CECI HEINEN:  Hello everyone. This is Ceci Heinen and Megan Davis, and you are listening to the Gold Standard, a podcast dedicated to the University of Minnesota sports. 

Today our lovely sports reporter, Regan Guirguis, was too sick to join us in the studio, so I will be filling in on her behalf. I will do my best, but I’ll start just with some of Regan’s recent work. She did a story on the Gopher rowing team. They went to the Big Ten invitationals in Florida in mid-April, and at the end of the invitational, they claimed two first place finishes, which is amazing.

They beat Wisconsin, they beat Iowa, which is wonderful. Good for them. And there’s just a lot of really good stuff coming outta this team, and it looks like next year they’ll just improve even more. And so that’s super exciting. 

MEGAN DAVIS: Yeah. Super exciting. I have been mainly covering track and field these past probably like two months now, just because it’s one of the last Gopher sports that has been continuing as the semester has ended. And so they have their NCAA finals coming up on June 11 and it’s gonna be in Eugene, Oregon.

And that’s the exact same place that the Big Ten championship was at. And so I actually just talked to a bunch of them just asking them like does it make any difference. And they’re excited to go back to Eugene. The people who qualified for the NCAA finals did really well in Eugene during the Big Tens. 

And so, just some of the standout performances is that we had a really big performance from the throwing team, both men and women’s. Mantzouranis and Zaltos both throw hammer, and they’ve been fantastic all semester. 

HEINEN: Mm-hmm. 

DAVIS: I feel like there’s been multiple stories done on them and it makes sense because they’re throwing like five, six meters above the competition, and they’re constantly coming in first and second. They went to the NCAA west regional qualifying round at Texas A&M. The position was just switched, Zaltos came second and Mantzouranis came first. 

One thing that I did notice though, is that Annie Nabwe, who had been reporting on all semester, who’s a great hammer thrower, won and broke the meet record at the Big Ten championships. But then when it came time to qualify for the NCAA finals for the indoor season, she couldn’t qualify. 

Which was really sad because she said she was throwing 70 meters in practice the day of the Big Tens, she threw 69 meters to win the title. And if she threw that at the regionals, she would’ve gotten first place. I think what happened is that she had one bad toss and then she kept fouling. 

Because if you’re doing the hammer throw, you get five attempts. They keep the best one. And I wanted to talk to her this week, but she had her mandatory week off, so I’ll probably figure out more later, but

HEINEN: Yeah, that’s unfortunate. I’ve definitely heard you talk about her a lot this year. She seems like a standout player, so.

DAVIS: Yeah, she definitely is. I mean, she is a sophomore. For like Zaltos, this is his final year, so like breaking the meet record, going to the finals, obviously. What a time to do it. 

HEINEN: Do you think there’s Olympics in any of their futures? 

DAVIS: I would say so. I think because they’re both Greek. 

HEINEN: Okay. 

DAVIS: And so they’d be competing for the, I believe they’d compete for the Greek national team.

HEINEN: Can’t be that large of a team. 

DAVIS: It can’t be that large of a team, though, you would be surprised how many Greek throwers there are. 

HEINEN: Oh. 

DAVIS: I don’t know what’s going on in Greece over there. 

HEINEN: Well, that’s like the Kenyan runners, like, it’s just like some countries specialize in events. 

DAVIS: Yeah. And so for some reason Greece has a lot of fantastic throwers, but since the NCAA is incredibly competitive, I would say that they probably have a good shot. At least for qualifying. 

I also talked to Charles Godfred. He defended his Big Ten championship in the long jump and he also won it at the regionals, so he’ll be in the NCAA finals. He’s super excited about it. I believe he’s also a sophomore. He’s from Nigeria and so he has some crazy records over there as well.

And then the four by one hundred relay team broke the Gopher’s own Big Ten Championship record set in 2023. They also qualified, they’ll be at the NCAA finals. At the Big Ten championships the men placed second and they tied with Wisconsin, just under the Ducks who got first place. 

It was their stadium, so they have a little bit of a home field advantage. There’ll be 10 Gophers of the men’s team going to the finals, which is the most the Gophers have ever sent since 2003 when the NCAA finals were in Sacramento, so shout out Sacramento. 

The women still had a great Big Tens and great regionals, but they finished seventh at the Big Tens. The addition of the new Big Ten teams like USC, UCLA are all kind of powerhouses and track and field. And so, little bit more competition, but only two of them qualified for the NCAA. We have Ali Weimer who does the 10,000 meter, and we have Dyandra Gray who does the 400 meter hurdles. 

