In March 2027, the eyes of the college basketball world could be focused on Minneapolis as both the men’s and women’s national tournaments could be played in Minnesota.

We already know for certain that the Target Center will host the first two rounds of the 2027 men’s NCAA Tournament, which is officially set to take place March 19-22, 2027.

Meanwhile, the women’s tournament will be taking place at the same time. And if next year is anything like this year, then Dawn Plitzuweit’s Gophers will be heading into the tournament with a top-16 seed, meaning Williams Arena would once again be hosting first- and second-round games for four teams.

Williams was home to three games in the Round of 64 and the Round of 32 this year, as the Gophers landed a top-16 seed and a No. 4 seed in the tournament. They used the home-court advantage to defeat Green Bay 75-58 in the first round, and then No. 5 Ole Miss 65-63 in the second round. The Barn was also the site for a first-round game between Ole Miss and Gonzaga.

With several key players returning and several highly-rated high school recruits incoming, there’s a decent chance that Minnesota will again be good enough to land a top-16 seed in the tourney and host games on the opening weekend next March.

In fact, Minnesota Star Tribune is reporting that the University of Minnesota has already reserved Williams Arena for the weekend of the first two rounds, currently scheduled from March 19-22.

While hosting games would be great for Minnesota, it would put the Minnesota State High School League in a bit of a pinch since the MSHSL is planning to host the annual girls’ basketball tournament March 17-20.

This year’s girls’ hoops tourney was played at Williams Arena and Maturi Pavilion, so if the Gophers wind up hosting the NCAAs again, it would force the MSHSL to find a different venue or change the dates.

The likeliest candidate if a venue change is required is the University of St. Thomas’ Lee & Penny Anderson Arena in St. Paul. However, the Wild’s Grand Casino Arena could also be an option, though the Minnesota Wild are already pushed out of town every year for a stretch as the arena serves as the site for the boys’ and girls’ state hockey tournaments, as well as the state high school wrestling tournament.

Grand Casino Arena has hosted basketball in the past, when the Minnesota Lynx played the 2016 playoffs and the 2017 season at the arena while Target Center was being renovated.

MINNEAPOLIS – It was 37 degrees at first pitch Monday, April 6, for the game between the Detroit Tigers and Minnesota Twins at Target Field.

The “feels like” temperature?

Only 19 degrees.

“It’s the coldest I’ve ever been in a game,” manager A.J. Hinch said.

MONDAY’S ACTION: Defense doesn’t help Casey Mize in Tigers’ 7-3 loss vs Twins

There was no doubt about that as Hinch, in his 12th season as an MLB manager, walked to the mound wearing a beanie – rather than his usual cap – to remove right-hander Casey Mize with one out in the fifth inning, .

The Tigers lost, 7-3, to the Twins in Monday’s opener of a four-game series.

Nobody made excuses.

“I mean, it’s the same for both teams,” said Hinch, who watched his defense make multiple mistakes. “It wasn’t great, but it is what it is. It’s the game scheduled, and we need to play better in the environment regardless of the weather.”

“I definitely think it’s a challenge, but both teams had to deal with it,” said left fielder Matt Vierling, who dropped a ball in the second inning for a fielding error. “As the game went on, it definitely got a lot colder.”

“It was a factor, for sure,” said Mize, who allowed five runs across 4⅓ innings. “It was a tough night to pitch, which made it hard on me, but I didn’t pitch well. The splitter, I could tell, was going to be tough to command from the get-go, just with it being so cold and dry, which made it pretty tough on me.”

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After Monday’s loss, the Tigers entered Tuesday at 4-6, with losses in six of their past eight games.

Left-hander Tarik Skubal – the reigning two-time American League Cy Young winner – got a chance to stop the slide in Tuesday’s game. To do so, he was going to have to try to overcome a similar challenge in his third start of the 2026 season.

More cold weather.

“I don’t like to think about all that stuff when I have to go perform in it,” said Skubal, who owns a 0.69 ERA across 13 innings in his first two starts. “At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what I feel like. Everyone is playing the same game, so that’s how I treat it.”

From 2023-25, Skubal owns a 2.25 ERA with eight walks and 36 strikeouts across 32 innings in five starts against the Twins.

“You have to go play,” Skubal said. “If you let the environment and the outside factors impact what you’re doing on the field, you’ve already lost. I think that’s going to be more of the mental battle for everyone in here – just play baseball and don’t let the factors dictate how you perform.”

