Hello  and  welcome  back  to the  weekly  rundown  presented  by  the  Minnesota  Daily. I'm  your  host,  Paul  Hodowanick, and  we  are  going  to  do  the  second  part  of our  sports  round  up  that  we  started  last  week  this  week. So  if  you  want  to  hear  about  all  the winner  sports  that  are  currently  going  on, definitely  check  out  last  week's  podcast. This  week  we're  going  to  touch  on  spring  sports. But  first,  I  just  want  to  do  quick  opening on  the  men's  basketball  team  after  we've  had a  little  bit  of  time  to  digest that  bad  loss  to  Maryland  on  Wednesday, they  lost  74,  73, led  by  as  many  as  17  in  the  second  half, and  they  lost  on  that  last  second  three  point  shot. I  think  about  1.9  seconds  left. Didn't  have  time  to  do  anything  after  that  Big  takeaways. Man,  the  free  throw  shooting, it's  just  got  to  get  better.  They  were  not  good. They  were  37  in  the  second  half, 11,  18  overall  in  the  game. It's  actually  not  one  of their  worst  free  throw  shooting  performances, which  tells  you  a  lot. 11,  18,  that's  61%  That  is  not  what you  want  to  see  there  and  it  was just  a  lot  of  them  coming  right  at  bad  times. Ser  was  missing  some  short, he  doesn't  normally  do  that. If  you're  going  to  make  the  NCAA  tournament, free  throws  are  going to  be  something  that  you're  going  to  have  to  do  well, you're  going  to  have  to  excel  at, you're  at  least  going  to  have  to be  average  and  be  able  to make  up  that  ground  somewhere  else. But  when  you're  giving  away those  seven  free  points  against  a  top  ten  ranked  team, that  is  not  going  to  be  good. And  obviously  they  lost  by  one  and  they  had chances  to  Ce  it  and  they  would  have  iced  it  if  they'd just  made  a  couple  of  those  free  throws. Yeah.  They  didn't  get  Daniel  Oturur  the  ball, I  believe  for  the  last  6  minutes  of  the  game. That's  just  not  acceptable because  Daniel  O'turu  is  your  team, that's  your  most  reliable  option,  is  down  low. I  get  that  he  was  going  up  against  Jalen  Smith, he's  going  up  against  some  good  guys  there. But  I'd  rather  have  the  ball  in  his  hands  than cars  who  can  show  that  he's  a  little  sporadic  there. At  the  end  of  games,  he  can  turn  the  ball  over, he  can  force  up  shots,  which  he  did. I  don't  really  know  why  they're not  getting  tour  the  ball  down  there. I'm  sure  Patino  wants  to  get  him  down  there. I'm  sure  they're  not  ignoring  him. So  it's  got  to  be  something else  and  they're  just  not  doing  it. But  that  has  to  be  an  emphasis  going  forward. And  I  think  the  big  takeaway is  that  this  is,  that  was  their  tournament. They  wasn't  looking  good  before  then, certainly  not  looking  good  after. If  they  had  won  that  game, gotten  some  momentum,  maybe  gone  to  Wisconsin, one  gone  to  Indiana. And  we  then  maybe  we're sitting  here  in  a  couple  weeks with  a  different  conversation, winning  a  game  in  the  Big  Ten  tournament. Obviously,  they're  jumping  up  in  the  standings. Maybe  they  get  a  by  that  first  week  or  that  first  round, they  get  a  better  team  or  a  worse  team. That  second  round  they  got  some  stuff  to  work  with. At  this  point  now  they're  pretty  much going  to  be  locked  in  to  playing  that  first  day. Then  they're  going  to  have  a  tough  team right  away  that  next  day. As  opposed  to  last  year, where  if  they  win  two  out  of  their  last  three, they're  going  to  have  the  same  record they  did  in  the  big  ten  last  year. But  unlike  last  year, I  just  don't  think  this  team  has  those  pieces. And  that  brings  to  the  next  point, the  point  that  the  fans  are  talking  about. The  