For a weekend that involved no football (unless you were tracking Tom Brady’s ankle with a GPS device), it turned out to be pretty good. The Morneau/Cuddyer signings led natually into TwinsFest. We watched an entire Wolves game Friday night (yes, they have earned the right to go back to their given name). As painful as the ending was to diehards, it reinforced two things in our mind: one, this team has figured things out to a certain degree. They’re playing more like a 30-win team now than a 10-win team. We thought they would slide backwards Sunday night against the nets; instead, the budding superstar named Al Jefferson dropped 40 and 19 on the Nets in a nice victory. That’s 3-2 in their past five, with the two losses being close ones to Denver and Boston. Speaking of Boston, number two: That game Friday reinforced that for as great as he is and as much as he was loved here, Kevin Garnett can not only often be neutralized in big games, but he also doesn’t yet understand what it is to be a winner. Popping out his jersey after a one-point home victory over the worst team in basketball in which he was very mediocre? That was lame. He appears to still have some distance to travel mentally if he is going to help lead Boston to the promised land. … Saturday, we watched a fair amount of figure skating. Yes, you heard that right. We also caught the tail end of the Gophers hanging on for dear life to tie the Badgers in puck and earn one point in Madison. Will there be a WCHA Final Five in St. Paul without the local squad? Sunday, we caught the second half of LeBron vs. Kobe (some say they had teams with them, but we saw no evidence of that).

So: We’re not here to say we don’t need football, but we were surprised at how well we managed to adapt. Next week is the big game; if we can manage to bridge the gap with a few weeks in February, we’ll be home free in March. But it’s not going to be easy. What’s your sporting plan for next month?

Fasola-link!

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