This is Dyandra Gray’s last year, so I know she really wanted to make it. I talked to her earlier in the year and I think, you know, she had some unfulfilled goals that she really wanted to get done before her time as a Gopher was over, and I think this was definitely one of them. So that’s super exciting for her. Weimer is a sophomore, she’s on a great path. She’ll be super exciting to watch in the future. 

Hakeem Ford placed eighth at the regionals in the triple jump. And so he’ll also be going to the NCAA final along with Christian Martin in the 110 meter hurdles. And then Jak Urlacher qualified for the pole vault. He did a first couple attempts and the wind was really strong, which made it like really difficult. He’ll be in the NCAA world finals so he can make it all up.

The only other thing I have is that like men’s basketball, there’s new transfer Kidd Tyson who didn’t play a lot in North Carolina, but a lot of three point shooting it looks like to be on the 2025-26 men’s basketball team. No true center though, so that’ll be interesting to see.

HEINEN: Yeah. Well, I was gonna quick talk just to move into the pro sports. The Lynx are doing amazing. 

DAVIS: Of course. 

HEINEN: They have started their season 8-0, who’s surprised? Not me. 

DAVIS: Not me. 

HEINEN: Natisha Hiedeman, she’s been playing great. She’s been making so many dynamic plays. She hit a game winner for them the other night.

DAVIS: Nice. 

HEINEN: She is doing great and I’m really happy to see her exceeding and excelling. And of course, Napheesa Collier is already in MVP talks.

DAVIS: Mm-hmm. 

HEINEN: She is playing amazing, and the Lynx are looking pretty unstoppable right now. I will say, I think honestly, their only threat that I can see is the New York Liberty.

DAVIS: Yeah. I mean, they took it home last year. 

HEINEN: Yeah. 

DAVIS: It would be a nice rematch where the Lynx get to bring it home. 

HEINEN: Yeah. I would love that. 

DAVIS: That would be really beautiful. Speaking of bringing it home, the Frost, the PWHL. They brought it home second year in a row. 

HEINEN: Yep. Go women’s sports. 

DAVIS: Go women’s sports. I’m happy to see the women’s, I mean obviously the Frost of a huge fan base here in Minnesota. 

HEINEN: Yeah, for sure. 

DAVIS: I mean, you know, if the men’s teams keep losing guys, go to those Frost games. 

HEINEN: Seriously. 

DAVIS: The Wild aren’t showing anything promising. Go to the Lynx games. 

HEINEN: Yeah, the Timberwolves are disappointing. I, to be fair, I really do think the Thunder are just a better team. 

DAVIS: Oh, I one hundred percent agree. 

HEINEN: I was in denial for a while about it. Shai is really good. 

DAVIS: Unfortunately, they were just kind of the better team. I will say though, Minnesota could have put up more of a fight. You know, Anthony Edwards’s like body language, like towards the end of the series, once they were down by enough he just, it looked. 

HEINEN: He just sagged. 

DAVIS: Like it, he gave up. And you know, if you’re gonna be the star player over the team, you can’t show that. You could think it, you know. 

HEINEN: Even if you’re having an off game, you have to continue to try. 

DAVIS: Yeah. 

HEINEN: Like, even if you aren’t hitting your shots, you have to be giving everything you can on every other factor of the game. 

DAVIS: Yeah. 

HEINEN: And he wasn’t doing that. 

DAVIS: And he wasn’t doing that. And also, the Oklahoma City Thunder bench is crazy. 

HEINEN: Yeah.

DAVIS: The fact that they’re this deep, which will be interesting to see against Indiana because they also have a deep bench.

HEINEN: That’s gonna be a great matchup I think. 

DAVIS: I think it’ll be fun. I’m a little worried. I do think Oklahoma is going to take it in the end. 

HEINEN: Me as well.

DAVIS: I really want it to go to Indiana because I think that would be fun. You don’t get a lot of these kinda underdog east stories. So I just hope the Pacers put up a fight. 

HEINEN: I mean, I don’t follow the Pacers super close.

DAVIS: Mm-hmm.

HEINEN: But if there’s anything I’ve learned about them is that they don’t give up. 

DAVIS: And speaking of stars who you know, are always there, Halliburton like he’s gonna give it his all, regardless of what’s happening. And also, I’d like to shout out the Sacramento Kings for trading him to the Pacers.

HEINEN: Oh, I totally didn’t know that. 

DAVIS: The Kings, the Kings drafted Halliburton and decided that, you know what? 

HEINEN: We don’t want him. 

