Don't get too giddy, locals. I'll be back soon.

I left the Twin Cities domicile early on the morning of Jan. 30 to drive to Fort Myers. Forty-five minutes later, I realized there was an important item still at home and was forced to backtrack.

This put me into rush hour, which meant that rather than reaching the Wisconsin border by the planned 7:30 a.m., it was closer to 10 a.m.

When I left town on that Friday morning, this was the situation with our major winter sports entities:

*The Wild had started a Western Canada road trip with victories at Edmonton and Calgary. This had been preceded by the Wild losing eight of 10.

Even with those two wins in Alberta, the Wild sat in 11^th place in the 14-team Western Conference, and it was five points removed from a playoff berth as a second wild-card team.

*The most-recent game for Rich Pitino's basketball team was a 63-58 loss to Penn State in the most-horrendous effort of what was a horrendous Big Ten season. The Gophers were 2-7 in the league and sitting squarely on the bubble for a return trip to the NIT.

*The Timberwolves had defeated Boston in their previous game. It was their fourth victory in 31 games and exactly two months. They were 8-37 and Ricky Rubio had not played since severely spraining his ankle in the fifth game of the season.

This put the Gophers at 4-9-2 for their previous 15 games, dropped them out of the national ratings for the first time since April 2011, and placed them in what appeared to be Pairwise jail, ranked 20^th by the computer.

This is what has happened during the 16 days since I was untangled from rush hour, made the 1,790-mile drive to Fort Myers, and have spent two weeks loitering at or near the Twins' spring training complex:

*The Wild has won five of six games, gained a point in the loss, has not allowed a power play goal and goalkeeper Devan Dubnyk has allowed eight goals in those six games.

The Wild is in ninth place and two points removed from the last playoff spot as the second wild-card team. With lowly Carolina in St. Paul later today, that gap for eighth place could be closed completely.

*The Gophers embarrassed Nebraska 60-42 and beat Purdue 62-58 by prodding the Boilers into awful turnovers at Williams Arena. Then, they went on the road to upset Iowa, 64-59, again by forcing turnovers, for the first road victory.

*The Wolves are 3-5 since my departure. Rubio returned to play in the second of those games. They had a three-game winning streak (which included a victory when Rubio sat as a precaution by coach Flip Saunders).

Nikola Pekovic has continued to play with few complaints over what seemed to be a chronic ankle problem. Included for Pek was a 29-point effort against Detroit's giant center, Andre Drummond.

Four young Timberwolves are in New York City this weekend, with Andrew Wiggins being selected as the MVP of the Rising Stars game on Friday night. With Zach LaVine participating in the dunk contest tonight, it will be a weekend to smile for Wolves' loyalists, even if it doesn't help in the standings.

*Lucia's Gophers blew out Michigan 6-2 on Friday night. That puts them at 4-0-1 in five Big Ten games since losing to MSU Mankato and UMD in St. Paul.

Another victory against Michigan tonight would put the Gophers on the Wolverines' skate blades in the Big Ten race -- as well as making them the favorites to win the conference tournament and receive an automatic NCAA bid.