CHAMP HOWARD: Hello everyone. I’m Champ Howard, and I’m here with…
MEGAN DAVIS: Megan Davis.
REGAN GUIRGUIS: Regan Guirguis.
HOWARD: And you’re listening to The Gold Standard, a Minnesota Golden Gopher sports podcast brought to you by the Minnesota Daily.
So we should probably get right into it with some Gophers track. Megan, what are you thinking?
DAVIS: Earlier this year I kind of published an article saying like the Gophers kind of needed to step it up in order to really compete on the national level and at the Big Tens. And I think they really did that at LSU, we have Maunsbach moving into the number five spot in the Big Ten with her a hundred meter performance in the hurdles.
You also have Dyandra Gray moving into the number five and the 400 meter hurdles, and so I think at LSU, the hurdlers stepped it up and they’re super prepared.
We have a lot of good hurdlers, a lot of good weight throwers, obviously Nabwe. Her competition has just been, she’s just outpacing herself in like discus and hammer both taking the number one spot. She moved into number one in discus at LSU for the Big Ten. And so she’s just been obviously doing amazing. Streit has got her number five spot in the Big Ten in hammer throw.
And so they’ll be in Oregon next week to compete. And I know we also have a lot of great distance runners and the weather will be cool in Oregon and so that’ll be really great for them to compete. I know they didn’t go to LSU because of how hot it is and you know, the heat doesn’t really bode well for distance runners. To compete in Oregon will be a nice, I heard they’re all very excited to do it.
HOWARD: Sure. And on the men’s side, not at the LSU track and field meet, but at the Hamlin Insanely Meet, Angelos Mantzouranis posted the number three hammer throw in NCAA history. It’s just like he’s getting better every single meet almost.
DAVIS: Just the weight throwers at Minnesota has just been kind of incredible this year on both sides of men’s and women’s. The only place where I think Minnesota’s not on the top 10 leaderboard in the Big Tens would be our sprinters. That’s kind of dominated by USC and UCLA.
And so I don’t know if that will be the event to watch unless you get some Minnesota girls really placing crazy. But, and also javelin. We don’t have anyone in the top 10 javelin. Nebraska has the top four girls and javelin, so.
GUIRGUIS: Yeah. I mean something that I’m not sure if we’ve talked about on the podcast yet, is Drake Lindsey, who is most likely gonna be our starting quarterback has never played in a high pressure situation before during a Big Ten game.
So that will be an interesting thing for him to see. He played a couple of times last season, but not something like that’s high pressure as a quarterback, and so it’ll be interesting to see how he adjusted to that. But I’m excited for the season.
HOWARD: You got to see him at practice a couple times this year. What do you think, how do you think he was looking comfort-wise and just like ability-wise.
GUIRGUIS: He looks good. He looks good. And I mean it seems like P.J. has a lot of faith in him. It really does feel like the team is adjusting well to him being the quarterback as well as him being able to adjust well. I think it’s clear that Max taught him a lot of stuff last season and, you know, I think it’s nice for him to be able to step into this role now, into this leadership role.
I think he looks great. I know that P.J. Fleck is really excited for him to get out there and start. And a couple of the other players are also saying that they feel pretty comfortable with him being a quarterback.
So I’m hoping for, you know, new talent, kind of no injuries, anything like, I’m hoping that it’s just gonna have a good start into the season. But we will see because it, it’s not, it’s not always easy to take practice into the big game, you know? We’ll see what it’s like.
DAVIS: The women’s basketball schedule got released. Nothing crazy. You know, you get your Big Ten games, we’ll be playing Wisconsin at home and away. But I do think one huge benefit is that UCLA and USC are gonna be coming to Minnesota. So you know, obviously gonna be the two most competitive teams in the Big Ten.
And so to have them play here, it gives, I feel like Minnesota, a little bit of a higher chance of performing better. So those games will be super exciting when they come to town.
HOWARD: You’d have to guess that they’re still, it’s like the Caitlin Clark game from a couple years ago. It’s gonna be packed.
DAVIS: Oh yeah. It’s a great atmosphere.
GUIRGUIS: Yeah, I mean, unrelated to basketball, but I just interviewed men’s gymnastics club a couple hours before this, and they’re actually heading out to nationals this weekend, which is super exciting for them. Last year they won nationals. This year they kind of had that added complications of not having a home gym. I mean, it was hard for me to even get a ride out there. It’s like 22, 25 minutes away.
DAVIS: Where were they playing?
GUIRGUIS: There are Mini Hops Gym, which is in like Plymouth. It’s huge, right? Like they have a lot of space to practice. They have a lot of equipment there. It’s great. I was talking to a couple of the players and one of which, he’s from Northern California, so he doesn’t have his car here.
And like, it’s really expensive to have a car at the university in the first place when it comes to parking, but he says that Coach Burns drives into practice every day. And you know, and I think that that is kind of where my story surrounding it’s a feature story on Coach Burns and everything that he’s done for the team. He’s been with the Gophers for 20 years now and has been coaching for 40 years.
