The Vikings’ comeback player of the year, Cordarrelle Patterson, who can become an unrestricted free agent after the season, still wants to remain a Viking.

“I would love to stay here if everything works out the way it should — this is the team that drafted me,” Patterson said Friday. “A lot of teams passed on me in the draft. Minnesota said they would draft me, and they got me.”

Chosen in the first round (No. 29 overall) out of Tennessee in the 2013 draft, the wide receiver-kickoff returner, in his fourth season, has rebounded after two underwhelming seasons.

Patterson was brilliant as a rookie kickoff returner. This season, he leads the NFL in average yards per return at 30.53.

Patterson said he hasn’t thought about free-agency options.

“To be honest with you, I’m just trying to have a great year this year, finishing strong and making it to the playoffs,” he said. “I’ve made a lot of friends in my four years here. I know these guys, I love these guys and would love to continue to play with them.

“I hope (management) wants to extend me.”

Management declined to extend Patterson’s fifth-year option (he is in the fourth year of a $7.2 million deal) after an unproductive 2015. That bothered him.

“It really did,” he said. “But at the end of the day, they did it for a reason. I guess they needed me to work harder. And that’s what I’ve been doing, in the offseason and this season, trying to grind to get better. There is a lot of stuff that I need to improve on, things I see and coaches see that I don’t like to talk about.”

Another reason Patterson wants to remain with the Vikings is that he’s with a contending team, if healthy.

“Of course,” he said. “There can be some teams — I’m not saying anything bad about teams — but you know some guys try to take a lot of money and go to (another) team. But I’m not really about money. At the end of the day, I’ve got to take care of my family. It will be a family thing, what my family likes, my agent. If everything works out the way I want it to, I’ll be here in Minnesota.”

Patterson’s new outlook included stripping the large, script letters “FLASH” (his nickname) from across the back window of his bright red 2012 Camaro.

“I took that off — I needed to humble myself a little more,” he said. “Guys told me I was trying to be too flashy. I don’t need that attention.”

The Camaro was the first car Patterson bought.

“Bought it used, had about 15,000 miles on it, paid $25,000 or $26,000,” he said. “I buy all my cars used because I’m not really into new cars. New cars lose value, like $5,000 as soon as they get off the lot. You can get the same one used and it can look brand new.”

Vikings QB Teddy Bridgewater, who suffered a horrific season-ending knee injury in August, seemed in a decent frame of mind with teammates at the Winter Park locker room on Friday.

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Bridgewater seems to be walking OK.

“Yeah, I’m feeling good,” he said.

Vikings linebacker Chad Greenway is building a home in suburban Minneapolis.

“We’re planning on staying in the Twin Cities after my playing career is over,” he said last week. “We like the community.”

Greenway, 33, hasn’t announced whether this will be his final season with the Vikings.

“Just trying to enjoy the ride,” he said.

Building a home in Edina is ex-Vikings wideout Greg Jennings.

Former North Stars goalie Don Beaupre just purchased a house in Edina for $625,000, the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal reports.

Last season, the University of Minnesota men’s basketball team finished 8-23, 2-16 in the Big Ten. This season, the Gophers (9-1) already have surpassed their 2015-16 victory total.

Suddenly, there is renewed interest — and curiosity — in the Minnesota program. Fourth-year coach Richard Pitino, just 34 years old, has learned not to worry about outside perceptions but to just focus on coaching the best that he can.

“I really, really try not to worry about that, and maybe last year taught me because it was so difficult, that if I worried about it, I would be miserable,” Pitino said. “And I was pretty miserable last year, anyway.

“I think (last year) taught me to just try to lock in day by day. Everybody wants to talk about fans and this and that. And to me, if you take care of (coaching) stuff, everything else will take care of itself.”

Worrying, Pitino said, just wastes a lot of energy.

“When I worked at Florida under (coach) Billy Donovan — it’s a bit of a football school, obviously — there wasn’t a lot of great interest (in basketball), and they just won back-to-back (NCAA) titles. And he never, ever concerned himself with it. I always admired that about him. So I try really hard to do that.”

On Christmas Day, it will be 14 months since Timberwolves president and coach Flip Saunders died of cancer at age 60. Wife Debbie and three daughters have four Wolves season tickets and

regularly attend games. Son Ryan is a Wolves assistant coach.

“We root for them — I love these players and I stay in touch with them, and we’re supporting Ryan, too,” said Debbie, who hasn’t missed a Target Center game this season.

Missing Flip, Debbie said, “doesn’t get easier. But we have good days. Little by little, we take it day by day.”

George Thole, who was a North Dakota State Hall of Fame offensive lineman before his 29-year storied football coaching career at Stillwater High, on the Bison, who on Saturday defeated South Dakota State 36-10 en route to seeking their sixth straight FCS national championship: “The Bison do a heck of a good job recruiting Minnesota, Wisconsin and North Dakota and they coach their players up. It’s a good school, and Fargo is a great town.”

A softball center fielder the Twins signed out of Australia, Aaron Whitefield, had eight hits in his first 24 at-bats, including three doubles and two stolen bases, for Brisbane in the Australian league this winter. He is hitting .348.

The No. 3 South St. Paul High hockey jersey worn by Terry Abram was retired last week at Doug Woog Arena, joining those of Phil Housley (No. 20), Woog (No. 7) and and Warren Miller (No. 16).

Former Gophers All-America infielder Mark Merila, who was bullpen coach for the 1998 San Diego Padres National League pennant winners who lost to the Yankees in the World Series, is back from a team reunion in San Diego.

“About 18 guys showed up and it was a very special time reminiscing, with lots of laughs,” said Merila, 45, who begins his 23rd season as a Padres major league scout.

Ex-Wild left wing Thomas Vanek, 32, back with the Detroit Red Wings after a lower-body injury, has 14 points (five goals) in 17 games.

