There’s a basketball adage that says a shooter has got to shoot.

Amaya Battle has been doing that all season for the Minnesota women’s basketball team. She’s just making more attempts as of late.

Battle scored 18 points, nearly equaled her season total coming in with three 3-pointers, and Minnesota scored 32 of the game’s final 39 points to dominate Wisconsin 88-53 Sunday afternoon at Williams Arena.

The 35-point win ties the largest margin for Minnesota in the series, also doing so on March 10, 1993.

Tori McKinney bounced back offensively, tying a season high with 20 points and had her second straight strong rebounding performance with seven to go with three steals. She had just four points, but seven rebounds in Wednesday’s win at Oregon, her first game after missing two in the concussion protocol.

“Just the spark she brings up both ends of the court, especially defensively. I mean, she really frustrates other teams. And she can beat almost anybody off the dribble,” Grace Grocholski said of McKinney.

“She’s a motor, so we can always rely on her to get something whether that’s a bucket, that’s a stop, a steal, whatever. She’s always a constant force for our team that we can always rely on,” Battle added.

Grocholski also scored 18 points for the Gophers (14-6, 5-4 Big Ten), including seven in a 12-0 run for a 22-point Minnesota lead early in the fourth quarter. The Gophers finished the game on an 18-2 run.

Those surges further electrified the season-high 5,749 fans in attendance, including 77 program alumni.

“The Barn, when it’s packed, it gets really loud. I remember this from high school. Because they’ll have state tournament games here, and whenever there’s a ton of fans it gets super loud,” said Battle, who played at perennial power Hopkins.

“That was just an awful lot of fun. And I recognize it’s not all that warm outside. So to leave home, when the game is being televised, is something that we really appreciate,” coach Dawn Plitzuweit said.

Battle just missed topping 50% from the field for the fourth straight game — she was 5 for 11 — after making 13 of 41 shots in the first four conference games.

“I try to just come into the game with a clear mindset and just trying to go out there and play, do whatever my team needs me to do. It just has started to click a little bit. And then obviously just staying in, keeping reps in the gym, so I think that’s just starting to show, too,” she said.

Her performance included a trio of 3-pointers after entering 4 for 24 for the season, including nine straight games without a make.

When did you become a 3-point shooter?

“Today, I guess,” she said smiling. “Today was the day.”

Destiny Howell led Wisconsin (13-8, 5-5) with 16 points. Kyrah Daniels had 13, and Ronnie Porter, a Como Park alum, finished with nine.

Minnesota next plays Wednesday at Penn State, a team that is 0-10 in conference play, and is home to Purdue next Sunday.

Minnesota’s Grace Grocholski, left, plots her next move while being defended by Wisconsin’s Destriny Howell (1) during the first half of Sunday’s Big Ten game at Williams Arena (Courtesy of Gopher Athletics)

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U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi made a series of demands to Minnesota officials this weekend, including cooperation with federal immigration enforcement and access to welfare and voter data, something state officials called an attempt at coercion.

The Saturday letter to Gov. Tim Walz came the same day as the fatal shooting of a 37-year-old man by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis, escalating the conflict between Minnesota and the federal government.

Bondi asked the state for greater cooperation and said moves, including providing “voter rolls” to the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division were “simple steps” that would “help bring back law and order to Minnesota and improve the lives of Americans.”

“Minnesota can and should be a partner with this administration,” Bondi wrote. “Do not obstruct federal immigration enforcement; do not allow rioters to take over the streets and houses of worship; do not hinder federal officials from investigating financial fraud and violations of election laws.”

In a Sunday statement, Secretary of State Steve Simon, the state’s top election official, said he wouldn’t cooperate with President Donald Trump’s attorney general, calling the letter an “outrageous attempt to coerce Minnesota into giving the federal government private data on millions of U.S. Citizens in violation of state and federal law.”

“It is deeply disturbing that the U.S. Attorney General would make this unlawful request a part of an apparent ransom to pay for our state’s peace and security,” said Simon, a Democrat. “More broadly, the federal government must end the unprecedented and deadly occupation of our state immediately.”

The Trump Administration had already asked Minnesota for access to voter and welfare information last year. Minnesota has resisted the federal push for voter data, and Simon noted that the matter is subject to ongoing litigation.

Bondi also demanded that Maine release its voter data, prompting a similar reaction from that state’s top elections official, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, also a Democrat. The Trump administration sued Arizona and Connecticut for voter data earlier this month.

Bondi also asked Minnesota for all Minnesota records on Medicaid and food stamps, and the repeal of sanctuary polices blocking local officials from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement.

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“The lawlessness in the streets is matched by the unprecedented financial fraud occurring on your watch,” the attorney general wrote. “It is a tragedy that Americans have lost faith in Minnesota’s ability to keep its taxpayers’ funds secure and its citizens safe.”

The arrival of thousands of federal immigration enforcement officers in Minnesota came after widespread government fraud in Minnesota caught the attention of the Republican administration late last year.

