MEGAN DAVIS: Hello Gopher fans. It’s Megan Davis with the Minnesota Daily, and you’re listening to The Gold Standard, a podcast dedicated to the University of Minnesota sports. 

It’s only me today, but usually we start talking about what’s happening in Gopher sports, but I feel like there is so much more happening in professional sports at the moment that I want to start with that.

The first thing I wanna cover is the NBA playoffs officially started last night. The Hornets took down the Heat in a buzzer beater, no, not a buzzer beater. LaMelo Ball, I believe scored in the last four seconds and then the Heat were unable to score due to a block, but a great way to kick off the playoffs.

Super exciting for the upcoming NBA playoffs, as I’m sure most of you know, the Nuggets in the Wolves get too face off yet again. This will be their third series facing each other in the playoffs. Not ideal conditions for the Timberwolves, but I’m super excited. These games are always so interesting and fun to watch.

I was reading in The Athletic, they said it could be a blood bath potentially, which I feel like is the correct adjective for whenever the Nuggets and the Timberwolves play each other in a seven game series. They’re always at their highest intensity. It seems like one of the most evenly matched matchups that we’ll see these in these early rounds of the playoffs.

Not coming at the best time for the Timberwolves, but I will say the Nuggets have been struggling as well. However, despite how they may, I feel like die-hard Nuggets fans appear that their team doesn’t seem maybe finals ready, they are coming off 12 straight wins. And I believe besides Peyton Watson, their playoff team makeup is almost pretty much healthy.

I know Aaron Gordon was struggling with some injuries. I think it was a hamstring injury. And he’s back in regardless because that’s what happens during the playoffs. It doesn’t matter how injured you are, you better get on that court. Yeah, but they’re coming off 12 straight wins and the Wolves finish their season nine and 10.

So obviously, it’s a little lopsided right now on who has the momentum. But the Wolves and Anthony Edwards, they always bring it up during the playoffs. It’s always, they’re giving it all, all the time. And I believe Jaden McDaniels is back healthy again. I think all their starters are in their clear and I’m excited. I’m excited to see how this goes. 

The Nuggets took the first series in 2023 and then the Timberwolves took it in 2024. So I feel like it’s kind of anyone’s game, but the series just tends to exhaust both teams, so whenever they face their next opponent, it doesn’t seem like they have the exact same energy that they did during this series. So that could be a, it is a potential problem, but that’s just how, how the cookie crumbles and I will be tuning in. 

And then for the WNBA, I don’t know if we talked about it last time on the podcast, but they have settled and they have a contract now for the upcoming season. Their cap hits higher. You got players actually making a million dollars now. I think Phee’s expected to make 1.2 to 1.4 this season.

I don’t know how it works with injuries and stuff, but I think that’s where her cap hit is now. And so that was great news that the women are finally getting paid what they’re owed. I’m, I believe they’re owed a little bit more, but you know, they’re finally getting some money, and I think with the Lynx this season, it’s just gonna be completely dependent on when Phee returns. 

I know she’s been struggling with injury and there’s been no timeline given. Obviously, it’s expected that she’s gonna make it back this season, but I was looking everywhere and I couldn’t find maybe an exact date or a month even. So who knows when she’ll return and I think that’s just gonna determine what the record looks like this season. 

Because she is the backbone of this Lynx team. I even saw, I was reading a blog about it, that if she doesn’t return until later in the season, that maybe the Lynx will be tanking or rebuilding, restructuring, which I’m not a fan of tanking in general, and I think for all Lynx fans, it’s get Phee back, recoup from the lost players and the free agency, and the players that the Tempo and the Fire picked up and get back to competing.

You know, they had such a good run for these past couple years and they just come up empty-handed. And I think as this team gets older, time’s running out and who doesn’t wanna see their team competitive. But they did pick up Olivia Miles with the second overall pick in the WNBA draft. I think this is a great pick. 

Miles is a little bit, she stands about 5’ 10”. She was at Notre Dame for her first years at eligibility and then last year she was expected to go number two, but decided to enter the transfer portal and play for TCU again for another chance at March Madness. Obviously, she ended up going at number two this year as well, and she’s a good guard. She is a very unselfish player. 

Great with assists and rebounds and during her time at Notre Dame was kind of a triple double machine, and I’m excited for a player like that to be on the Lynx. She’s a little bit older, she’s at 23 just because of her extra years in college. But you know, it’s not like the Lynx have way too many young players. 

