Happy Hour with John Gaskins

USD softball went from "Wow! What a wonderful weekend! to "Whoa! Wait, what just happened?"
 
Head coach Robert Wagner and the school parted ways on Tuesday, abruptly ending his 10-year tenure.
 
This, just a few days after the Coyotes first-ever NCAA Tournament trip (and win) in the program's 48-year history, two days after a clip of Associate Head Coach Shannon Pivovar's uplifting "I'm so proud of you" video went viral for the all the right reasons, one day after Pivovar talked about that moment and the inspiring Coyotes run on Happy Hour.

 
What the heck happened? The Happy Hour host attempts to connect the dots and surmise what comes next.
 
Meanwhile, Sioux Falls is bidding to be the second host city for the expanded NCAA men's basketball tournament's new "opening round" games that start in 2027. Dayton has hosted opening round games — more accurately termed as the "play-in" games to enter the Round of 64 that starts on the Thursday and Friday of the first NCAA tourney week — since the field expanded from 64 to 68 teams in 2011.
 
Now, "March Madness" will feature a field of 76 teams, including 24 teams who will play 12 games to cut the field to 64 for those "first round games" you see on Thursday and Friday. Dayton will get six games. Another city will get the other six.
 
Sioux Falls Sports Authority program director Jerry Palleschi plays a major part in making the case for Sioux Falls to host NCAA events. This past March, The PREMIER Center hosted the NCAA Division II wrestling championships and an NCAA Division I men's hockey regional in back-to-back weeks. It also hosted an NCAA women's regional within the last decade and two men's Div. II national championships in hoops several years ago.
 
But multiple bids were placed for the golden goose of Div. I men's hoops have fallen short. So, why does Palleschi feel the "opening rounds" fit Sioux Falls better? What are the criteria for hosting, and how well does Sioux Falls meet them?
 
To round out Tuesday's show, a final three-man weave of Timberwolves Talk of the 2025-26 season with the Happy Hour host and die-hard fans Chris Johnson (USF men's basketball coach) and Jon Oppold (co-owner of Orion Pub, a Sioux Falls Wolves watch bar). 
 
The Spurs steamrolled the Wolves in both Game 5 and Game 6, advancing to the Western Conference Finals and denying the Wolves a third consecutive trip to that round. Now what?
 
How wide is the gap between Minnesota and San Antonio, not to mention the Spurs' conference finals opponent Oklahoma City, who waxed the Wolves in that round last year?

What roster moves must General Manager Tim Connelly make to keep up with those two titans and harness the athletic prime of precious franchise commodity Anthony Edwards?
 
Time to play armchair GM. Julius Randle and Rudy Goebert, beware!

USD softball went from "Wow! What a wonderful weekend! to "Whoa! Wait, what just happened?"
 
Head coach Robert Wagner and the school parted ways on Tuesday, abruptly ending his 10-year tenure.
 
This, just a few days after the Coyotes first-ever NCAA Tournament trip (and win) in the program's 48-year history, two days after a clip of Associate Head Coach Shannon Pivovar's uplifting "I'm so proud of you" video went viral for the all the right reasons, one day after Pivovar talked about that moment and the inspiring Coyotes run on Happy Hour.

 
What the heck happened? The Happy Hour host attempts to connect the dots and surmise what comes next.

All this talk about "moods." We know who Jaden and Naz are talking about. It is Julius Randle, who may as well have not showed up for the Spurs series. 
What roster moves would make sense for Tim Conley to make to narrow the gap between the Timberwolves and the two titans of the West, San Antonio and Oklahoma City?
Die-hards Chris Johnson (USF baskeball coach and Twin Cities native) and Jon Oppold (Orion Pub co-owner) join the host.

YES, Sioux Falls will bid to host new NCAA men's basketbal "opening round" (play-in) tournament games in '26 and beyond, opposite Dayton. Sioux Falls Sports Authority project director Jerry Palleschi joined us with PLENTY of details on how bidding works.

Cliches become cliches for a reason.
 
They're usually true.
 
In sports, two of the oldest cliches are "never give up" and the underdog story.
 
Both the University of South Dakota softball team and the Sioux Falls Stampede are living those cliches after performances over the weekend that their players, coaches, and fans will never forget.
 
The Coyotes played in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in the program's 48-year history. Arriving in Lincoln with the worst record in the 64-team field (20-34-1), USD didn't just show up. The Yotes showed out.
 
Against host Nebraska on Friday, USD turned the scene in Bowlin Stadium from a rollicking party for the No. 1 ranked team in the nation and its 3,000 fans into a nervous library for a couple innings, leading the Huskers 1-0 going into the bottom of the fifth.
 
The Big Red put on a big charge led by the defending National Player of the Year, Jordy Frahm, who not only started the three-hit parade that led to a 2-1 lead that inning, but then pitched three innings of stifling shutout relief to shatter USD's upset dreams, 4-1.
 
But the Coyotes were far from done making noise. They beat the ACC's Louisville for USD's first NCAA tourney win on Saturday, then took Grand Canyon into extra innings for the right to play the Huskers in Sunday's region championship round.
 
In the top of the seventh, down 2-0 and down to their final two outs of the season, the Yotes had two runners in scoring position when junior college transfer Katie Hofmann stepped up to the plate. She had mustered four hits all season. Four hits in 57 games. 
 
Hofmann ripped a line-drive single to centerfield, plating two runs to tie the game, which went into extra innings. 
 
Associate head coach Shannon Pivovar, the first base coach, walked up to Hofmann, looked her dead in the eye with a smile and said "I'm so proud of you."
 
Hofmann burst into tears of joy.
 
The ESPN cameras caught a close-up of the encounter. The video spread like wildfire on social media as a testament to the power of empowerment and positivity in an age with cynicism swirling in the NIL era of college sports.

Well over a million people have viewed the clip. It has turned "Coach Piv" into, dare we say, a viral social media superstar— something the former SDSU assistant and University of Sioux Falls head coach would never have imagined. 
 
"What's crazy is I wasn't doing anything I don't normally do," Pivovar told the Happy Hour host in a 45-minute interview about that moment, the Yotes wonderful weekend, USD's wild and improbable joyride the last couple weeks, and her own softball journey.
 
USD lost that game 5-4 in eight innings, but Piv's mark had been made, allowing her to be the latest to tell the Coyotes' Cinderella story.
 
Meanwhile, the Sioux Falls Stampede have been writing their own underdog history in the USHL Playoffs.
 
A team full of "dawgs" as labeled by coach Ryan Cruthers, the Herd have several players who were cut by other teams. They have used that as fuel to march through the regular season with the second-most wins in the league and then go 4-0 in elimination games in the playoffs.
 
They took a 2-0 series lead on defending champion Muskegon in the PREMIER Center over the weekend with 3-1 and 3-0 wins in front of over 6,000 rowdy fans both on Friday and Saturday.
 
The Happy Hour host uses that as fuel to describe the kind of electricity and euphoria a team can bring to a fan base and even an entire town when it makes a title chase.
 
For the city of Sioux Falls, it's been a long time.