EITAN SCHOENBERG: Hey everyone, it’s Eitan Schoenberg. I’m here with Emmett Laurent with the Minnesota Daily and you’re listening to the Gold Standard podcast where we talk everything Gopher sports and Minnesota sports.
EMMETT LAURENT: Yeah, I’m glad to be back. You know, a little short stint. We’re back on quicker than usual, but it’s a lovely day in Minnesota, so I’m just happy to be here. How you doing?
SCHOENBERG: I’m doing pretty good. Lovely weather actually. Very good weather here. Very good weather for like fall sports season.
LAURENT: It’s like football weather. Like this is like what I think of when I think of football weather. The leaves are changing colors, they’re falling on the ground. People who don’t like Minnesota, I understand, but this is the time to be in Minnesota right now.
SCHOENBERG: Right. Yeah. And another big thing in Minnesota is hockey. So I can kick us off with some.
LAURENT: The state of hockey.
SCHOENBERG: Yeah, the state of hockey.
LAURENT: Is that controversial?
SCHOENBERG: No, not at all.
LAURENT: Colorado? Colorado. I feel like they say that. I feel like they say that a lot.
SCHOENBERG: I’ve never heard Colorado, but there is absolutely no dispute that it’s Minnesota.
LAURENT: I mean the Avalanche.
SCHOENBERG: Yeah.
LAURENT: Anyways.
SCHOENBERG: But women’s hockey was swept by Wisconsin, unfortunately. They had a 5-0 shutout on Friday. Saturday was 4-3. Gophers had a 3 goal lead, actually, in the second period. Allowed a four streak from Wisconsin. But, I mean, Wisconsin is not to be messed with. They’re number one. They’ve recent national champions, not last year, that was Ohio State, but the year before that, that was Wisconsin.
So, Wisconsin’s a powerhouse. I mean, obviously you can be upset that, especially in that Saturday game, that they, you know, lost a three goal lead and eventually lost at home. Getting swept at home is just not a good thing in general. But you know, at least it wasn’t against, like, a formidable opponent. Like, they’re a good team. They are a very good team.
LAURENT: Yeah, it’ll be OK. It’s the start of the season, too. What stood out to you the most from those games, or I guess maybe what didn’t stand out to you?
SCHOENBERG: I think in the first game for sure, they just did not look like they were getting a lot of shots on goal. I think the scoreboard really, or like the stat sheet kind of told the story there. They were hanging it, well I guess the silver lining from that first game is it was actually 1-0 heading into the third period. So they can hang with good teams. They are a good team. They’re top five in the country.
Like, they legitimately are a good team. And then on Saturday, Sydney Morrow had two goals. She’s a transfer. She’s, I mean, they knew she was going to be good, but the fact that she had, like, as a defender, she’s, again, scoring points.
LAURENT: Yeah, right.
SCHOENBERG: Is a really good sign. So, I mean, again, they had a really, really tough start of their season in terms of WCHA play, which is I mean, they’re, they’re winless still.
They’re, like, 0-3-1 right now because they lost twice to Wisconsin and then they lost to Ohio State. Shootout and lost to Ohio State, but the shootout doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t really count. But I mean, that’s the defending national team.
LAURENT: Right. Like it’ll be OK.
SCHOENBERG: And then after that.
LAURENT: That’s a tough start, that’s a tough start. I also saw the goaltender Skylar Vetter, she got pulled in the first game.
SCHOENBERG: Yeah.
LAURENT: And then the refreshment came in, what was that about?
SCHOENBERG: Hannah Clark. So, they actually have a lot of, Brad Frost, I talked with Brad Frost at the beginning of the season, and there was a lot of expectation for, you know, Hannah Clark to get reps.
LAURENT: OK.
SCHOENBERG: Last year they had this duo of Lucy Morgan, she was in her last year, and Skylar Vetter, who was a junior last year, so they were able to switch between goalies, but you know, Vetter letting in, I think it was they might have pulled her after four or five.
LAURENT: OK. OK.
SCHOENBERG: And, you know, it’s just not good for a goaltender’s confidence, especially Vetter who’s just, you know, in her senior year and it’s just not a good start to be down against a rival by that big. It just, it helps confidence revolve and like, it saves Vetter’s confidence then, you know, gives Clark the chance to get some reps in.
LAURENT: Do you think it could hurt her confidence getting pulled like that though? In a sense of like, the game was, at that point, the game’s already over. Like, why not just let her finish it out?
