March Madness bracket busters, plus Gophers men’s basketball gets new coach

NINA MOINI: Well, here's a little lesson from March Madness. There's no such thing as perfection. There's never been a perfect bracket, according to the NCAA. Out of tens of millions of people who filled out brackets this year on the men's side, they've all been wrong at least once. And in the women's tournament, there were just 141 perfect brackets remaining this morning. Joining me now to catch up on all this and other sports news are our sports contributors, Wally Langfellow and Eric Nelson. Thanks for being here, guys.

ERIC NELSON: - Nina, how are you?

WALLY LANGFELLOW: - How are you today?

NINA MOINI: I'm doing great. And I know this is going to shock you, but I've never filled out a bracket. I mean, curious.

WALLY LANGFELLOW: - OK, they have a thing.

ERIC NELSON: - So you're the one.

WALLY LANGFELLOW: - They-- they have a thing where you could hit autofill so you don't have to know anything. You can just have the computer do it for you.

NINA MOINI: That's the way these days, isn't it? So what about your bracket, though, Wally? How is it? How's it going?

WALLY LANGFELLOW: Oh, probably just about like everybody else's, except Eric's. Eric's is doing a little bit better than I am. We're in the same tournament slash pool, if you will. And yeah, so so far, not great. But as long as you have your final four still alive, that's the main thing. But I think that the big story over the weekend certainly was yesterday, especially for Minnesota fans. Because Colorado State was eliminated on a last-second shot by Derek, Queen of Maryland-- Maryland, of course, from the big 10, giving Maryland a ticket to the Sweet 16.

But the story is that Colorado State head coach Niko Medved, that ended the season for him. What does that mean for Minnesota? Well, he is the primary target and will be announced shortly as the new head coach of the University of Minnesota men's basketball team, taking over for Ben Johnson who was fired after the Gophers were eliminated from the Big 10 tournament about a week and a half ago.

So, yeah, the gophers struggled under Ben Johnson in his four years. They were just 22 wins and 57 losses in Big 10 play in four years under Johnson. So that has to improve. As I said, the official announcement on Medved could happen any time. Mark Coyle, the athletic director, has indicated he wanted to get the new hire in place sooner rather than later because college basketball's transfer portal opens up today.

In other words, you can tell the NCAA, "I'm going to go play someplace else." And so you go into basically a free agent pool and you can, you know, figure out where you're going to go from there. So they wanted to get that straight because they don't want to lose all the current players who, you know, are currently on the Gopher roster. There's already three who have said that they are going to move on. So they're hoping that when Medved comes in, he can talk to those players and keep those guys in, and then he's going to have to go out and recruit more players anyway.

But he's had a lot of success at Colorado State, 143 wins, 85 losses. It includes at least 25 wins and NCAA tournament bids in three of his last four seasons. And the Gophers have only been to the NCAA tournament once in, like, the last eight years. And that was with Richard Pitino. So, you know, there's high hopes for this guy who graduated from Roosevelt High in 1992, so we'll see if that's a factor at all.

NINA MOINI: Yeah a little pressure for Medved, though, starting off trying to hold on to his players. Let's talk about the Frozen Four, which is in Minneapolis. The Wisconsin Badgers won the championship. That was an exciting time to have that here in Minneapolis. But what ended up happening, Eric?

ERIC NELSON: Yeah, well, for sure, it was jubilation for Wisconsin. How about that? You come into Minneapolis, you stage a coup d'état on the Gopher's home ice, Ridder Arena. You're able to party in Dinkytown and celebrate an eighth Frozen Four championship. That's the most in NCAA women's hockey history. So what happened yesterday was a lot of drama.

The Badgers knocked off Ohio State in the title game 4 to 3 in overtime. Kiersten Simms scored the game-tying goal on a penalty shot with 19 seconds left. And then in the overtime, she gets a rebound goal to win it for Wisconsin. Meanwhile, Minnesota has to witness this in their own building. The Gophers finished third. They lost to the Badgers in the semifinals. So it has to sting to watch the arch rival Badgers come into Minnesota and celebrate in Dinkytown.

And, by the way, Casey O'Brien, for Wisconsin, one of their forwards, she won the coveted Patty Kazmaier Award. That's given to the top player in college women's hockey. It's a lot like the Heisman Trophy, say, in college football. And then on the men's side, the U of M and Minnesota State out of Mankato, they're going to Fargo this week for the NCAA tournament. Game one on Thursday in North Dakota will be top seed Western Michigan against Minnesota State, the fourth seed.

