A .500 record might not sound like much.

But to the Gophers men’s basketball program, that mark in Big Ten play is not considered mediocre. Minnesota has accumulated only six seasons with a .500-or-better record in conference games across the past 25 years.

Head coach Ben Johnson reminded his players this week about a chance to add another notch in a positive direction this year.

“That’s the challenge,” Johnson told reporters on Tuesday. “I think our guys are hungry. They want to be able to start moving the needle with what they are doing.”

The needle went backward Wednesday as 5.5-point underdog Indiana cruised to a 70-58 win over Minnesota at Williams Arena. Minnesota (18-12, 9-10 Big Ten) will now need to win at Northwestern to reach .500 in the regular season.

Johnson said the poor game came as a surprise because the team had two good days of preparation.

“Sometimes you can normally have a little bit of an inkling or a feel if you are going to be flat or just not have it,” Johnson said. “I definitely didn’t have that coming into (Wednesday), so we’ve got to figure it out because that is a mentality thing. 100 percent. It’s, ‘Are you ready to compete from the jump?’ For whatever reason, I just felt like they brought the fight to us.”

The loss to the Hoosiers stings further because it came in the U’s final game at The Barn this season, and it snapped a five-game home winning streak.

“It’s weird because this is the last game at The Barn at home, and you would think that we would be fired up,” said Parker Fox, who led the U with 14 points. “I can’t put an exact thing on it. Jack Wilson made a joke at the end of the bench. He said there was some weird juju in the air.”

Indiana big man Kel’el Ware had a game-high 26 points and 11 rebounds. The Hoosiers had 48-32 advantage in points in the paint.

Indiana (17-13, 9-10) has won three straight. Amid a down year for the Hoosiers, the Indianapolis Star reported hours before tipoff that Mike Woodson would be retained as head coach for next season.

Minnesota, which played without Braeden Carrington (concussion) for a second straight game, looked flat with a six-man rotation that didn’t include backup guards. All three guards — Elijah Hawkins, Mike Mitchell Jr. and Cam Christie — played at least 38 minutes and combined to shoot 8 for 33.

Minnesota guards also shot poorly in the 74-62 loss at Indiana on Jan. 12. As a team, the Gophers were abysmal from 3-point range, making only 5 of 26 (19 percent).

To close the first half, Minnesota amassed empty possessions and managed only one basket in the final eight minutes. Indiana went on a 12-2 run to take a 30-25 lead at the break. The slow moving carried over to the second half, which has usually been a time for the U to go on a run.

Pharrel Payne fell to the court a few times in the first half and moved gingerly near the bench. He then got stimulation on a back injury that has bothered him at times this season. But he played only six minutes in the second half.

Before the game, the Gophers were seventh in the Big Ten standings, but fell below Michigan State and Indiana after Wednesday’s games.

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After losing by 56 points in the final game of the regular season, every single player on the Gophers women’s basketball team entered the Big Ten Tournament with something to prove.

To themselves more than anything else.

Either they were going let that embarrassment carry over or they were going to show some pride and fight back.

The scrappy sophomore guard Amaya Battle chose the latter. She scored a career-high 32 points on Wednesday night at the Target Center to lead No. 11 seed Minnesota to 77-69 win over No. 14 seed Rutgers. As a result, the Gophers will play No. 6 seed Michigan on Thursday night at the Target Center.

That incredible effort from Battle helped spoil a special performance form Rutgers forward Destiny Adams. She recorded 31 points and 24 rebounds, proving to be unguardable down low.

It was clear from the onset that Battle was out for blood. She nailed a pull up jumper to get herself, scoring scored from every level  en route to 14 points in the first quarter. She capped the offensive explosion with a shot form beyond the arc that beat the buzzer.

It looked like the Gophers might runaway with the game early in the second quarter as they stretched their lead to 12 points  That’s when the Scarlett Knights got hot from beyond the arc, chipping away at the deficit with Battle on the bench to make things close again.

It was back and forth in the third quarter with Adams imposing her will inside until Gophers head coach Dawn Plitzuweit opted inserted sophomore forward Nia Holloway into the game for her defense. Though she couldn’t stop Adams from scoring, Holloway seemed to at least bother her.

