Souhan; Gopher MBB Did Great with Tough Schedule [PODCAST]
The Gopher men's basketball team improved to 11-4 overall and 4-4 in the Big Ten after a 75-57 win over #7 Michigan Saturday. Star Tribune Sports Columnist Jim Souhan joined me on WJON today. He says the 8 game start to the Big Ten season was gauntlet for the Gophers with 8 ranked opponents in a row. Jim says to come out of it 4-4 in the conference sets them up nicely for the remaining 10 games on their conference schedule.
The NFL is down to its final 4 after 4 Divisional playoff games this past weekend. Jim says there are many Minnesota connections with the games played. He says Cleveland head coach Kevin Stefanski is a longtime for Vikings assistant coach, Bills receiver Stefon Diggs is a former Viking, and the Buccaneers have a pair of former Gophers in receiver Tyler Johnson and safety Antoine Winfield Jr.
The Timberwolves play at Atlanta on Martin Luther King Jr. Day today at 1:30, pregame on WJON at 1:00. Jim says the Wolves will play without Karl-Anthony Towns, Ricky Rubio and Juancho Hernangomez due to Covid-19 concerns. Jim says this is especially unfortunate for Towns who lost family members to the virus in the last year.
The Minnesota Wild began the season with back to back overtime wins at Los Angeles. Jim says rookie Kirill Kaprizov really turned up his game in the overtime period Saturday to help the Wild pull out the victory. The Wild are play exclusively this season against teams from the West Division. Jim says this could be an advantage because those teams just aren't as good as they used to be.