKC is on Friday. Can they win THREE in a row?

Stay tuned...

Sports Gap

I went to ESPN this morning and saw my biggest fear realized: Every single headline was about basketball, either college or NBA, they didn't just dominate, that's all there was.

Hopefully there will something worthwhile to talk about tomorrow.

Wolves Win One In A Row!

They haven't done that in over a week.

sigh

Clemson!

Alabama has no one to blame but themselves.

They lost by four and were outscored 21-7 in the fourth quarter. Clemson EARNED that win.

Great game AND it was an upset. College games are always a bigger deal when the lower-ranked team wins.

Now if they would just get rid of the playoffs so that every game during the regular season would mean more again...

The Packers!

Even after one of the dumbest calls (going for it on fourth and short in their own territory) in a playoff game, the Packers ended up  winning big.

I'm still ticked that the Packers lost Nelson to an illegal hit to the ribs and that the refs never called it. That one play could impact the rest of the playoffs for Green Bay.

Pittsburgh won big as well. Those two games saved my weekend.

And the National Championship game tonight.

Go football!

More Games Today

Both games yesterday were hard to watch. Oakland lost, as expected, with a really inexperienced quarterback, and Seattle is very good again. Both games were relative blowouts.

Playoff Football Starts Today

Can't wait. Rooting for Oakland and Detroit today.

P.J. Fleck

The Gophers have a new head coach. Western Michigan was undefeated this year going into the Cotton Bowl where they lost to Wisconsin 24-16. Fleck started there 4 years ago and totally changed their  program around.

He cost the university $18.5 million for 5 years.

The firing of Tracey Claeys was wrong. Spending this much to replace him is just another way of placating boosters.

Lack of Sleep

I have a cold and don't want to think much. Not that much is going on in the world of sports anyway.

Gophers Fire Head Football Coach

He had two great seasons, winning bowl games in each. This year's win total was the second best in over 100 years.

Why was he fired? Because he stood with his team during the recent controversy. He inherited most of the athletes from coach Kill's program, but he is being blamed for what happened. I really don't know how the board of regents can sleep at night.

I didn't think I could respect the University of Minnesota less.

I was wrong.

College Football

None of the  bowl games mean anything so far. The best aren't playing yet.

I tried watching some of the Rose Bowl yesterday, but I figured it's just number 5 going against number 9, and neither team matters. USC did comeback and "upset" Penn State, but that's not a big deal. Most fans are just waiting for the THE game to next Monday.

At least it's number one versus number two. They got it right. Numbers three and four didn't put up much of a struggle Saturday in their losses.

Stats

Before Derek Carr got hurt a couple weeks ago, he was in the serious discussion for league MVP. I thought it interesting to compare his final stats to Bradford's (who also missed a game because of the trade timing.)

Green Bay Wins, Detroit Squeaks Into Playoffs

And the Vikings, led by the Bradford, had their best game of the season. Along the way, Bradford set the all-time completion percentage record for a season at 71.6%.

A good way to finish the regular season. Can't wait for the playoffs!

Wild Lose, Blue Jackets Streak At 15

It was fun while it lasted.