Both directions of Minnesota State Highway 13 in Mendota Heights between Wachtler Avenue and Sylvandale Road will be closed beginning at 9:30 a.m. Monday and opening again at about 9:30 p.m. Friday, according to the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

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The highway closure is so crews can do planting and erosion control work, MnDOT said in a press release on Friday.

Signed detours will direct motorists using Wachtler Avenue, Wentworth Avenue West, Dodd Road/Highway 149 and Smith Avenue South.

For more info and for real-time travel information anywhere in Minnesota, visit 511mn.org.

For many college basketball experts, selecting the greatest players of the women’s poll era sounds easy — until they try it.

Of course, USC’s Cheryl Miller and Diana Taurasi of UConn are relatively easy choices. But narrowing the list from there gets tricky, inevitably leaving out talented players, including those who sharpened their skills during later professional careers.

FILE – Iowa guard Caitlin Clark makes a heart gesture after the team’s NCAA college basketball game against Michigan, Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024, in Iowa City, Iowa. Clark broke the NCAA women’s career scoring record. (AP Photo/Matthew Putney, File)

In honor of the 50th anniversary of the women’s basketball poll, The Associated Press assembled a list of the greatest players since the first poll in 1976. And in the spirit of the Top 25 rankings, the choices are certain to spark a debate and prompt plenty of handwringing among those who were in a position to vote.

“Nearly impossible,” Rebecca Lobo, a former UConn standout and NCAA champion, said of the assignment. “As I’m looking down the list, I’m like no-brainer, no-brainer, no-brainer. But then I’m like wait, there’s too many no-brainers and not enough slots.”

Lobo was one of 13 members of a panel of former players and AP sportswriters who voted on the greatest players. They were instructed to consider only the athletes’ college careers. Other factors, however, were up to their discretion, including championship pedigree, record-breaking statistics or simply their ability to will their teams to victory.

“It was extraordinarily difficult, especially, to try to hone in on a players’ college career and eliminate their pro career from your brain,” Lobo added. “There are going to be players who are Hall of Fame-caliber players who aren’t on the list.”

Joining Miller in the frontcourt on the first team are Breanna Stewart and Candace Parker. Caitlin Clark joins Taurasi as the guards.

Taurasi helped UConn win three national championships, including carrying the Huskies to the last two basically on her own during her junior and senior season.

“What an accomplishment and what an honor,” Taurasi said. “To think about the history of the game and where it’s gone. You always have to look at the past to go into the future. There’s so many great women who paved the way.”

Clark led Iowa to back-to-back NCAA championship game appearances while setting the career scoring record for any Division I women’s or men’s basketball player. Her play on the court, including her logo 3-point shots, helped lift women’s basketball to unprecedented levels of attention and energy during her last two seasons.

“Being named an AP All-American is one of the most storied honors in college sports,” Clark said. “It means a lot to be named to this all-time list alongside players I looked up to. It’s fun to think about what it would have been like if we all played together.”

The frontcourt of Miller, Stewart and Parker dominated the game during their eras.

Stewart won four NCAA championships at UConn and earned Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four all four years. Parker led Tennessee to back-to-back titles in 2007-08. Miller, one of the original NCAA greats, starred for USC and led the Trojans to consecutive championships in 1983-84.

“I grew up watching Cheryl Miller play,” Parker said. “She’d be No. 1. My dad was like ‘This is who we wanted you to be.’ I’m honored to be on this list with her.”

The second team’s backcourt is UConn’s Sue Bird and Virginia’s Dawn Staley. The former Cavaliers guard and current South Carolina coach is the only women’s player to win the Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four on a losing team when her Cavaliers fell to Tennessee. Bird helped UConn win championships in 2000 and 2002.

The Lady Vols’ Chamique Holdsclaw, UConn’s Maya Moore and Lusia Harris of Delta State are on the second team frontcourt. Holdsclaw was a three-time NCAA champion and twice earned the tournament’s MOP honor. Moore was part of the Huskies’ dynasty that won a then-record 89 consecutive games. She helped the Huskies to consecutive titles in 2009-10.

Harris led Delta State to three AIAW titles in the mid-1970s and was the tournament’s MVP each year.

“I’d watch these two teams play and I’m not sure who would win,” UConn coach Geno Auriemma said of the first and second teams selected by the panel.