SCHOENBERG: Yeah, I think that’s like the general rule of thumb in hockey is five or six.
LAURENT: OK.
SCHOENBERG: Unless it’s like, unless it’s early in the game and the goalie lets up like, like a lot of goals on a few shots, they will pull the goalie.
LAURENT: OK.
SCHOENBERG: Just because they don’t want, you know, it kind of hurts your confidence getting pulled, but I think it’d be worse if you stayed in that.
LAURENT: And then just kept getting, yeah, that’s for sure. You’re right.
SCHOENBERG: Right, but yeah, they’re back for a home and home against Minnesota State. They are, I talked about it last, in our last podcast, I believe, but they’re in Minnesota for a while, just not at Ridder Arena. But they play.
LAURENT: Right.
SCHOENBERG: Bemidji, St. Thomas, Minnesota State, all the Minnesota teams, and they’re staying in Minnesota. But, no games at Ridder until second semester, that’ll be a lot more.
LAURENT: Yeah, that’s a long time. It’s kind of crazy, but they play St. Thomas at the Xcel Energy Center, don’t they?
SCHOENBERG: Yeah, last year it was both teams, but this year it’s just the men’s playing at Xcel Energy Center.
LAURENT: It’s a good transition.
SCHOENBERG: It’s a good segue.
LAURENT: Yeah, good segue.
SCHOENBERG: So to talk about men’s hockey, they got two big dubs over Minnesota Duluth, who is pretty good. They have some pretty good expectations this year. They have some good players. Gophers got a 7-5 win on Friday (Oct. 18). They had a 4-0 lead after the first period.
LAURENT: Wow.
SCHOENBERG: So very similar to how women’s hockey started the season with a 4-0 lead over UConn in their first game, but especially in a rivalry series, which is just crazy. 4-0, I mean they ended up winning 7-5 so there’s some question marks on being able to close the game, but they looked pretty good.
They had some first timers getting some goals, Brodie Ziemer, and then you had Matthew Wood, the transfer, and then Erik Påhlsson getting in on the scoring. Airey, Nathan Airey got a win. He’s young, 17 saves, but again, it was just that high scoring game. Then on Saturday, though, that was pretty good. A 5-1 win. Coming into the Amsoil Arena and just getting a sweep in general was pretty big to start the season really.
They haven’t really been in Minnesota. And then now they come back for the St. Thomas series. Going back to that, that’s the home and home. They have one game in Mariucci, and then technically I think it’s a home game for St. Thomas, because it is in St. Paul.
LAURENT: The Gophers fans will pack it, too. I mean, I think.
SCHOENBERG: The Gopher’s fans will pack it. They packed it last year.
LAURENT: That was a fun game to go to.
SCHOENBERG: That was a great game. I was not able to go, but.
LAURENT: Oh, come on.
SCHOENBERG: This year, I’m going for sure. It’s going to be really exciting to see. It’s a newer rivalry because St. Thomas is very recent on the D1 scene.
LAURENT: How is St. Thomas?
SCHOENBERG: St. Thomas? Again, they’re still not, like, rebuild-ish phase. I think they’re actually still working on getting like.
LAURENT: Kind of just building in general.
SCHOENBERG: Literally building like a new arena.
LAURENT: They have to go down to the high school I’m pretty sure to play, or to practice and everything. I know a few people down over there.
SCHOENBERG: But it’s going to be exciting, you know, in a few years when St. Thomas is like a solid program. And there’s just another Minnesota team to have a rivalry with.
LAURENT: Yeah, for sure. And hopefully other sports too. I mean, not to get too off topic, but their basketball team’s been always pretty good. Like I think that was like their biggest thing. But if they can pick it up in every spot, it’s kind of fun to have another team kind of just rattling up. Their football team is not very good though.
SCHOENBERG: Yeah.
LAURENT: They’re, I think they lost to a D2 team at the start of the year. Not our team. Not our team.
SCHOENBERG: Hockey state. Hockey school.
LAURENT: It is a hockey state.
SCHOENBERG: But yeah, that’s pretty much it. I mean, Jimmy Clark with a Big Ten second star of the week. He had a pretty big weekend up in Duluth. He had five points, another sophomore that’s, you know, moving up in the roster.
Starting to look a lot better. Oh, Liam, oh, Souliere, he got a win actually. And he is gonna play, not next, not this weekend against St. Thomas, but the weekend after, he’ll be playing his former team in Penn State at home. So that should be, that should be pretty exciting.
