Tyler Nubin kept the Gophers football program’s string of recent NFL Draft successes going on Friday night. The U safety from St. Charles, Ill., was selected 47th overall in the second round by the New York Giants.

Nubin extends a streak of five straight drafts for the Gophers with a first- or second-round selection dating to 2020. The previous streak was during World War II in 1941-45.

Nubin is also the 10th Gopher defensive back selected since 2014 and joins 2023 second-round pick, center John Michael Schmitz, in New York. Carter Coughlin, a seventh round pick in 2020, also remains with the Giants.

Nubin was the second-highest graded safety (89.2) in the nation in 2023, according to Pro Football Focus. The analytics site said his coverage grade was 90.1, with only six receptions allowed in 20 targets.

Nubin set the Gophers’ career interception record with 13 picks in 55 career games since 2020. His 24 pass break-ups ranked eight in program history.

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ANAHEIM, Calif. — As Miguel Sanó stood on the field, bat in hand, chatting with Twins assistant hitting coach Rudy Hernández and outfielder Manuel Margot, Byron Buxton crept out from the Twins dugout.

When he reached Sanó, the Twins’ center fielder wrapped his former teammate in a bear hug from behind, enveloping the big man. Sanó then spun around and the longtime friends embraced.

For years, the two were linked, Twins fans’ hopes and dreams pinned on two of Major League Baseball’s top prospects. They both debuted in 2015, the beginning of careers that would see both become All-Stars. But Sanó’s Twins’ career came to an abrupt end during the 2022 season for a reason Buxton is unfortunately all-too-familiar with: an injury.

After spending last season out of affiliated baseball, Sanó signed a minor league deal with the Los Angeles Angels and this weekend is facing his former teammates for the first time.

Byron Buxton and Miguel Sanó reunite pic.twitter.com/GkxjDJjNaI

— Betsy Helfand (@betsyhelfand) April 26, 2024

“I’m proud of him,” Buxton said. “Obviously, he had a tough road to end here with the injuries and stuff like that. … For me, to see him come out on the end that he’s at, which is a way better end, I’m very happy because he put in a lot of work to get where he could get back to playing baseball like himself.”

Sanó first injured his left knee during an April 2022 game and eventually had surgery to repair a torn meniscus.

He rehabbed and returned from the injured list on July 25, only to land on the injured list days later. He played in just 20 games in 2022, his last season in Minnesota.

“Every athlete’s nightmare is injuries, and that happened to me. But now I’m here,” Sanó said before his old and current teams played a late game at Angel Stadium. Speaking through an interpreter, Sanó said, “I’m training to be healthy and do the best … with this team. I’m very thankful.”

He spent his 2023 making sure his knee felt right, losing weight and getting ready for 2024. He told Angels reporters in spring training that he had lost 58 pounds in an effort to get healthier and stay on the field.

Though he signed a minor league deal with the Angels, he made the team out of camp and has been playing both first and third base. Coming into Friday, he was hitting .271 with one home run and five RBIs in 20 games.

Friday marked a reunion with the organization that gave him his start in professional baseball as a 16-year-old out of the Dominican Republic.

“I was out for a long period of time without playing and I feel excited to face (the Twins) and I feel very happy,” he said. “I feel very thankful with them because they gave me the opportunity to play.”

Sanó said he remained in touch with some of his former teammates, whom he referred to as family. Buxton struck a similar tone, saying the two communicated “all the time.”

“He’s still like my brother,” Buxton said. “It’s still one of those things that you can’t change.”

And while some of Sanó’s other longtime teammates, like Jorge Polanco and Eddie Rosario, have found other homes, too, there were plenty of people in the first-base dugout happy to see the outgoing infielder thriving, back in the majors once again.

“He always came ready to work. He was always great in the clubhouse with his teammates and had everybody’s back every day that he was here,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “It’s nice to see him back in the big leagues where he wants to be. He’s worked very, very hard, obviously, to get back to this point. So, there’s a lot of people that are very, very pleased for him.”

Briefly

Shortstop Carlos Correa, on the injured list with an intercostal strain, took groundballs on the field on Friday in Anaheim. Correa could return while the Twins are on their current road trip. … Class AAA St. Paul’s game was rained out on Friday, pushing closer Jhoan Duran’s rehab outing back to Saturday, when the Saints will play a double-header at CHS Field. Justin Topa is scheduled to pitch in his second rehab game for the Saints on Sunday.

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As the Vikings researched the quarterback class in the 2024 NFL Draft, there was a particular interaction that stuck out to general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah. He remembers talking to former Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy early in the process and being taken aback by how forthcoming he was.

