Wolves 83, Bulls 67
Season Record: 9-36

Wednesday’s Timberwolves game against the Bulls started off as brutally as any in recent memory. Simply put, neither team could find the basket. After numerous missed jumpers, layups, and even a blown dunk by Al Jefferson, the Wolves found themselves down by a score of 3-2 with 5:45 remaining in the first. At the time, the teams were shooting a combined 1-22 from the floor.

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USA Today and ESPN are reporting that the Twins have agreed to trade two-time Cy Young award winner Johan Santana to the New York Mets.

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Tucked neatly inside a busy weekend theater schedule for me was a visit to the upended doggy bowl we affectionately call the Metrodome (or just Metrodome, if you work at KFAN) for TwinsFest 2008. Luckily, a visit to the Twins' web site the night before warned me about what to expect. More >>

I must admit that I have slightly mixed feelings about the Timberwolves 117-107 victory over the Suns on Wednesday night. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for the Wolves; they’ve officially got their first winning streak of the year and in the last week they’ve gone 2-1 against three playoff teams (and really, they should’ve won that third one). Things are really looking up and Randy Foye isn’t even scrimmaging yet. But—and I realize that this is a rather embarrassing thing to say about sports for a grown man who, you know, reads books and stuff—I have a deep and emotional investment in the Phoenix Suns. Just to warn you, this next bit is something of a digression. If you don’t really care what I lose sleep over (totally understandable), you can just skip this next section and go straight to the part where I actually, like, talk about the game.

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• For the second straight game, an opposing coach described a matchup with the Gophers as “strange.” This week it was Tom Izzo who, like Indiana’s Kelvin Sampson, was probably quietly wondering how a team without any consistent scorers was able to hang with his top ranked group. I find it a little strange myself, to tell you the truth. In the first half, though, the Gophers pretty thoroughly disrupted Michigan State’s offense, even without the injured Al Nolen, their best perimeter defender. But, by the second half, the Gophers’ tendency to aggressively overplay the ball, thereby leaving perimeter shooters open, again came back to haunt them. Without Nolen’s hounding defense, State’s star guard, Drew Neitzel, was repeatedly left open for threes. Neitzel buried five of the eight he took and eventually put the game out of reach.

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Thursday’s 65-60 loss to Indiana at Williams Arena was incredibly entertaining in the most college basketball-ish way. It was hard to even get one’s mind around the insane intensity emanating from the home crowd, especially when it looked like the Gophers really could pull off an upset. It was that intoxicating, individuality-dissolving group mania can make sports so inspiring (also works great for nationalist politics) and must feel pretty oppressive and menacing for the visiting team. The crowd’s energy clearly spurred the two teams to play with incredible intensity of their own, although it also likely inspired the very ragged play that held forth for large stretches of the game.

Unlike their road loss against Michigan State, in which the U had to fight from behind the entire game just to make it close in the end, the Indiana game was theirs to lose. The Gophers led 56-52 with 6:50 remaining, capping off a 9-0 run with a gutsy left-handed layup and (right handed) free throw by Dan Coleman. And they went up 60-58 with 1:49 remaining after Al Nolen set up the cutting Spencer Tollackson with a gorgeous drive and dish. But then they failed to execute on each of the next four possessions. First, they botched a rotation after Indiana’s Jamarcus Ellis drove the lane, leaving Lance Stemmler open to hit a three. Then the Hoosiers pressured the Gophers into a wild shot as the shot-clock expired. Nolen compounded the problem by fouling Indiana’s freshman star Eric Gordon along the sideline, where Gordon was in no position to score. Gordon hit both free throws to go up 63-60 and, on the ensuing possession, Lawrence McKenzie missed a wide open three of his own. Indiana corralled the rebound with six seconds left and that, friends, was the game.

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Former Vikings great Herschel Walker has reportedly revealed in a forthcoming book that he suffers from multiple personality disorder.

That is all.

Saturday evening the U.S. men's national team kicks off its 2008 campaign against Sweden in Carson City, California. It's a young, predominantly MLS-based roster, with 18-year-old strike menace Josmer Altidore getting his second call-up. It will be the 500th match for the squad. As usual folks will be gathering locally at the Sweetwater to watch. Kickoff is 7:30 CST.

Viewing for the African Cup of Nations will be a little trickier. It can only be seen in the U.S. on French-language station 3A Telesud. Holy Land Deli again looks like the best possibility for catching games in the Twin Cities. I just spoke with the redoubtable Northeast Minneapolis establishment's office manager, Jan Stafford, on the phone. "To the best of my knowledge, yes," she says of televising the games. "Because we have a lot of customers who are soccer fans." The opening match features hosts Ghana against Guinea. Kickoff is 11 a.m. CST. On Monday powerhouses Nigeria and Cote D'Ivoire face off at 11 a.m. in the most anticipated matchup of the opening round.

I suspect this explains Petyon Manning's anemic fourth-quarter performance last weekend. The African Cup of Nations gets underway in Accra, with hosts Ghana facing off against Guinea. Despite the incessant whining of English clubs losing players to the 16-team tournament, it should offer some of the most exciting soccer played on the planet.

Unfortunately watching matches in the U.S. is not easy. They're only broadcast through some Arabic language network (or somesuch) that most sports bars (understandably) fail to carry. Last tournament Bruce and I caught a few games at the Holy Land Deli in Northeast. They had a large-screen TV upstairs and immigrants from all over Africa were holed up there watching matches. It's also possible that the Sweetwater will be showing matches. I'll hunt down some viewing information and post it here later this week.

But for now the San Antonio Express-News (inexplicably) has a nice little preview. The Guardian also has lots of first-rate coverage.

As you might have guessed from previous posts, I am not exactly enamored of college basketball’s culture of celebrity coaches. When I watch a college game what I usually see is a bunch of young, talented dudes playing really hard. What people like Dick Vitale or Billy Packer often seem to see, however, is some manifestation of the coach’s (very likely some fellow Republican they play golf with in the offseason) personality or “system”. When a player makes a mistake Packer, in particular, will adopt a schoolmarm-ish tone and chide the kid for his foolishness. But if a team or player does something right? Must be well coached. (I could yell at you about Packer for pages. He's probably the worst I've seen in describing black players in terms of athleticism and physical prowess while reserving such attributes as character and intelligence for whites. He has used the term "playground mentality" in all seriousness. He is a self-righteous know-it-all. And boy, does he love coaches.)

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