Nate the Great

The Jackrabbit men's basketball team came through with another convincing win last night against IPFW and Nate Wolters is sealing up a spot on the All-Summit League 1st Team. With his 30 points, 9 rebounds and 7 assists against the Mastodons, the sophomore is quickly making his case for Summit League Player of the Year. I'd venture a guess that he would be the favorite, if not for a NBA prospect in Oakland's Keith Benson. I've said it before and I'll say it again; Wolters is as smooth and effortless a player as you will see at any level. Scary good.

That segues to tomorrow's huge doubleheader against the aforementioned Golden Grizzlies, who are more vulnerable than ever on the men's side. That said, they are the top team in the conference and have already sealed the No. 1 seed in the Summit Tourney. Oakland is so balanced and well-coached that sometimes you forget about Benson, who averages 17 points and almost 10 rebounds a game (9.9, so I'll round up for you, Kito). This is a winnable game for the Jacks if they find a way to defend and rebound inside. Expect a high scoring affair, much like the last meeting, with both teams holding the top two spots in the points per game category in the conference.

SDSU's women are playing well, winning 5 of their last 6 games and have two winnable games against Oakland and IPFW. The Jacks lost to both in overtime in late January and this would be a good opportunity to get those two wins back. I think Oakland is the better of the two teams that SDSU will play this weekend and the Jacks have improved their defense. That will be the key this weekend. The women are playing their best basketball right now and with the conference race starting to open up, it's a good time to be peaking.

Time for some random comments because that's what I'm all about and that's why I have a blog:

• Special shout-out to whoever is behind this terrific fake Twitter page. Very cool.

• Enough with the Albert Pujols talk for a while. He's made it clear that he's not interested in signing a new deal during the season and you have to respect that. The earliest you can fire up the rumors now is July, if the Cardinals are out of it. Michael Wilbon brought up the Cubs signing him; Could you imagine that? I've also heard the Nationals, Angels, Yankees, and Red Sox, among others. Don't ask me where he's going, that's for another blog post.

• To Tubby Smith: You need a point guard, because Blake Hoffarber won't cut it. I refuse to call you petty or whiny (like Jim Souhan did), but the Gophers should be better than this.

• Credit DeMar DeRozan for generating some buzz for the dunk contest Saturday. He probably has no chance of winning because of the media machine that is following Blake Griffin but it should be fun anyway. Remember, many of the best dunks don't win anyway.

Well, that about wraps it up. Thanks for reading and come back again.