As the game wound to a close int he fourth quarter, Battle took over once, nailing a clutch jumper before hitting some free throws to put the finishing touches a game she won’t soon forget.

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Two Texas men swiped nearly $18,500 in graphing calculators from eight east-metro Target stores on one day last month as part of an organized theft ring out of the Dallas area, charges say.

Zachary Charles Fininen, 23, and Antonio Griffin Jr., 30, both of Dallas, were arrested Feb. 21 shortly after waltzing out of a Woodbury Target with a slew of the expensive mathematical devices valued at around $5,500, according to criminal complaints filed in Washington County District Court charging them with felony organized retail theft while employed by or associated with a retail theft enterprise.

Zachary Charles Fininen and Antonio Griffin Jr. (Courtesy of the Washington County Sheriff’s Office)

Both men have made first court appearances and were released from the Washington County jail after posting $30,000 bond. Fininen’s next court hearing is March 14, while Griffin is due back in front of a judge April 10.

The charges say a Target investigator has tied the duo to a Dallas gang of thieves responsible for $250,000 worth of stolen or recovered calculators. The investigation is ongoing.

Target’s website shows graphing calculators selling for as little as $55 and up to $1,600 depending on the brand and model.

Caught on video

According to the criminal complaints:

Woodbury police were called to the Target at 449 Commerce Drive after a loss prevention employee reported that two men were taking calculators from a rack and stashing them in an empty cooler. They left the store without paying.

Officers arrived and saw Fininen and Griffin pushing a shopping cart with a cooler inside. As officers tried to stop them, they ditched the cart and ran through the parking lot. An off-duty State Patrol trooper caught Fininen, while Woodbury officers captured Griffin at a nearby Sam’s Club.

Officers learned that Fininen and Griffin arrived at the Target in a black Nissan SUV, which was no longer in the parking lot. From surveillance video, officers discovered the SUV was a rental from the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport.

Officers then learned that Fininen and Griffin had committed calculator thefts earlier in the day at several other east-metro Targets, including at the other Woodbury store on Valley Creek Road, where video showed they made off with $1,930 worth of the items by concealing them under a towel placed in a shopping cart.

Officers gathered video from six other Targets that showed the pair stealing calculators at the Eagan store (totaling $1,565), both Apple Valley locations ($2,176 and $1,392) and stores in Burnsville ($2,027), Lakeville ($1,253) and West St. Paul ($2,614).

Costly trend

Last May, in a quarterly update, Target Corp. said theft is cutting into its bottom line and that it expected related losses could be $500 million more than in 2022, when losses from theft were estimated to be anywhere from $700 million to $800 million.

Five months later, the Minneapolis-based national retailer closed nine stores in four states, saying in a statement that theft and organized retail crime “are threatening the safety of our team and guests, and contributing to unsustainable business performance.” One store was in Harlem, N.Y., two were in Seattle, Wash., three in the San Francisco and Oakland, Calif., markets and three were in Portland, Ore.

The retailer said the decision followed strategies that aimed at preventing and stopping theft and organized retail crime in stores, including more security team members, security guards and theft-deterrent tools.

The retailer also threw its support at the June passage of the Inform Consumers Act, which gives marketplaces like Amazon and eBay a larger role in combating the second-hand sale of stolen goods.

Thefts of graphing calculators have been reported across the U.S. in recent months, according to police and media reports.

In late January, a Wisconsin man was arrested and charged with stealing over $90,000 worth of calculators from Target stores across Indiana and several other states, the Indianapolis Star reported. He was held on local charges, but had warrants for his arrest in eight states, including Minnesota, Illinois and Ohio, the newspaper reported.

The heists aren’t isolated to retail stores. Last March, a group of teens hit up several high schools in the Bronx, N.Y., and made off with a stockpile of calculators worth more than $40,000, the New York Post reported.

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Calling for an immediate and permanent mutual ceasefire in Israel and Gaza.

