Stanzel’s Sports Takeout — BREAKING NEWS: 1.12.26
Watched a lot of football this weekend. The Vikings need a QB to play on this stage.
Somehow we’re still a week away from the college football national championship game.
Loons lose head coach Eric Ramsay and one of his top lieutenants to second-level West Brom in England. Training camp starts very soon, too.
Abbey Murphy with Pass of a Lifetime in Gophers Win
We’ll start with the Gopher women’s hockey team, mostly because if you haven’t seen the Abbey Murphy pass, you need to.
Murphy popped the puck in the air with her stick, then hit it out of the air between a defender’s legs. Not done, she one hand backhanded the puck to Bella Fanale who put it in the net.
Murphy will play a big part of the upcoming Olympics (she’ll miss the Wisconsin and UMD series). The Gophers will no doubt miss her.
Minnesota State is no slouch - the Gophers beat the No. 12 Mavs 11-3 on the road on Friday (Murphy had three goals) before a 4-3 win on Saturday in Dinkytown.
The Gopher men lost two games at No. 9 Penn State by a combined 8-2 score. They host Michigan this weekend.
Wolves Rally Past Spurs in Thriller
If the Wolves play like they did in Sunday’s 104-103 come-from-behind win over San Antonio, they’ll be fine. The problem is, Saturday’s loss at Cleveland - in which they fell asleep with a double digit lead - must also be addressed.
Anthony Edwards scored 23 points and went over Spurs star and former No.1 pick Victor Wembanyama for the game-winning bucket. ANT had plenty of help in this one - Donte DiVincenzo scored 19 points and Naz Reid had 17 off the bench. Even Bones Hyland chipped in 10.
Rudy Gobert got his fifth flagrant foul though, which earns him an automatic suspension against the Bucks on Tuesday. And for each flagrant after that, another suspension. The season is only half over.
The win kept the Wolves fourth in the West but got them within 1.5 games of the second-place Spurs.
Wild Loses in OT to Islanders
At some point, the Wild needs to stop leaving points on the table.
The Wild plays a lot of overtime games, but they’ve lost four of them in the last 10 games, including a 4-3 decision at home to the Islanders on Saturday.
Minnesota has just two regulation losses in those last 10 games, but they’ve also won just four games. In this nip-and-tuck battle with Dallas for home ice in the first round of the playoffs (seems weird to say just past the season’s midway point, but here we are).
Eight of the Wild’s last nine games have been decided by one goal.
Minnesota hosts the Devils tonight, as all three Hughes brothers will be on the ice at The X.
Gopher Hoops
The Gopher men are going to give fans some fun moments into at least early March. Following their second top 25 upset win of the season, the Gophers rallied from 13 down to force OT before ultimately falling 70-69 to USC at The Barn on Friday. Minnesota yielded two free throws with 11 seconds left to give the Trojans the win.
Cade Tyson had 20 points and eight rebounds for the Gophers, who had won their first nine home games of the season. Minnesota hosts Wisconsin on Tuesday; the Badgers just shocked No. 2 Michigan on the road.
The Barn was the host of a third top 25 upset of the season yesterday, as the Gophers women edged USC 63-62. Grace Gocholski had 25 points and eight rebounds for Minnesota, which gets another crack at an elite team on Wednesday when they host No. 4 UCLA.
The Gopher women had lost 39 straight games against ranked opponents dating back to November 2019.
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