REGAN GUIRGUIS: Hi everyone, I’m Regan Guirguis and…

MATTHEW ZEICHERT: I’m Matthew Zeichert. 

GUIRGUIS: We are reporters for the Minnesota Daily and this is The Gold Standard, a podcast dedicated to University of Minnesota sports. 

ZEICHERT: Let’s preview what we got coming up next week. What articles you working on Regan? 

GUIRGUIS: I’m actually working on a couple, so on Friday I interviewed some of the girls on the soccer team just talking about, you know, soccer season coming up, what it’s like with some of the players, some of their captains who graduated. And, you know, kind of what it’s like, kind of filling those gaps. That story is either coming in this week or next week. 

I wrote a very small recap story about our dance team that won a gold medal and a silver medal representing team USA at the ICU World Championships, which is super cool. But I’m gonna do a more in-depth story on that. 

And then I just came back today from the men’s gymnastics team’s practice. They have a really interesting story. They were a D1 team until the end of their 2021 season. Then they’re D1 title got dropped last year.

They got kicked out of Cooke Hall, which was where they practiced for years and had all their banners. And this year they have like one small room in Cooke Hall, which is where I went today. Last year I went to one of their meets, and like I’ve been to where they used to practice and it was way bigger and very cool.

But they’ve also been traveling between three or four different gyms this whole year, all of which are like 30 or so minutes away from each other. It’s a lot of adversity that the team has kind of been going through, but yet they’re still doing great.

They went to, I believe it was the Eastern Championship in Fort Lauderdale, Florida last weekend. Next weekend they’re gonna go to nationals in Salt Lake City, Utah. They are still thriving as a team, and I’m excited to put a club sport that’s been doing super well into the spotlight. 

ZEICHERT: Awesome, and this week I’m working on a track and field article that I’m really excited for. Spencer Brown, a hurdler for the Minnesota Golden Gophers, who are currently, if I’m not mistaken, number five in the nation for men’s track and field outdoor, he won a Croatian national title for hurdles.

I’m gonna talk to him about being a Croatian athlete, the sort of national pride that comes with that, competing on the national stage, possibly Olympic trials, so on and so forth. And it’s been a really fun team to cover because they’ve been doing so well. 

Our Greek God throwers are doing tremendous. They are breaking a lot of their own records, which were school records once, but they’re breaking their own records. And the regular season for Gopher outdoor track is ending soon and NCAA nationals are fast approaching and it is going to be a very interesting couple of weeks for that team.

And we’ve had quite the weeks with NBA playoffs, NHL playoffs, NFL draft. So without further ado, I really want to talk about how I attended the NFL draft in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

GUIRGUIS: Okay, Mr. Fancy over here. Some of us had to watch it on our TVs. 

ZEICHERT: It was a once in a lifetime opportunity ,and I probably won’t do it ever again because I stood for 12 hours or something like that, probably more. And it was a sight to behold because as you can probably assume, I am a diehard Green Bay Packers fan. I bleed green and gold, and I was very happy with our night one selection. 

The Green Bay Packers selected Matthew Golden, which I’m going to buy the jersey because my first name is Matthew. I attend the University of Minnesota. Golden Gophers. So I mean, it’s just kind of. 

GUIRGUIS: Fate, really.

ZEICHERT: It is indeed. But so much stuff happened with the NFL draft. You can also read my article on the recap of the NFL draft on the Minnesota Daily website, but… 

GUIRGUIS: Let’s talk about Justin Walley going third round. I think that was a shock to a lot of people. I wrote a kind of preview before the draft talking about all their people who were in the combine from our school. Nine Gophers went into the draft. 

ZEICHERT: Ersery went to the Texans. 

GUIRGUIS: Yeah. But, Ersery was projected to be first round. First or second.

ZEICHERT: But, the thing about the NFL draft is it is by far the most unpredictable draft. 

GUIRGUIS: A hundred percent. I just think it goes to show that like you could be an expert in this field. You could know everything you need to know about a player and their stats. But at the end of the day, you don’t know what’s going on in a team’s mind. 

You don’t know what the interactions they’ve had with that player and that that all leads to, you know, character matters. And that’s what’s kind of fun and exciting about the draft. 