The Lynx did have the established roster and then they lost some key players to the expansion draft and then also free agency. So I don’t know where she’ll fit in with that. I think the Lynx are gonna be doing a lot of looking at who’s on the roster, looking at who will be staying in their same position and staying at their same minute time. 

And a lot of it will be incoming girls kind of fighting for their spot. So I’m, I like the way Olivia Miles plays, and I hope she’s able to get some minutes in competition with so many women who just have way more experience than her in the league. So that’s an interesting kind of new plot, plot line. 

The Lynx also extended Amaya Battle a training camp offer to see if she can compete in training camp and she gets a chance and maybe she’ll, they could sign her, maybe she won’t. It’s nice that the Lynx gave someone local a chance. Amaya Battle, born and raised in Minnesota, has been with the Gophers all four years, never thought about transferring or leaving. Clearly a Minnesota-born player and a, you know, Minnesota diehard. 

And so I’m glad she gets her opportunity. I think it’s probably highly unlikely that she’s able to get a roster spot just because of how competitive the Lynx are and how still, I mean, this was the biggest WNBA draft as of yet, but in comparison to the NBA draft and just kind of how much more, how many more players are in the running, it’s still, it’s incredibly tiny and with basketball and you’re only rotating between eight women at a time and the, there’s so many veterans and there’s so many women with great experience and great averages. 

And for someone like Amaya Battle, who is a great player, I just don’t know if she can compete for that roster spot with some of the other girls. But I’m hopeful. Hopefully she will, because it’s always fun to see a Gopher’s player in the professional leagues, especially because in women’s basketball there just hasn’t been one in a very long time, and so that would be nice to see. 

I also kinda wanna talk about the WNBA draft, the number one pick being Azzi Fudd from UConn going to the Dallas Wings. This was something I think a lot of people predicted it was coming just because of Fudd played with Bueckers at UConn. They are dating. 

When drafting players so many times GMs look for chemistry together and you know, once having more chemistry than dating. And so it, it seems like, yeah, they were going to, they might’ve picked her, but I think a lot of the other speculation was, well, she’s not the best player in the draft. You know, if you’re drafting and you’re the Wings, you want the best player in the draft.

But they picked her anyway, and I can’t say that this was a good decision. I think it has the potential to be good, however, I think they are taking a huge risk by drafting her and not choosing another player. I think it was Awa Fam who was, she’s only 19 and she’s 6’ 4”, and she ended up going to the Seattle Storm, which with the number three pick, that was the player that a lot of people were speculating the Wings should have taken, she was kind of the best player in the draft and they, they chose Fudd and it’s great. 

You know, her and Paige Bueckers will have amazing team chemistry. I don’t know if they’re really looking for a player like her in their current roster construction, and they’re girlfriends and if you break up, you gotta trade someone. I don’t think, like, I think having that would completely destroy team morale and chemistry. 

And so that’s just a huge risk of like, you know, maybe you’ll stay together forever and maybe you’ll be perfect and amazing. But they also could break up in a year. And now you have two women who were together and even if they don’t dislike each other after their relationship, it’s still gonna be awkward and their team chemistry is just not gonna be on the same level. 

But also with Fudd, her point production wasn’t, you know, off the charts. You know, she’s not a generational player of years past, and she’s also been very injured throughout her time with UConn, and it’s, it’s college basketball.

UConn has always been dominant and she kept getting injured and now she’s going to the WNBA where the women just play way more aggressively, especially when playoffs come, she’s probably gonna get injured again. And if you draft your number one overall pick. They keep getting injured, there’s gonna be a problem. And also she doesn’t fill in any gaps on their roster, which is probably like the biggest complaint of them all is they wouldn’t have drafted her if it wasn’t for Paige Bueckers, but now they have her. 

That’s all the non-Gopher sports, local Minnesota news. I know the NFL draft is coming up soon. There was actually some drama with The Athletic because one of their insiders, Dianna Russini who is just kind of known to get scoops on NFL players, NFL coaches, things like that. 

Have that insider info that’s been so popular in sports media. Recently was found to have a maybe suggestive relationship with Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel, and she turned in her resignation to The Athletic, the biggest sports newspaper because it’s, it’s owned by The New York Times and she’s getting paid a lot of money to work for them. 

