Watching him a TV, trying to recall how it played out many, many moons ago. He was part of a highly ranked recruiting class, then he got released and signed with Purdue.

It is exciting that even though we are losing our top two CBs (who are going in the draft) that the is so much potential in our secondary. This is where I hope the upgrade in recruiting that we have had with DBs starts to show on the filed. There are three keys: (1) Travis and Myrick staying healthy; (2) Buford and Dior stepping up; and (3) getting a better pass rush (especially early in the season) so the group has time to gel. We have some nice true freshmen arriving, but I hope that we can maintain the redshirts on them. It is amazing how much this staff, Sawvel in particular, have upgrade the DB talent.

On a side note, I would not be surprised to see Huff and Coughlin combine for over 10 sacks this next season. I think we score more on offense, which translate to opposing teams throwing more.

History says no.. Sanity will prevail and the blue bloods like Kansas as well as either North Carolina, Indiana, or Kentucky will make it.....But this is interesting though my bracket picks are trashed.

Think about this.....9 of the 32 remaining teams are seeded double digits..... 5 of 8 teams in the Midwest are seeded 9 or lower... I would love to see the upsets.. Due to my contempt for Calipari, I will cheer for Indiana to make it to the 2nd weekend but one of those teams will be out after the first weekend, which is interesting. All the talk of the Big 12 and Texas, West Virginia, Baylor didnt make it out of the first round. Who knows who else may get beat by Sunday night in the power conferences. The ACC did the best coming out of the first round except for Pitt.

I say the 'heck with the brackets" as I am cheering for the underdogs.. Cheering for Butler, Little Rock, and Middle Tennessee State in the Midwest. Yale and Northern Iowa in the West. Stephen F Austin in the East. Hawaii, Wichita State in the South. TO me that would make for an interesting sweet 16 though I doubt that will happen.

Wisconsin with a huge buzzer beater to beat Macura.

Ohio state beats msu in OT. Gophers v Buckeyes tomorrow night.

Vote for clinton?

I actually think Bernie has some good ideas. He would never get them passed but he would get things at least moving in the right direction for lower cost medical expenses and education. I agree that wall Street is sleazy. Necessary but it needs a bath.

That said, clinton is an absolute piece of ****ing shit that lies, swindles, and flat out let people that give us freedom die.

F her. F her straight to hell.

And , no, this is not a pro Trump thread. It's simply an anti-clinton thread.

Getting smoked.

At least one gender is holding up our Hockey Tradition!

It's slow so I felt like bitchin. You know how so many "stars" have said they'll move to another country if Trump wins? Well I'm not moving, but I understand their point. HOW CAN WISCY AND IOWA consistently get 2-3 teams in the dance and we rarely get one? One! Happening occasionally could be luck. Happening regularly is skill. And honestly it's been similar with the comparative quality of the 3 major fb programs....IA and Wiscy have been way way way better than us for, well, decades now. My partner, who played fb at minny says it's a lack of committment. But that's so nebulous. I don't know what the problem is, but it's here like a virus and we can't seem to shake it. This AD hire, to me, is going to either: A. Reflect a desire to commit to finding excellence or B. Commit to living with the virus and accepting mediocrity. No, accepting sub-mediocrity. (This is mostly a bball rant, I'm cautiously optomistic about football). End of whining!

I know there aren't a ton of baseball followers. Toby Hanson hasn't played in a while for the baseball team was hitting for average .458 and power. Does anyone know if he is hurt?

gophers up 1-0 after one
Potomak scored 17 seconds in

BC was really controlling play for the last 5 mins or so of the period

http://www.startribune.com/hopkins-eighth-grader-s-play-belies-her-age/372301371/

After reading this and getting a chance to watch her on the highlights of sports last night I hope the Gophers women's BB ends up with this young lady. She's amazing for her age. Scratch that, she's just amazing period. If you get a chance to watch her you'll see why.

McMillan and Stecklein should be the most valuable players. If I recall correctly McMillan was a scorer in high school, but she played back for the most part as a college player. She was a big horse for a girl; I think she could have scored a lot more, but they would've lost more games. Stecklein is only a junior, and they have those two super freshman on offense so they could be back next year.

