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Gina Kneepkens. Photo courtesy University of Utah Athletics.

The Minnesota Vikings and the NFL officially head into their final stretch drive this weekend, and college football heads into its first 12-team playoff Friday and Saturday, while hockey takes a break at the college level after some stunning outcomes last weekend. 

But basketball troops onward toward Christmas, and — thanks to the Big Ten Network and the newly expanded Big Ten Conference — a true sports highlight happened in Seattle when Utah played Washington in a women’s basketball game.

As a diehard hockey person, I must admit that NBA basketball pretty much bores me, and, frankly, men’s NCAA basketball has headed down the same direction as far as being a personal attraction. 

For the last few years, I have written repeatedly, that n’s a match-up between equal women’s college basketball teams is a better sports attraction than the men’s game.

Paige Bueckers going from Minnesota high school bal to Connecticut, and Caitlin Clark going from Iowa preps to the University of Iowa heightened the awareness of women’s basketball, but for Duluth sports fans, the attention took some effort to follow when Marshall’s Gianna Kneepkens accepted a scholarship to play at Utah. 

Finding Pac-12 games on television in any sport takes some effort, and women mores, and now that the Pac-12 has been shattered by the expansion of the Big Ten, it’s harder yet. But with Washington a high-ranking newcomer to the Big Ten, the Big Ten  Network was quick to schedule some of their old rivalries.

So I settled into my recliner to watch the 9:30 pm start of Saturday’s Utah-Washington game from Seattle, with the primary intention of watching Kneepkens do her ball-handling-passing-shooting stuff for the Utes. 

Utah lost a lot of players from last season, and lost their coach to a pro opportunity, turning things over to an assistant who seemed possibly overwhelmed by blending so many newcomers from freshmen to portal-jumpers. 

The result was that Kneepkens, No. 5, played a lot but was turned into an obscure passer by the Utah system, as Washington raced to a 20-11 lead after a quarter, blew the lead with a cold-shooting second quarter, but retook a solid lead at 50-40 after three quarters.

At halftime, Kneepkens was barely noticeable. She missed all of last season recovering from surgery for a broken foot, and is a redshirt junior now, amid all the Utah turmoil. She has virtually had to fight for shots — nobody ever feeds her — but she still led the team with a 17-point average going into the Washington game. 

Finally, in the fourth quarter, she took charge. Having scored only 10 through three quarters, Kneepkens started hitting, and her back-to-back threes lifted the Utes to a 15-2 start to the fourth quarter and the lead. 

The teams alternated taking charge, but as Kneepkens kept hitting her shots, Washington’s frustration turned into fouls, and as Kneepkens brought the ball up, she kept getting fouled, despite being a 90-percent free throw shooter.

When it was over, Utah had beaten Washington 67-57, led by Kneepken, with 24 points. She was 6-12 in the fourth quarter and 8-8 on free throws, and her 14-point last quarter gave her 24 for the game. She’s as good as it gets in women’s basketball, and nobody has to work harder to get the ball and chances to shoot. It would be like having Michael Jordan on your men’s team and not telling your team to give “that guy” the ball. 

As fans, we can keep checking the late-night weekend broadcast schedules, and if you see Utah listed, tune in.

On Friday night, the long and complex NCAA football playoffs begin with an intrastate battle of Indiana at Notre Dame. On Saturday, the other first-round games unfold, with Clemson at Texas, Tennessee at Ohio State, and Southern Methodist at Penn State. 

The favorites are solid, but their opponents are teams that wouldn’t usually get the chance to play on the big stage, and are capable of beating anybody.

Same goes for the second round, when the bye teams — Oregon, Arizona State, Boise State and Georgia — are awaiting this weekend’s winners.

In the NFL, the Vikings, led by Sam Darnold, had the chance to rise to the division lead by tying Detroit’s 12-2 record by beating the Chicago Bears Monday night. Still a way to go, but Detroit was punctured by Buffalo in last week’s highlight 48-42 victory in Detroit. Of course, nothing really matters until the Vikings face the Lions on the final regular-season date, but all the ingredients are in place.

The Minnesota Wild cannot seem to avoid the serious injury routine, year after year. This year, missing key defensemen has hurt again, and losing key forwards such as Joel Erickson Ek, Mats Zuccarello, and Mike Foligno has been enough to cripple normal teams. 

But, if you recall, I was one of the few who said the Wild had enough manpower and skill to contend, if they can avoid injuries. They haven’t avoided them, but they have kept winning regardless.

Kirill Kaprizov has scored goal after goal and made play after play, and now that Zuccarello is back in the lineup, rejoining Kaprizov on the flanks with center Marco Rossi, the Wild are the only NHL team to have not yet lost two games in a row. 

Every time they do lose, they bounce back with great resolve and start winning again. Goaltenders Filip Gustavsson and Marc Andre Fleury have been outstanding, and the maturing of Matt Boldy and Rossi into legitimate NHL superstars has bolstered the Kaprizov-inspired offense.

With UMD’s men being idled, we can watch with great interest as a couple of other state teams battle for league contention. The Gophers, who swept Michigan to rise to the No. 1 rank in the nation, took on emerging power Michigan State at Mariucci Aren a last weekend, and  they blew a 2-1 lead and had to rally to tie the Spartans 3-3 — but lost in the shootout. The Gophers were quick to insist that it was “really” only a tie, but we know who won and who lost.

The Spartans fell behind 3-1 on Saturday night, but rallied back for four unanswered goals and a 5-3 victory to set a new standard for Big Ten and national honors and create a few large question marks for the high-skilled Gopher team that has suddenly had its superiority challenged.

Same in the NCHC, where Western Michigan took the lead, and had to take on in-state rival Colorado College. 

On Friday, Denver scored two short-handed goals and claimed a 3-0 lead, but the CC Tigers charged back for five unanswered goals and a 5-4 victory. the next night, the rivalry shifted to Denver, where CC to9ok a 1-0 lead after one period, but Denver came back to win 2-1.

St. Cloud State, ready to contend, went to North Dakota in the only other NCHC action, but lost 2-0 to the Fighting Hawks on Friday. Next night, the Huskies had leads of 1-0, 2-1, and 3-2, but sacha Boisvert tied it for North Dakota, and Jack Schmaltz won it in overtime for a sweep.

In high school hockey, Hibbing/Chisholm and Rock Ridge are rising in prominence, Marshall is holding its own, and Cloquet-Esko-Carlton is off to an undefeated start. But old reliable Hermantown, rattled and inconsistent to start with, seems to have found itself in the last few games, and Bryce Francisco, a junior goaltender, seems to have solidified the nets, and the Hawks posted back-to-back shutouts over Mahtomedi and Maple Grove to hit full stride.