I mean, I’m assuming he’ll get at least one game in there because they have two solid goaltenders that can both play. Souliere, a veteran, I mean, he’s got experience. And I wouldn’t, could not, I mean, I’d imagine that he would play against, against his former team.
LAURENT: You got to, right? There’s a lot of tension there. There’s a lot of, a lot of fun things that could happen.
SCHOENBERG: Yeah, for sure.
LAURENT: But, I mean, hockey is about to be in full swing. That’s exciting. I mean, it’s one of the better teams here at the U, so it’s always fun for students, for parents, for faculty to get out to games. It’s exciting.
I mean, any sport, even if you don’t really know hockey, I would suggest just going to a game. I didn’t know hockey very well a couple years ago, I just went to some games and then you just pick it up. Just cheer along, it’s fine.
SCHOENBERG: Yeah, and in the student sections, they’ve got like, I don’t know, they have some pretty good pointers. I think from time to time they’ll do like the game sheets that tell you,
LAURENT: Yeah, yeah, they got some good stuff.
SCHOENBERG: Like chants and stuff. I’ve seen those before.
LAURENT: All you need to know is just chant like Siv, if that’s a goalie. That’s my favorite one. But, alright, so football, coming back home, so they are off a bye week, got some rest, which is good, always get the guys healthy. Playing Maryland, Maryland’s 4-3 in the Big Ten. They’re not amazing, I don’t think. The Gophers are 4-3 though too, do you have any expectations for this game?
SCHOENBERG: It’s a homecoming game. It’s a confidence game, I’d say, like, again, Maryland maybe not being, you know, one of the greats in the Big Ten, but I definitely.
LAURENT: Still Big Ten.
SCHOENBERG: It’s still, yeah, like, you can’t go into any Big Ten game and expect to just, like, waltz. I mean, you saw UCLA, freshly Big Ten, but still like that was a closer game than I’m sure people would’ve invested.
LAURENT: Yeah. I mean, they were one in, 1-4. Yeah.
SCHOENBERG: Yeah. Against like USC, you know, it was a close game, like against.
LAURENT: Football’s an everyday type of sport. I mean, I think any team can really win, but the Gophers are playing very well. Yeah. Like, besides, yes, they’re 4-3, but besides that, they beat USC like we talked about a few weeks ago. They beat UCLA, so they’re 4-3 now. They could easily be 5-2.
SCHOENBERG: That’s the talk, that’s the talk.
LAURENT: It’s close, it’s close. But their defense is probably what’s standing out the most. They’re allowing right around 140 yard passing yards per game, which is fourth best in the FBS. And I think at one point, I think right before the UCLA game, they were actually number one.
SCHOENBERG: Yeah, they were up there.
LAURENT: UCLA just played very well.
SCHOENBERG: Yeah.
LAURENT: And they’re on pace to, that’s the best passing yards allowed in Minnesota since 1977, back when, you know, the Gophers were the powerhouse, number one team in the country. But they’re also tied for second in FBS with interceptions at 13.
And I believe still, Koi Perich has four interceptions, which is at least good for top five. I know, I think, the leader was four, so if someone got one last week, I’m not quite sure about that. But, freshmans are just ruling the NCAA football right now.
SCHOENBERG: What’s it like to be a freshman, and just like, you’re getting all this attention, and you’re fresh here. What’s it like?
LAURENT: You’re literally a freshman.
SCHOENBERG: You are.
LAURENT: First semester freshman too. Like, he like, doesn’t even know the school completely and everyone’s talking about him. He’s on every social media page. That’s got, and then I’m like, dang, that guy’s younger than me. Like, and this is me, but you know, it’s awesome to see, I think, across college football. The younger players are getting, just getting a lot better.
I mean, the receiver from Alabama, 17 years old, Ryan Williams, is one of the best receivers in college football. It’s fun to see. I think maybe might have to have some discussion soon about changing how many years you got to wait until you go to the NFL. It’s three right now, but I mean, if they’re playing this well right now, why not make it two? Like, you know, these guys want to get paid, right?
SCHOENBERG: Yeah. I mean, coming off of a bye week, I guess, what do you think the mindset is going into Maryland? What do you think? Like kind of having that closer game against UCLA. What’s the motto or what’s the like? Obviously a win is the goal.
LAURENT: Right.
