Dawn Plitzuweit’s Gophers did not earn an NCAA tournament berth on Sunday as they had hoped, but they did earn a No. 2 seed in the second-tier WBIT tournament later that evening.

Unfortunately, the Gophers will not be able to enjoy the immediate spoils of that top seed, a home game, for the first or, if they advance, second rounds of the 32-team tournament because the boys state basketball tournament is setting up shop in Williams Arena this week.

“It makes it challenging, certainly,” Plitzuweit said.

The Gophers (20-11) were hoping their Big Ten resume would make them one of the last teams in the 68-team NCAA tournament, but they’re also happy to keep playing starting Thursday against MAC runner-up Toledo (24-8) in Ohio.

Tip at Savage Arena is set for 6 p.m. CDT.

“The positive to it is I guess we’ve done it in the past,” Plitzuweit said Monday. Last season’s team, her first at Minnesota, advanced to the WNIT championship, where the Gophers lost to St. Louis. The last of their five games were played on the road between April 2-6.

The Gophers stayed on the road for all three of those games.

“I thought it really helped us this year,” Plitzuweit said. “It helped us with doing some of those things and being better in adverse situations.”

The Gophers are ranked No. 39 in the NET (NCAA Evaluation Tool) rankings, behind the 11 Big Ten teams that made the NCAA tournament: No. 1 seeds UCLA and Southern Cal, No. 4 Maryland and Ohio State, No. 6 Iowa and Michigan, No. 7 Michigan State, No. 8 Illinois, No. 9 Indiana and No. 10 Nebraska and Oregon.

Toledo is ranked 115th in the NET rankings, and 0-2 in Quad 1 wins. The Gophers were 0-8. That doesn’t mean advancing in the WBIT wouldn’t be important, particularly for a program just beginning under Plitzuweit, who last season took West Virginia to the NCAA tournament, and in 2022 led South Dakota to the Sweet 16.

At one point this season, the Gophers were 17-2 overall and 5-2 in the Big Ten and ranked No. 23 in the Associated Press poll, their first appearance in the national poll since 2019, despite losing returning leading scorer Mara Braun (foot) and Michigan transfer Taylor Woodson (knee) early to season-ending injuries.

But the schedule got tougher, and while the Gophers played well against ranked teams such as Maryland, Ohio State and Southern Cal, they were never able to get over the hump. The winner of Thursday’s game will meet the winner of a first-round game between Missouri State (25-8) of the Missouri Valley and the Summit League’s Oral Roberts (24-8).

Although the Gophers would be the higher seed in that game, they wouldn’t be able to play that game — currently scheduled for Sunday — at home, either. Plitzuweit said it’s possible a third-round game could be played at the Barn but noted that to make that happen, her team has “a lot of work to do.”

“Right now we have one opportunity to play, and that’s at Toledo,” she said.

GOPHERS AT TOLEDO

What: WBIT, first round
When: 6 p.m. CDT Thursday
Where: Savage Arena, Toledo, Ohio
Streaming/Radio: ESPN+ / KFAN+ 96.7

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SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A New Mexico court granted a temporary restraining order Monday against the release of certain records related to the investigation into the recent deaths of actor Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa.

The order is in response to a request by Julia Peters, a representative for the couple’s estate. She urged in a motion filed last week that the court seal records in the case to protect the family’s right to privacy in grief under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Peters emphasized the possibly shocking nature of photographs and video in the investigation and potential for their dissemination by media.

A hearing has been scheduled for later this month to argue the merits of the request.

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Hackman and Arakawa were found dead in their Santa Fe home in late February. Authorities have confirmed that Hackman died of heart disease with complications from Alzheimer’s disease about a week after hantavirus pulmonary syndrome — a rare, rodent-borne disease — took the life of his wife.

The request to seal the records described the couple’s discrete lifestyle in Santa Fe since Hackman’s retirement. The state capital is known as a refuge for celebrities, artists and authors.

New Mexico’s open records law blocks public access to sensitive images, including depictions of people who are deceased. Experts also say that some medical information is not considered public record under the state Inspection of Public Records Act.

Still, the bulk of death investigations by law enforcement and autopsy reports by medical investigators are typically considered public records under state law in the spirit of ensuring government transparency and accountability.

The order granted Monday lists any and all photographs and videos showing the couple’s bodies and the interior of their home. Certain footage from the body cameras of the sheriff’s deputies who responded to the home is included along with records from the state Office of the Medical Investigator.

By TIM SULLIVAN AND ELLIOT SPAGAT, Associated Press

The U.S. deported hundreds of immigrants after President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act for the first time since World War II, using the sweeping powers of a centuries-old wartime law to target alleged members of a Venezuelan gang. The deportations over the weekend came as a federal judge issued an order temporarily barring them.

The act gives allows noncitizens to be deported without the opportunity to go before an immigration or federal court judge. Trump’s Saturday proclamation called the Tren de Aragua gang an invading force.

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The administration has not identified who was deported, provided any evidence they are gang members or that they committed any crimes in the United States.

The Tren de Aragua gang originated in Venezuela, but the deportees were sent to El Salvador after the Trump administration agreed to pay $6 million for 300 alleged members to be imprisoned there for a year. Venezuela typically does not agree to accept its citizens deported by the U.S., though it has done so on a few occasions. The U.S. also sent back two top members of the Salvadoran MS-13 gang to El Salvador.