University of Minnesota junior Austin Athmann went 5-for-5 from the plate, including a home run, his third of the season, along with two RBI to lead Minnesota to a 12-2 win at Seattle University on Wednesday.

Athmann's five hits were the most by a Gopher since Kyle Knudson had five against Penn State in 2010.

Athmann's had at least one hit in the last eight games and has batted .531 over that stretch.

...as good as finding Cinemax on your cable box as a junior high kid.

I am very anti-cronicapitalism and anti-socialism. I have no clue where our country is headed, but i read this little piece and it explained ecerything i fear. I don't know the right answer. I simply found this interesting.

I moved to U.S from Finland and I disagree with this author. Social services paid by high taxes cause under supply and excess demand.

My mother had ovarian cancer but due to long lines for surgery (you know that "free healthcare"?) she had to go to a private doctor. But since we assumed that in Finland people don't have to save for future illness, we had not saved for such incidents. It was not free.

On education I speak from a personal experience. I went through the education system all the way to high school after which I came to U.S college. Finnish education system is all about good averages for the sake of equality: best student are held back because it's not fair fair for poor students to fall back. And since there are no private schools, best students rarely reach their potential.

And here's another conundrum that's associated with public education and healthcare: tax payers finance the education of doctors who move to work to private sector resulting in double cost for tax-payers: we have to pay twice for healthcare if we have to go to private sector due to long waiting lines. That's the future of Obama Care.

Let's talk about Finnish labor markets. Finland is yet to record economic growth since the financial crisis. While other countries have taken tough structural reforms, Finland still has strict labor laws and overly generous welfare system. In fact young people can receive more monthly state assistance than from entry level employment. And if youngsters want to enter labor markets, labor unions prevent them with red tape.

Therefore I must say that the author has little understanding about this topic.

See ya!

Yes, GI Wrestling Fans...the time is finally here!!

Tomorrow Thurs. March 17th through Sat. March 19th, the NCAA DI Wrestling Championships are happening in New York City at historic Madison Square Garden (MSG)! So, because College Wrestling is on a major rise in popularity lately, the NCAA decided to bring this event to prime time in NYC!! Along with the early season "Grapple in the Garden" event (multiple dual meets at the same time), and the outdoor Freestyle wrestling events the last two years in Times Square...this event should only shine a brighter light on our sport. Which is great!!

The rise in popularity of College Wrestling is also apparent because of ESPN's increasing coverage over the past 10 years. Not long ago, all you could watch live were the DI Finals. Then about 5 years ago, you could see the Semifinals and Quarterfinals. Then they expanded to the Medal Rounds (Consolation Finals) and last year the First and Second Rounds were televised on ESPNU and EVERY MATCH was streamed live on ESPN3.

I know the NCAA DII and DIII matches were also streamed live (free) on NCAA.com along with the finals, and I think this was on last year as well. And, although a couple DII schools are dropping the Sport...Fresno State and a couple others are adding the sport...so College Wrestling is in pretty good shape!

Anyway, back to the National Championships. The schedule is:

Thurs. 3-17
First Round televised on ESPNU at 11am CT and every match (on 8 mats) on ESPN3.
Second Round televised on ESPNU at 6pm CT and every match on ESPN3.

Fri. 3-18
Quarterfinals on ESPNU at 10am CT and all matches on ESPN3
Semifinals on ESPN at 7pm CT and all matches on ESPN3

Sat. 3-19
Medal Round on ESPNU at 10am CT and all matches on ESPN3
Finals on ESPN at 7pm CT

So, my friends that's a lot of wrestling!!
(And, I'm going to see most of it).

Now, back to Gopher Wrestling.
Remember we have 5 qualifiers - Thorn, Short, Wanzek, B. Pfarr, and Kroells.
We should end up with 3 All Americans (Thorn, Pfarr and Kroells), and maybe a 4th (Short).
It's possible that Wanzek could do it...anything is possible. But, unless he wrestles the whole tournament like he did when he won 13-10 over #4 Zach Brunson of IL, it's not likely.

What do you think?? Let us know!!