SCHOENBERG: But what’s like the, what’s the outcome? Do you want to just be able to walk away and say, “Oh, we won this game,” or do you want to be like, “Oh, we won this game by a big margin.” Like you don’t want those four point close teams that they had against UCLA.
LAURENT: Right. I think they want to win and win like significantly because I think there’s a little bit of hype coming up now. Like I know like. They’ve lost three games, so nothing like insane is going to happen in the year. But still, like, if you can get to a spot where, like, somehow you win eight games, you win seven games, like, you’re going to get a bowl game.
And I think beating Maryland and beating them by a lot, especially because they have the same record, I think would be a staple that they really want. I mean, I don’t think, I don’t see why they can’t, like, beat them and like beat them soundly. Keys to beating them, I would say, I mean, they just got to run the ball well still. I mean, they’ve been passing a lot. I think this is statistically one of the most passing, like, volume of a team the Gophers have had in a long time.
They don’t, they don’t really love to pass the ball, but Brosmer is really kind of finding his groove. Daniel Jackson’s playing really well. I think the defense, everyone knows what the defense is. Like everyone knows the defense is going to play well. It’s that offense. And I think if the offense can, I expect like 30 points from them, which is a lot for the Gophers.
SCHOENBERG: In the last meeting between these two teams, the Gophers got 30.
LAURENT: 34-16, 2021. That’s a long time ago. But now since there’s no divisions and there’s no two sides of football, everyone just kind of be scrambling around. But that’ll be fun. I mean, football game, homecoming game it doesn’t mean I, it’s not like as big as the deal, as like high school homecoming games, but it’s still fun. I mean, it’s just a show out. Do you know if there’s like a theme for the game or anything?
SCHOENBERG: That I don’t know of.
LAURENT: Are you gonna be there?
SCHOENBERG: Maybe. I might be there.
LAURENT: Oh, wow.
SCHOENBERG: I might, I mean, the men’s, the Xcel game is that night, too.
LAURENT: Oh, it is. OK. Yeah, you’re right. I’ll be there. I’ll be at the Gopher game front row. You could like come say hi. Like, I know all the fans that are watching really want to come say hi to us. So, but we got some men’s basketball too. What are your thoughts on their game versus Bemidji State?
SCHOENBERG: I think it was close by half.
LAURENT: Yeah, it was close.
SCHOENBERG: It was close by half.
LAURENT: It was very close. Yes.
SCHOENBERG: And they ended up pulling away with a decent, like a decent win, but I think, I feel like it’s always the first game of the season, you know, when they’re playing like the D2 teams and it’s, it’s just like, it’s fine. It’s, you know, they got the win. You can’t be like upset that they got a win. Again, it’s the first game of the season.
LAURENT: Yeah, right.
SCHOENBERG: You’re coming off of a huge break.
LAURENT: It’s alright. I mean you’re still searching for more.
SCHOENBERG: Yeah.
LAURENT: Like I think it was what 90-65, which is I mean that’s a lot. I don’t really know like, I haven’t asked around like expectations, but it’s just tough. It’s tough being a smaller Big Ten team in basketball. People just transfer a lot. You can’t really keep your guys.
I mean, Ben Johnson’s doing the best job he can. You got some, Isaac Asuma, the freshman, is hopefully going to play really well this year. But it’s just, it’s, basketball’s tough. I mean, I feel like in football you can keep your, you can persuade your guys a little bit more to stay, especially here. But basketball, they just leave. They just leave when they want to, so it’s been hard. But it’ll be fun.
I think basketball is just fun in general, and they definitely won’t be the worst team in the Big Ten like some people are saying. That’s not gonna happen.
SCHOENBERG: What do you think about the Barn? Do you think The Barn is gonna be packed?
LAURENT: The Barns gotta pick it up.
SCHOENBERG: I gotta say, two years ago, I went to a couple of games, and it was, yeah, it was barren. There was some times where there were not a lot of people. I mean they, granted sometimes they do play on weeknights.
LAURENT: Yeah, they do play like Tuesday games, which is like hard. But I don’t know, for the reputation The Barn has, I think it needs, they need to, we need to pick it up as like students here, like more people need to get to the games because.
SCHOENBERG: It’s exciting. Not every school has like a, has a, I mean Big Ten too.
LAURENT: Yeah. Right.
SCHOENBERG: Like not every school gets a basketball team and I think it’s, I think it’s awesome.
