>> Pssst: A Gophers women’s sports supporter tried to give the basketball team’s star player a Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) check for $5,000, with a stipulation that the player get the total amount, not less because of a handling fee. The booster says the University wouldn’t accept the $5,000 that way, and the check remains on the supporter’s desk.

>> No doubt the first NBA woman head coach will be the Lynx’s Cheryl Reeve.

>> Derek Falvey and Thad Levine received four-year contracts when hired to run the Twins eight years ago, then received four-year extensions. But while Falvey received yet another extension recently, Levine did not.

>> There’s buzz that Levine could end up working for new Giants baseball president Buster Posey.

>> There is mounting pressure internally to extend the contracts of Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell, who is signed through 2025, and QB Sam Darnold, who can become a free agent after the season.

>> St. Paul-based Securian Financial is still getting whispered as new corporate sponsor, replacing Xcel Energy Center.

>> Former chairman Jim Pohlad on the Twins’ per game attendance average of 24,069 this year: “It’s been OK. It wasn’t great.”

>> Details weren’t announced, but the Twins’ new broadcast rights deal with WCCO-AM is for three years and also includes two more years at the Twins’ option.

>> Former Vikings great Chuck Foreman, who played for Bud Grant, asked if his former coach would tolerate players today laughing and hugging opponents after a loss: “No way would that happen.”

>> The pitcher who gave up Dodger Shohei Ohtani’s mile-stone 50th homer this season was Mahtomedi’s Michael Baumann of the Marlins.

>> Head scratcher: The basketball Gophers did not offer 6-6 Orono wing Nolan Groves a tender, and the 4.0 student who scored 50 points in a game twice last season has opted for Yale.

>> The Vikings’ 5-0 start shouldn’t hurt a startup apparel business begun last week by Leah O’Connell and Chelsea Adofo-Mensah, respective wives of coach Kevin O’Connell and GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah.

>> The Twins finished 21st of 30 major league teams in pitching ERA but fired their hitting coaches after finishing 12th in batting average.

>> When she was a free agent last year, the Lynx were among teams interested in the New York Liberty’s Breanna Stewart.

>> The 3-on-3 women’s professional basketball league, Unrivaled, owned by the Lynx’s Napheesa Collier and Stewart, has signed UConn’s Paige Buckers from Hopkins to a NIL deal that includes ownership, per The Athletic.

>> The Gophers still need to raise $30 million to pay off the cost of their $166 million Athletes Village, which opened in 2018.

>> St. Paul Saints manager Toby Gardenhire would seem a logical choice to replace one of the four coaches the Twins recently fired.

>> Happy birthday: Ex-Twins manager Ron Gardenhire turns 67 on Thursday.

>> The Gophers men’s basketball team won’t play St. Thomas but will play Hamline (Oct. 29) at Williams Arena.

>> One of the classy guys in sports, Gophers men’s hockey coach Bob Motzko, has dropped more than 30 pounds by walking at least three miles five times a week and eating half-portions instead of full portions.

>> The Gophers men’s hockey team’s power play has four first-round draft picks, more than some NHL teams.

>> Ex-Viking Jared Allen’s recent appearance at the Morrie Miller fundraiser in Winona produced $404,000 for youth athletics in the area.

>> Next year will be the 65th anniversary of the Lakers leaving Minneapolis for Los Angeles.

>> In the history of the NHL, only two players — ex-Wild defenseman Ryan Suter and defenseman Tony DeAngelo — were paid by three different teams in one season, Suter by the Wild, Stars and Blues, DeAngelo by Hurricanes (twice) and Flyers.

>> Bally Sports North, which has lost Twins TV rights, last week began laying off longtime employees.

>> The Gophers’ P.J. Fleck, at $6.7 million and with an eight-year Big Ten record of 31-34, is the ninth-highest paid football coach in the new 18-school Big Ten, according to USA Today’s latest salary survey. Fleck’s buyout is $23.4 million.

>> Will Karl-Anthony Towns, now of the Knicks, become the second Timberwolf (Malik Sealy’s No. 2 is the first) in team history to have his jersey retired?

>> Lionel Messi of Miami is the top-selling Major League Soccer jersey this year. Minnesota United has no jerseys among the top 25.

Overheard

>> Enterprising Eric Musselman, the first-year USC men’s basketball coach whose late father Bill’s Gophers played to sellout Williams Arena crowds, last week on what it will take to attract fans to the Trojans’ 10,300-seat Galen Center: “As far as promoting the game, we’re going to have to start doing stuff. And we will. I don’t know when it’ll happen, but Galen hopefully in due time will be sold out and be rocking. I have to market, our staff has to market, our players have to market. (Fans) will be there if we do our part. We’ve got to get creative. We can’t just expect people to show up. You’ve got to connect with campus, with community.”