point  that  is  getting  all  the  news  is  Richard  Patino, where  does  he  stand  at  this  point? He  got  a  contract  extension after  they  made  the  tournament  last  year. But  as  we  know  in  a  lot  of college  athletics,  those  buyouts, $2,000,000  I  believe  his  is  around, it's  in  the  grand  scheme  of  things. Not  a  huge  price  to  pay. And  Coyle  would  definitely  do  that  if  he  felt  that Ptino  wasn't  the  coach  and  that  they needed  to  go  somewhere  in  a  different  direction. We  touched  on  this  last  week, but  PJ  Fleck  success,  Bob  Motzko  success, and  turning  around  programs  that  were a  little  bit  as  stagnant  doesn't help  Patino's  chances  of  staying. And  it  certainly  makes fans  itch  for  change  because  they've  seen  it  work. So  whether  Patino  deserves  the  boot, like  some  of  those  coaches that  were  replaced  by  Fleck  and  Matco, that's  a  different  question, but  it  definitely  doesn't help  the  noise  that  is  building. Just  a  couple  of  things.  They've  lost the  last  three  games  at home  that  they  really  should  have  won. All  of  those  were  winnable  games. If  they  win  those  games,  their  record is  suddenly  a  lot  different  and the  perspective  on  this  team  is  changed  quite  a  bit. So  you  know  that  they're  not  too  far  off. The  thing  I  would  say about  Patino  blamed  himself  after  the  last  game. It's  fair  to  blame  Patino  for  those  games, but  you  have  to  look. Is  it  really  going  to  get  better  without  him? And  I  know  that's  just, are  we  going  to  settle  for  mediocrity? That's  the  question  that  comes. But  I  think  one  thing people  don't  like  about  Patino  is  he doesn't  bring  in  those  top  value  Minnesota  recruits. I'm  not  sure  if  you're  getting someone  else  in  there  that  you're  suddenly getting  the  Matthew  Hertz  of  the  world. You're  getting  the  zeke  in  ninjahies. Just  the  really  good  prospects, those  guys  are  still  going  to  go  somewhere  else. The  Joneses,  I  don't  think a  new  coach  is  suddenly going  to  magically  bring  those  guys  in. Those  guys  want  that  exposure, that  top  exposure  with  some  of those  high  high  coaches  that aren't  gonna  come  here.  And  they  want  those. So  then  they're  maximizing  their  draft  potential. That  just  isn't  where  Minnesota  is, it's  not  where  they  are  right  now. And  it's  hard  to  say  that they're  going  to  be  able  to  build  to  get  to  that  point. That's  not  the  school  that  the  Gophers  are  gonna  be. They're  gonna  bring  in  guys that  are  going  to  be  here  for  a  while. People  don't  leave  early  coffee. Leaving  early  was  different  for  them. Tour  is  probably  going to  leave.  That's  different  for  them. And  so  those  are  one  of  the  things  that  Patino has  gotten  those  guys  ready  to  go  early. So  he  has  had  some  success  in  that. He  still  brings  in  good  recruiting  classes. They're  just  not  the  homegrown  guys. And  then  the  homegrown  guys  go  off the  media  in  the  local  media  talks about  them  and  then  that  kind  of  drums  up the  animosity  of  why  we  didn't  get  those  guys. So  Is  that  really  going  to  get  better?  I  don't  know. I  still  would  say  it's  I  would  expect maybe  to  see  a  change that's  not  any  sources  or  anything  like  that. That's  just  what  I  would  expect  because even  if  this  is just  kind  of  where  Minnesota  is  going  to  be, they're  always  going  to  be  a  middle  of  the  Pac  team. Then  it's  like  why  not  try  to  go  somewhere  else, maybe  see  if  there's  bigger  upside  then  Patino, Because  if  we  think  our  floor is  where  we  kind  of  are  right  now, might  as  well  just  go  for  it. So  that's  what  I  got  on  basketball. Let's  now  transition  into  the  spring  sports. So  we're  going  to  start  with  softball. Softball  is  9.6  on  the  season. I  think  just  taking  a  look  at  that, it  might  be  a  little  surprising  that  the  record  isn't  a bit  better  considering  how  well  they  did  last  year. Reaching  the  College  World  Series, dropped  from  a  pre  season  consensus, top  eight  team  to  now  beginning  the  season,  ranked  18th. And  a  few  new  places  or  a  few  new  pieces, excuse  me,  in  key  places.  