WHEREAS, when we speak as the City Council, we must speak to unify our city and not divide it; and

WHEREAS, in this moment we are especially concerned for the health and welfare of our Palestinian, Israeli, Muslim, and Jewish inhabitants, who are deeply hurting; and

WHEREAS, the killing of Palestinian and Israeli civilians, and the targeting of civilians, no matter their faith or ethnicity, is a violation of international humanitarian law and a violation of Geneva Conventions; and

WHEREAS, our community mourned the horrific attacks of October 7th, 2023, perpetuated by Hamas that resulted in the death over 1,100 Israelis, with more than 200 Israeli civilians taken hostage; and

WHEREAS, between October 7th, 2023, and March 5th, 2024, the government of Israel’s response through ongoing bombing and military strikes in Gaza has now killed at least 30,000 Palestinians – who are overwhelmingly civilian men, women and children – and severely wounded countless more; and

WHEREAS, on October 26th, 2023, the United Nations General Assembly, in a near unanimous vote, called for an immediate and sustained humanitarian ceasefire; and

WHEREAS, on December 12, 2023, the United Nations General Assembly passed with 153 countries in favor of a resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, and ensuring humanitarian access; and

WHEREAS, on March 4, 2024, the United Nations Office of The Special Representative of the Secretary-General On Sexual Violence in Conflict verified credible claims of sexual violence on October 7, 2023, against Israeli civilians and hostages and is urging a formal investigation; and

WHEREAS, The United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) has estimated that 70-percent of civilian infrastructure in Gaza has been destroyed or severely damaged, including hospitals, schools, and homes; and

WHEREAS, hundreds of thousands of lives are at imminent risk of death by continued violence, starvation, lack of medical treatment, or lack of public health and sanitation, if a mutual ceasefire is not achieved, basic needs and infrastructure are not restored, and humanitarian aid is not delivered without delay; and

WHEREAS, an immediate and permanent mutual ceasefire creates the safest conditions for all parties involved – including the return of remaining Israeli hostages – and ensures humanitarian aid can be delivered to Palestinians at the rate needed, preventing further loss of life; and

WHEREAS, all forms of bigotry, violence, and oppression serve to divide our communities and weaken our efforts to achieve collective safety, justice, and true multi-ethnic, multi-racial democracy here and everywhere; and

WHEREAS, the continued violence is being felt by our Jewish and Palestinian neighbors here in Saint Paul, many with direct personal connections to the region and people at risk, and our Council and City leadership are united in protecting our residents against acts of anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, or hate crimes towards our Arab, Israeli Jewish, and Muslim neighbors; and

WHEREAS, we join over 70 municipalities in the United States – including Hastings, Columbia Heights, and Minneapolis here in Minnesota – in taking a stand in the interest of humanity and the wellbeing of our constituents; and

WHEREAS, we recognize the right of peace and safety for both the Israeli and Palestinian people as well as for our residents here in Saint Paul; Now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, that the City of Saint Paul calls upon our U.S. Congressional delegation, both in the Senate and House of Representatives, to join us in –

1) urging the Biden administration to immediately call for and facilitate de-escalation and a permanent mutual ceasefire to urgently end the current violence; and

2) urging the Biden administration to promptly facilitate the entry of humanitarian assistance our Administration has promised – at the scale needed – into north and south Gaza; and

3) ensuring the immediate release of all Israeli hostages taken by Hamas and the release of thousands of Palestinians unjustly imprisoned or held by Israel; and

4) condemning the use of murder, kidnapping, and rape by Hamas on October 7, 2023, and since; and

5) urging the Biden administration to uphold international law and the January 26, 2024, order of the International Court of Justice by discontinuing unconditional U.S. military aid to Israel without clear guarantees for civilian safety; and be it further

RESOLVED, we, the Saint Paul City Council, as local leaders are using our voices in the cause for Peace, and to stand firmly against the rise of and all acts of racially motivated violence and hate crimes perpetrated against our Arab, Jewish, Muslim, and Palestinian constituents here in Saint Paul and around the United States; and be it finally

RESOLVED, we, the Saint Paul City Council, ask that the Office of the City Clerk forward a copy of this resolution to our United States House Representative Congresswoman Betty McCollum, our United States Senators Tina Smith and Amy Klobuchar, and our United States President Joseph Biden as Saint Paul’s federal elected officials with the most direct and primary responsibility to our constituents on this issue.

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