Thursday, January 29, 2009

One Nasty Losing Streak

Welcome back to The Sports Ace, where the Super Bowl is always played the week after the conference championship games.

One nasty streak has been bothering Minnesota Golden Gopher fans for some time: 20 losses in a row by the mens' basketball team to Illinois. There have been some vicious heartbreakers in that stretch, including a last-second, snatch-defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victory loss in 2002 that kept the Gophers from winning a share of the Big 10 title and clinching an NCAA berth. Ugh.

For perspective, the last time the Gophers beat Illinois...
--Bill Clinton was still our President, and Gore vs. Bush hadn't happened yet.
--The Twin Towers still stood.
--Y2K was a vicious myth and a huge IT consulting boost.
--"...Baby One More Time" by Britney Spears was the #1 song on the pop chart.
--Tiger Woods only had one major tournament win, the 1997 Masters.
--the Denver Broncos had just beaten the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl XXXIII, a game which Viking fans could barely watch.
--Napster hadn't even been invented.
--Lance Armstrong hadn't yet won a Tour de France.
--"The Matrix," "American Beauty," "The Sixth Sense" and "Fight Club" hadn't yet been released. In the theaters.

Gophers, end this streak. Tonight. Please.

I'm out like Kevin Love from the NBA Rookies game.

1 comment:

Arik C. Hanson, APR said...

Steak over! And I remember that IL loss at the Barn in 02. I couldn't talk for a few days after that one. Tubby's got this bad boy going in the right direction again.