The office of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz didn’t say whether it would consider any of Bondi’s demands. In a statement, it said the surge of federal immigration enforcement over the past month had “brought chaos and destruction” to Minnesota and questioned the motivation of requests from President Donald Trump’s attorney general.

“We repeat our request to the administration to engage in a serious conversation about ending this federal occupation,” the governor’s office said in a statement. “This is not common sense, lawful immigration enforcement. That is not what this occupation is about. And it’s not what the attorney general’s letter is about.”

With just two games left ahead of the PWHL break for the Winter Olympics, the Minnesota Frost were looking to get the right energy going to set themselves up for a surge in the second half of the season.

Kelly Pannek said the Frost had been missing their best energy the past two games, where they lost in overtime to New York and Montreal. Fortunately for them, that energetic jolt came early in their 6-2 victory over the Sirens on Sunday afternoon at Grand Casino Arena.

The scoring party started for the Frost when both they and the Sirens had a player in the penalty box, making it a four-on-four match-up. Taylor Heise scored on an open shot to make it 1-0.

Then 12 seconds later, Kendall Coyne Schofield lined the puck up just right on the Sirens’ goal to score her league-leading 10th goal.

That set the tone for the rest of the game. After allowing one to slide past the goal post with 1:32 left in the first period, Frost goalie Maddie Rooney put on a show in the second period, keeping every Siren shot from getting past her, while Grace Zumwinkle and Katy Knoll added goals of their own to extend the Frost’s lead to 4-1.

Zumwinkle’s goal was a pretty straightforward shot, but Knoll’s came with a bit of flair as she slid into the net right after her shot, giving Frost fans something to both cheer and laugh at.

The Sirens got their second goal from forward Anna Bergman with six minutes left in the third period to make it 4-2. Then then sent goalie Kayle Osborne to the bench for a sixth attacker.

However, the Frost were able to take advantage of this opportunity as Knoll took the puck from the neutral zone and scored her second goal of the game to make it 5-2.

Pannek added a final goal with one minute and 19 seconds left to make it 6-2.

The Frost will play Vancouver on Wednesday for their final game before the Winter Olympics, with puck drop scheduled for 8 p.m. CST.

Minnesota’s Natalie Buchbinder (22) looks to pass up ice during Sunday’s PWHL game at Grand Casino Arena. (Photo courtesy of PWHL)

The play-by-play voice of the Minnesota Vikings didn’t answer requests for comment, or post on his x.com account Sunday, a day after comments from a Friday morning radio show incited online ire from people around the Twin Cities, including fans of the team.

During his Friday morning show on KFXN-FM 100.3, Paul Allen suggested that protesters who, at the time, were preparing to march against the aggressive presence of federal Immigration and Customs agents in Minnesota were paid to be there.

Before tens of thousands marched in downtown Minneapolis in frigid temperatures, Allen — speaking with former Vikings linebacker Chad Greenway and radio producer Eric Nordquist — said, “In conditions like this, do paid protesters get hazard pay? Those are the things that I’ve been thinking about this morning.”

The remark refers to a baseless conspiracy claiming that protesters are paid by left-wing groups.

“Probably not gonna touch that one,” Greenway said.

Allen continued. “Everyone’s catching strays this week,” he said, citing NFL quarterback social media criticism of Tampa Bay quarterback Baker Mayfield and former NFL QB Charlie Batch. “They’re just all over. Protesters caught one this morning.”

The comments appear to have been edited out of KFAN’s replay of the show, but web site awfulannouncing.com posted audio of the exchange on their site on Saturday.

Messages requesting comment from Allen, Nordquist and KFAN program director Chad Abbott were unanswered Sunday. They also could not be reached on Saturday.

Allen is scheduled to appear on his regular show Monday morning, starting at 9 a.m.

The Vikings declined to comment Sunday, but the team, which is based in Eagan and plays in downtown Minneapolis, joined more than 60 CEOs from prominent Minnesota businesses in signing an open letter “calling for an immediate de-escalation of tensions and for state, local and federal officials to work together to find real solutions.”

Since “Operation Metro Surge” began in Minneapolis in mid-December, federal agents have arrested and detained 3,000 Minnesota residents, including U.S. citizens, and shot three. Two were killed, U.S. citizens Renee Macklin Good, 37, on Jan. 7 and Alex Pretti, 37, on Saturday.

Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have defended each fatal shooting as justified acts of self-defense.

Allen’s comments were made the day before Pretti’s death, and on Saturday afternoon he tried to walk back his comments in a post from his x.com account, although he did not address his remarks about protestors.

“I have to stop watching all this for a little bit. I’m so sad this terror is happening all around us here in MN,” he wrote. “I just prayed to God’s will for it to somehow stop and now and (sic) started crying.

“I truly am sorry for all hurting like me through this, and I just want us to be a Love Covenant again. Truly. Let’s all pray this stops somehow because it’s awful. And no more cheap one-liners from me.”

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