Here are the brackets:

http://i.turner.ncaa.com/sites/default/files/images/2016/03/09/2016d1wrestling.pdf


And, here are some thoughts (from last week's NCAA brackets thread) on how our 5 Gopher qualifiers early matches look (1st # before wrestler's name is Intermat ranking...# after name is NCAA ranking):

- 141 #8 Tommy Thorn (#11) has a tough road to hoe and it was made tougher by seeding of the selection committee. Thorn beat Anthony Ashenault (RU) (#4) convincingly in the dual and beat Matt Manley (MO) #5 twice in the Cliff Keen Invitational. Thorn should win his first match vs. Nicholas Gil (Navy 25-15, he beat Gil earlier this season), then he has a tough one vs. Micah Jordan (OSU) (#6), who he was ahead of in the 3rd period last weekend, before making a very stupid move, turning into Jordan, which led to him getting quickly pinned.

Thorn could certainly win this match...he had Jordan on his heels until the bad move. Tommy is a good rider, he gets out from bottom well, and he's a very good scrambler. But, unless he is confident and aggressive on his feet...on offense and defense (his biggest weakness), he will have a tough time with the elite wrestlers in this tourney. He is a confident wrestler who could be a 4x AA and could be a 1-2x natty champ, but it all depends on whether he's up for it, at this early age!!

If he loses to Jordan, not sure who he'll have next.

- 149 Of our 5 qualifiers, Jake Short (unranked) may have the toughest draw in his first match vs. #3 Alec Pantaleo (MI) #5. Pantaleo beat #4 Tsirtsis last weekend to take 3rd, and he is a very solid wrestler. Jake's weakest aspects are his offense on his feet and he doesn't ride very well. Having said this, if Short wrestles like he has lately, he can beat almost everyone. If he can get by Pantaleo, the rest of the bracket is tough (they're all tough...it's the nattys!!) until he gets Zain Retherford in the semis.

I think he's ready for the challenge so this should be fun to watch.

- 174 Like Short, Nick Wanzek also has a very difficult first round match vs #10 Myles Martin (OSU) #11. Martin took 3rd last weekend beating a talented Nate Jackson (IN)...and he looked really good!!! So, I think it's unlikely that Wanzek gets the win here, but who knows?? Will it be the NW that beat #4 Zach Brunson 13-10, or the NW that got Tech Falled 16-0 last weekend by Alex Meyer (IA) #13? Either way, I'm glad he's getting a chance to participate as a Sophomore, as this experience may help him in the future if the light bulb comes on and continues to shine brightly, without flickering so much.

Nick is still undersized at 174 and he needs to get better at a lot of things, but he has the foundation to be a 1-2x AA if he keeps improving.

- 197 Our stud and team leader #4 Brett Pfarr got a favorable #3 ranking from the NCAA even though he lost his last match to Burak (IA) #4. He has the best draw of our Gopher wrestlers as he gets Preston Weigel (OK State) in the 1st round, then Zack Nye (VA) #14 in the 2nd round, and because he's #3 instead of #4, Burak has to wrestle very tough Conor Hartmann (DU) #5, Pfarr gets Jared Haught (VT) #6, who he beat earlier this year.

Both McIntosh (PSU) #1 and J' Den Cox (MO) #2 have separated themselves by about 33-50% above Pfarr, Burak and Hartmann #s 3-5, because they are even more athletic and creative (Pfarr has lost to both by 1 point). But, both are still beatable. Pfarr is so very solid at this weight, in almost all positions, that he should take (most likely) 3rd or 4th when all is over...and he could win this is he was able to muster the right energy and moves at exactly the right time.

Like I alluded to earlier, Brett Pfarr has become a stud...and he is fun to watch!!!

- #8 285 Michael Kroells (#9) has a decent draw as he has Correnti (Rider) unranked 16-13, then he has Wessels (Lehigh) #8, who Kroells split matches with...winning the last one. In the quarters, he would have 2x natty champ Gwiazdowski (NC State) #1.

So this draw should set MK up nicely for a high AA finish!

