MN Hoops November Awards

November has a couple of big bookends on it, though neither occurred in November. On October 30, Derrick Rose scored 50 for the Timberwolves in a 128-125 win over Utah. On December 1, McKenna Hofschild set an all-time MN HS girls record with 63 points vs. Park Center. I was lucky enough to see both of those games. Since we don't have any October awards, we're shoe-horning Rose's big game into November. Hofschild will have to wait until we summarize December to be rolled up into our monthly awards.

So, anyway, for November, our award winners are:

Game of the Month

Obviously no game can win more than one award so we'll just cut to the chase. The Game of the Month was the Gopher women's come-from-ahead then come-from-behind win over #12-rated Syracuse on Thursday, November 27. I saw this game, too! Minnesota 72 Syracuse 68.

Player of the Month

There are 5 contenders, each of whom was our Player of the Day twice or more. They are, in alpha order:

• Taiye Bello, MN Gopher women, rebounder extraordinaire, who along with guard Kenisha Bell and coach Lindsay Whalen have led the Gophers to a 6-0 start and a win over #12 Syracuse last Thursday.

• Paige Bueckers, Hopkins girls, rated as one of the top 2020s in the nation and possibly on her way to becoming the greatest MN HS girl ever. Hopkins has stomped everybody it has played so far, and all but one of their opponents were top 10 rated.

• Jordan Murphy, MN Gopher men, who led the Gophers to a 6-1 November, including a very nice win over Oklahoma State at U.S. Bank Stadium on the last night of the month. I saw that one, too.

• Derrick Rose and Andrew Wiggins, who have helped the much-improved Timberwolves to get back around the .500 mark and back into playoff contention since the trade (well, before and after the trade) of Jimmy Butler.

Our Player of the Month is Jordan Murphy. Think of it this way. Without Taiye Bello, the Gopher women are still darn good. Without Paige Bueckers, the Hopkins girls are still darn good. Without Jordan Murphy, the Gopher men are not good at all.

Team of the Month

There are 6 contenders who have won Team of the Day recognition more than once.

• Augsburg women, now 6-1 and angling to become the most successful Auggies women ever. OK, I admit that I have not seen the Auggies yet.

• Hopkins girls, now 4-0 after beating 3 top 10-rated teams by an average of 81-50

• MN Gopher men, 6-1 in November

• MN Gopher women, 6-0 in November

• MN Timberwolves, who went 7-2 over the 2nd half of the month to get back to 11-11

• UMD women, who started 4-1

Our Team of the Month is--seriously, you gotta ask?--the MN Gopher Women.

Coach of the Month

Here again our multiple winners are--oh, the hell with it. Our Coach of the Month is Lindsay Whalen. OK, just for form, here are the other contenders: Pat McKenzie (St. John's), Richard Pitino, Ted Riverso (Augsburg women) and Tom Thibodeau (Timberwolves), who also got Robert Covington and Dario Saric for a useless player. Nice trade!

See you in December!