DAVIS: We’d rather, I think they traded him for De’Aaron Fox, who’s now in the Spurs, so it didn’t even kind of really make sense. 

HEINEN: Bad trade. 

DAVIS: What a great organization. 

HEINEN: Yeah. Speaking of trades, there’s lots of trade talk going on with the Timberwolves right now.

DAVIS: Mm-hmm. 

HEINEN: Something that I’ve heard, which I don’t agree with, is us trading for Kevin Durant, which I don’t think that’ll end up happening. 

DAVIS: Absolutely, I really don’t know how they would do it. 

HEINEN: They’d have to trade Jaden McDaniels, and they aren’t gonna do that. 

DAVIS: I really don’t see the point of any team trading for Durant at this.

HEINEN: No, he’s old. 

DAVIS: He’s old. And it’s, you can’t give up half your team. 

HEINEN: Something that probably will happen, but that makes me really sad is trading Nickeil Alexander Walker. Because I think especially in the playoffs, like when I was watching those Thunder games, and it might’ve only been because Shai is his cousin, and he had like family grudge.

DAVIS: Yeah. 

HEINEN: But he was the only one out there consistently, like getting low on defense. 

DAVIS: Mm-hmm. 

HEINEN: Playing hard, scoring on offense. He had some 20-point games like he was a standout player honestly, I think. And he’s been getting better and better over the seasons, and so it just makes me sad that he’s probably gonna go. 

DAVIS: Yeah. 

HEINEN: Because I think a couple more seasons would really solidify him in the lineup for sure. 

DAVIS: Honestly, I’ve been hearing things that Naz Reid might not resign. 

HEINEN: Oh, shoot. What would happen then? 

DAVIS: Julius Randle obviously, like, it’s like. 

HEINEN: Yeah, he’s on a one year. 

DAVIS: What’s going to happen there? Thibs though of the Knicks got fired. 

HEINEN: I saw that. 

DAVIS: And lots of jokes about K.A.T. being able to fire Thibs twice.

HEINEN: Oh, facts. I didn’t even think about that. That’s insane. 

DAVIS: A lot of people were shocked and they were like, why would New York do this? This is their first Eastern Conference Finals in years.

HEINEN: Yeah. 

DAVIS: I would say I’m not as shocked because during that Pacer series the entire year, he didn’t play his bench. He’s gonna like. 

HEINEN: True. 

DAVIS: I’m gonna play, I’m gonna play the same guys. I’m gonna give him crazy minutes for a regular season game. 

HEINEN: They were wiped. 

DAVIS: Then it, he gets the Eastern Conference Finals and he is scrambling and he doesn’t know what to do. 

HEINEN: Mm-hmm. 

DAVIS: And so he starts throwing in bench guys who have played so few minutes over the like entire regular season. And then I don’t know if he expected them to be prepared. 

HEINEN: Yeah. And like I know K.A.T. had a knee injury for like the last three games. 

DAVIS: Yeah. 

HEINEN: And I’m like, this is not, I’ve never agreed with that. Like in any sports, of like letting an injured player keep playing. 

DAVIS: Yeah. 

HEINEN: So stupid. 

DAVIS: That’s when the coach needs to step up and be like, no, I know this is like a win or go home game, but like. We’re gonna need you in future seasons. 

HEINEN: I wonder if the Timberwolves will continue on with Finch. We lost in the Western Conference Finals two years in a row. 

DAVIS: Mm-hmm. 

HEINEN: In the, in the same fashion. 

DAVIS: Yeah. And I feel like, like the players seem to, like it seems to be completely up to them if they’re going to do well or not in the series. And I feel like with a good coach, like you could kind of coach that like up and down emotion out of players. 

Oh, the NHL Stanley Cup is happening. Does anyone care? It’s the Panthers and the Oilers again. It’s the same as it was last year. 

HEINEN: Oh, lame. 

DAVIS: Panthers took it last year. Oilers, obviously, McDavid wants that first cup. You know? It’s like the thorn in his side. 

HEINEN: Ugh. I hate repeat championships. Although if Lynx and Liberty go again, I wouldn’t be mad. 

DAVIS: That would be fun. That’s completely different. 

HEINEN: No, that’s very different. 

DAVIS: So different. 

HEINEN: Well, that is all we have for you guys today. I hope you’re all enjoying your summer and stay tuned for further Gold Standards throughout the summer months.

Thank you for listening, and if you have any comments, questions, or concerns, you can drop them in our email inbox at [email protected]. 

I’m Ceci Heinen. 

DAVIS: And I’m Megan Davis. 

HEINEN: Have a great day, and this has been the Gold Standard.