Auriemma has four former players on the first two teams, but would enjoy looking to the bench at a group of reserves that includes:

UCLA’s Ann Meyers Drysdale, Kansas’ Lynette Woodard and Texas Tech’s Sheryl Swoopes in the backcourt. For the frontcourt, there is USC’s Lisa Leslie, Baylor’s Brittney Griner and South Carolina’s A’ja Wilson.

“I am always asked if players today could play back in the ‘70s or ’80s or vice versa. When you’re great in one generation, you’re going to be great in any generation,” said Meyers Drysdale, who also was a member of the voting panel. “I don’t think there’s any name that is wrong or there’s any name that is right. There’s so many great players that are going to be left off.”

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The Timberwolves went 13-4 over their final 17 games of the regular season in the spring, with Rudy Gobert serving as a major reason why.

The French center averaged 15.4 points and 12.5 rebounds in that span. Zero in on the final 10 games, and those numbers balloon to 18.8 points and 14.9 rebounds in 36.4 minutes.

Minnesota’s success largely centered on its man in the middle.

Then came the playoffs, and everything changed. With one massive exception — Gobert’s 27 point, 24 rebound performance in Minnesota’s decisive Game 5 victory in Round 1 against the Lakers — the big man was largely an afterthought in the postseason.

He played 30-plus minutes in just two of Minnesota’s 15 playoff games. He scored in double figures just thrice and had double-digit rebounds only four times.

That’s not even to say Gobert was ineffective. In fact, he sported Minnesota’s best net rating in the West Finals, with the Wolves out-scoring the Thunder by five points per 100 possessions when the center was on the floor.

It didn’t matter. By that point, Minnesota was firmly leaning into more offense-first lineups that worked effectively in earlier playoff matchups in which the Wolves had a large talent advantage. Gobert didn’t fit that script. Come the postseason, teams chronically ignore the center, knowing Anthony Edwards and the Wolves won’t find him enough to make them pay for the tactical decision.

It was far easier for Minnesota to put in five scoring threats to simplify the reads for the likes of Edwards and Julius Randle.

While Gobert is a grand ceiling raiser for Minnesota, his role in the grand scheme of the 2024-25 season more closely resembled an innings eater than a high-leverage closer. The Gobert-heavy identity Minnesota formed late in the regular season was seemingly null and void, though Finch disputes as much.

“I think the identity of the team is a little more multi-faceted than that. Certainly, Rudy is a big part of what we do and when he’s playing at a high level like he did the last 20, 30 games, it makes all the difference,” Finch said. “We need him to do that for the whole 82, irrespective of what happens in the playoffs.”

Finch cited Oklahoma City as an example of a team that changed the roles of players throughout its rotation depending on matchups, noting the minutes for Thunder Isaiah Hartenstein fluctuated. Hartenstein was invaluable for the Thunder in the conference semifinal victory over Denver, and dispensable at other points in the postseason.

“They’re extremely flexible in their approach on what the series is dictating from them,” Finch.

Of course, when Hartenstein wasn’t on the floor, Oklahoma City was still thriving. That wasn’t the case for Minnesota in the West Finals, as the Wolves were wiped off the floor when Gobert wasn’t out there.

But it seemed the Wolves had already determined they couldn’t score on that stage if Gobert was on the court. And yet the version of the Wolves without him proved in that matchup that it was not a title-tier team and was better suited to beat up lesser foes.

The question facing Minnesota this season is do you attempt to better integrate Gobert into the offense so it can succeed regardless of the looks provided by the opposing defense? Gobert has mentioned the need to be more decisive, aggressive and poised with the ball in the middle of the floor so teammates trust him in those situations. Randle noted he understands Gobert’s offensive game better now. Time and chemistry could lead to incremental gains that may solve a few of the postseason problems.

But should the Wolves also put more of an emphasis on developing the non-Gobert lineups so those can be better prepared when they’re thrust into high-leverage playoff battles?

“I think you probably get to enough different things in the regular season, I don’t think you have to make a seismic shift through the regular season to prepare yourself,” Finch said. “Right now, winning every game is so important. Finishing between sixth and third (in the West) can be a two-game spread. … Right now, we’re comfortable enough to go whatever direction we need to.”

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President Donald Trump’s executive order designating antifa as a “domestic terrorist organization” was never really about antifa. It was about building a template for repression. Now, with his latest order on “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,” the blueprint is clear: free expression, political dissent and municipal autonomy are in the crosshairs.