And so, you know, he’s seen a lot and he is been through a lot and I think a lot of the players are really grateful for him and kind of see him both as a coach, but also a friend. And I think that’s an important thing. So yeah, that was super interesting. It’s fun to see how well they’re doing and to interview them before their big meet.
DAVIS: Do you know why they weren’t able to use one of the places here?
HOWARD: Yeah, I covered it last year. They wanted to turn Cooke Hall’s area they were using basically into office space for kinesiology. So for students and teachers. So they basically kicked him out for that reason. And it was tough talking to him last year about it. Because it was happening and they were raw emotions and stuff. So getting to talk to Mike Burns, I know it’s a treat.
GUIRGUIS: He’s a good guy.
HOWARD: Yeah, he’s a good guy. But he’ll go whichever way he wants to go with the conversation. So it always makes it fun and interesting to talk to him.
GUIRGUIS: I mean, I was texting him this morning and I was like, “Sorry, I think I’m gonna get there around 12, you know, I have to find a ride.” And he was like, “Oh man, you should have told me I would’ve given you a ride.”
And I was like, that’s like, you know, I’m just someone reporting on his team. And the fact that he was willing to pick me up and, and drive me 20 or so minutes over was. Really quite nice. You know, there’s been a lot of success with the team as well.
One player, Kellen Ryan, he’s been with the Gophers for a while now and he’s been dedicated to the school. I talked to him today, he was pretty heartbroken when they got rid of the D1 program, but he stayed there.
He stayed with the intention of hopefully being able to build his skill and then transfer to a D1 team. He was with the team for three and a half years and then got that last chance to compete at Penn State. Which was awesome.
HOWARD: It’s not for me to decide, but it is interesting that they aren’t the division one program anymore with the success that they’ve shown out there, a division one program and while they weren’t too. Also, baseball’s been in a little bit of a rut lately.
We haven’t had an opportunity to cover them. But after their nine game win streak, they’re now two of seven in their last nine. They’re 22 and 24 with a couple weeks left in the season. They could make a run in the Big Ten tournament, but. They’re definitely gonna need to flip it around and get back to that nine game win streak that they had a little bit ago.
GUIRGUIS: For softball they’re five and 17 with conference wins, which isn’t, you know, I’m sure what they were expecting to be this year, but overall they’re 20 and 30, so
DAVIS: How close is their season to being over?
GUIRGUIS: It’s done. They played against Michigan, won against Michigan once and then lost against them twice on Saturday and Sunday.
HOWARD: Were you guys able to watch that Timberwolves game last night?
DAVIS: Is it too opinionated if I say it was a slug fest?
HOWARD: No.
DAVIS: Because it was awful.
HOWARD: Yeah, it was bad.
DAVIS: It was so awful. I went into it, I was like, okay, you know, Golden State, they have the playoff experience, they have a great coach, you know, good roster. But they just came off the seven game series. You know, you had Jimmy Butler kind of questionable with…
HOWARD: Tailbone or glute bruise.
DAVIS: Perfect. This is exactly who the Timberwolves wanna see. This should be fine. And then they just get out there and cannot hit a shot to save their life. I know that Ant went 0 for eight. I think I saw at one point they were shooting 10% from the three.
HOWARD: Mm-hmm.
DAVIS: And it’s not like Golden State was shooting particularly well either, but like no one could hit a shot. It was just really bad. And then I remember at the end, you know, the post game press conferences. Ant got told that they were going 12 of 76 from the three point line over the past three games.
HOWARD: Yeah.
DAVIS: And he was shocked. And I was like, you have to understand, your first half performance was awful. I was so surprised that he was just so candid about being shocked about it. Because it’s like, you’re the one playing the game. How do you not understand?
HOWARD: It was bad. I saw a stat that said the final two quarters of game five. And the first two quarters of game one, they made one three pointer over that whole stretch.
DAVIS: And Curry was out. I think he left halfway through the second. He left with 13 points. And somehow they still just completely blew that game.
HOWARD: Yeah, it wasn’t, it still didn’t really look that good in my opinion either. Like they brought it a little closer, but it felt like the Warriors kind of just wanted to let Anthony Edwards get straight line drives and not do anything else.
And that’s what allowed them to keep an eight point lead because they just did good enough scoring when they needed to score. And of course we gotta talk about the Steph injury a little bit more.
DAVIS: Oh yeah.
HOWARD: They said he’s never had a hamstring injury.
DAVIS: Oh, really?
HOWARD: Which is not an easy injury to rehab, it was grade one.
DAVIS: Oh, it was grade one. Okay. Because that means that he’s got like at least seven days out, unless they do the playoff thing where they just pretend that you don’t need enough time to heal.
HOWARD: Exactly. Steph Curry is just one of those guys that kind of goes through it. Whether he rehabs, and rehab’s a little faster than someone else would or just play through the injury. I don’t see him missing game five if they’re down three to one.
DAVIS: But I will say this first, this beginning of the second round has been crazy. The Celtics game.
HOWARD: It’s crazy that Jalen Brunson’s doing it on one and a half feet, like.
DAVIS: Yeah.
HOWARD: It seems like he rolls his ankle again every single game.