LAURENT: And it’s a cool, it’s a cool stadium.
SCHOENBERG: It’s historic.
LAURENT: The raised floor. I mean, it’s a cool place to be. You can get in for very cheap if you don’t have season tickets. I think, hopefully, The Barn. I think there’s a little more hype around them this year. So I think The Barn.
SCHOENBERG: Especially last year where they had some, they had some chances to get some big wins.
LAURENT: Yeah, and there are a few games that were really fun to watch. But, and the Big Ten tournament was here last year. So that was fun.
SCHOENBERG: And NIT too. I mean, they, you know, there’s, there’s some things to like look forward to.
LAURENT: Yeah, and they got a lot of returning older guys like Dawson Garcia, Parker Fox. So it’ll be fun. Basketball is probably one of the bigger sports here. So I’m excited for it for sure. So we got some cross country news. Let me in on it.
SCHOENBERG: Cross country. They just finished up with pre nationals, which is kind of like a little bit of a trial runs, you know, feeling out the course for when they do go to national, if they do go to nationals, and then the Big Ten championships are coming up.
They have a run on the 25th and that’s not like a competitive, that’s not like top players competing. It’s more of like for players that don’t get as much time, you know, or like aren’t participating as much to, you know, get the reps. The next big thing on the calendar is definitely the Big Ten Championships. Ali Weimer, just did a story on her, she’s having a phenomenal season in just her junior year too.
So definitely read that. That’s on the Minnesota Daily website. Ali Weimer specifically too, she’s just had a great year. I think she’s been the top finisher in every single event that they’ve had. But then they also have a couple graduates and a couple, you know, older players and older athletes that are like, they have a chance to, you know, do some damage to Big Ten championships.
When I was talking with them, they were kind of like, you know, last season and then the track season, there were some things that they wish they could improve on. And now that they’re like conscious of it and aware of it, they can actually build it. Like once you identify the problem, it’s a lot easier to fix the problem.
LAURENT: Fix the problem.
SCHOENBERG: But that’s what it started with is they needed to identify like what was troubling them. When I was talking with Emma Atkinson and Ali Weimer in my story, they were saying it’s, you know, it was the easy, they’re easy in the rest days. You know, the recovery days were just not being, you know, used to their full ability.
They were kind of a little bit too easy and it wasn’t allowing them to really improve because they were taking, you know, light runs too light. But once they started to change that, they’ve seen a lot of differences this year. I mean, they’ve had some pretty good finishes, the women’s team specifically.
The women’s team was, I mean, they won the Griak at the beginning of the year. Yeah, they just got Big Ten championships coming up and then NCAA regionals after that. So, I mean, it’s funny seeing, you know, the differences in where every team is at the point of the season.
Like we were just talking about basketball, and basketball, that’s just getting started. Or soccer, you know, soccer’s approaching the Big Ten championships. Or there’s hockey, the two hockey teams, I mean, they’re just getting started on their season.
LAURENT: It’s full swing for everything.
SCHOENBERG: Full swing.
LAURENT: Most sports are.
SCHOENBERG: Football.
LAURENT: I think we talked about it last time, but it’s a good time to be a sports fan. Win or lose, it’s, you always can have something to watch. So that’s always fun, but you mentioned soccer. So what’s going on with the soccer team?
SCHOENBERG: Yeah, so the soccer team, they got their Big Ten tournament bid recently after beating IU. They’ve got one regular season game left against Iowa. That’s always an exciting game. Iowa, Wisconsin, no matter what the sport it is. It’s a rivalry, you know, you can’t deny it. Khyah Harper has been having a ridiculous season.
LAURENT: Awesome. Just ridiculous.
SCHOENBERG: She is leading the NCAA in goals. Just wild. And it’s, it’s so cool that we have so many sports programs here and there’s literally always like, there’s a Gopher at like at the top.
LAURENT: In every, in every sport.
SCHOENBERG: Yeah. There’s always a Gopher somewhere.
LAURENT: Oh, yeah.
SCHOENBERG: That’s succeeding. And it’s cool.
LAURENT: Get out to a soccer game, even though it’s in St. Paul, but yeah. Try to make it to.
SCHOENBERG: Yeah. The Big Ten tournament, they’re hosting the first two rounds.
LAURENT: Exactly.
SCHOENBERG: Yeah.
