We arrived safely in St. Louis, where contrary to Better Half reports, it is not flooding. In fact, it wasn’t even raining. We made it through a flight in which the only hint of trouble was the kid next to us drawing a detailed picture of an airplane — ours, presumably — being severed at the midsection and bursting into flames in mid-air. Seriously, we’re all for free expression, but there might have been a better subject for some in-flight doodling than that. Fortunately, he didn’t turn out to be some sort of soothsayer.

We just returned from the typically uneventful pre-event press conference at the NCAA wrestling tournament. It was as advertised. Gophers coach J Robinson showed up 10-15 minutes late and answered a few questions; we spoke to him for about 20 minutes yesterday and will be posting some excerpts from our discussion — always enlightening, and in all seriousness — either later today or tomorrow. Iowa is the team to beat, for those who don’t know. Minnesota has had an up-and-down season (mostly down). The Gophers are the defending champs and were expected to contend strongly for another title. They have three days to wipe away a strange year and make things right. For now, we’re set to get cranking on a story. We’ll have updates from St. Loo, Marthaler’s NCAA hoops thoughts and much, much more as the week goes along. Anybody know St. Louis well? We’ll take suggestions.

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