Golden Nuggets for 10.17.08

Minnesota basketball player Travis Busch and former (I think) Minnesota Daily writer turned UofM communications dude (I think) Zach Eisendrath are, um, interesting.

Push play on the video below to see what I mean.

That was the first edition of randomness the two UofM students are calling What Else? Show. My favorite part of that clip inparticular was the movie review. And, no, that wasn't just a one-time "we're bored so let's talk into a camera" bit. There's plenty more at WhatElseMedia.com.

It's all randomness. Sometimes entertaining. Sometimes, um, interesting. Some examples: Talk of human grapes. Items that burn Travis Busch's biscuit. You get the idea.

This was actually pointed out to me by GN today who subsequently commented that "It made me hungry for a Slim Jim." Tremendous Jug.

OK then, on to other stuff. ....

• Rivals released their updated 2009 basketball rankings. Minnesota comes in at #20. Two Big Ten teams are ahead of Minneaots. Indiana comes in at #4 as Tom Crean is in full rebuild mode. And Illinois is at #7 as Bruce Weber is recruiting every shooting guard in the country.
• No surprise here, Adam Rittenberg gives Eric Decker and Willie VanDeSteeg first half offensive and defensive honors respectively for the Gophers.
• Future Minnesota running back Hasan Lipscomb is profiled by ESPN's Christopher Lawler. It sounds like from the piece that one of the draws for Lipscomb to Minnesota was the school's track record of producing NFL running backs.
• Northerwstern Wins (oxymoron?) writes a Big Ten basketball preview here predicting the Gophers to finish 5th in the conference.
• I want to plead with my fellow Gophers fans to CALM DOWN! Charley Walters writes here that Joel Maturi received 34 emails after the Illinois win calling for him to extend and enlarge Tim Brewster's contract. 6-1 is great. It's awesome. But our adulation towards Brewster is unwarranted. He went 1-11 last year. He recruited well. He beat 4 non-conference teams we would have expected Glen Mason to beat. He lost at OSU which was to be expected. He won a close game at home against Indiana and stole a win on the road at Illinois. This is great progress friends. But let's not annoint Tim Brewster the next coming of Vince Lombardi just yet. Whew. I needed to get that out.
• Every coach these days has a "Fire him" Web site in his honor. I find these mostly to be annoying and overbearing. Calling for someone to be fired behind the anonymity of a computer screen seems childish. But in this case I smiled.