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The Cleveland Guardians, Chicago White Sox and New York Mets moved their Tuesday home games to earlier in the day as temperatures were set to plummet in the afternoon and evening. Back in 2025, the Tigers moved up first pitch for all three games against the New York Yankees at Comerica Park in early April because of “evening wind chills.”

“That’s smart,” Skubal said.

“I would’ve loved it,” Hinch said.

The Twins chose to keep first pitch at 6:40 p.m. local time for both Monday and Tuesday.

There wasn’t any dialogue with the Tigers.

“I’ve told the guys, ‘This is going to be the toughest environment to play in mentally,’” Hinch said, “just because the conditions are going to be the coldest it’s going to be, there’s not going to be a ton of energy in the ballpark when it’s like this, and you got to create your own energy. It’s our reality. There’s no changing it.”

Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him @EvanPetzold.

As a dire financial outlook has pushed Minneapolis’ Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC) to the brink of closure, health care workers and union leaders are calling for legislative action, which could be introduced at the state Capitol as soon as Tuesday.

HCMC, part of the larger Hennepin Healthcare provider system, is Minnesota’s busiest Level 1 adult and pediatric trauma center. It is also a safety-net hospital, meaning it accepts patients regardless of their insurance status or ability to pay, and has been a training site for more than half of Minnesota’s practicing physicians. In 2025, the hospital saw nearly 115,000 patients, including more than 94,000 emergency department visits.

“HCMC is not just a Minneapolis hospital. It’s Minnesota’s safety net. It is Minnesota’s last line of care,” said Jeremy Olson-Ehlert, a registered nurse at HCMC and second vice president of the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA), at an April 1 press conference at the Capitol.

The hospital is also in financial straits, facing up to $50 million in operating losses in 2026 and staring down $1.7 billion in losses over the next 10 years, according to projections shared in March with the Hennepin County Board’s budget committee. Right now, the hospital can’t even make its $33 million biweekly payroll and must rely on the county to cover the overdraft, Hennepin County Commissioner Jeffrey Lunde told MinnPost. Lunde chairs the Hennepin Health Board.

The hospital’s financial hardships can be attributed to multiple factors over many years, including the shutdown of Minnesota-based health insurer UCare, which owes HCMC $115 million, and the running cost to treat uninsured or publicly insured patients, who make up the hospital’s majority.

Massive changes to Medicaid eligibility under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, set to go into effect in 2027, are expected to exacerbate HCMC’s challenges. About 140,000 Minnesotans are at risk of losing their health coverage in the coming decade, according to an analysis by the Minnesota Department of Human Services.

Lunde said that without action from lawmakers by the May 18 end to the legislative session, HCMC would begin closing in June.

No other place to go

The impact would be catastrophic and felt throughout the state, several speakers said at the April 1 press conference.

“Patients will wait significantly longer in emergency departments, and hospitals across Minnesota will lose a partner that they rely on,” Olson-Ehlert said. “There is no backup plan, there is no extra capacity, and there is no other place for these patients to go.”

Lunde echoed those concerns, saying HCMC’s closure would overwhelm places like Regions Hospital in St. Paul and North Memorial in Robbinsdale, the only other Level 1 trauma centers in the Twin Cities. He also warned that wait times for the ER could skyrocket from one to two hours to up to 10.

Some cost-saving measures are already underway. In February, HCMC cut its beds by 100, to 390 total. In January, the hospital stopped accepting most non-emergency transfers from outside of Hennepin County, putting a strain on rural hospitals.

“We’re not only a safety net hospital for patients, we’re also a safety net hospital for other hospitals,” Lunde said.

The current solution being eyed is to repurpose the county’s 0.15% sales tax used to pay off bonds for the Minnesota Twins stadium into a 1% tax that would generate about $340 million annually for HCMC.

Lunde said he expects a bill in support of the tax to be introduced Tuesday in the House when the Legislature reconvenes after the Easter/Passover break. It will be introduced by a member of the DFL Party, he said, with a Republican co-signer.

“We’ve met with the speaker, the senate minority leader, the senate majority leader, leadership in the House, because we’ve been very focused on we need a bipartisan bill, and we need bipartisan support,” Lunde said.

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This story was originally published by MinnPost and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.