LAURENT: That’s, that’s fun, right? Well, we got some volleyball news too. Can’t forget about the volleyball team. They did recently lose to number three Penn State at Penn State at University Park. It’s a tough team. It’s a tough game to play. Tough team. They did get swept, so that’s not great. That’s definitely not what they’re looking for.
I don’t think coach Cook was wanting to get swept. Talked to him a little bit before the game, just about what this kind of atmosphere brings to the program and their kind of postseason hopes and playing it in an away game at a number three ranked team is exactly like the simulation you can hope for, for a postseason game. He recognized that like most likely they’re going to be playing away in either the first or the second round, so they’re going to have to be ready for that kind of crowd.
And I think playing in the Big Ten alone just gives you an edge in that year. You, at the end of the season, you’ve pretty much seen everything you’re going to see. I mean, they have, I believe, seven people ranked in the top 15. So it’s just like, Nebraska’s number one, Penn State’s number three, I think. They play Nebraska here soon. I think, yes, they lost, but there’s a lot to learn from that and a lot to understanding, like, they’re going to make the tournament.
And yes, the regular season 100% matters. But if they just get into that tournament and understand they can play better than they have, they’re going to do great. There’s about six home games left I believe. They play, as we’re recording on Wednesday (Oct. 23), they play Northwestern tonight. Northwestern is not having a great season.
They should win that one if they play well, and then they go away again for a little bit, but then they come back home. So that’ll be exciting. I think they have one more ranked game at home. They’ll play Oregon. And the first in season rankings are out. So basically this is a little bit different than the AVCA poll. This would be the top 16 seeds in the tournament, and the Gophers are at 16. So it’s not a terrible spot to be, but it’s not like amazing.
They, I think they definitely expected a little bit more, but they’ve just, they’ve lost a lot of five setters, which is just tough. I mean, it’s a hard place to be when there’s a lot of parody I think. There’s just a lot of teams that are getting a lot better. And if you are off your game and if someone’s hurt, like Mckenna Wucherer was hurt for a while, you’re just not going to be able to win.
But the tournament, the championship tournament’s coming in December and they’ve been, they started to improve some things. They’ve improved their serve receive after Purdue and Wisconsin. They were double digits reception errors, which is just like on the serve missing it or something happening where they don’t score the point.
And then the next four games after that, they were under 10. So I think they’ve been just doing a better job getting some. They had some long practice weeks. Practice weeks are hard to come by in sports nowadays. When you get five days of practice straight, you’re going to take it. And I think they definitely improved on that. And then Phoebe Awoleye was the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week last week, which is awesome.
She’s just been killing it on defense. I think she’s a graduate student. So she’s old, but this is her second year at the U. I think she’s really stepping into her own now. And that’s really awesome to see. So the volleyball team, there are right in the middle of the pack when it comes to the top teams, which is a good place to be.
SCHOENBERG: Where were they at this point last year?
LAURENT: Not, they were not great. They came into the season last year with high expectations and they just dipped out. I think they might’ve been unranked at this point. I know they finished the season unranked and then ended up losing in the second round to Creighton in the tournament. So they’re definitely in a better spot than they were last year.
But I think the biggest thing that’s just there, like Achilles heel is just like consistency, which like seems so obvious. It’s like, yeah, you got to be consistent, but it’s just like from set to set. They have had trouble stringing together, like, quality sets and matches, honestly.
SCHOENBERG: I was gonna say, and from the beginning of the year, because they had that big win year.
LAURENT: Yeah, they beat Texas, and I mean, that’s a tough way to start the year, playing three ranked teams, but it’s the Big Ten. It’s like, it’s the best conference in volleyball, which, you know, like in football, the SEC is the best conference. You just got to win games.
Traveling out of the college sport region, the Minnesota Lynx, unfortunately lost the championship. How you feeling about that?
SCHOENBERG: It’s tough. It is really tough because I think we were talking about it last time but just the hype around having a, you know.
LAURENT: The team. Yeah, right.
SCHOENBERG: Sorry. A Minnesota team in the finals. Sorry. Talking about Gopher sports, transitioning into the Lynx. But just having a team in the finals is really good for the city, but it’s some, it’s just like, especially the way they lost too. That’s always going to be something that you remember for like. As a sports fan.
LAURENT: Sick to your stomach.
SCHOENBERG: That’s one of the things that just hangs on, like you hang on to that for literally the rest of your life.
LAURENT: It really hurt. Cheryl Reeve’s came out after the game. You don’t see coaches get like very mad.
SCHOENBERG: Right.