Hope  branders  out. She  has  the  medical, she's  on  medical  leave or  not  medical  leave,  but  she's  not  cleared  to  play. We  don't  know  specifically  if  that's for  an  injury  or  some  other  sort  of  thing, we  still  don't  know  at  this  point, Emily  Hanson  has  been  filling  in  her  role  at  first  base. She's  done  actually  a  very  good  job,  I  would  say. She's  provided  a  good  spark  for  that  line  up. She's  batting  283. That's  kind  of  decreased  after  the  last  couple  weeks. But  definitely  has  been  a  good  replacement. But  you  can't,  you can't  fully  replace  what  Hope  Brander  was. She  had  the  third  most  home  runs of  a  Gopher  in  a  season  last  year. And  I  think  that  just  kind  of  takes the  wind  out  of  the  team's  sales  a  little  bit. They  don't  feel  very  comfortable talking  about  Brandner  and  why  she's  gone. So  that's  kind  of  hanging  over  them, I  believe  like  a  little  bit  of  a  black  cloud. But  going  away  from  her, they  have  a  lot  of  returning  pieces  that  are  nice. Amber  Pfizer  had  a  ERA  of 3.09  before  last  week  she  had  a  really,  really  good  week. She  had  her  third  career  no  hitter. She's  back  down  to  225. With  the  ERA,  that's  where  you'd  expect  it  to  be. I  can  expect  it  to  go  even  farther  down. She's  going  to  continue  to  be  dominant. She's  going  to  continue  to  be  good. I  think  the  person  you  have  to  keep an  eye  on  in  that  bullpen  is  not  Pfizer because  she's  going  to  have  that  continued  dominance. It's  that  number  two  starter, Autumn  S.  She's  been  great as  that  number  two,  go  to  option. She's  a  sophomore  transfer  from  Idaho  State. Came  into  this  program  new. And  the  thing  is  Pfizer  is  a  senior. She's  leaving  after  this  year. So  you  have  to  find  that  replacement. And  it  looks  like  ease  is  going  to  be  that  person. That's  the  key  thing  I  think  you  take  away  from these  first  15  games  is unlike  last  year  when  it  was  Sydney  Smith getting  some  time  in  games. But  not  really  that  option  that  you want  as  is  going  to  be  able  to  come  in  in  big  moments. Pfizer  is  going  to  not  have  to  pitch  as  often  as  much, and  we're  going  to  have  Es  going  forward. Like  I  said,  she's  only  a  sophomore, you've  got  two  more  years. She's  got  a  1.84  ERA,  4.1  this  season. So  definitely  doing  a  really  good  job out  pitching  Pfizer  In  some  moments, I  don't  know  if  that'll  be  how  it  ends, but  if  it  is,  that's  a  great  outcome. Because  Pfizer,  it  looks like  it's  just  going  to  continue  to  be  good. Switching  to  the  line  up,  I  think  you  expect a  little  bit  more  pop from  the  line  up  than  they  currently  have. Natalie  didn't.  Hartag  has  three  home  runs. Cindy  Strello  has  one. Emily  Hanson  has  won.  Keana  Jones  has  one. And  then  the  only  other  person  that  has one  is  Mckenna  Partain.  She  has  three. I  want  to  touch  on  Partain, She  has  a  four  oh  seven  batting  average. She's  batting  first,  15  RBI's.  