Game two will have the three seed UMass Minutemen against the second seed Minnesota Gophers. And the winners of those games will punch a ticket to the Frozen Four in St. Louis, which is April 10th and 12th, and the Gophers' Jimmy Snuggerud is a finalist for the Hobey Baker Award. Again, that's if you're the top player in men's college hockey, then you win the Hobey Baker trophy. So a lot at stake for the Gophers and the Mavericks coming up on Thursday in Fargo.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, hopefully they have a better-- better outcome there. So the Twins' season, though, can't believe this, is going to start in just a few days, also in St. Louis. How is the team looking ahead of their first game, Wally?

WALLY LANGFELLOW: Well, as a matter of fact, they're winning right now. They're playing Pittsburgh down in Fort Myers in a spring training. And they have one more tomorrow. They're beating Pittsburgh 4 to 1 in the third inning. Oh, by the way, Trevor Larnach has hit a home run today. You know, they're-- for the most part, they're in pretty good shape. Royce Lewis, with that hamstring injury, is going to be out. And I think that the third baseman, the young third baseman who, you know, has struggled with injuries early on in his career, they figure probably about a month or so before he's back.

So we're looking at the middle to the end of April, and I think that that's being optimistic, to be honest with you. Hopefully he can come back sooner rather than later, but he will be out starting the season. Brock Stewart out of the bullpen is out. He's injured. We know Michael Tonkin is hurt as well. And then Brooks Lee, infielder Brooks Lee, another high draft pick of the Twins, he is going to be out starting at the beginning of the season.

But the good news is that Byron Buxton looks good. He's hit another home run over the weekend playing center field every day. That's what they need. And they need Carlos Correa to be playing every day at shortstop. They need those two guys healthy. And if they get-- I think if they get Royce Lewis back and they keep the other two healthy, their pitching is going to be a strength this year. But they've got to keep those guys-- those main guys-- healthy. And if they do, I think that they'll be all right. And they will start on Thursday, as you mentioned, and they play St. Louis. Pablo Lopez will be the starting pitcher for Minnesota on Thursday in St. Louis.

NINA MOINI: And what was the kind of drama at the end of the last season where fans were kind of upset with the team leadership? What was all that about, and do you think that's kind of blown over?

ERIC NELSON: Well, no. To be honest, I don't think there's a lot of buzz for the Twins right now. I mean, late last season, Minnesota was cruising to the playoffs. And then the Twins cratered in September, did not make the postseason. They wound up finishing fourth place in the five-team AL Central. And then a few months ago, the Pohlad family put the team on the blocks, saying, OK, we're going to sell the Minnesota Twins.

And everybody in Twins territory said, OK, we'll get a new owner. This person or group will come in and possibly pump some money into payroll. But that hasn't happened yet. And the Pohlads are still in control. Minnesota was basically dormant in the off season. They didn't make any splashy moves to add any players that really generate excitement.

And the home opener is a week from Thursday at Target Field against Houston. And Nina, I know money's not an issue for you, but for those people where maybe you're on a budget, the cheapest tickets-- and this includes the Thursday home opener-- $11, $8 on Saturday, $7.00 on Sunday against Houston, a perennial playoff team. But the problem is, the Twins don't have a linear TV deal right now. So other than streaming, a lot of people don't know where they can find them on cable or maybe down the road over the air.

And then how about this? Last season, there's 30 teams in major league baseball. Minnesota ranked 23rd in attendance, averaging 24,000 fans a game. They drew a total of 1.95 million fans. And remember, for most of the season, the Twins were contending for first place. So I think they got to win their fans back.

NINA MOINI: All right, well, we'll see what happens. When you said trouble with money, I thought you were going to be talking about concessions. That's when things can really start to escalate.

WALLY LANGFELLOW: Well, that's where you need money.

NINA MOINI: But tickets, yeah, there you go. Well, Wally and Eric, as always, thank you so much for your time. Have a great week.

WALLY LANGFELLOW: All right. Thanks, Nina.

NINA MOINI: Take care. Wally Longfellow is the founder of Minnesota Score Sports Magazine and co-host of the sports talk show, 10,000 Takes. Eric Nelson is the other host of 10,000 Takes and Minnesota Vikings' NFL reporter for CBS's Eye on Football and Sirius XM.