Minnesota Hoops: Basketball in the North Star State

From 1892 when students of basketball inventor Dr. James A. Naismith brought the game to Minnesota to the latest seasons of the Timberwolves, Lynx, and Golden Gophers, "Minnesota Hoops" is the definitive history of the state's most-played sport. Marc Hugunin and Stew Thornley travel through the years to offer little-known facts and thrilling stories of the games, the courts, the personalities, and the plays. Sit courtside as center George Mikan leads the Minneapolis Lakers to win six league championships in seven years. Follow the stories of early barnstorming and YMCA teams, with players as passionate about the win as those with multimillion-dollar contracts are today. Watch in awe as Gopher women's superstar Lindsay Whalen dominates the court with spirit and finesse. Discover friends and family in the season-by-season records of girls' and boys' state high school tournaments. Triumph with the Lynd high school state tournament winners of '46, hayloft hoopsters who practiced in a barn. Rise to the top with Kevin Garnett as he signs with the Timberwolves at eighteen, then is named the NBA's MVP at twenty-seven. In "Minnesota Hoops" Hugunin and Thornley present all the facts and bust longstanding myths to offer an unparalleled history of the sport that they love for hardcore fans and novices alike.

Marc Hugunin began at age seven clipping newspaper articles about basketball, eventually earning a master's in sports and society at Bowling Green University. Stew Thornley is a sports historian and author of Baseball in Minnesota: The Definitive History (MHS Press).