Pardon Patrick’s ramblings, but Minnesota State Mankato’s playoff opponent has story to tell

Welcome to this time travel of hoops that we only can hope winds up a reminder of Minnesota State Mankato (33-2) tipping off against West Texas A&M (30-4) on Thursday at 3:30 p.m. in the semifinals of the NCAA Division II men’s national tournament in Evansville, Ind.

The D-II tournament dates to 1957, and MSU Mankato is attempting to become the second Minnesota college to win the event. The state college with the distinction of having been a D-II men’s champion is Winona State, with the Warriors having done so in 2006 and 2008.

And that is where this adventure begins:

Tom Brown built a fine reputation as a player for the great Del Schiffler at Woodbury High School in the mid-’80s.

It was mostly a place of hill and dale then. “My grandpa had a dairy farm in Woodbury,” Brown said. “If he had kept it and waited to sell the land, I probably would be retired now rather than still coaching basketball.”

Brown went from Woodbury to Winona State, where he was an outstanding player for the Warriors.

“You wrote that I was the best player in state college basketball — either you or Charley Walters, I’m not sure which,” he said. “You’re both great.”

Brown graduated in 1992 and became a coach and teacher in the Gilmanton, Wis., school district. In 1998, Les Wothke resigned as Winona State’s coach — after having recruited spectacular players at times — and was replaced by Mike Leaf.

And Leaf hired Brown as an assistant, and then associate head coach and recruiting coordinator. Chris Gove also joined the staff as an assistant.

There was progress, and then there was the extraordinaire.

First of all, you might have had fun watching Bill Musselman’s pregame show with the Gophers in the ‘70s, and you might have fun today watching Anthony Edwards dunk on a proud NBAer’s head, but you’ve never had more fun in a basketball arena than the Winona area fans had when Brent Maxwell turned into “Cotton-Eye Joe” on the McCown Arena court.

“A student, a baseball player, and he just came out of the stands one night, and ‘Cotton-Eye Joe’ became a phenomenon,” Brown said. “And he did all that without having had a drink. It was fantastic.”

We must digress forward here, before Brown is asked the next question. Tom is now in his 10th season as the head coach at West Texas A&M from Canyon, Texas, with Gove along as his assistant.

The question being: “Did you ever bring Brent or another Cotton-Eye Joe to your arena in Texas?”

Brown’s answer was he had not, with the added: “I’ve been thinking about starting that. Maybe next season.”

The dawn of greatness for Winona State was reached in 2004-05. John Smith, a 6-foot-8 center from Johnsburg, Ill., had turned down invites to walk-on at places such as Northwestern.

Then, he spent a year redshirting behind senior center Travis Leech before taking over in that 2004-05 season. The Warriors won the Northern Sun that season and then a game in the regional tournament.

And here’s what followed:

A national championship in 2006 with a 78-65 win over Virginia Union. The toughest loss in the history of basketball to end a 57-game winning streak to Barton, 77-75, in the national championship game in 2007. A national championship with a 38-1 record and an 87-76 win over Augusta State in the 2008 title game.

The three-season record was 105-6, with four of those losses in 2005-06.

“If we hadn’t lost that Barton game, I think we would have beaten UCLA’s record of 88 straight wins,” Brown said.

Ever relive that one in nightmares? “If I do, I’m asking, ‘Why didn’t we call timeout?’” Brown answered.

Winona State was up seven with 45 seconds left, still had it in a bag with 15 seconds left. And, somehow, Barton won it with a steal and layup at the buzzer.

The next year, Jonte Flowers, a former member of the Wisconsin football team, was the MVP for Winona State’s second title team.

Mike Leaf lost his grip a bit. The Warriors were OK, but no longer great. Brown interviewed for a few jobs but never landed one until being in contract with West Texas A&M in 2014.

A year later, Leaf resigned at Winona after being accused by a player of drinking with him and then making physical advances.

Sad end for Leaf, who won 382 games with the Warriors. He died at 58 in 2019.

Brown and his right-hand man Gove have had great success at West Texas A&M. The Buffs have been a constant in Division II regionals, and national runners-up in 2021 (to that dastardly Northwest Missouri State, which almost knocked off Minnesota State in a regional slugfest 43-42 last week in Mankato).

“I can tell you this: In the last 20 years, Chris Gove and I have been on coaching staffs that have won 42 games in the Division II tournament,” Brown said. “And in those 20 years, when we haven’t been on the staff, those same schools have won no tournament games.”

Among the players A&M will send at the Mavericks in the semifinals will be Ryland Holt, a forward averaging 11.7 points.

Holt is from Gibson City, Ill., and spent his first two seasons at MSU Mankato. He was the freshman of the year in the Northern Sun Conference before transferring to A&M.

“When you first get down to Amarillo, to Canyon, you say, ‘This is the middle of nowhere,’” Brown said. “Or as the great Les Wothke would say, ‘It’s not the end of the world … that’s down the road a couple of miles.’

“But we have a great fan base. Big games, they fill our place, just like Mankato did for Northwest Missouri last week.”

Am I done? Not quite.

The 2007-08 season, when Winona State went 38-1 and won its second title … the only loss was to St. Thomas, early in the season, in Winona.

“I am happy you called to ask about that,” said John Tauer, then a Tommies assistant to Steve Fritz, now the head coach for the fledgling Division I program.

Tauer: “That was an all-time great win. I remember on the telecast for the title game, the announcer saying, ‘Winona’s only loss was to St. Thomas, and that’s a Division III team.’”

“We were 10 down with a five minutes left, and in a timeout and Steve asking, ‘You think we should press?’ We never pressed. But we decided, ‘Why not?’

“And Winona got a little careless, and we got into overtime, and Tyler Nicolai hit a shot in the last 10 seconds, and somehow we won [83-82].

“You know what? We added the press as a regular part of our defense after that.”

That’s it. And in case you skipped it, read the graph that mentions Charley Walters and me.