The level of talent at this tournament is pretty unbelievable!! I follow the sport closely and it's amazing how many close matches of both highly skilled competitors turn on who wants it most and is willing to go for it 100% at exactly the right (crucial) moment. The one whose confidence in the ability to finish a move, and whose free will determination sets them above equal and even higher level opponents. And it's all there to be played out!!

So who wants its most?? Of our Gopher Wrestlers, I think we have three clear AAs (Pfarr, Kroells and Thorn), one slightly possible AA (Short), and one weak possibility (unless he's able to get and keep it in high gear) Wanzek. Pfarr is also a possible Champion (10-20%), and Thorn is also possible...but with his inexperience, he's a real longshot (10% or less). Still, he's in the conversation because he has the tools, but just hasn't learned to use them all yet.

Even though Gopher Wrestling is down a bit this year from our usual elite levels, we should be better next year when we get several great Redshirt Freshmen integrated into our lineup. We are on the way back up!! So, forget about the weak year...and enjoy some great wrestling the next few days!!!

I predicted 3 AA's and maybe a 4th.
What do you think?? Let's hear your thoughts.

Go Gopher Wrestling!!!

Wow. Izzo is going to have a stroke.

The Gophers continued a streak more than three decades long on Friday when 197-pounder Brett Pfarr and heavyweight Michael Kroells secured top-eight finishes at the NCAA Championships in New York City. Minnesota has now produced at least one All-American in 31 consecutive seasons, a run that spans the duration of head coach J Robinson’s 30-year tenure at the helm of the program.

First off, this has nothing to do with my love for Duke. They will not even make the 2nd weekend this year. Too young and no depth.

That said, this is the best 4 weeks in sports IMHO. I LOVE college football above all else, but this upcoming tournament is hands down the coolest tournament in sports.

We need to do a GI bracket where there are winnings and repercussions for losing. AZJ, get this thing set up Sunday my man.

STP + Jack D + Thursday/Friday first round games = "why I work a remote sales / marketing " job.

I am predicting this final 4 ...

North Carolina
Kansas
Michigan State
Virginia

I was reading about the sky scrapers that are being built in New York.. They are building 4-5 skyscrapers over 1000 feet tall and I think at least 3 of them are going to be taller than the Empire State building.. Real estate is pretty expensive in Manhattan.. I know in one of the buildings taller than the Empire State building, 432 Park Avenue, they already sold an apartment in there for $95 million that has 6 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms.... Building is the tallest strictly residential building in the world at just under 1400 feet.

Made me think of Minneapolis and all the skyscrapers they have built since the 1990s.... When I drove into Minneapolis from Ohio, I used to see from St. Paul the IDS center with its blinking lights at the top, towering over Minneapolis..The Foshay tower was the 2nd tallest in my youth.. Now, I think there are 14-15 buildings in the city taller than the Foshay. Are all those tall buildings occupied with tenants in Minneapolis?? I am guessing large law firms and a few big businesses occupy them.. I know the for-profit college, Capella, is a large occupier of its namesake building....That real estate gets pretty expensive, I imagine.. Just wondering, if in this economy, that Minneapolis is holding its own with business occupying the downtown area.

Some random guy linked me to an article he did on Minnesota's most recent offer Keith Williams. Here is what he said:

“They have told me that I would come in and be a high tempo guard for them,” he told MADEHoops. “It was a tough season for them, but their coach continues to tell me that I’ll be a big addition to their team.”

Keith plays for New Heights which is the team that Gopher assist Kimani Young used to coach.

Im about to start reviewing all the prospects for 2017 that I believe the Gophers are expected to watch starting with Perry who was a guy Pitino offered after seeing him in Atlanta. Very talented player who said there are four on him the hardest recently. Is Minnesota still after him hard? We will know for sure who they zero in on when the open period starts so far now read what I have for you, check the video (nothing from the winter yet and lots of mix tapes unfortunately), learn about him. We will be going through the many 2017s to watch in coming weeks while also checking in on 2016s if there is anything serious brewing. The national juco tournament was this week so if there is anything to come from the jucos in 2016 we will hear about it fast as the best from the jucos start to get recruited heavily and they get info out quickly to promote their programs (jucos I mean). Recruiting season, here we go!

https://minnesota.n.rivals.com/news/2017-prospect-watch-darius-perry