Stanzel’s Sports Takeout — BREAKING NEWS: 3.14.25

Mar 14

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Harding Senior High School beats St. Thomas Academy by one on enemy turf to advance to the MSHSL Boys State Basketball Tournament for the first time! First SPPS school in the State Tourney since 2015.

Wild Loses in OT to Rangers

Braden Schneider scored in overtime after hometown kid Johnny Brodzinski scored his first goal ever against the Wild, leading the desperate Rangers to a 3-2 win over the Wild at The X last night.

Brodzinski, a former Blaine High School and St. Cloud State standout, netted his 22nd career goal but his first versus his hometown Wild to snap a third-peirod tie.

Marcus Johansson and Frederick Gaudreau scored for Minnesota, which is just 1-1-1 on this season-long seven-game homestand. They’re still comfortably in a playoff spot, and can do themselves some favors when they host St. Louis on Saturday.

The next month is all about just making the playoffs - it won’t be pretty hockey - but they’ve got to bide their time until Kaprizov, JEEK and Brodin get back.

Red-Hot Wolves Beat Nuggets for Sixth Straight Win

The Wolves’ win streak hit six games with maybe their best overall game of the season, a 115-95 throttling of Denver on the road on Wednesday night on national TV. The Wolves are finally healthy, and they sure are looking more like last year’s Western Conference finalist.

The problem of course is that the two teams right ahead of the Wolves - the Warriors (six straight) and Rockets (four straight) - aren’t losing many games either, and they’ll have to catch one of them to avoid the play-in round. The good news is Minnesota is a virtual cinch to at least make the top 10 at this point.

Anthony Edwards scored 29 points against Denver, and Julius Randle continued his remarkable turnaround with 25 points. Jaden McDaniels (16 points) has become an offensive threat the last 20 games too, which has been a key to this turnaround.

The Wolves didn’t even have an answer for Nikola Jokic (34 points) but it didn’t matter.

Minnesota tries to make it seven in a row tonight when they host a very ho-hum Atlanta team to kick off a five-game homestand.

GWH Hosts Colgate with Frozen Four Trip on Line

The Gopher women host Colgate in the No. 4 vs. No. 5, West vs. East, Regional Final matchup of the NCAA Tournament on Saturday. Gametime is at 2 p.m. at Ridder. Win, and a likely date with Wisconsin next weekend at Ridder. The Badgers have beaten the Gophers five times this season.

UMD beat Sacred Heart 6-1 and plays at Cornell in the Regional Final tonight.

Gophers Fire Ben Johnson

A lot of people are angry at Gophers AD Mark Coyle for announcing Ben Johnson’s firing at 1:22 a.m. Thursday morning. Coyle flew back from the NCAA Basketball Committee (he’s on it) to fire Johnson when the team arrived back home after a rather uninspiring first-round B10 Tourney loss to Northwestern. You can’t fire him and let news break without the University saying anything. Coyle was absolutely right to do it in person, so I don’t have a problem with the timing, other than maybe the fact he hasn’t yet had to hold a press conference. He keeps saying this is a desirable job, but it’s not, at least with an aging arena.

I’m a softie for a guy with a D2 background, so I’d love for Ben McCollum to get the job (first he has to be interested). He spent two decades at the D2 level and led Drake to a 30-3 mark and a spot in the NCAA Tournament in his first season. A guy that spent 20 years with one school doesn’t seem like someone who’d be one and done at his first D1 stop, though. People keep mentioning St. Thomas’ Johnny Tauer, a local guy, but he’s team is eligible for the Big Dance next year, and is in good position to do it, too. Nice arena, too.

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