That  leads  the  team. Slugging  percentage,  722  on  base  percentage,  484. She's  stole  three  bases  already. She's  really  coming  into  her  own  as  a  senior. She's  kind  of  that  leader  on  the  team  now, taking  over  for  Matty  Hulahan. Played  in  every  game,  started  in  every  game, has  the  most  at  bats  on  the  team. She's  really  been  that  steady  force at  the  top  of  the  lineup  for  the  Gophers. And  she's  really,  really  breaking  out. I  would  suggest  if  you  want  to  learn  more about  partin  our  Nolan  O'hara, one  of  our  softball  reporters  along  with  Anna  Landis, had  a  story  about  her  in  the  latest  Em  and  day. You  can  find  that  online  or  at a  paper  anywhere  around  campus. Definitely  check  that  out  so  she's someone  to  really  look  for  going  forward. She  didn't  have  as  much  pop  as  she's  showing  this  season. We'll  see  if  that  continues,  if  that  levels  off. But  that's  just  another  good  sign. Obviously  we  really  don't  know  about  hope  Brander  status, but  you're  hoping  that  she  comes back  at  some  point  this  season. That's  a  really  nice  12  punch, 123  Punch  with  Natalie  Den  Hartag  in  there. This  lineup  still  has  a  lot  of potential  to  kind  of  get  going again  even  if  they're  not  showing  maybe  the  pop  that  we expected  to  them  to  at  the  beginning  of  the  season. And  I  think  that's  really  the  point of  the  story  here  about  softball  so  far. I  think  you  expect  to  see  some  of the  stuff  that's  happened  average  out. And  when  you  do  that  RA  comes  down  for  Amber  Pfizer a  little  bit  more  batting  average  for  some  of those  girls  like  Caitlin  Kemet  Mueller. That  should  go  up  a  little  bit. I  expect  Partin  and  N  har  tag  to  stay where  they  are  if  you  get  brand  new  back, that's  another  good  thing. I  think  we  are  going  to  get a  little  bit  of  a  regression  to  the  mean. But  a  lot  of  that  means  people  are jumping  up  and  that  means, I  think  this  record  is  going  to  go  up. They've  played  good  teams  to  begin  this  year. A  lot  of  ranked  teams, non  conference  schedule  was  going  to  be  hard. Jamie  Traxel  said  that  before  the  season, so  I  don't  think  this  is  anything  unexpected  from  them. It  might  be  unexpected  from  a  fan  that's  just  looking  in and  seeing  that  they  already  have  six  losses, which  they  normally  don't. But  they're  going  to  contend  for  the  big  ten  title. They're  going  to  go  beyond, I  would  believe  so. Definitely  don't  get  too  worried  about the  softball  team  baseball  still  really  early  to  know. Hard  to  say  much  with  a  4.4  record. But  a  couple  of  things  that  we  do  know. Max  Meyer,  pitcher  legit, he  has  17  strikeouts  and  ten  innings  so  far. Opponent  batting  average  of  0.152, Really,  really  good  slider, he's  going  to  get  drafted  this  year. He  just  continues  to  improve. Whether  they  keep  him  as a  starter  long  term  or  they  put  him  in  the  bullpen. He's  kind  of  flexed  in  and  out of  that  in  his  time  but  the  gophers  will  have  to  see. Wait  and  see  on  that. A  couple  other  pitchers  that  I  like, I  like  Sol  Burnt, totally  know  how  to  pronounce  his  last  name, which  will  be  a  theme  throughout  this. Horton  and  Massey,  all  those  guys have  had  decent  starts  to  the  season. Some  of  their  ERAs  are  a  little  bit  inflated, but  again,  only  eight  games  to  go  off  of  Sam  Thorson. He  really  needs  to  cut  down  on  walks. He  has  some  good  stuff, but  he  has  15  walks  in  seven  innings. And  that's  kind  of  the  theme  of  the  whole  pitching  staff, is  they've  got  some  good  opponent  batting  averages. If  you  just  look  through  the  stats  and  you would  expect  their  ERAs  to  be  a  little  bit  better, the  walks  are  really  what's  killing  them, so  watch  out  for  that  as  they  play  in a  controlled  indoor  environment  at  US  Bank  Stadium. Get  some  consistency  with  the  