GUIRGUIS: Yeah.
HOWARD: So I just, I gotta commend him for his, just how hard he plays out there.
DAVIS: Do you think Thibodeau would even let him sit?
HOWARD: Oh, no way. And then, yeah. We gotta talk about the Pacers game too. I mean.
DAVIS: Oh, that was crazy.
HOWARD: Tyrese Haliburton is playing out of his mind right now.
DAVIS: Yeah.
HOWARD: I saw stat, he’s 10 of 11 this season on game tying, or go ahead shots and three of those have come in these playoffs, two of them being game winners.
DAVIS: Yeah, the pacers are kind of the underdog you don’t really wanna face and they’re proving it. The OKC v. Nuggets, game.
HOWARD: Blunder there too.
DAVIS: Yeah. Chet couldn’t make those two free throws. And if he made those, the game would’ve been over.
HOWARD: Yeah. But that one goes all the way back to 12 seconds left. Jokić is on the sideline.
DAVIS: Oh yeah.
HOWARD: They decide to foul with 12 seconds.
DAVIS: Yeah.
HOWARD: I mean they just gave the Nuggets a chance to get back in that game.
DAVIS: No, yeah. Especially because they fouled so far up the court exactly.
HOWARD: Exactly.
DAVIS: Like there was no reason to do that.
HOWARD: For sure. And I don’t, I’m not too scared for the Thunder personally.
DAVIS: Oh, no.
HOWARD: I think that, that is a very rare circumstance. And I think Daigneault is a coach that will not let that happen again. So I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s still Thunder.
And then we gotta talk about the WNBA Season’s beginning too.
DAVIS: Oh, yes. The Lynx are in kind of a great position. They’re rosters mainly composed of veterans. They got a bunch of women at the 30-year-old range. They went to the finals last season. Obviously got beat by the Liberty.
But they’ve been drafting pretty well, and so they have a lot of young girls who are obviously looking for more play time, but. Just because their starting five is so developed, you know, they’re not gonna see as much playtime as they want.
And so I think that with the amount of people they have on their roster, their training camp is gonna be like one of the most competitive and so I wouldn’t be surprised if you see some girls getting traded for draft picks.
Because a lot of other teams want the Lynx’s players just because they have so much talent. And their opener will be May 16th against Bueckers and the Dallas Wings. In Dallas, unfortunately.
HOWARD: It will be exciting to see Paige’s first real game. Her first bucket was a tough bucket. The most Paige Bueckers thing I could imagine.
And Caitlin Clark in the Fever revamped the roster this off season. They played at Iowa against Brazil, and it was the third most viewed preseason game for both the WNBA or NBA in the last 15 years.
GUIRGUIS: Unrelated to basketball. I personally did not watch the Timberwolves game yesterday because I was at the dollar dog night for the Twins. Yeah, Twins are not doing great. They’re 16 and 20 right now, but they did win yesterday, so beat the Orioles 9-1.
It’s also Royce Lewis’ first game back with the Twins. He was drafted in 2017. His debut game was in 2020 with the Twins. He’s been on the injury list for quite a long time and he’s happy to get off of it. He didn’t really do anything yesterday he bat, but he didn’t get anything. But anyway, it was a great game. Dollar dogs was awesome.
DAVIS: How did Correa do? Because he has not had a great start.
GUIRGUIS: He had four at bats. Yeah, he had a home run yesterday.
DAVIS: Oh, okay.
GUIRGUIS: Yeah, three RBIs, so.
DAVIS: He’s had his worst start offensively of his entire career. I mean, he’s batting 216, so compared to other players, worse start offensively it’s not the worst in the world.
GUIRGUIS: Yeah.
DAVIS: But you know, after coming back after the foot injuries and he still kind of hasn’t been able to figure it out. Troublesome for the Twins, but I mean baseball, we get a long season ahead of you.
GUIRGUIS: Yeah, I was gonna say, I’m a strong believer that baseball’s one of the hardest games to play just because of the amount of games that they have to play and how often they play them. Like back to back to back.
And yeah, I’m excited for the rest of the season. I know we already talked about the torpedo bat, but I’m so excited to keep watching games with it.
HOWARD: Me too.
GUIRGUIS: The Yankees killed the Padres yesterday, 12-3. It’s not the first time that the Yankees have gotten a crazy amount of hits and runs, and I think a lot of that has to do with the torpedo bat that they’ve been using.
DAVIS: Yeah.
HOWARD: Judge has been dominant this year. I mean, I don’t see how he doesn’t win MVP.
GUIRGUIS: I’d be really surprised if he didn’t. I’m just hoping that if the Yankees make it to the playoffs, that we’ll actually see him do well.
HOWARD: That’s all we have time for today. This episode of The Gold Standard is written by Champ Howard.
DAVIS: Megan Davis.
GUIRGUIS: and Regan Guirguis.
HOWARD: And produced by Ceci Heinen. Thanks for giving us a listen. As always, feel free to send a message to our email inbox podcasting@mndaily.com with any questions, comments, or hot takes.
This has been The Gold Standard.