Happy Hour with John Gaskins

Adrian Peterson was named to the Minnesota Vikings Ring of Honor on Monday. He is the NFL's No. 5 all-time leading rusher and tops the Vikings' list. This begs the question — who joins A.P. on the Vikings' all-time Mount Rushmore? The Happy Hour host gives his after a word about two amazing athletic programs in the heart of Sioux Falls.  
 
Death. Taxes. Augustana baseball and softball teams winning NSIC Tournament titles and playing in the NCAA Div. II Tournament.
 
It doesn't happen every year. It just seems like it.
 
This year, both teams were relatively young, full of first-time starters (including starting pitchers), experienced growing pains early and in mid-season, and then hoisted trophies when it counted the most in May.
 
On Saturday, Tim Huber's baseball squad took home its fifth Northern Sun conference tournament title and automatic NCAA Tournament berth since 2014. It is Huber's ninth trip to baseball's big dance in his 18 seasons and his fifth in the last six years. 

Eight years ago, the Vikings became the first "northern" school to win the D2 national championship.
 
A year later, Gretta Melsted led Augie softball to the Holy Grail.

Saturday, her squad reached the NCAA Tourney for the 14th time in her 20 years and won its sixth NSIC Tourney — including each of the last three and four of the last five.
 
So, how does this keep happening? How do the Augie diamond trains keep rolling — or more aptly put, how do the Viking ships keep barging to dominance?
 
The Happy Hour host explains why both programs remind him of SDSU women's hoops — especially the way this season panned out for all three.
 
 
Timberwolves Talk: Wemby's elbow ejection helps tie Spurs series
 
It was the flying elbow heard round the world. 
 
The NBA's face of the future Victor Wembanyama swung his wing and struck Minnesota Timberwolves forward Naz Reid in the throat, earning a "flagrant 2" foul and automatic ejection in the second quarter of Game 4 of the Western Conference semifinal.
 
In the end, the absence of the 7'4 NBA MVP finalist for over two quarters may have cost the San Antonio Spurs the chance to go up 3-1 and close out the series in San Antonio in Tuesday's Game 5.
 
But the Wolves made the clearer path to victory anything but a smooth journey in their 114-109 win at home. 
 
If anything, Wemby's ejection galvanized and catalyzed the Spurs more than the Wolves, who needed Anthony Edwards' fourth-quarter heroics to overcome an eight-point fourth-quarter deficit to secure the victory. Playing on two injured knees, Edwards scored 16 of his 36 points in the final two minutes.
 
So, what does this all mean for the Wolves and the series going forward? Should Wolves fans be worried that Minnesota — like so many times in the regular season — played with its food and needed to flip the switch in crunch time in a game that appeared ripe for a blowout win once Wemby was dismissed?
 
Or do the Spurs deserve credit for their spirited play and still-dangerous roster without Wemby?
 
And has talented but expensive and erratic forward Julius Randle bumbled, stumbled, and loafed his way out of a spot on the Timberwolves roster after this season?
 
Happy Hour's own local Sioux Falls panel of the Happy Hour host, University of Sioux Falls men's basketball coach Chris Johnson, and fellow die hard Jon Oppold (owner of Wolves watch bar, the Orion Pub) break it down.

Adrian Peterson was named to the Minnesota Vikings Ring of Honor on Monday. He is the NFL's No. 5 all-time leading rusher and tops the Vikings' list. This begs the question — who joins A.P. on the Vikings' all-time Mount Rushmore? The Happy Hour host gives his after a word about two amazing athletic programs in the heart of Sioux Falls.
 
Death. Taxes. Augustana baseball and softball teams winning NSIC Tournament titles and playing in the NCAA Div. II Tournament.
 
It doesn't happen every year. It just seems like it.
 
This year, both teams were relatively young, full of first-time starters (including starting pitchers), experienced growing pains early and in mid-season, and then hoisted trophies when it counted the most in May.
 
On Saturday, Tim Huber's baseball squad took home its fifth Northern Sun conference tournament title and automatic NCAA Tournament berth since 2014. It is Huber's ninth trip to baseball's big dance in his 18 seasons and his fifth in the last six years. 

Eight years ago, the Vikings became the first "northern" school to win the D2 national championship.
 
A year later, Gretta Melsted led Augie softball to the Holy Grail.

Saturday, her squad reached the NCAA Tourney for the 14th time in her 20 years and won its sixth NSIC Tourney — including each of the last three and four of the last five.
 
So, how does this keep happening? How do the Augie diamond trains keep rolling — or more aptly put, how do the Viking ships keep barging to dominance?
 