ZEICHERT: For sure. I think a huge story that we have to talk about in terms of UDFAs is starting quarterback for the Minnesota Gophers, Max Brosmer. 

GUIRGUIS: Max Brosmer! I’m so happy for him, he’s going to the Vikings! Sorry, I’m so happy about this.

ZEICHERT: I’m not happy he’s going to the Vikings. 

GUIRGUIS: Okay. Well you’re a Packers fan. 

ZEICHERT: And that kind of brings me to my question is, they have four guys in their quarterback room right now, all of which have less experience than Sam Darnold. Do you think that the Vikings are maybe having a little bit of second thoughts about not keeping Darnold even though he was kind of a high asking price?

GUIRGUIS: I don’t know. I think it’s hard, right? Because like I could say all the reasons why, but at the end of the day, you know, the team made a decision. And I’m guessing I could be totally wrong about this, but I’m hoping that they are trying to teach a quarterback how to play the way that they want to be played in their program.

I think that while Sam Darnold does have a lot of experience. It doesn’t necessarily mean that these quarterbacks don’t have what it takes to match that and to maybe even excel further.

ZEICHERT: I’m not usually a fan of preseason football, but I think if you are a Vikings fan, preseason football will be must watch television. Because I don’t think J.J. McCarthy has that starting job locked. I think if Brosmer has some good preseason games, there could be a lot of changes. 

And maybe it isn’t J.J. McCarthy with the starting job, and I could be wrong, but that’s the beauty of preseason football, especially this year. This draft class is a lot. It has a lot of storylines going into it, I think more than previous years even, and so I’m extremely excited to watch how that goes.

GUIRGUIS: Matthew, what do you think about the Viking draft picks for this year? 

ZEICHERT: I think they went very safe with their draft picks. Personally, I think the Vikings really need a QB1.

Vikings fans, Vikings ownership thinks J.J. McCarthy is QB1. I think the crazy injury that happened to him preseason, yes, it was a crazy injury, please don’t talk to me about crazy injuries. Damian Lillard just tore his achilles. That being said, I do think that Minnesota needs someone that has experience playing football at the NFL level other than J.J. McCarthy. And that is why they were talking to Aaron Rodgers. 

GUIRGUIS: Right. Yeah. I remember talking about that on the podcast a couple weeks ago was about Aaron Rodgers possibly going to the Vikings, which I don’t think anyone ever really believed was going to happen.

But yeah, I don’t disagree. I do think that there is kind of this pressure for quarterbacks. I think that’s what a lot of teams are looking at this year. Something that stuck out to me was Shedeur who was supposed to be a first round pick from Colorado. 

ZEICHERT: So funny story is I’m a talkative guy, especially at the NFL draft, and I saw someone with a Shedeur Sanders jersey from Colorado.

I asked him as I was in line to visit the Lombardi trophy, which is now my screensaver on my iPhone. I said, “Is Shedeur going first round?” And he told me he’s not. 

What he said was, if he’s not drafted by the Steelers, he’s falling into the next couple of rounds. And what happened? He ended up falling into the next couple of rounds. But what’s been in the national spotlight, of course, is the controversy with the prank call. 

GUIRGUIS: I can’t imagine how upsetting that would be to feel like, you know, you’re finally getting this big moment that you have been anticipating that’s been your dream since you were a kid and just to find out that it’s a prank call. I mean, this is terrible. And really, I don’t think any player deserves to go through that. I just, yeah, I don’t know what the solution is.

ZEICHERT: Let’s talk about something that’s happening at the Daily offices, and that is a little bit of a friendly rivalry between our sports editor, Champ Howard, and the rest of the… 

GUIRGUIS: Everyone else. 

ZEICHERT: The state of Minnesota, basically. 

GUIRGUIS: Literally everyone else. Spencer, our editor-in-chief, for his weekly email he called Champ out. Champ said, “Go Lakers” at the end of The Rouser that was released on Sunday. And I think that that’s hilarious. He’s gotten a couple of hate mail emails from people. 

ZEICHERT: Hate mail in Minnesota, It’s more like passive aggressive emails. 

GUIRGUIS: Yeah, exactly. It’s like someone just telling them that they hope that his pillow’s warm.