mound  and  everything. I  would  expect  that  to  go  down  a  little  bit and  you  should  expect  to  see  that  go  down. Otherwise,  this  team  might  have a  control  issue  the  rest  of  the  season. They  have  five  guys  batting  above  500. Above  300,  believe  me, Or  excuse  me,  not  500. That  would  probably  lead  the  podcast. If  the  five  batters  above 500  still  the  very  interesting  stages, it  will  be  interesting  to  see. Again,  like  I  mentioned  just  a  second  ago, they  have  about  two  weeks  of US  Bank  Stadium  play  in  a  row. So  go  out  and  check  them  out  if  you  are in  the  area  you  want  to  do  so  they'll be  around  and  then  they  go off  for  a  while  before  it really  starts  to  warm  up  in  their  back  here. All  right,  Moving  on,  men's  tennis, they  are  6.3  this  season, if  you  follow  tennis  at  all, if  you've  checked  in,  in  the  team  in the  past  couple  of  years,  it's  a  lot  of  the  same  names. You're  going  to  say,  oh  wow,  they're  still  on  the  team. Vlad  Low  back,  Stefan  Milisevich  and  Jackson  Allen, those  are  the  top  three  guys. They're  all  6.3  so  far  this  season. In  doing  well  then I  think  where  you  should  look  is  some  of  these  newcomers, four  singles  has  been  occupied  a  lot  by  Slim  Trust. He  is  a  freshman. He  has  come  in  and  done  well. Let  me  check  where  he's  from. Estonia.  I  believe  that's  just  classic. Jeff  Young  continuing  to  bring  in  some  young  guys. Yep.  Talent  Estonia. And  then  Bod  in  Zarkovich, he's  also  a  freshman.  He's  from  Serbia. He  hasn't  been  in  those  high  stakes moments  as  much  as  Slim  or  Sim  has. Sorry  to  Mr.  trust  on  that  but  he  has  done  well. He's  13.4  Trust  is  13.6 Encouraging  young  guys  coming  in  and stepping  in  in  good  roles  for  them. So  those  are  people  to  watch. Women's  or  not  women's  hockey. Women's  tennis,  13.2  really, really  good  start  to  the  season for  them  compared  to  where  they were  maybe  last  year  when  they  were  14, 11  overall,  they're  already  10.2  So  really  doing  well. They've  continued  their  home  dominance. They  were  11.1  at  home. Last  year  they're  8.1  So  far  this  year, we  haven't  really  seen  them  play  any  big  ten  opponents. So  that's  when  we'll  be  able  to  stack  up. And  they  haven't  had many  nationally  ranked  opponents  either. As  a  team,  they're  11  player  has  has  done  that. But  things  to  look  at,  Redshirt  Freshman  Dahlia said  is  rolling  is  the  number  one  option. She's  4.1  so  far,  Tiffany  Huber, who  you  would  recognize  from  last  year, she  was  in  two  spot  for  much  of  last  year. She's  5.2  so  far  this  season. So  continuing  where  she  left  off  there  and  then another  freshman  tennis  contribution has  come  from  Echan  Tin. She  is  16.2  mostly in  the  number  three  and  number  four  single  spots. So  another  freshman  that's  coming in  and  making  a  difference. Final  sports  that  we're  not  going  to  touch on  because  they  just  really  haven't  gotten  going. There's  either  too  small  of  a  sample  size  or  really nothing  much  to  talk  about.  Those  are  the  golf  teams. Women's  golf  is  getting  rolling. Not  shown  some  strong  finishes  so  far. Hopefully  that  improves  for  them. Men's  team  had  a  meet  a  little  bit  ago, a  couple  weeks,  but  they  don't get  going  until  March  as  well. And  then  track  is  finishing  up  their  indoor  season. We'll  get  to  coverage  more  on  them  when  they  are in  the  outdoor  season.  That's  all  for  this  week. We'll  be  back  again  next  week  in our  normal  format  to  give  you the  weekly  rundown  on  all  things. Go  for  sports,  Don't forget  to  share,  subscribe  and  review. We'll  see  everyone  next  week.