U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, issued an order temporarily blocking the deportations, but lawyers said two planes with immigrants were already in the air. Boasberg then verbally ordered the planes be turned around, but the flights continued.

Trump repeatedly said during his campaign that he would use extraordinary powers to confront illegal immigration and laid additional groundwork in a slew of executive orders since his return to office.

What is the Alien Enemies Act?

In 1798, with the U.S. preparing for what it believed would be a war with France, Congress passed a series of laws that increased the federal government’s reach. The Alien Enemies Act was created to give the president wide powers to imprison and deport noncitizens in time of war.

Since then, the act has been used just three times: during the War of 1812, World War I and World War II.

It was part of the World War II legal rationale for mass internments in the U.S. of people of German, Italian and especially Japanese ancestry. An estimated 120,000 people with Japanese heritage, including those with U.S. citizenship, were incarcerated.

What brought this to a head on a Saturday?

The American Civil Liberties Union and Democracy Forward preemptively sued Trump late Friday saying five Venezuelan men held at a Texas immigration detention center were at “imminent risk of removal” under the Alien Enemies Act. Boasberg blocked their deportation, prompting an immediate Justice Department appeal.

Almost simultaneously, the Trump administration agreed to the payment to El Salvador, where the government of President Nayib Bukele has arrested more than 84,000 people, sometimes without due process, in a crackdown on gang violence, often sending suspects to a notorious mega-prison.

The U.S. isn’t at war, is it?

For years, Trump and his allies have argued that the U.S. is facing an “invasion” of people arriving in the country illegally.

Arrests on the U.S. border with Mexico topped 2 million a year for two straight years for the first time under President Joe Biden, with many released into the U.S. to pursue asylum. After hitting an all-time monthly high of 250,000 in December 2023, they dropped sharply in 2024 and even more after Trump took office, reaching less than 8,400 in February — the lowest level since the 1960s.

Administration officials use military terminology to describe the situation. In his Saturday declaration, Trump said Tren de Aragua “is perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion” against U.S. territory.

On Sunday he went further when speaking to reporters on Air Force One, saying: “This is a time of war.”

Critics say Trump is wrongly using the act.

“The Alien Enemies Act may be used only during declared wars or armed attacks on the United States by foreign governments,” The Brennan Center for Justice said in a Saturday statement. “The president has falsely proclaimed an invasion and predatory incursion to use a law written for wartime for peacetime immigration enforcement.”

Associated Press writer Regina Garcia Cano in Caracas, Venezuela, contributed to this report.

BRADENTON, Fla. — The big question facing the Twins for much of this spring was what they would do at second base, where they have an opening there for the taking.

Now, they face another big question: How about third base?

After Royce Lewis strained his hamstring running to first base in Sunday’s spring game, the Twins are now considering how they will fill the hole at the hot corner. Lewis was sent for imaging on Monday, which revealed a moderate left hamstring strain.

The Twins have ruled Lewis out for Opening Day on March 27 in St. Louis and won’t have a timetable for his return until they see how he responds to treatment.

With Opening Day rapidly approaching, the Twins have internal options such as Jose Miranda, Brooks Lee and Willi Castro who could fill in there.

“We have a bunch of (spring) games left … and we’re going to have a little bit of movement in our lineups as a whole,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “I’m pretty sure almost every day we’re going to have some movement there, get them some work in different places. So, I wouldn’t lock in on any one particular thing, but we’re going to get some guys moving around.”

For just the second time this spring, Lee was at third base on Monday when the Twins were in Bradenton to take on the Pittsburgh Pirates. Lee has primarily been playing shortstop and second this spring while battling for a roster spot, but with Lewis now injured his chances of making the team seem much more secure.

Miranda, whose seven starts at third this spring are second behind Lewis this spring, was expected to see some playing time there, as well at first base and designated hitter. Now, it seems as if he’ll get a heavier dose of third base in Lewis’s absence.

Castro, who made 27 starts at third base last year, could see time there as well, although the Twins seem to prefer his defense at second. Castro and Lee can play shortstop if Carlos Correa needs a day off, as well.

Injuries have been a problem for Lewis, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2017 draft. He has twice blown out his right knee, once in spring training and once in the majors, and last season missed time with quad and groin injuries. His 82 major league games played last year are a career high.

Beyond third base, the Twins need to sort through extra outfielders Austin Martin and DaShawn Kiersey Jr., and infielders Edouard Julien and Mickey Gasper. All are on the 40-man roster and remain in major league camp.

While Martin is the more likely of the two outfielders to win a spot, the infield seems to be much more up in the air. If Castro is more of a regular at second to begin the season, the Twins could potentially opt for Gasper, who can play first and second, preferring Julien — who hit .199 with a .292 on-base percentage last season — to get everyday at-bats at Triple-A St. Paul.

No matter what way they’re leaning, Lewis’s injury means there is plenty left to be decided before camp breaks next Thursday.

“We’re prepared to answer the questions that are in front of us,” Baldelli said. “How it looks in spring training, the visuals will tell you something, but there’s also a lot else to be considered.”