LAURENT: I think one of the reasons she said that because it’s the end of the season, what are they gonna do? But also, like, she was like, “They stole it from us.” And I don’t know, I don’t know if I would like agree to that extent, but they did make a mock up of all the fouls they missed and all the trash.
And it’s a lot, like, it felt like a very uneven sort of final game. Honestly, final series. And that just sucks. It sucks to be, at least the Lynx have won before, but it sucks to be in that position knowing you can win too. Like having leads in that game and letting it slip away.
SCHOENBERG: Right. Yeah. I mean the social media and just like the fallout from that.
LAURENT: They let them have it.
SCHOENBERG: It’s always something like it’s especially in the game, literally the deciding. It’s unfortunate that that’s like the way, I mean, one team is going to remember it as, you know, Liberty, their first championship.
LAURENT: New York team.
SCHOENBERG: And then you kind of like, on the other half, like for the Lynx, I feel like it would be nice to kind of be happy with the product. Kind of taints like what happened, like you were battling. It was a close game. It was literally like what, it was 60-58 or something like that.
LAURENT: Yeah, it was close. It was like within two points.
SCHOENBERG: Yeah. That’s what the season is going to end on. It’s a controversial call. Right. It’s always going to be a what if. It’s always going to be a what if like, for the rest of the time. You’re going to be like, what if that foul was called and, you know, the game played out.
LAURENT: Yeah, that’s a good point, I think. Instead of, I feel like a lot of the talk, instead of being, “Wow, such an amazing season” they had, it’s all like, “Dang, we got robbed.” Which is like, it’s hard, but like I feel like that it would be better if they like obviously it would be better if they won. But it would be better if we could talk about how well they played and how much of an amazing season it was because it’s not like this team I don’t think is going anywhere.
Like I don’t think it’s a fluke of a season, but all we’re talking about is the refs, which is unfortunate. Whether I’m not like, I’m not gonna say like the refs won the game, lost the game. But it’s unfortunate that the refs are the main talking point of the game because they should be like the afterthought of the game.
SCHOENBERG: Like regardless of what you think of the call, it’s just a sour way to end the game.
LAURENT: Yeah, no matter what.
SCHOENBERG: There’s at least one fanbase that is upset.
LAURENT: But in the same stadium or center, or Target Center, the Timberwolves season started. They didn’t play at home Tuesday night, but they did play the Lakers in Los Angeles and lost. They did not play very well. They looked a little lackadaisical. They have some new additions to the team with Julius Randle.
After the Karl Anthony Towns trade to the Knicks, who the Knicks also lost last night too, so both teams lost. Maybe it’s a lose-lose trade at this point. Yeah, one game in, just burn the bridges. But I don’t, I don’t think you need to overreact about the first game.
Just like we were talking about Gopher sports all being in swing, professional sports are pretty much all in swing.
SCHOENBERG: Always a big question with every sport. Like what if this one went our way?
LAURENT: Yeah, we could we could do that all day. You could have a whole podcast just going back in time being like, “You know how many championships Minnesota could have if they just one thing went their way?”
SCHOENBERG: The first one that comes to mind is that 2023 NCAA national championship game for Gophers men’s hockey. I watched it again the other day. I watched it.
LAURENT: Why you trying to go through pain?
SCHOENBERG: I don’t, I don’t know. I just was looking back cause I was just like, I don’t know. I was reminiscing a little bit and I just watched the clip and it was just, it was crazy how close. It’s so crazy to look back and see how close you were to glory.
LAURENT: Literally.
SCHOENBERG: So close.
LAURENT: Glory.
SCHOENBERG: So close. And they were up 2-0 in that game too.
LAURENT: They were up 2-0. And that’s when I started to check out from the game a little bit, like not really watching. And then they go to (overtime) and I’m like, yeah, I think it might be over. The momentum just completely changed, but that’s the life of a Minnesota sports fan, right?
Minnesota sports student, but that’s a perfect way to wrap it up. You know, there’s, there’s heartbreak, but we still love the teams and we’ll still support them. So that’s why you guys should support the teams and support the podcast because we’re here to give you all Gophers news.
This episode was written by Emmett Laurent and Eitan Schoenberg and produced by Kaylie Sirovy. As always, we appreciate you listening in, and feel free to send a message to our email inbox at [email protected] with any questions, comments or concerns. I’m Emmett, and this has been the Gold Standard. Take care everyone.