We could address low-hanging fruit — Both trophies were hoisted in Sioux Falls, where the NSIC tourneys in both sports have been held each of the last two years. 
 
Likely, there are some teams in the league that crowed under their breaths about the home field and home city advantage. But, that would be like Summit League women's teams whining about South Dakota State's home crowd advantage in the Summit League basketball tournament year after year.
 
Yes, the partisan fan support is a propeller, but 95 percent of the time, the Jackrabbits were the best or second best team in the league coming into the event and always knew how to play their absolute best basketball when the lights were the brightest in March.
 
That's no fluke, considering Aaron Johnston was the coach for all 13 Summit tourney titles in 18 years and has won over 655 games in 26 years and he, too, also won a Division II national title in 2003 before the Jacks moved up to Div. I in 2004.
 
Augie baseball and softball are in similar situations: Both have long-tenured coaches who, like Johnston, were targeted for jobs at higher levels—either as finalists or actual offers—but stayed to keep the freight trains they built rolling. 
 
Both Huber and Melstead have won a national title. They have both won at least a handful of NSIC tourney titles. They're almost always one of the best two or three teams in the regular season for the last decade. 
 
It doesn't matter where you put the league tourney. They can figure this out. And both Huber and Melsted have won multiple NSIC Tourney titles away from Sioux Falls.
 
Augie baseball and softball in the NSIC and the northern part of the country in a southern sport is what SDSU is to Summit and mid-major women's hoops. They're North Dakota State football and within the last few years, SDSU football in the Missouri Valley and FCS.
 
Superb coaching. Coaches stay or — in the case of Bison and Jacks football — assistants who were were part of titles take over and stick to the winning formula. Titles pile up. Recruiting gets easier because the best players in your region want to play there. The program becomes a machine.
 
On the Augie diamonds, this year was a testament to how superb, experienced coaching matters — and both Vikings teams were in a similar spot to Aaron Johnston's Jacks with about a month to go in the regular season.
 
Remember, SDSU had lost to NDSU and USD and seemed flat and out of sorts and without much firepower beyond Brooklyn Meyer and Maddie Mathiowetz. Then, Johnston went into the lab and tinkered with the lineup. A month later, the Jacks got revenge on both the Bison and Yotes in their rematches, then again in Summit tourney games.
 
Huber's baseball team was in the NSIC regular season title mix in Mid-April, but was swept in a three-game series at Minnesota State in Mankato.
 
The Vikings were young, they made youthful mistakes in that series. Huber, with 17 years of head coaching in the same spot under his belt, found a way to get their heads in the right space, and boom, the Vikings won seven of their last eight coming into the tourney, then three straight in Sioux Falls.

The final hurdle to cross was against the same Mavericks who buried them a month earlier, and Augie beat them 6-4. Even sweeter, this avenged Augie's two Championship Saturday losses to MSU in Sioux Falls last year, when the Vikings needed only one win for the title. That led to Augie being left out of the NCAA Tournament field.
 
Meanwhile, Melsted's softball team, coming off five straight regular season titles and back-to-back tourney championships, started 15-14 this year. It seemed like a down year. 
 
But Melsted had 19 years of head coaching at Augie under her belt and the Vikings won 10 of 11 down the stretch, then three straight to win the tourney at Bowden Field.
 
Consistent winning and coaching experience matter. You find a way to turn the corner in February and March in college hoops, and in April and May in baseball and softball. 
 
Yeah, the players have to perform. But when banners pile up year after year with the same coach, you have your answer for why it keeps happening with different players and rosters.
 
Now, both programs head into the NCAA Tournament, where both coaches have also won a bunch, not to mention have learned from losing there, as well. 
 
Huber joined Happy Hour for 20 minutes to explain how the 2026 team will be the latest to have a banner at Ronken Field. 
 
Melsted will join the program next week.

Death. Taxes. Augustana baseball winning NSIC Tournament titles and playing in the NCAA Div. II Tournament.
 
It doesn't happen every year. It just seems like it.
 
On Saturday Tim Huber's baseball squad took home its fifth Northern Sun conference tournament title and automatic NCAA Tournament berth since 2014. It is Huber's ninth trip to baseball's big dance in his 18 seasons and fifth in the last six years. 

Eight years ago, the Vikings became the first "northern" school to win the D2 national championship.
 
And, so, the road to Cary, North Carolina, for D2's version of the College World Series starts on Thursday in Pittsburg, Kansas, against Northwest Missouri State.
 
What is the hallmark of this Huber squad, how did it turn the corner and win 13 of 14 after being swept by rival (and Huber's alma mater) Minnesota State in Mid-April, and who are the studs that rode them home in the league tourney?
 