I’ve argued in the past that the antifa order was legally flimsy and practically unnecessary. Antifa is not a structured organization. It’s more an idea than an entity; a loose coalition of individuals dedicated to countering fascism. And while some have crossed the line from peaceful protesters to violent agitators, violence already has ample legal remedies under state and federal law. The danger of the order is in its symbolism, as the administration begins to stress-test just how far it could go in labeling domestic opponents as enemies of the state.

This new executive order goes much further. Cloaked in the language of protecting Americans from terrorism, it opens the door to weaponizing federal law enforcement against the right’s political rivals. The Justice Department is now directed to treat broad swaths of dissent in Democratic-led cities, from Los Angeles to Portland, Ore., to Chicago, as “organized political violence.”

In practice, this could mean turning Joint Terrorism Task Forces— entities designed to track designated foreign terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda and Islamic State — inward on Americans, investigating protest organizers, city officials, charities and journalists whose views run counter to the administration’s agenda.

That should alarm every American. The task forces bring the full investigative powers of the FBI, Homeland Security and state and local law enforcement together under one umbrella. Using those tools to surveil political opponents would chill lawful protest and erode civil liberties.

Imagine federal prosecutors wielding “domestic terrorism” charges against activists accused of creating disorder at a rally. The line between protest and terrorism, already blurred by the Trump administration’s policies and disinformation, could vanish entirely.

Moreover, the weaponization of the task forces to go after domestic political enemies of the president may result in governors pulling their resources out of the units. This would put Americans more at risk of actual threats — such as those posed by homegrown violent extremists who subscribe to Islamic State or Al Qaeda doctrine.

During these early days of Trump’s second term, we’ve moved beyond rhetoric and social media missives. What was once rhetoric has now hardened into executive action. The effect could be to criminalize opposition under the guise of counterterrorism. Today it’s antifa; tomorrow it may be climate activists, immigrant-rights groups, even political parties.

The risks extend beyond free speech. By equating political opposition with terrorism, the administration is also militarizing America’s domestic landscape. In a speech last month in Quantico, Va., the president told senior military officers he would not hesitate to deploy U.S. armed forces against “the enemy from within.” This was no off-the-cuff remark. It signals a willingness to use troops — trained for foreign battlefields — in American streets to quell political dissent.

The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, a bedrock safeguard, restricts the military’s involvement in domestic law enforcement. But Trump’s recent rhetoric suggests he sees it as little more than an inconvenience. If such deployments are carried out, it would mark one of the most dramatic expansions of federal military power in modern times, risking both bloodshed in our cities and the further erosion of democratic norms.

Supporters of these orders and maneuvers argue that they’re necessary to fight political violence. But assaulting opponents and law enforcement, rioting, arson, conspiracy — all can be and are prosecuted under existing statutes. What this administration seeks is not more tools but more latitude: the freedom to conflate protest with terrorism, to investigate and interrogate critics under the cover of counterterrorism and to silence dissent through fear.

History offers warnings. Governments that criminalize opposition rarely stop at the margins. In Turkey, the label of “terrorist” has been used to decimate civil society, shutter newspapers and jail academics. In Russia, counter-extremism laws have become blunt instruments for crushing democracy. We must be honest: America is inching down that path.

This is not about protecting antifa, a decentralized movement with no formal leadership or structure. It is about protecting the Constitution. The 1st Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, assembly and association. If these rights to free expression can be recast as terrorism by executive fiat, then they cease to be rights at all.

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The antifa executive order was the test case. The new domestic terrorism order is the escalation. And Trump’s comments at Quantico may be the preview of an even more dangerous militarization to come. If pushback fails now, whether through courts, through Congress or through public protest, the bulwark that exists between national security and political repression may collapse entirely.

We should all be clear-eyed about what is happening. The president is not just fighting crime. He is probing the strength of our democratic institutions, searching for weaknesses. Each order, each speech, each threat against democratic norms is a stress test. The question is not whether Americans will passively endure it — but whether we will stand together to defend the freedoms that define us.

Jason M. Blazakis, a professor of practice at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, was director of the State Department’s Counterterrorism Finance and Designations Office in the Bureau of Counterterrorism from 2008 to 2018. He wrote this column for the Los Angeles Times.