ZEICHERT: But talking about the Timberwolves, Anthony Edwards is playing insanely good right now. I mean, he is shutting down LeBron and Luka Dončić. That is practically unheard of. So there’s been a lot of internet discussion about, “Oh, well, is Anthony Edwards the next Jordan?” And I don’t think “the next Jordan” is maybe the right way to go about it.

But what I will say is Anthony Edwards is certainly making an argument for that case. If the Timberwolves make a deep playoff run there’s gonna be hall of fame questions especially if they win a ring. Because that’s what Timberwolves fans want first and foremost is an NBA championship.

They haven’t had an NBA championship in their entire existence. For me, I had to wait till 2021 as a Bucks fan to see my first championship. And Timberwolves fans, winning the NBA championship is awesome. 

GUIRGUIS: Tomorrow’s game five, so if they win, then they win against the Lakers. Which I think would be pretty awesome for Minnesota and pretty awesome for the Timberwolves.

ZEICHERT: I think it’d be pretty bad for Lakers. That Luka Dončić trade shocked the world, and the fact that they picked up Luka Dončić and they might not even make it past the first round. Books are gonna be written about that if it happens.

I think it would be very funny given the whole “Lakers In Five” meme going around of Shannon Sharpe talking about Lakers winning the playoff series in five games. If the Wolves won in five games, the merchandise that would be created because of that would be insane. I would buy some. 

And yeah, I mean, great stuff happening in NBA playoff basketball.

A lot of people like to say NBA is kind of a softer game than the college level, but I dare them to go watch an NBA playoff game. The physicality on display, especially Anthony Edwards so far, is insane.

And another insane thing happening right now is NHL playoffs. 

GUIRGUIS: The Wild are in it, you know. 

ZEICHERT: I thought they were gonna get swept by the Vegas Golden Knights. Because the Vegas Golden Knights are an insanely well coached and well put together team. What happened with the Wild was Eriksson’s back, Kaprizov’s back. That is huge. It was really a kind of a tough battle to get to the playoffs, even for the Wild. But they’re here and they’re ready. 

GUIRGUIS: The Wild fan bases are diehard. I co-wrote a story with Katrina Bailey last week, and we talked about the Xcel Energy name is being renamed. 

ZEICHERT: Similar to Williams Arena. Shout out my article about the renaming of Williams Arena possibly.

GUIRGUIS: It’s the most comments I think I’ve ever gotten on a story, It’s just about, it’s a bunch of Wild fans going into the comments talking about how some of them are really upset because it’s super nostalgic and what they think the next name’s gonna be, what they hope the next name’s gonna be.

And I think that that just goes to show how much people love this team, that they’re so passionate about what the stadium name is, and I think that a lot of teams are.

It just goes to show with teams like the Wild and the Timberwolves who are now in the playoffs, how much the fan base loves them and loves supporting them and being there for them. And it’s always a love-hate relationship. 

ZEICHERT: Well, the cool thing about the Twin Cities is they are twin cities as much as national media likes to conflate the two. St. Paul, the hottest ticket in town is Wild. Minneapolis hottest ticket in town, Timberwolves. It’s obvious, just look at the asking prices to get into the stadiums. 

It’s also fun because the weather’s getting nicer and people are talking about sports. Even people that don’t follow Timberwolves basketball right now are watching Timberwolves basketball.

GUIRGUIS: End of a lot of seasons and the start of a lot of other ones and so I’m excited to, excited to continue doing this over the summer and keeping you guys in the know.

ZEICHERT: I’ll be gone, I’m graduating. But it was nice knowing you fine folks at the Minnesota Daily and also our readers and podcast listeners.

GUIRGUIS: So that’s all we have for you guys today. This episode was recorded by Regan Guirguis and…

ZEICHERT: Matthew Zeichert. 

GUIRGUIS: And produced by Kaylie Sirovy and Ceci Heinen. As always, we appreciate you listening in and feel free to send a message to our email inbox at podcasting@mndaily.com with any questions, comments, or concerns. 

I’m Regan Guirguis. 

ZEICHERT: And I’m Matthew Zeichert.

GUIRGUIS: And this has been the Gold Standard.