The affable Huber answers all in a 20-minute chat on a pleasantly sunny midday at Ronken Field.

It was the flying elbow heard round the world. 
The NBA's face of the future Victor Wembanyama swung his wing and struck Minnesota Timberwolves forward Naz Reid in the throat, earning a "flagrant 2" foul and automatic ejection in the second quarter of Game 4 of the Western Conference semifinal.

In the end, the absence of the 7'4 NBA MVP finalist for over two quarters may have cost the San Antonio Spurs the chance to go up 3-1 and close out the series in San Antonio in Tuesday's Game 5.

But the Wolves made the clearer path to victory anything but a smooth journey in their 114-109 win at home. 

If anything, Wemby's ejection galvanized and catalyzed the Spurs more than the Wolves, who needed Anthony Edwards' fourth-quarter heroics to overcome an eight-point fourth-quarter deficit to secure the victory. Playing on two injured knees, Edwards scored 16 of his 36 points in the final two minutes.

So, what does this all mean for the Wolves and the series going forward? Should Wolves fans be worried that Minnesota — like so many times in the regular season — played with its food and needed to flip the switch in crunch time in a game that appeared ripe for a blowout win once Wemby was dismissed?

Or do the Spurs deserve credit for their spirited play and still-dangerous roster without Wemby?

And has talented but expensive and erratic forward Julius Randle bumbled, stumbled, and loafed his way out of a spot on the Timberwolves roster after this season?

Happy Hour's own local Sioux Falls panel of the Happy Hour host, University of Sioux Falls men's basketball coach Chris Johnson, and fellow die hard Jon Oppold (owner of Wolves watch bar, the Orion Pub) break it down.

Make that two college basketball players from South Dakota headed for the big NIL bucks and bright lights of the Big Ten. 
 
A week after South Dakota State's Damon Wilkison announced he is headed to Nebraska, South Dakota's Isaac Bruns — the Summit League's per-game leading scorer (20.8) this past season — on Thursday announced his commitment to Southern California.
 
Bruns, the 2023 Gatorade Player of the Year for state champion Dakota Valley, will play for former Rapid City Thrillers (CBA) coach Eric Musselman — son of former Golden Gophers and Timberwolves head coach Bill Musselman.
 
This makes three South Dakota college players in the last two seasons that moved on to the Big Ten. Former Jackrabbit center Oscar Cluff — who likely made over $1 million in one season at Purdue — started and averaged 10.6 points and 7.6 rebounds for a Boilermakers squad that finished 30-9 and within one win of the Final Four.
 
With little reaction time before their Thirsty Thursday taping from Orion Pub, Sioux Falls Live sportswriter Trent Singer and the Happy Host gave their instant response to the news and opined about the positives of South Dakota's college basketball teams' best players repeatedly leaving for more NIL money year after year.
 
As in, don't expect another exhausting bitch session about the downfall of mid-major hoops in the NIL era. That's been done. A ton. 
 
The hosts also ponder: Will Wilkinson or Bruns inch toward the kind of impact Cluff had in his one season on the biggest stage?
 
Also, some words about former SDSU quarterback Mark Gronowski and former USD QB Aidan Bouman, both now a week into their mini-camp stints. Hear what the Dolphins general manager said recently about Gronowski and what USA Today's Green Bay Packers website wrote about Bouman.
 
Timberwolves Talk
 
Minnesota got "punked" by the San Antonio Spurs in Game 2 of the Western Conference semifinals, a 133-95 steamrolling in San Antonio. That's the word coach Chris Finch used, a word Anthony Edwards found "crazy" to use.
 
Sure, the series is now even at 1-1 and the Wolves still have home court advantage in what is now a best-of-five series, with the next two games in Minneapolis (Friday and Sunday).
 
But did that from-the-tip bludgeoning in Game 2 leave enough of a mark to convince observers the Spurts will keep the steam rolling?
 
Not so fast, my friend.
 
Our own Happy Hour Timberwolves talk panel — the host, USF men's basketball coach, and fellow die-hard Jon Oppold (owner of Orion Pub, a Wolves watch bar) — dissects how the Spurs boomeranged their way back into the series after Minnesota's Game 1 win and dive into how Finch can turn the tide back.
 
Other big-picture NBA Playoffs topics also developed during this discussion, like flopping. It hurts the Wolves in more ways than one and we wonder how (or if) it can be eliminated or curtailed.
 
And while flopping and 3-point jacking have, in some minds, diluted the NBA product in recent years, hear why today's game is still better (in some ways) than the "glory days" of the Bird-Magic-Jordan era.