She had her own podcast called Scoop City, which is basically just like talking about insider NFL news, and then just found out that she might have been having relationships with Mike Vrabel, the Patriots’ coach, because photos came out of them on vacation together.

This is all more on the gossipy drama side, but I mean the photos are true. When she did turn in her letter of resignation and I think The Athletic staff is going over her work because it’s a no-no in journalism, you can’t have that relationship with your sources and it’s been quite embarrassing for her.

And the NFL draft is coming up and this would be her kind of hotspot of like getting all the intel on players and coaches and a lot of debate has been formed over, I think the biggest thing is always, it’s always like as a woman and a woman in sports, you do this, you have inappropriate relationships with your sources it makes all the women in sports look bad. 

Which I hate that notion because it shouldn’t group all women together, but it does. I mean, it does make all women in sports look bad because it promotes this misogynistic narrative of not dedication to your job. Other things, but I just wanted to bring that up because I’ve been reading a lot about it and it’s been quite interesting to just kind of see how it all unravels and whether or not like anything actually occurred it’s a career killer and it, it ruins reputations and stuff like that. 

And Gopher sports news, soccer has started up, they won’t start their Big Ten schedule until September, but they’ve started up with these smaller games. Gabby Hansen just wrote about what their current lineup looks like. 

They have a lot of new players along with some veteran players and she interviewed a couple of them just so you kinda see what the dynamic looks like now and who’s gonna be getting minutes and what seniors will be consistent on the team and where’s the new room for these incoming freshmen or transfer students. And I, I really enjoyed that one. That was super interesting. 

Baseball and softball have kind of been on similar trajectories. It is like the standard thing in baseball. It’s up and down and softball’s a little bit more towards the bottom. Baseball’s a little bit towards the middle where it’s, I don’t expect anything outta these teams.

I would suggest you go to the games as the weather warms up because who doesn’t love a baseball or softball game? It’s fantastic to just chill in the nice warm sun and watch these players and I mean, if they, the Gophers baseball just beat St. Thomas 24-2, which is crazy and I’m surprised they haven’t invoked a mercy rule in college baseball because they do have that in college softball.

But they lost to Ohio State, but then they do this to St. Thomas and it’s this up and down constantly of some days are good hitting days, some days are bad pitching days. You just gotta, you gotta go to the game and figure out which one it’s gonna be. 

And then track and field is back in the swing as well. They went to Louisiana recently for the Bayou Battle, and then now they will be heading to California to compete since it is the outdoor track season. The, you know, they rarely compete in Minnesota. Track is such an individual sport. The weight throwers are once again doing great. Nabwe leading for the women’s and in hammer throw, I believe.

Yeah, Nabew is doing great in weight throw. She won in the indoor season and now it’s time to do the exact same thing in the outdoor season. And you also see a lot more track and cross country runners as the outdoor season progresses. As, as the semester winds down, so does sports news. 

Volleyball was supposed to like start up and do some smaller games, but they keep getting canceled. The last reasoning they gave was illness, so Samantha Roering is trying to get some intel on that and see what’s happening over there. If it’s just safety precautions or if is a really bad illness is sweeping through teams, but they’re supposed to have a tournament this weekend and so maybe that will be their first official one, but who knows? 

Taylor and Gilk did just get selected for the under 21 national team, which is great. They had great seasons last season. Taylor especially, she was a freshman and she immediately made an impact on the team after so many injuries kept happening. So she’s just kind of continuing her great streak.

And then same with Carly Gilk. I talked to them both last season when they were just, they just joined the Gophers. They’re still freshmen, still just trying to find their way on a team that had been constantly changing through injuries. And they were, I mean, amazing people to talk to super lovely and super sweet. And so I’m sure they’ll make a good impact on the under 21 team, the U.S. National team. That’s all for Gophers news.

I forgot to also say I went to a Twins game last night, and if you haven’t gotten to a Twins game this season. I know it’s early in the season, but go, tickets are so cheap because no one expects this team to do well. They’re doing fine right now, but no one’s expecting any lasting success, which means you can get in the park for like $10 and every Tuesday is dollar dog night. 

So if you want three hot dogs and to just hang out at a ballpark, it was a fantastic time. They won 6-0 over the Boston Red Sox. Good pitching night, good hitting night. Happy to be there. And I got three hot dogs for $3, which was sick. 

That’s all I have today. This episode is by Megan Davis and produced by Ceci Heinen. 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 Megan Davis, and this has been the Gold Standard. Go Gophers.