“He said, ‘Is there a reason you wouldn’t draft me?’ ” Adofo-Mensah recalled. “I said, ‘Honestly, from a talent standpoint, no.’ ”

The only thing that gave Adofo-Mensah any sort of pause was the fact that McCarthy was more of an unknown compared to his peers. He wasn’t asked to do nearly as much as North Carolina quarterback Drake Maye. He didn’t have nearly as many reps as LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels. And he didn’t showcase his arm talent nearly as much as Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr. did.

As he reflected on that question Friday, McCarthy smiled, noting that he only asked that question because he felt like he had developed a strong rapport with Adofo-Mensah.

“I was genuinely curious,” McCarthy said while rocking a designer suit for his formal introduction at TCO Performance Center. “I’m always trying to get better, and I want to hear from great minds and different perspectives on how to do that.”

That curiosity gives some insight into why Adofo-Mensah and head coach Kevin O’Connell believe McCarthy is the right person to lead the Vikings into the future. Not only does his attention to detail fit the mold of what O’Connell is looking for in a quarterback, McCarthy already carries himself like a face of the franchise on and off the field.

Last fall, McCarthy led undefeated Michigan to its first NCAA national title since 1997.

“There is a fire inside him to be the best version of himself,” O’Connell said. “He’s been incredibly competitive each and every day. They talk a lot about that culture at Michigan, and they’ve got a lot of players coming out, and a lot of guys that are going to be selected over these next couple of days. The main thing we hear is how he was a driving force behind a lot of that.”

It was a similar assessment from Adofo-Mensah after he spent some time in Ann Arbor during the pre-draft process.

“There’s not a person that’s not a big fan of JJ McCarthy,” Adofo-Mensah said. “We’re really happy with him coming here. He’s excited. He’s a competitive kid and he’s looking to prove everybody right, wrong or indifferent.”

That confidence will go a long way as McCarthy acclimates to the next level. Never mind that he will more than likely start his career behind journeyman quarterback Sam Darnold. He eventually will be asked to step into the spotlight, and he vowed Friday to be ready when that times comes.

“Just focused on being the best version of myself every single day,” McCarthy said. “I’ve been doing that leading up to this point, and it got me here.”

It certainly helps that McCarthy will have O’Connell in his corner. They got to know one another throughout the draft process. The Vikings’ visit to Michigan’s campus featured some extensive time in the classroom before they got onto the field.

“(When) you’ve watched a lot of tape of a lot of players over the years, there’s still some questions,” O’Connell said. “Ultimately, being able to see him kind of take information directly from me in an install setting, and see him take it out to the field was really, really encouraging.”

Just as important is McCarthy’s innate ability to connect with his teammates.

“Something I’ve learned about him is that his emotional intelligence is a superpower,” Adofo-Mensah said. “He uses his superpower to create really lasting bonds.”

That superpower should serve McCarthy well whenever he becomes the starter.

“Just being able to connect with my teammates on and off the field is something that I hold with the utmost importance,” McCarthy said. “It starts with developing those relationships and being able to connect with each person individually, because everybody has a different style of leadership.”

Though the rest is still unwritten for McCarthy, it’s not hard to see why the Vikings gravitated toward him in the first place.

“This is the perfect fit for me,” McCarthy said. “Obviously, it’s a huge honor, and I hope to prove them right.”

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Regulators have closed Republic First Bank, a regional lender operating in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Friday it had seized the Philadelphia-based bank, which did business as Republic Bank and had roughly $6 billion in assets and $4 billion in deposits as of Jan. 31.

Fulton Bank, which is based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, agreed to assume substantially all of the failed bank’s deposits and buy essentially all of its assets, the agency said.

Republic Bank’s 32 branches will reopen as branches of Fulton Bank as early as Saturday. Republic First Bank depositors can access their funds via checks or ATMs as early as Friday night, the FDIC said.

The bank’s failure is expected to cost the deposit insurance fund $667 million.

The lender is the first FDIC-insured institution to fail in the U.S. this year. The last bank failure — Citizens Bank, based in Sac City, Iowa — was in November.

In a strong economy an average of only four or five banks close each year.

Rising interest rates and falling commercial real estate values, especially for office buildings grappling with surging vacancy rates following the pandemic, have heightened the financial risks for many regional and community banks. Outstanding loans backed by properties that have lost value make them a challenge to refinance.

Last month, an investor group including Steven Mnuchin, who served as U.S. Treasury secretary during the Trump administration, agreed to pump more than $1 billion to rescue New York Community Bancorp, which has been hammered by weakness in commercial real estate and growing pains resulting from its buyout of a distressed bank.