Ex-Gopher Travor Mbakwe, 27, missed out on a better basketball contract with Malaga in Spain but landed a job with Zenit St. Petersburg in Russia.

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Twins’ playoff rotation is set, pretty much

Twins designated hitter Byung Ho Park, who returned to South Korea to rehab an injured hand, is ahead of schedule and expected to report early to spring training in Fort Myers, Fla.

Last week’s wake and funeral for Tom Mee Sr., the popular Twins public relations director and the club’s first employee who died at age 88, included Homer Hankies, Cracker Jacks and Peanuts, recitation of “Casey at the Bat,” and Irish and Twins theme songs.

John Beasley, the Vikings’ starting tight end in Super Bowl IV against Kansas City, is pretty much retired while focusing on selling the remainder of his mineral and timber interests in the Pacific Northwest.

Last year, Beasley, 71, who is from California, underwent a nine-hour open-heart surgery but is doing fine.

Laura Larson, the former Lakeville North volleyball star now a senior at the University of Arizona, where she has played in a school-record 133 matches, last week was named the Pac-12 Conference scholar of the year. Larson has a 3.968 grade-point average — highest on the team — majoring in molecular and cellular biology with minors in biochemistry and sports management.

Ex-Twins owner Calvin Griffith, who died in 1999, would have been 105 years old on Dec. 1.

Not many know it, but former Dodger Ralph Branca, infamous for having given up Bobby Thomson’s historic 1951 home run that gave the Giants the National League pennant and who recently died at age 90, pitched for the St. Paul Saints in 1945 and the Minneapolis Millers in 1955.

DON’T PRINT THAT

Should the Vikings, 6-6 entering Sunday’s game in Jacksonville, finish 8-8, they can expect the first-round draft pick they traded to Philadelphia for QB Sam Bradford to be in the No. 15 range. At 9-7, the pick would be about Nos. 19 to 21. At 10-6, in the low to mid-20s.

The Vikings will draft a running back by the fourth round in the spring, but it won’t be Wisconsin senior Corey Clement, who is a younger model of Vikings running backs Jerick McKinnon and Matt Asiata.

The Vikings’ top two draft picks could be offensive linemen.

San Francisco is 1-11, but ex-Viking Christian Ponder still hasn’t taken a snap for the 49ers, who are paying him $800,000 as a third-team QB behind backup Blaine Gabbert.

Ponder’s wife, Samantha, who is a broadcaster for ESPN, will be sideline reporter for the already-sold-out Ohio State-Clemson Fiesta Bowl on Dec. 31, and also for the national championship game.

Ex-Viking Joe Webb, 30, is the No. 3 QB for the Carolina Panthers and hasn’t taken a snap this season.

St. Paul’s Jake Mauer managed promising Twins minor league reliever Yorman Landa, who died at age 22 on Saturday in a car accident in Venezuela.

“He was one of my guys,” Mauer said Saturday. “He pitched some big innings for me at (Class A) Cedar Rapids in 2015. He was our closer, real dominant, and earned his way onto the 40-man roster because of that.

“He was on the right path, no doubt about it. I think he was going to be a good one.”

Mauer said Landa was a “quiet kid. But a real confident kid. When he went out to the mound, he was businesslike, went after guys. He was also a really good kid and great teammate. The boys

really gravitated toward him. He was a Latin American kid just learning to speak English, and sometimes it’s tough to communicate with your teammates. But he was always smiling and always found a way and kept everything loose.”

Mauer, who turns 38 on Dec. 20, will return for his 11th season in the Twins organization next year. It hasn’t been determined where he’ll manage.

“My goal is to get to the big leagues,” said the brother of Twins first baseman Joe Mauer.

Hundreds of Henry Ellenson fans from Rice Lake, Wis., were at Target Center on Friday night to root for the 6-foot-11 Detroit Pistons rookie, who the Gophers tried to recruit out of high school.

Ellenson ended up choosing Marquette after little-used older brother Wally left the Gophers.

Iowa is heavily recruiting 7-foot-2 Adam Trapp of Esko. DePaul also is in the hunt.

Jorge Polanco, 23, the Twins second baseman who hit .282 last season and had been expected to make Brian Dozier, 29, expendable for trade, is batting just .179 in 13 games this winter in the

Dominican Republic.

Twins minor league second baseman Luis Arraez, 19, is hitting .348 this winter in Venezuela.

The Dodgers player getting mentioned in Twins trade talks regarding second baseman Brian Dozier is first baseman-outfielder Cody Bellinger, 21, who hit 26 home runs and .271 between Class AA and AAA this year.

Another Dodgers prospect is Jose De Leon, 24, a fellow Puerto Rican countryman of the Twins’ Berrios.

Expected to get serious consideration by the Twins with their No. 1 overall pick in June’s amateur draft is Notre Dame (Stevenson Ranch, Calif.) high school pitcher Hunter Greene, 17, who reputedly owns a 98-mph fastball.

Andre Smith, the former Como High and North Dakota State basketball star, has retired after a nine-year pro career that took him through Switzerland, Japan, England, Turkey, Italy, Russia, South Korea and Lebanon.

Hall of famer Ted Williams, the former Minneapolis Millers outfielder, was a U.S. Marine Corps fighter pilot wingman for John Glenn, the astronaut who died at age 95 last week, flying F9F Panther jets in Korea.

Five Minnesotans — Matt Kukar, Dan Novak, Jeff Meslow, Jason Nickelby and Mike Cannon — have been awarded football bowl game officiating assignments from the Big Ten.

OVERHEARD

Lame-duck Twins manager Paul Molitor: “I’m not worried about getting extended; I’m not worried about getting fired. I know that we all have the same goals in mind, short-term and long-term.”